LIFE AND SPEECHES
OF
CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS.
THE LIFE AND SPEECHES
OF
HON. CHARLES WARREN FAIRBANKS
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE FOR VICE-PRESIDENT
BY
WILLIAM HENRY SMITH
Author of History of Indian*
INDIANAPOLIS
V\M. B BUHFORD, PRINTER AND PUBLISHER
1904
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER. PAGE
I. ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD 7
II. SUCCESS AS A LAWYER 19
III. HE ENTERS POLITICS 25
IV. ENTERS NATIONAL POLITICS 42
V. His SERVICES TO His PARTY 68
VI. His SERVICES TO His PARTY (Continued) 77
VII. HE ENTERS THE SENATE 97
VIH. THE WAR WITH SPAIN 116
IX. THE CONSTITUTION AND THE FLAG 136
X. THE JOINT HIGH COMMISSION 142
XI. THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT MCKINLEY. . 154
XH. OTHER SERVICES IN THE SENATE 162
XHL MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES 173
XIV. MR. FAIRBANKS AND ORGANIZED LABOR 182
XV. His HOME LIFE 188
XVI. NOMINATED FOR VICE-PRESIDENT 199
XVH. How HE WAS RECEIVED AT HOME 216
XVIH. OFFICIALLY NOTIFIED OF His NOMINATION 232
XIX. WHAT Is SAID OF HIM . . .243
CHAPTER I.
ANCESTRY AND BOYHOOD.
A N" industrious and toiling farmer s boy.
* ^ A hardworking college student.
An industrious press reporter.
A successful lawyer.
A safe and popular politician.
An able and distinguished Senator.
A wise and conscientious statesman.
The unanimous choice of a great political party
for the second office in the nation.
Such, in brief, is the story of the life and achieve
ments of Charles Warren Fairbanks.
Fifty-two years of active, busy life; no idle mo
ments ; no time for vacations ; no time to waste. Al
ways industrious, always a student, in his achieve
ments he has again emphasized the possibilities that
are before every American boy.
On the farm he gave the same earnest and careful
labor he exhibited in pursuing his studies in college,
to his work as a lawyer, to his duties in the Senate.
Never a self-seeker, his successes and his honors
have come to him because of his native ability, his
.-7.
8; ; JF&IKBANKS
industry, and Jiis conscientious discharge of every
duty, whether of private or public life.
He has not been without ambition, but his ambi
tion has been to do the very best he could in every
thing, under the circumstances surrounding him. In
school and in college he was ambitious to utilize every
moment and gather all the knowledge he could in the
time allotted to him. As a press reporter he was am
bitious to give the best work possible; as a lawyer,
to win an honorable success; as a politician, to aid
his party by giving to the public through his speeches
a just, fair-minded and honest exposition of public
policy. In the Senate his ambition has been to give
the country intelligent and enlightened service.
We live in a country where it is a delight to boast
of our "self-made" men. Napoleon once said he
was the first of his house, yet after all it is good to
have forefathers, to come from a long line of ancestry
distinguished for honesty and integrity, who lived
honorable and upright lives, winning and holding the
respect of their fellow-citizens. In one respect
Charles Warren Fairbanks is a self-made man that
is, he has succeeded in life without the adventitious
aid of wealth or of influential friends. He made his
opportunities, having himself laid the foundation en
abling him to seize on the opportunities when they
came, but he can count a long line of ancestors who
filled creditably the various stations in life to
they were called.
FAIKBANKS 9
Among the yeomanry of England was a family of
Fayerbancke. For generations they had been farm
ers, growing up into a sturdy love of liberty. They
loved liberty of conscience as well as they loved civic
liberty. They believed in God, and in man s account
ability to God, and they became Puritans. With
others of that way of thinking the Fayerbanckes suf
fered persecutions under the dominance of the Es
tablished church. There came a time when the com
mons of England were forced into a struggle with the
King in defense of the liberties of the people. In
that struggle the Fayerbanckes bore honorable service
under Cromwell.
One day, only a few years after the town of Bos
ton, Massachusetts, was settled, a ship from England
came sailing into that port. Like all ships from
England in those days, it brought to these shores a
number of emigrants fleeing from the persecution at
home, and who were seeking a land where they might
serve God after the dictates of their own hearts.
Probably none then thought of this being a land of
liberty as we now view that term, but to them it was
to be a land of liberty of the conscience, far away
from the tyrannies and persecutions of an Estab
lished church.
Among those on board of the ship that came sailing
into Boston harbor on that day was Jonathan Fayer
bancke, who, with his wife and four sons and two
daughters, had left behind them the home that had
10 FAIRBANKS
been that of their ancestors for generations, and had
turned their faces to this land of liberty of con
science.
Jonathan Fayerbancke, like all the Puritans of his
day, was a man of strong prejudices and of iron de
termination. There were some things about Boston
he did not like, and he became one of the pioneers
of the town of Dedham. The Puritans were professed
believers in liberty of conscience, but in practice the
liberty they permitted was only the liberty to believe
what the congregation decided. The sturdy and inde
pendent character of Jonathan Fayerbancke pre
vented him from giving this absolute and unques
tioning adhesion to the dictates of the congregation,
and for a time he was not in good fellowship with
his fellow-colonists. In the records of the church at
Dedham is to be found this entry :
"Jonathan Fayerbancke, notwithstanding he has
long stood off from ye church upon some scruples
about publike p fession of faith and ye covenant, yet
after divers loving conferences with him, he made
such a declaration of his faith and conversion to God
and p fession of subjection to ye ordinances of XT
in this Xyt he was readily and gladly received by ye
whole church 14d 6m. 1664."
Charles Warren Fairbanks is the ninth in descent
from the Jonathan Fayerbancke who settled in Ded
ham, Massachusetts, in 1636. He was born on a
farm in Union county, Ohio, May 11, 1852. His
FAIRBANKS 11
father, Loriston Monroe Fairbanks, was a native of
Vermont, but before reaching manhood he removed
to Massachusetts, and at Ware, in that State, worked
in a woolen mill, but afterward emigrated to Union
county, Ohio, to engage in farming. He returned
to Ware and learned the wagon-making trade. He
then again removed to Union county to engage in
wagon-making, which he followed for several years.
After his removal to Union county Mr. Fairbanks
married Mary Adelaide Smith, whose family was
among the early pioneers of Union county.
It was in a log house that Charles Warren first
saw the light. Fifty years ago tilling the soil was
not so easy as it is in these days of improved farm
machinery, and the elder Fairbanks had a hard
time to meet the expenses of his increasing family.
As soon as he was old enough to assist in any way
with the work of the farm, young Charles was as
signed his tasks. The family was large, the land had
to be paid for and the forests cleared, that the land
might be cultivated, and the work had to be done
by members of the family, so the young lad was
trained to laborious service. There was little time
for idleness had he been disposed to idle. The re
turns from the crops were limited, and frugality
as well as toil was the lot of the family.
In no way was he different from the neighboring
farmer boys, unless it was in a strong desire to obtain
an education. In the evenings, and at other times
12 FAIRBANKS
when released from the labors of the farm, he eagerly
pursued his quest for knowledge. He read all the
books he could obtain, and during the short sessions of
the country schools he attended them. He early deter
mined that if within the range of possibilities he
would secure a collegiate education. In this craving
for an education all the members of the family heart
ily sympathized, and his parents encouraged it.
Thus, at the very outset of his life young Charles met
with all the encouragement his family could give him
in his aspirations.
The biographer delights to relate stories of the
youthful life of his subject, and the people take an
equal delight in reading incidents of the boyhood life
of men who have become distinguished, on the theory,
it is supposed, that "the boy is father to the man,"
but there are few incidents connected with the boy
hood life of Mr. Fairbanks that would interest the
reader. He was not bad, as boys go, nor was he espe
cially good. He indulged in no wild pranks or esca
pades. On the farm he was industrious, and at
school attentive to getting all he could from his books.
He was not precocious, nor did he give any evidence
of future greatness. Once only was his life in seri
ous danger. It occurred when he was about four
years of age. The carpenters were building a new
frame house for the family, and were using the old
log house as a workshop. Little Charles wandered
into the old house where they had been at work. The
FAIRBANKS 13
floor was littered with shavings, and the lad thought
he would like to make a fire, lie opened the door
of the stove and undertook to thrust in a handful of
the shavings. It was only a flash when the fire ex
tended from the shavings he had thrust into the stove
to the pile on the floor, and the room was ablaze.
The flames were between him and the doorway, and
how he finally escaped has been something of a mys
tery.
He was much more than ordinarily daring and
courageous as a boy, and especially excelled in break
ing and managing horses, and became an expert
horseman while very young. On one occasion while
attempting to ride an unruly colt he met with a se
rious accident, resulting in his receiving a broken
arm. He persisted and conquered the colt. While
still carrying his broken arm in a sling, he con
trolled and stopped a runaway team. He was fond
of hunting and became an expert marksman, and is
today what would be called a good shot. He joined
in the neighborhood merrymakings, and was ever a
welcome addition to every company of young people.
But in one very important respect in his case the
boy was the father to the man, for his boyhood de
light in study followed him, and he became a stu
dious man. The sturdy integrity and honesty and
the habits of labor of the boy have characterized the
man. As a boy he learned to exert his best endeavors
in whatever he undertook, and as a man that has
14 FAIRBANKS
been his unchanging rule. In the country school and
in college he put forth his best efforts to obtain knowl
edge; as the editor of his college paper he gave his
best thought to what he wrote; as a press reporter
he gave the same conscientious labor ; as a lawyer, his
clients got the best results of his studies, and in the
public service he has always given the best he could.
At the age of fifteen he saw his way to enter col
lege. He had saved up a few dollars, and with this
meager sum, backed by good health, a frugal train
ing and a determination to succeed, he was optimistic
enough to see the end. His parents were not poor,
but they were far from being rich, and it was a hard
struggle on the farm to make both ends meet, so but
little could be spared to send one of the boys to col
lege. But young Charles was not to be deterred by
any such difficulties.
Not far from his home was the Ohio Wesleyan
University, at Delaware, Ohio, and to that institution
he determined to go. A neighbor lad was equally
ambitious for a collegiate education, and he, too, was
poor. They conceived the idea of joining forces and
thus making the burden easier on each one. They
rented a small room near the University, and therein
placed what little furniture they needed. A part
of it, a table, a bookcase and a washstand, was made
by Charles himself on the farm. Their parents, as
often as they had opportunity, sent them supplies of
provisions. There they roomed, and there they
FAIEBANKS 15
studied. They did their own cooking and took care of
their room. Their table was never luxuriously spread,
but it was always ample. Their expenses, all told,
amounted to only one dollar and fifty cents a week.
In these days of athletic sports and intercollegiate
excursions and fraternities young Fairbanks and his
roommate would make a poor showing among their
fellow-students, but perhaps it was best for them that
their college days were days of adversity.
The meager sum of one dollar and fifty cents nec
essary for the week s expenses had to be earned, and
Charles, who had learned on the farm the use of
tools, became a carpenter s assistant, or did odd jobs
of carpentering on Saturdays. He was not in college
for play, and soon became known as one of the hard
est working students in his class, yet when he found
time for relaxation no one joined in the sports of
the hour more heartily. His sunny temper and his
cheerful and obliging disposition soon made him one
of the most popular students in the University, while
his studious habits and correct deportment made him
a favorite with the faculty. He became one of the
three editors of the college paper, by election from
his class.
His college life, like that of his boyhood, was al
most wholly devoid of those incidents that make
readable stories in biography. In after life his class
mates always spoke of him in terms of respect and
affection, but could recall to mind little in the way of
(2)
16 FAIRBANKS
incident. A short time ago the former room-mate of
the Senator recalled how on one occasion they cut
cordwood for a farmer, taking their pay in wood for
their winter fuel.
There is, however, one little story that illustrates
the trials he passed through. One day he and his
room-mate engaged in a friendly struggle, when the
only pair of trousers young Fairbanks possessed gave
way under the strain. The damage done was heyond
repair, and the procurement of new trousers became a
necessity. The young student went to a clothing
merchant and asked for credit, but it was denied him.
There was one other dealer in ready-made clothing in
the town, and to him Fairbanks at last applied.
Here he met with a different reception, and the credit
was readily extended. The merchant who was thus
willing to aid a struggling college student is still
doing business at Delaware, and since his old-time
debtor has become a prominent man in the nation he
frequently refers to the time when he trusted him for
a pair of trousers.
Hon. H. D. Crow, of Washington, was a college
mate of Mr. Fairbanks, and tells the following little
story that exemplifies one of the characteristics of
the Senator:
"Fairbanks went through college very young, grad
uating at twenty/ said Mr. Crow. "He was a tall
and slender youth, a good student and industrious,
but not regarded as particularly brilliant. Two
FAIRBANKS 17
young fellows named Locke and Jones, had been ex
pelled from the college because they would not give
information concerning some of their comrades es
capades. The entire student body met one afternoon
to discuss the advisability of petitioning the faculty
to restore them to their classes. There was consider
able debate over the matter, which finally resolved
itself into a fraternity fight.
a The debate had been between seniors chiefly and
few of the juniors had ventured to express opinions.
As the last speaker sat down someone addressed the
chair from the ranks of the sophomores in the rear.
There was a clamor of protest from the seniors and
juniors. A tall, ungainly, awkward boy, with a voice
that had not matured, stood quietly waiting for the
recognition of the chair. His cool persistence won,
and the chair recognized Fairbanks. No one knew
what position he would take, for he was not a mem
ber of any of the fraternities. He made a plea in
favor of restoring the two expelled members, not be
cause they were or were not members of any society,
but because it would be a kindly thing to do. That
speech won the debate. The student body voted with
Fairbanks.
"Mr. Fairbanks, some time after his speech, be
came a member of the Phi Gamma Delta fraternity,
but he had no thought of doing so at the time he
made his speech."
One who was with him in college says that in the
18 FAIKBANKS
social gatherings there was none more genial or more
welcome than young Fairbanks. "He was not only
genial," says this writer, "but he was full of spirits,
and in conversation most entertaining. His laugh
was infectious. Possibly he would not have been
called a brilliant student, but he certainly was re
markable for his grasp of all subjects and for his
capacity to absorb knowledge. This is demonstrated
by the fact that he crowded a six years 7 course into
five years. On nearly every occasion when the stu
dents wanted one to speak for them young Fairbanks
was chosen, he being regarded as a leader. At one
time there was a difference between the faculty and
the fraternities. Fairbanks was a member of the
Phi Gamma Delta, and although there were students
concerned who were both older in years and in length
of membership, he was the chosen spokesman of the
fraternities."
CHAPTER II.
SUCCESS AS A LAWYER.
VTOUNG FAIKBANKS entered college a raw,
* country boy. He was tall, slim and strong. In
1872, when he left, being graduated with high honors,
he was still tall and slim, but much of his shyness and
awkwardness had been polished away. He had im
proved in his style of speech, but he retained his seri
ous thoughts of life. He returned to the farm, but
only temporarily. He had other views for life. He
had stored his mind with the knowledge to be ob
tained from his schoolbooks, and from the teachings
of his preceptors, and he desired to use that knowl
edge in a broader field than was offered by a life on a
farm. The law was to be his chosen profession, and
he went to work patiently, earnestly and persistently
to prepare himself. He was through college but was
out of money, and to study law more money had to be
earned. -The late William Henry Smith, a brother
of his mother, was general manager of the Associ
ated Press, and through him young Fairbanks was
employed as an agent, first at Pittsburg and then
at Cleveland. Engaged in the arduous labors of a
press reporter, he applied the habits of industry he
-19-
20 FAIKBANKS
had displayed in college, and utilized every possible
hour in continuing his law studies. He attended one
term at a law school in Cleveland, and in May, 1874,
was admitted to the bar by the Supreme Court of
Ohio.
At this time a strong temptation to enter politics
came to him, but he refused. He said : "The prac
tice of law is to be my life work, and I must first
make my place in the profession sure. When that
is done then I can afford to give my attention to
politics." He was well aware that the game of
politics is a fascinating one, and once entered
upon is hard to break away from, yet its pur
suit greatly militates against the fortunes of a
young man, although he may be successful from
a political standpoint, and he would not enter
the game. He did not ignore politics, however, but
carefully studied the great political problems of the
day, and when a campaign was on gave some of his
time to speechmaking for his chosen party. His first
political speech was made in Union county, Ohio,
before he was twenty-one years of age.
On October 6, 1874, after he was admitted to
the bar, and after he had determined to make his
future home in Indianapolis, he married Miss Cor
nelia Cole, who had been a student with him at Wes-
leyan University. When he was ready to enter the ac
tive practice of his profession the problem of where
to locate was a serious one. His observation had
FAIRBANKS 21
taught him that the best chances for success were to
be found in a growing city. The bar in such a city
might be well supplied in numbers of aspiring law
yers, and in ability, but he remembered the old adage,
"there is always room at the top," so he determined
to cast in his lot and begin his struggles in some
growing city. The top was still far ahead of him,
but he determined to reach it if patient, persistent
work would take him there. After canvassing the
whole field he finally decided on Indianapolis. It
was a fortunate choice for him and for the State of
Indiana.
Before deciding to make his home in Indianapolis
he visited the city and readily saw its future possi
bilities. It was the capital city of a State that was
rapidly growing in population, wealth, and commer
cial and political importance. The city itself was
expanding. It was a great railroad center, and was
becoming the center of vast manufacturing interests.
Consequently such a place would be one where great
legal interests would be involved, and he decided that
it should be his future home.
On removing to Indianapolis he and his young
wife occupied a modest home, for their means were
restricted, and neither of them was disposed to make
any ostentatious show or to live beyond their limited
means. They felt hopeful that success would come,
but the place of the husband at the bar was yet to
be won. The fight to reach the top might be a very
22 FAIRBANKS
hard one. They could not tell, but they were brave
of heart and brave of hope. If conscientious labor,
hard study, a strict attention to business and integ
rity of action could win success, they believed it
was within their reach, for Mr. Fairbanks was pa
tient, was a hard student, and was determined to
give strict attention to his profession, and integrity
of life and of purpose was his birthright from his
parents.
He had a happy faculty of making friends, and
with him once to make a friend was to hold a friend.
Step by step he climbed up in his profession. At
first clients came slowly, then they multiplied rap
idly and success was assured. He won the esteem
and respect of his fellows at the bar. When he en
tered on the trial of a case he gave it assiduous atten
tion and close study, depending on the law and equity
rather than upon any chicanery or tricks. In fact,
he had nothing of those elements in his makeup. He
never assailed the attorney or the litigant in oppo
sition to him, but treated attorneys, litigant and the
court with the utmost courtesy and respect.
In a very few years he had as wide and as lucrative
a practice as any member of the Indianapolis bar, and
for several years his emoluments from his law prac
tice steadily grew, and there were but few lawyers
anywhere in the United States with a more lucrative
practice. His practice extended into many of the
States, but was especially large in Ohio, Indiana and
FAIRBANKS 23
Illinois. Much of it was connected with large trans
portation and corporate affairs. He had no practice
in criminal matters. Neither his mind nor his read
ing ran toward criminal law, and he never tried but
one criminal case. Increase of practice brought hard
work, demanded more hours of study, and laborious
research. He began with a well-grounded knowledge
of the elementary principles of the law, but his prac
tice soon required a thorough knowledge of the stat
ute law of many of the States, as also of the laws
of other countries.
Much of his practice was bef ore. the Federal courts,
and he had to meet and contend against many of the
most prominent lawyers of the country. He began
with a very modest library, consisting of a few vol
umes only, but they had been chosen with great care.
When he entered the United States Senate he pos
sessed one of the largest and most valuable libraries
in the West.
His success in his profession was not, in one sense
of the word, phenomenal, but came from his thorough
training, his close and conscientious attention to busi
ness, and his faculty for making friends. It was
the result of a determined and set purpose. When
he entered the United States Senate it was at a great
pecuniary sacrifice, for, having accepted office at the
hands of the people, he determined to give to their
service the same conscientious attention he had given
to his profession, and to do that he must be prepared
24 FAIRBANKS
to give all his time; so he at once retired from the
practice of the law. In his youth, when tempted
to enter politics he had refused, saying that he must
first win a place in his profession, so that if he failed
in politics he would be sure to have something to fall
back upon ; second, he must accumulate a competence
for himself and his family. Having succeeded in
both these directions, when the people called for his
services he could give them his undivided time and
attention.
It would be pleasant to indulge in reminiscences
and fill a few pages with anecdotes connected with
his legal practice, tell of great and signal triumphs
he won over distinguished and able counsel, but the
reader can not be indulged in that respect. He won
notable triumphs, it is true, but they were won by
a thorough preparation of his case and an intimate
knowledge of the law. He knew the law, and "the
tricks of the law," but never indulged in the tricks,
and only used his knowledge of them to prevent him
self being tricked by an opposing attorney. He never
had any startling cases, but he did have cases in
which vast interests were involved, and they were
presented to the court or to the jury without any
startling complications. Hence he was better known
to the bar and to the bench than to the general public.
His practice led him into an acquaintance with many
of the distinguished men of the nation, and he won
their friendship and confidence. In this he found
one of the elements of his later success in politics.
CHAPTER III.
HE ENTERS POLITICS.
A S HIS success at the bar increased, and as his
position in the profession became fixed, he felt
that he could give more time to politics. He had been
a student of politics. He had given careful study
to all the great political problems of the day, to the
political history of the country, and to the policies
advocated by the various political parties, so that
when he was ready to enter the political field it was
as a well-equipped warrior. He had, at various times
during political campaigns, made a few speeches, and
had impressed himself on the leaders of his party
in Indiana, so that his advice and counsel were
sought, but it was not until 1888 that he took any
active part in the management or direction of party
politics.
Among the early professional friendships he
formed was one with the late Walter Q. Gresham,
who was Judge of the United States Court for the
district of Indiana when Mr. Fairbanks began the
practice in Indianapolis. This personal friendship
remained unbroken until the death of Mr. Gresham,
-25-
26 FAIKBANKS
and that friendship had much to do with the enter
ing into active politics by Mr. Fairbanks.
In 1888 Indiana had two distinguished sons who
were talked of as possible candidates for the Presi
dency Benjamin Harrison and Walter Q. Gresham.
To decide between the two placed more than one citi
zen of Indiana in a quandary, but not so with Mr.
Fairbanks. Ever fair and open in his professional
life, he determined to be equally open and fair in
his adherence to the political fortunes of any man.
He was a friend of General Harrison, and admired
his lofty character and great qualities. He had often
met him in legal battles, and knew full well his great
abilities as a lawyer. He had heard his speeches on
great political occasions, and had watched his career
in the Senate, and fully appreeiated his grasp of
matters of political policy and statecraft. He knew
that if General Harrison should be exalted to the
high office of President of the Kepublic the admin
istration of the affairs of the nation would be marked
with high ability; but against all this was the per
sonal affection he had for Judge Gresham, inspired,
first, by the kindly consideration of the eminent
Judge to a young and struggling lawyer, and in
creased by the wonderfully fascinating personality of
Mr. Gresham. Had he not believed that Judge
Gresham possessed all the qualifications to make him
a great President and a safe head for the nation,
these personal considerations would not have weighed
with him.
FAIRBANKS 2?
As it was, he instantly made up his mind to sup
port Judge Gresham, but in pursuance of the policy
that he had always followed, he wrote to General
Harrison a letter stating the reasons that led him
to support the candidacy of the Judge. It was a
fair, candid, open statement of one friend to an
other, but one that is not often found in political
life. One of the most cherished possessions of Sen
ator Fairbanks is the reply of General Harrison.
The reply is as follows :
"Washington, May 11, 1888.
a C. W. Fairbanks, Esq., Indianapolis, Ind. :
"My Dear Sir Your kind letter of the 8th has
been received. I assure you that your frank decla
ration of your preference for Judge Gresham can not
in the smallest degree affect our friendly relations.
I am not one of those who have no friends who are
not followers. It has been my wish, and my efforts
have been with my wish, to suppress all divisions
of a personal character in the party in Indiana. So
far as I could I have restrained my friends, but,
as Judge G. has himself found out, that is not
always possible. I feel sure that you will know
how to advocate his claims without unkindness to me.
"Very truly yours,
"BENJ. HAKKISOlSr."
Mr. Fairbanks took charge of the Gresham cam
paign for delegates in Indiana. All the old party
2$ FAIRBANKS
leaders and the whole party machinery were for Gen
eral Harrison, whose candidacy was supported by
nearly all of the Kepublican papers of the State.
General Harrison finally got the delegation from the
State, hut it was only after one of the hottest fights
ever known in a State where political battles are pro
verbially warm. Notwithstanding he failed to get
any of the delegates from Indiana, Judge Gresham
determined to contest for the nomination at Chicago.
The Republican convention of 1888 was one of the
notable gatherings of that party. James G. Elaine
was the brilliant leader of the Republican party,
and he had many friends who were bent on making
him once more the standard-bearer, notwithstanding
he had declared that his name must not go before
the convention. Sherman, Allison, Depew, Alger,
Harrison and Gresham were before the convention,
but the Blaine cloud overshadowed the whole. All
of the Chicago papers were for Judge Gresham.
In marshaling the Gresham forces Mr. Fairbanks
displayed wonderful skill in the handling of men.
Suave and pleasant with everyone, listening to
all suggestions, nevertheless he kept his own coun
sels. He displayed prodigious activity, yet never
appeared to be hurried. He refused to join in
the attacks made on General Harrison, and did
what he could to discourage them, especially those
made in regard to the General s attitude on the labor
question. He talked to newspaper reporters, to edi-
FAIRBANKS 29
tors, gave them suggestions, but never divulged his
plans. He was always ready to make combinations,
but would not make any to which a bargain was at
tached. He carefully avoided saying or doing any
thing that might by any possibility be distorted into
a promise to bind his chief. He had a corps of ef
fective lieutenants and to them divulged just enough
of his plans to put them to intelligent and earnest
work. He kept them busy, and when the convention
opened it looked as if he would be able to nominate
his candidate on one of the early ballots.
On the first ballot Sherman led and Gresham was
second. It was well known that Sherman had polled
on that first ballot all the strength he could command,
and it was thought he could not hold his followers,
but he did. The uncertain factor all the time was
the position the Elaine men would finally take. The
Elaine leaders hoped the convention would tire itself
out in a vain effort to nominate and would then turn
to the "Plumed Knight." They gave up this hope
at last, and then they went to Harrison and he was
nominated on the eighth ballot. Among the first to
send the successful candidate congratulations on his
victory was Mr. Fairbanks, who returned to Indiana
and at once tendered his services to the General and
to the Republican committee. There were those who
advocated ignoring Mr. Fairbanks and the other
Gresham adherents in Indiana, but General Harrison
put a quietus on it by saying that a man who had
30 FAIEBANKS
shown the political skill and f orcef ulness of Mr. Fair
banks could not be ignored with impunity.
Judge Gresham had many lovable traits of char
acter, and those traits made his friends devoted to
him. Mr. Fairbanks was a young man when he first
made the acquaintance of Judge Gresham. He was
just starting out in his profession, and on more than
one occasion the Judge exhibited for him such a
kindly consideration that he at once won the heart
of the young attorney. In 1903, nearly twenty years
after his first meeting with Judge Gresham, Mr.
Fairbanks was called upon to deliver an address at
the unveiling of a portrait of the Judge in the United
States court-room in Springfield, Illinois. In the
course of the address he paid the following tribute
to the memory of his friend :
"He delighted in aiding the young. No man with
the same opportunities ever did more than he to help
young men get on in the world. He saw in others the
struggles of his own youth, and he was ever ready to
serve them in every possible way. The lawyer, when
entering upon his professional career, when possessed
of doubts as to his cases, and filled with discourage
ment, always found a sympathetic friend in the gen
erous-hearted and noble Judge. The young attorney,
with a good cause, but overmatched by an older and
more resourceful antagonist, found upon the bench
help and sympathy. How far goes a helpful word
in time of need to the beginner at the bar.
FAIRBANKS* 31
"He was a just judge in the fullest and best sense.
He came from the great body of the people and was
always in touch with them. He possessed none of
the elements of the demagogue. He was always nat
ural; never sought nor pretended to be what God
had not made him. He never tried to veneer his
true character, or to obscure it by cheap or meretri
cious arts.
"He was simple and modest in his habits; frank
and candid. There was nothing meteoric in him.
He pressed forward, meeting the duties of the hour
as he found them ; discharging them faithfully, con
scientiously and well.
"He was on terms with men of all conditions. He
met them upon a common level. There was that
subtle element in him which invited the confidence
of all. The weak and the powerful alike saw the
true nobility of his character and held him in like
respect. The lowly were not overawed and the high
were properly deferential."
Mr. Fairbanks threw himself heart and soul into
the work of electing Mr. Harrison President. In
other campaigns he had made an occasional speech,
but he now engaged actively in that work, and almost
at once established his right to hold a first place
among the political orators of Indiana. He was well
equipped for the work, as he had made a careful
study of political policies and of the demands of the
nation. One thing was noticeable from the very be-
(3)
32 FAIEBANKS
ginning of his speech-making career his complete
avoidance of personal detraction and vituperative lan
guage. He tried at once, so far as his voice and
example could go, to lift party politics from the low
marsh of detraction and corruption up to the high
plane of reason and argument. In all the speeches
he has ever made and they have been many not
one word of abuse of a political opponent or of the
opposing party can be found. He always speaks of
everybody with courtesy and kindness. This trait of
character was early noticed by his opponents, and it
is to be said to the credit of political controversy in
Indiana that no speaker of the opposing party has
ever uttered one word of detraction of Mr. Fairbanks.
His entire attitude is exemplified by the following
extract from his remarks at the memorial service of
the late William Holman:
"He raised his standard of exalted duty in public
place, and to it remained inflexibly true. He was
possessed of superb moral courage, and his purpose
once set, he was immovable. The stock from which
he came was strong, rugged. It laid the broad foun
dation for a mighty empire of wealth, of power, of
intelligence in the great Mississippi Valley. He was
a type of which there are too few.
"Mr. President, we reluctantly retire from the con
templation of a character so illustrious in achieve
ment and devotion to the service of his countrymen.
He has richly earned the Well done, thou good and
33
faithful servant/ and the repose which crowns an
honest life."
It may be granted that many of the eulogiums pro
nounced in Congress are perfunctory, but all who
know Mr. Fairbanks will readily credit him with
being sincere in this commendation of the life and
services of a political opponent. With Mr. Fairbanks
life has been too serious for him to utter sentiments
foreign to his heart.
His campaign work for General Harrison was of
a very high order, and had much to do with carrying
Indiana for the Republican ticket that year. His
manners were popular and he rapidly extended his
acquaintance with the party leaders of the State.
His ability as a speaker was at once recognized and
his services were in demand. With him it was no
grudging service. He had been defeated at the Chi
cago convention, but General Harrison was his
friend, arid he felt that he would fill the exalted
station to the honor of the nation. And, too, he be
lieved in the policy of the Republican party, and
that its triumph was for the best interests of the coun
try. His zeal for the party was strengthened by his
zeal for his personal friend and fellow-townsman.
It was not alone in speech-making that his influ
ence was felt in that campaign, but his counsels to
the managers were wise and his suggestions always
prudent. The managers never made a mistake when
they followed his advice. He had become a power
34 FAIRBANKS
in the party councils, and that power has grown con
tinuously with each campaign.
From 1888 Mr. Fairbanks has been one of the
leaders of his party in Indiana. No step has been
taken by the party that he has not been consulted
on, and it may be added that for some years no step
has been taken against his advice, so fully has the
party come to depend upon his political sagacity.
The campaign of 1890 was a disastrous one to the
Kepublicans of Indiana. The McKinley bill had
just gone into operation, but its provisions were not
thoroughly understood, and the tide turned strongly
against the administration, but* Mr. Fairbanks la
bored in season and out of season, and was ever found
in the forefront of the battle. His services were
in constant demand. The calls on him for speeches
were so many that he could not fill all of them. His
popularity and strength as a campaign speaker rap
idly increased. The tide was too strong, however,
and the party went down to defeat. The party thus
early began to regard him as excellent senatorial
timber, whenever the time should come that the Re
publicans would have the power to elect one.
The campaign of 1892 opened with a struggle be
tween the friends of Elaine and those of Harrison
for the nomination. Even in Indiana there was some
dissatisfaction with President Harrison, but it was
not strong enough to effect anything. The Repub
lican National Convention met at Minneapolis. Mr.
FAIRBANKS 35
Fairbanks was present, a strong advocate of the re-
nomination of President Harrison. He was one of
those who engineered the famous meeting of the Har
rison delegates the night before the convention, at
which it was easily demonstrated Harrison would
be renominated on the first ballot. The friendship
between the President and Mr. Fairbanks had in
creased during the four years from 1888, and Mr.
Harrison had been taught to regard the future Sen
ator as one of his safest political advisers.
The political battle of 1892 was one of the fiercest
ever fought in Indiana. For a number of years
Indiana was looked upon as a doubtful State, and
was controlled first by one party and then by the
other. Again Mr. Fairbanks was one of the leaders,
and his voice was heard in almost every part of the
State. He was one of the most industrious of the
many speakers the State had. During the short in
tervals when he would be at Indianapolis he was in
close consultation with the State committee, counsel
ing, advising and suggesting new moves on the en
emy. It was a period of political unrest. The lower
ing clouds of financial and commercial depression
were already gathering, and in Indiana the party
was somewhat torn by factions. Large numbers who
had hoped for Federal appointments -under Harrison
had been disappointed. All these things combined
to make the fight a hard one.
It was under these conditions the Republicans of
36 FAIRBANKS
Indiana made preparations to put a State ticket in
the field, and began to consider which one of its
orators would be the best to make the opening speech
outlining the issues, or, as is so often said in politics,
"deliver the keynote." It was readily recognized that
no mistake must be made in this "keynote" speech.
The unanimous choice of the leaders was Mr. Fair
banks, and when the convention met he was made
its chairman, and in a speech of cogent reasoning
and great power he clearly outlined the issues that
divided the two great parties, upholding the admin
istration of General Harrison and clearly pointing
out the disasters that would follow a change in the
policies of the government. The tariff was one of
the principal issues, and he discussed that question
at some length, contrasting the condition of business
under the tariff law of the Cleveland administration
and the McKinley bill of Harrison s. The opening
paragraph of the speech was peculiarly striking:
"For thirty years," he said, "the Republican party
has stood in the white light that beats against the
throne/ and its record is flawless. There is no one
who admires courage and steadfastness in the cause
of good government who does not admire the Repub
lican party Its history is so full of
deeds of vast and vital moment, I would weary you
if I attempted a recital of them."
At that time the free coinage of silver, that culmi
nated in 1896, was just looming up. The Demo-
FAIKBANKS 37
cratic party was not yet ready to put itself on record
in favor of the coinage at the ratio of sixteen to
one, but it was seen that matters were drifting in
that direction, and Mr. Fairbanks sounded a warning
note and boldly announced the attitude of the Repub
lican party on the question. This was four years
before the party in its national convention declared
for a gold standard. Among other things Mr. Fair
banks said:
"The Republican party stands for a sound, honest
dollar. It has always opposed an unstable and de
based currency. The all-important element in the
circulating medium is that it be of stable value. On
this the Republican party stands."
He gave much consideration to State issues, con
trasting the administration of the two parties. This
speech was circulated by the committee as a campaign
document. Mr. Fairbanks was the great pacificator
during that campaign, using all his powers of per
suasion to harmonize the factions, stir up the luke
warm, and give courage to the doubtful. He did
effective and faithful work, but once more the tide
turned to the enemy. He made many speeches, can
vassing nearly the entire State. President Harrison
recognized the value of his services, and after the
conclusion of the campaign warmly thanked him,
and the friendship between the two received a new
bond.
When Mr. Fairbanks began the practice of the
38 FAIEBANKS
law in Indianapolis Mr. Harrison was the leader
of the bar, and two years later was the Republican
candidate for Governor of the State. His great abil
ities and sterling character at once impressed Mr.
Fairbanks, and he took his place in the ranks of
Harrison s warm admirers. His estimate of the char
acter and public services of General Harrison is
shown by extracts from a number of speeches deliv
ered by him. As Chairman of the Indiana Repub
lican Convention of 1892 Mr. Fairbanks, in his open
ing speech, said :
"You do well to cheer that name [Harrison]. It
stands for pure and exalted statesmanship. No other
has done more to place our State high in the estima
tion and the admiration of the world."
When General Harrison returned to Indianapolis
at the close of his term as President, the citizens
gave him a reception. Mr. Fairbanks was chosen to
make the welcoming address. In the course of it
he said :
"You have taught obedience to law, a higher re
spect for our American institutions. You have in
spired a deeper reverence for the sacred emblem of
our national authority Your adminis
tration was of the highest purpose, persisted in to
the end; it has been without a stain; the most ma
lignant tongue can lodge against it no word of re
proach."
In 1898, at a banquet in Quebec, Canada, in re-
FAIKBANKS 39
sponse to the toast "The President of the United
States," Mr. Fairbanks said:
"Then came Harrison, of my own State Benja
min Harrison, who brought to that great office a
genius for statesmanship and a devotion to the public
service that ranks him among the greatest who have
held that high office."
It was during the campaign of 1892 that Mr. Fair
banks first met Mr. McKinley, and then began the
friendship that existed between the two men. Mr.
McKinley was in Indiana taking part in the cam
paign, and on several occasions the two distinguished
orators spoke from the same platform. Each recog
nized the ability of the other, and on one occasion
the future President said: "Fairbanks, you ought
to be in the Senate." Had the Republicans suc
ceeded in Indiana he would have been in the Senate.
But his time was not yet.
The campaign of 1894 opened with brighter pros
pects for the Republican party. It was a time of
great business depression, and thousands of workmen
were out of employment. A financial panic had
greatly demoralized business everywhere, and the
Democratic administration had the burden of blame
to bear. There was also a very decided and growing
dissatisfaction with Mr. Cleveland in his own party.
Indiana was beginning to feel the good effects of
the natural gas boom when the business depression
struck the country, and the "gas belt" felt the blow
40 FAIRBANKS
in a marked degree. All these things made thousands
of Democrats lukewarm, and other thousands turn
to the Kepublican party for relief. In Indiana the
Republicans entered upon the campaign with high
hopes and great enthusiasm. They felt from the
beginning that it was to be their year. As usual,
Mr. Fairbanks took the leading part in the campaign.
By this time his fame as a campaign speaker had
passed the boundary of Indiana, and he received
many invitations from other States. He renewed his
acquaintance with Mr. McKinley, and again they
took part together in campaign work. It was a glori
ous year for the Republican party in Indiana, and
they swept the State, electing a State ticket and every
member of Congress, and once more obtained control
of the Legislature. This campaign greatly added to
the popularity and strength of Mr. Fairbanks. By
this time he had spoken in every county in the State.
He carried into his political work the same suave and
kindly manner that had so distinguished him at the
bar. He was of the people, mingled with the people.
There was nothing of the demagogue about him, but
he was always hearty and earnest in his greetings.
He had no bitter antagonisms among his political
opponents. In later years he announced in the Sen
ate his creed as to political differences, in his memo
rial address in respect to Mr. Holman, when he said :
"Political parties are undivided as to purpose the
highest and best welfare of the country; their dif-
FAIRBANKS 41
ferences arise as to the best method of obtaining the
end."
It was in this spirit he discussed the political ques
tions of the day, and he always commanded a re
spectful and attentive hearing.
CHAPTER IV.
ENTERS NATIONAL POLITICS.
17 s OK eight years he had been a potent factor in
* Indiana politics, and had taken a leading part
in four hotly contested campaigns, and the time had
now arrived when he was to become an active and
potential factor in national political affairs. Another
Presidential election was on, and the people were
beginning to array themselves for the contest. In
the four years since he had made his memorable
speech at Fort Wayne, wherein he declared the Re
publican party always had been and always would
be for an honest dollar, a stable currency, the march
of events had been rapid. The advocates of free sil
ver coinage had been especially active and the finan
cial heresy had spread over all the country, and it
became a living issue.
In Indiana it had strongly tainted the Republi
cans, especially in the rural districts. The free
silver men had been proselyting everywhere. It was
readily seen that if the Republican party was to suc
ceed, this drifting away from the old moorings by
members of the party must be checked, yet there
-42-
FAIRBANKS 43
was a great danger in running contrary to the cur
rent. Mr. Fairbanks was one of those who saw the
danger to the country in this financial heresy; he
saw the ruin to the nation s credit, the disaster that
would come to the great business interests of the
country if free coinage became a part of the policy
of the Government. He was courageous enough to
step into the breach, and sagacious enough to see
that if his party would take a firm stand for honest
money the people would sustain it.
Before the assembling of the Indiana Republican
Convention certain parts of the platform were por
tioned out among the leaders of the party for the
preparation of the proper declaration. To Mr. Fair
banks was assigned the preparation of the financial
plank, and when the leaders met for consultation he
offered the following:
"We are firm and emphatic in our demand for
honest money. We believe that our money should
not be inferior to the money of the most enlightened
nations of the earth. We are unalterably opposed
to every scheme that threatens to debase our cur
rency. We favor the use of silver as currency, but
to the extent only and under such regulations that
its parity with gold can be maintained ; and, in con
sequence, are opposed to the free and unlimited coin
age of silver at the ratio of sixteen to one."
It at once met with strong opposition, and several
who admitted it was the correct principle expressed
44 FAIRBANKS
grave fears of the result, believing that such a pro
nounced declaration would alienate all of the Repub
lican adherents of free silver, but Mr. Fairbanks
stood firm. He reasoned and argued, holding that
the only safe course was for the Republican party
to stand consistent with its past record ; that it must
not stultify itself by a retreat from the position it
had always taken in favor of an honest dollar, saying
that he would rather go down to defeat than for one
instant to fall from the high standard the party had
always maintained ; that all admitted that free coin
age would be ruinous if adopted, and the Republican
party must not give the least countenance to any
policy that would bring financial ruin or throw dis
credit on the integrity of the Government.
He won, and the plank was incorporated in the
platform, but one of the leading candidates on the
ticket remarked: "It is brave, it is right; but I
shall prepare to be snowed under."
Mr. McKinley was a leading candidate for the
Presidential nomination, and Mr. Fairbanks took
charge of his campaign in Indiana and handled it
with such skill and finesse that every district in the
State declared for the Ohio man, Mr. Fairbanks
being named as one of the delegates-at-large. The
financial stand of the party in Indiana attracted con
sideration in all parts of the country, and it called
attention to Mr. Fairbanks. Mr. McKinley sent for
him and requested him to accept the temporary chair
manship of the convention.
FAIRBANKS 45
When the Convention met at St. Louis, Mr. Fair
banks was named as the temporary Chairman, and
delivered the speech as requested by Mr. McKinley.
The speech was a very able one, and completely cov
ered all the issues before the country, and it so well
fits the conditions of today that it is here reproduced :
"Gentlemen of the Convention I am profoundly
grateful for this expression of your generous confi
dence. As citizens we were never called upon to
discharge a more important duty than that which
rests upon us the nomination of a President and
Yice-President of the United States. This duty is
a very impressive one at the moment, for it is al
ready written in the Book of Fate that the choice
of this convention will be the next President and
Vice-President of this great Republic.
"Three years of Democratic administration have
been three years of panic, of wasted energy, of anxi
ety and loss to the American people, without a par
allel in our history. Today the people turn to the
Republican party hopefully, confidently, and it is
for us to meet their expectations ; it is for us to give
them those candidates upon whom their hearts have
centered, and to give them clear, straightforward,
emphatic expression of our political faith. The Re
publican party is a party of convictions; and it has
written its convictions in the history of the Republic
with the pen and the sword; with it the supreme
question always has been not what is merely politic,
46 FAIEBANKS
but what is everlastingly right. The great men
we have given to the Nation and to history, the
mighty dead and the illustrious living, are our inspi
ration and tower of strength. If we are but true
to their exalted example, we can not be false to our
countrymen.
"For a third of a century prior to the advent of
the present Democratic administration we operated
under laws enacted by the Republican party. All
great measures concerning the tariff and the cur
rency originated with it. Tariff laws were formed
upon lines which protected our laborers and pro
ducers from unequal and unjust foreign competition,
and upon the theory that the best market in the
world is the home market and that it should be en
joyed by our own countrymen.
"Under the currency laws our currency was made
national. The wildcat State bank money of the Dem
ocratic party was wiped out of existence. The un
precedented demands growing out of the war were
met by a paper currency which ultimately became
as good as gold. Since the resumption of specie pay
ment in 1879 every dollar of our money, paper, sil
ver and gold, has been of equal purchasing power
the world over. The policy of the party has been
to make and keep our currency equal to the best in
the world.
"Under the operation of these honest tariff and
honest money Republican laws the country grew in
, FAIRBANKS 47
wealth and power beyond precedent. We easily out
stripped all other powers in the commercial race.
In November, 1892, there was work for every hand
and bread for every mouth. We reached high-water
mark. Labor received higher wages than ever, and
capital was profitably and securely employed. The
national revenues were sufficient to meet our obli
gations and leave a surplus in the treasury. Foreign
and domestic trade were greater in volume and value
than they had ever been. Foreign balances were
largely in our favor. European gold was flowing to
ward us. But all of this is changed. The cause is
not hard to find. A reaction began when it was
known that the legislative and executive branches of
the Government were to be Democratic.
"The Democratic party had at Chicago condemned
the protective tariff principle as unconstitutional, and
solemnly pledged itself to the overthrow and destruc
tion of the McKinley law and to the adoption of free
trade as the policy of the United States. This bold,
aggressive attack upon the long-settled policy of the
Republican party bore its natural fruit in shaken
confidence and unsettled business, and we were soon
drifting against the rock of destruction.
"Before the work of demolition was actually begun
a run was started upon the treasury reserve which
the Republican party had wisely accumulated for the
protection of the national credit. The drain upon
the reserve for the redemption of greenbacks and
(4)
48 FAIRBANKS ,
treasury notes greatly surpassed all prior experience
and emphasized the discredit into which the Demo
cratic administration had fallen. An utter want of
confidence in the administration possessed the people.
"The Democratic party was harmonious on one
subject, and that was the destruction of the McKin-
ley law. But when they came to the exercise of the
creative faculty, the enactment of a great revenue
measure in its stead, there was discord. The im
periled interests of the country watched and waited
through long and anxious months for some settlement
of the important question. They wanted an end of
uncertainty.
"At length the Wilson bill was adopted, and it
was characterized by a Democratic President as the
child of perfidy and dishonor. It was so bad that
he would not contaminate his hand by signing it.
A bill that is too base for Mr. Cleveland to approve
is too base for the approval of the American people.
"This important law was wanting in the primary
purpose of a revenue measure, for it failed to provide
adequate revenue to meet the requirements of the
Government. The deficiency thus far amounts to
some $150,000,000. The end is not yet, for the defi
ciency grows day by day. This leaves the treasury
and the public credit in constant peril. Our foreign
credit is impaired and domestic capital feels inse
cure. The sectional favoritism of the Wilson bill
was one of its marked features. Its blow at sheep
FAIEBANKS 49
husbandry was an unpardonable offense. It was a
flagrant wrong to the farmers of the United States.
This great industry had developed and grown under
Republican protective laws until it was one of our
greatest. We are now sending abroad millions of
dollars for wool which were paid to our farmers
under the McKinley law.
"The bill struck down reciprocity, one of the high
est achievements of American statesmanship. ~No
measure was ever enacted which more directly ad
vanced the interests of American farmers than reci
procity. With its destruction fell advantageous com
mercial agreements, under which their products were
surely finding larger and profitable foreign markets,
and without the surrender of their own.
"The substitution of ad valorem for specific duties
has opened the way for systematic wholesale frauds
upon the treasury and producers and employers of
the country. By means of under-valuations foreign
goods pass through the customhouses without paying
their just tribute to the treasury of the United States.
Thus we have lost millions of dollars in revenues,
and the foreign producers have been enabled to un
fairly possess our home markets.
"Neither time nor place will permit further ref
erence to the unfortunate revenue legislation of the
Democratic party, nor to the hurtful, demoralizing
effect of it. Suffice it to say it has been the great
and original factor in breaking down confidence and
50 FAIKBANKS
progress, emptying the treasury, causing continued
deficits and enforced idleness among millions of will
ing workers.
"To meet the monthly deficits and protect our
credit and save the Government from protest the
President has been forced to sell bonds in other
words, he has been obliged to mortgage the future
in a time of peace to meet the current obligations
of the Government.
"This is a sharp contrast with the Republican
record. Our tariff laws not only raised revenue, but
they protected our domestic industries; they impar
tially protected the farmer and the manufacturer,
both north and south. Not only that, but they raised
sufficient revenue to gradually reduce the public debt,
and without imposing a grievous burden upon the
people. During the administration of Harrison
$236,000,000 of obligations were paid, while Cleve
land, during the last three years, has added to our
interest-bearing debt $262,000,000. Against such
Democratic financiering the Republican party enters
its emphatic protest.
"Having attempted to reverse the tariff policy of
the United States with such lamentable results, the
Democratic party now proposes to reverse the cur
rency policy. It turns to the currency as the parent
of our ills. Its effort to shift the responsibility will
deceive no one. Its attack upon the tariff, its record
of inefficiency and insincerity, is a part of the un
fortunate history of the Republic.
FAIRBANKS 51
"The present currency system is the fruit of Re
publican wisdom. It has been adequate to all our
past necessities, and, if uncorrupted, will meet our
future requirements. Our greatest prosperity was
attained when Republican currency laws were in full
operation. When the Republican party was in
power, our currency was good ; it was made as good
as the best on the globe. We made sound money,
and we also made an honest protective tariff to go
with it. Sound money and an honest protective
tariff go hand in hand, together; not one before the
other.
"The very foundation of a sound currency system
is a solvent treasury. If the people doubt the integ
rity of the treasury, they will question the soundness
of the currency. Recognizing this fundamental fact,
the Republican party always provided ample revenue
for the treasury.
"When in the last half-century of our history did
the Democratic party advocate a financial policy that
was in the best interests of the American people?
Look- at its ante-bellum currency record. Consider
its hostility to the currency rendered necessary by the
exigency of the war ; and later, its effort to inflate the
currency in a time of peace by the issue of green
backs. * Witness its opposition to the efforts of the
Republican party to resume specie payments. But
four short years ago it declared for the return of the
old, discredited State bank currency.
52 FAIRBANKS
"The Republican party lias not been unfriendly to
the proper use of silver. It has always favored, and
favors today, the use of silver as a part of our cir
culating medium, but it favors that use under such
provisions and safeguards as shall not imperil our
present national standard. The policy of the Repub
lican party is to retain both gold and silver as a part
of our circulating medium, while the policy of free
coinage of silver leads to certain silver monometal
lism. It is an immutable law that two moneys of
unequal value will not circulate together, and the
poorer always drives out the better.
"The Republican party, desiring fairly to secure
a larger use of silver, pledged itself in favor of an
international agreement. Harrison, true to the
pledge of his party, took the initiatory steps and
invited an international monetary conference at
Brussels, at which the subject of an international
coinage agreement was ably and profitably discussed.
"The Democratic party was also committed to
international bimetallism, but when it came into
power the work which had been so auspiciously begun
by the Republican party was abandoned. It was so
absorbed in its efforts to break down the McKinley
law and empty the treasury that it had no time to
promote international bimetallism.
"Those who profess to believe that this Govern
ment can, independently of the other great commer
cial Powers, open its mints to the free and independ-
FAIRBANKS 53
ent coinage of silver at a ratio of sixteen to one, and
at the same time not drive every dollar of gold out of
circulation, but deceive themselves.
"Great and splendid and powerful as our Govern
ment is, it can not accomplish the impossible. It
can not create value. It has not the alchemist s sub
tle art of transmuting unlimited silver into gold, nor
can it, by omnipotent fiat, make fifty cents worth
one hundred cents. As well undertake by resolution
of Congress to suspend the law T s of gravitation as
attempt to compel an unlimited number of fifty-cent
dollars to circulate with one-hundred-cent dollars at
a parity with each other. An attempt to compel
unlimited dollars of such unequal value to circulate
at a parity is bad in morals and vicious in policy.
Sound thinkers upon the great question of the cur
rency know from the beginning of the experiment
how miserably and certainly it would fail. The com
merce of the country would again be thrown upon the
sea of uncertainty, and the specter of want would
continue to haunt us for years to come.
"Upon opening our mints to the independent free
coinage of silver foreign credits would be withdrawn
and domestic credits would be greatly curtailed,
ivlore than this, there would be a certain and sudden
contraction of our currency by the expulsion of
$620,000,000 of gold, and our paper and silver cur
rency would instantly and greatly depreciate in
purchasing power. But one result would follow this :
54 FAIRBANKS
Enterprise would be further embarrassed, business
demoralization would be increased, and still further
and serious injury would be inflicted upon the labor
ers, the farmers, the merchants, and all those whose
welfare depends upon a wholesome commerce.
"A change from the present standard to the low
silver standard would cut down the recompense of
labor; reduce the value of the savings in savings
banks and building and loan associations; salaries
and incomes would shrink ; pensions would be cut in
two ; the beneficiaries of life insurance would suffer ;
in short, the injury would be so universal and far
reaching that a radical change can be contemplated
only with the gravest apprehension.
"A sound currency is one of the essential instru
ments in developing our commerce. It is the pur
pose of the Republican party not only to develop our
domestic trade, but to extend our commerce into the
uttermost parts of the earth. We should not begin
our contest for commercial supremacy by destroying
our currency standard. All the leading powers with
which we must compete suspended the free coinage
of silver when the increased production of silver
forced the commercial value of silver below the coin
age ratio to gold. Shall we ignore their ripened
experience ? Shall we attempt what they have found
utterly impossible ? Shall it be said that our stand
ard is below theirs ?
"You can not build prosperity upon a debased or
FAIKBANKS 55
fluctuating currency; as well undertake to build
upon the changing sands of the sea.
"A sound currency defrauds no one. It is good
alike in the hands of the employe and the employer,
the laborer and the capitalist. Upon faith in its
worth, its stability, we go forward planning for the
future. The capitalist erects his factories, acquires
his materials, employs his artisans, mechanics and
laborers. He is confident his margin will not be
swept away by fluctuations in the currency. The
laborer knows that the money earned by his toil is
as honest as his labor, and that it is of unquestioned
purchasing power. He likewise knows that it
requires as much labor to earn a poor dollar as a
good one; and he also knows that if poor money is
abroad it surely finds its way into his pocket."
The speech was widely circulated throughout the
country, and had great influence. Major John W.
Carson, dean of the Washington correspondents,
lately wrote as follows of the effect of the speech :
"Fairbanks was placed at the head of the Indiana
delegation to the St. Louis Convention and was made
temporary chairman of that body, delivering a speech
that attracted wide attention and contributed to fix
ing the status of the party on the money question.
That convention declared against the free coinage of
silver, and it was largely due to the persistent efforts
of Mr. Fairbanks and a few other sagacious and con
servative men that that declaration was made. It
56 FAIRBANKS
has been claimed that the action of the Indiana Re
publican State Convention in 1896 had a very salu
tary influence on the Republican National Conven
tion of the same year in declaring for the gold
standard."
On the money question the convention gave its
emphatic endorsement to the speech of Mr. Fair
banks and to the attitude of the Republicans of
Indiana in the following plank of the platform :
"The Republican party is unreservedly for sound
money. It caused the enactment of the law provid
ing for the resumption of specie payment in 1879 ;
since then every dollar has been as good as gold.
We are unalterably opposed to every measure calcu
lated to debase our currency or impair the credit of
our country. We are therefore opposed to the free
coinage of silver except by international agreement
with the leading commercial nations of the world,
which we pledge ourselves to promote, and, until
such agreement can be obtained, the existing gold
standard must be preserved. All our silver and
paper currency must be maintained at parity with
gold, and we favor all measures designed to main
tain inviolably the obligations of the United States
and all our money, whether coin or paper, at the
present standard, the standard of the most enlight
ened nations of the earth."
Mr. McKinley was nominated and there followed
on of the memorable campaigns of history. The
FAIKBANKS 57
Democratic party declared in favor of the free and
unlimited coinage of silver at the ratio of sixteen to
one, and also bitterly assailed the integrity of the
United States Supreme Court. Mr. Fairbanks
speech at the St. Louis Convention attracted the
attention of the party leaders everywhere to him,
and his services were at once demanded in all parts
of the country. It was a strange campaign, every
party but the Republican being divided. The broad
declaration of the Democratic Convention in favor
of free silver did not meet the approval of the entire
party; there was an open revolt against it, and a
sound money Democratic ticket was put in the field.
Even such minor parties as the Prohibitionists and
the Populists divided and each had two tickets.
Hundreds of prominent Democrats announced their
purpose to save the country from the disasters of free
silver by voting for the Republican candidates. In
Indiana there were a large number of these sound
money Democrats.
Mr. Fairbanks returned from St. Louis and at
once addressed himself to the task of making good
his predictions that Indiana could be carried on a
sound money platform. He took part in the manage
ment of the campaign, and he made an active and
complete canvass of the State. He spent his days
and nights in traveling and speech-making, and in
consulting with members of the party in all sections.
CHAPTER V.
HIS SERVICES TO HIS PARTY.
A l A HE result of the campaign was a notable victory
^ for the Kepublican party. The Legislative be
ing Kepublican, all eyes at once turned toward Fair
banks for Senator, and all hearts declared the place
was rightfully his. When the General Assembly
met he was duly chosen Senator and he entered upon
a new field. He was ripe for the duties of the high
station to which he had been chosen. His close
studies of policies, his clear analysis of motives and
forecasting of results, his broad and comprehen
sive views of public affairs, his integrity of
character, fitted him to take a place among the law
makers of a nation. Studious by nature and by
habit, possessing a lofty conception of the duties of
a public servant and of the exalted dignity and re
sponsibilities of a member of the highest legislative
body in the world, he entered upon the discharge of
his duties fully armed and equipped. Before taking
up and reviewing his public career in the Senate it
will be well to follow a little further his services te
his party in the campaigns that have followed his
election to the Senate.
-58-
FAIRBANKS 59
Before the campaign of 1898 opened he was called
to Detroit, Michigan, to address the people on the
celebration of Washington s Birthday. His speech
abounded in epigrammatic sentences, a few of which
are culled for insertion in this place :
"It is a trite saying that the luxuries of yesterday
are the necessities of today. Our children are wiser
than the philosophers who studied in the shade of
Academus. The world is moving forward with elec
tric momentum and the political philosophers of the
Platte are unable to stop it. An advancing country
demands a party of progressive principles. A party
which neither learns nor forgets is a national hin
drance, and valuable only as a reminiscence."
"The country has outgrown Democracy as it has
outgrown the ox-cart, the stage-coach and their con
temporaneous instruments of civilization."
"Before that august tribunal (the Supreme Court)
the weak and the strong, the poor and the rich, stand
upon a plane of absolute equality, and whoever
attempts to undermine the confidence of the people
in its integrity or justice is an enemy of the re
public."
"The vitalizing fact, the vivifying influence of
Republicanism today is bathing the country in the
sunshine of prosperity. The clouds and mists of
adversity which have rested upon our land for the
past few years are lifting under the restoration of
Republicanism in our government. The people are
60 FAIRBANKS
lighter-hearted and fuller-handed than they were, and
look hopefully and confidently to the future for even
greater things."
"Republicanism lays the groundwork for the
larger development of the opportunities which a
bountiful providence has placed within our grasp."
"Republicanism is evolution; evolution to higher
and better conditions; evolution out of commercial
paralysis to industrial activity where labor and capi
tal are joint sharers."
"Republicanism is catholicity of spirit. Its moni
tor is the national conscience."
"No nation which is not essentially honest can
long succeed. Policies which are not just can bring
nothing except distrust and disaster."
"Republicanism seeks to restore confidence, for
after all it is the best currency, though it bears not
the stamp of government. Confidence is the basis
of all prosperity, of all national greatness. Upon
confidence rests the everlasting throne. Without it
the church vanishes as a disordered dream. Upon
confidence rest our temples of justice. Confidence
is the handmaiden of the arts and sciences. Confi
dence led Gallileo through the dark night into the
beautiful garden of the skies. Confidence led Wash
ington from Valley Forge to Yorktown, and Grant
from Donelson to Appomattox. Confidence in our
selves, confidence in each other, confidence in truth
and righteousness is essential to all progress, all sue-
FAIRBANKS 61
"Republicanism demands that our currency shall
be honest, sound arid stable, in order that capital and
labor may go forth resolutely and without fear into
the future."
"The currency that is good for the one must be
good for the other."
"We have the best country, the best people, and
limitless possibilities. We are entitled to have, and
we shall consent to have nothing less than the best
instrumentalities for our development."
"We should throw about our monetary system
such safeguards as shall preserve it in the shock of
war and in time of peace."
"No country which is willing to juggle with its
credit will long retain the respect of mankind."
"National repudiation is national degradation and
the loss of individual respect."
"Whoever would seek to blind the people by preju
dice and attempt to overthrow the fixed, unvarying
standard, under which so much has been accom
plished, is their arch enemy."
"The greatest government should be the most
just."
"The ultimate judgment of the American people
is always just. We can confidently appeal to it."
Senator Fairbanks opened the campaign of 1898
in Indiana by presiding at the State Convention and
again sounding the "keynote" for the party. The
speech was an able and exhaustive review of the first
62 FAIEBANKS
year of the administration of President McKinley.
He opened with a serious declaration of the duty of
a party to give a faithful account of its stewardship
to the people:
"My countrymen, the occasion demands that we
should give to the great constituency which we rep
resent some account of our administration of national
and State affairs with which the people have in
trusted us. In the nature of the case, we can do no
more than touch upon the more salient features of
the great and numerous questions which have en
gaged out attention. We have been in power in
State and Nation about one year and a half a brief
period, yet filled with more important events than
any similar period of our country s history, except,
perhaps, only one. It has been, indeed, a history-
making epoch an epoch which will challenge the
admiration and approval of those who shall follow us.
Mighty events have pressed quick upon each other,
and more are soon to come.
"When we were last assembled, two years ago, dis
tress and commercial paralysis were on every hand ;
our people were enervated and progress seemed dead.
But with the restoration of the Republican party to
power in 1897 an era of prosperity was ushered in.
All avenues of industry were reopened; countless
thousands of idle workmen found remunerative fields
of employment, and the returns of the farmers in
creased until plenty and happiness extend throughout
FAIRBANKS 63
the borders of the Republic. What caused this sud
den transformation this radical and universally rec
ognized change? It was the natural and logical re
sult of the restoration of the Republican party to
power and the re-establishment of Republican princi
ples in public administration."
He took up the principal acts of the McKinley
administration, the reform of the tariff, the war with
Spain, the war revenue bill, the treatment of the
financial question, the annexation of Hawaii and the
Nicaragua canal, analyzing and dissecting them in a
clear and logical style. He closed as follows :
"We are proud of the administration of President
McKinley. He has borne the burdens of his great
office with a patience and courage that have won the
approving judgment of all parties and all peoples.
He has met every duty with a broad and compre
hensive statesmanship, and sought to lead our country
in the ways of peace, fraternity, prosperity and
honor. When war became inevitable, when it be
came necessary to appeal to the sword, he struck with
a swift and heavy hand. " In less than sixty days he
assembled an army of nearly a quarter of a million
of men, calling to the rank and places of leadership
men of all parties and of all sections of the country.
Those who had fought against him when he was de
fending the Union were called to lead, that they
might vindicate their love for the Republic, their
devotion to the flag they had once in their mistaken
(5)
64 FAIBBANKS
zeal sought to destroy. He has well met the ardu*
ous demands of peace and the grave exigencies of
war.
"My countrymen, the Republican party has confi^-
dence in the future. It sees in present conditions
the promise of enlarged opportunity and of greater
prosperity and happiness for the American people.
The bow of promise which bends above us was never
more splendid than today. There never was an hour
in all our proud history when it meant more to be an
American.
"Our flag is more loved at home and more people
are willing to die for it than ev,er before. It is the
flag of mercy and liberty ; it is profoundly respected
wherever the stories of sacrifice and heroic deeds are
read ; it is more honored and respected than ever by
the nations of the earth; it has been raised in the
name of suffering humanity and placed upon the cita
dels of cruel power ; it has blessed the famished and
suffering ; it has brought succor to the distressed and
redemption to the oppressed ; it is the blessed symbol
of honorable peace and not of tyrannical rule.
Patriotism is all-pervading, sectional differences have
disappeared, and the hearts of our countrymen are
at last welded into an indissoluble union."
The result of the campaign was a triumphant vin
dication of the Republican party and policies, its
ticket having a largely increased plurality. It added
to the respect and confidence of the people in Mr.
FAIKBANKS 65
Fairbanks, and gave him a new hold on the party.
As in prior campaigns he was the trusted leader, the
eloquent and forceful champion of his party. He
did not neglect his duties in the Senate simply
worked harder and more hours. He did not confine
his campaign services to Indiana, but spoke in a num
ber of other States.
He was ever the champion of the McKinley admin
istration. He was not an apologist, for he never
thought the administration needed an apologist ; but
he was at all times willing to stand up and show why
the policies adopted by the administration were wise,
conservative and the best for the nation and the
people. On October 7, 1899, at a banquet of the
Marquette Club, of Chicago, he was chosen to respond
to the toast, "The Present Administration," and there
gave an elaborate exposition of the ruling motives
and the results of the policy pursued by President
McKinley. As a just and able exposition of the first
two years of President McKinley s term the speech
is worthy of preservation :
"The present administration needs neither an apol
ogist nor an eulogist. Its imperishable record is writ
ten and is before the world. It is an administration
of arduous deeds done, which lift it above the dead
level of history. It has been confronted by great
questions of domestic policy; it has solved them.
It has also encountered grave foreign problems, and
well it has met them. No emergency has been so
66 FAIRBANKS
great or exigency so severe that it has not been met
on the high plane of national duty and national
honor.
"Few administrations ever succeeded to power with
more weighty responsibilities, or of which there were
more exalted expectations. There were years of dis
tress, years of hopelessness and crippled enterprise
back of us. There was a Macedonian cry from all
sections of the land for relief -for deliverance. The
administration was essentially pledged to the mainte
nance of the public credit, the public faith. Public
credit is preserved ; yes, it was never so high at home
and abroad as it is in this historic hour.
"The first duty which was laid upon the adminis
tration was to secure the readjustment of the tariff
and the enactment of a genuine protective measure.
To this end Congress was convoked in extraordinary
session at the earliest practicable moment, and a tariff
law was enacted. It has served well its purpose. It
instantly gave confidence to enterprise, quickened
depressed industries, and the signs and evidences of
commercial activity were soon witnessed on every
hand. Domestic commerce took on new energy and
life, and our foreign trade soon reached and passed
the high-water mark of the successful and splendid
administration of Benjamin Harrison.
"The determination of the administration to pre
serve inviolate the public faith and inflexibly uphold
the gold standard gave an assurance and confidence
FAIKBANKS 67
to commerce that had all the potency of the most
solemn congressional enactment. Commerce knew
that no chimerical monetary schemes would be
allowed to corrupt or tarnish the circulating medium
while the present administration w r as in power. It
knew that free silver coinage was, for the time being
at least, as dead as the Rameses, and that in the light
of practical experience the American people could
not soon be led to adopt any of the current financial
sophistries and heresies.
"Prosperity came. It came to the seventy-five
millions of American citizens, and in exceptional
abundance. It came by the assurance of wise and
conservative administration, by the enactment of
wholesome laws, by the subtle touch of the magic
wand of confidence confidence which in the final
analysis is the source of all progress, all success, and
without which there is stagnation and death. It
came contrary to many fervent and unwise predic
tions. It came through the harmonious co-operation
of three potent agencies a protective tariff, a gold
standard, and a sound, patriotic administration.
Were the present administration committed to a de
based silver currency and to free trade, the splendid
transformation we have witnessed would have been
an utter and absolute impossibility, and the calamities
from which we have so successfully and happily
escaped would have been but multiplied.
"There were indeed domestic questions numerous
68 FAIEBANKS
and grave enough to absorb the attention of the
administration, but it inherited an ample legacy of
international problems of more than usual gravity.
The national conscience was stirred by Spanish
atrocities ; the people could endure them no longer.
The Cuban specter would not down. All the powers
of diplomacy were invoked to bring peace and order
to the blood-stained island of Cuba. There was no
thought of war; no desire for war. No one knew
better than the President the dreadful consequences
of an appeal to the sword. JSTo one knew better than
he that nothing so becomes power as its sparing use.
"While the administration was employing all pos
sible agencies to secure peace and honorably avert
war, there were many of our countrymen who were
impatient to recognize the belligerency of the Cubans
the independence of the so-called Cuban Repub
lic and were insistent that the conflict should begin.
They challenged the patriotism of the administration
and questioned its courage, although the President
had gathered harvests of enduring fame upon the
battlefields of the country. For humanity s sake the
administration had appealed to the Spanish Cabinet
in behalf of Cuba, but medieval government would
not hearken to the voice of nineteenth century civ
ilization. All efforts to mediate a peace having
failed, the dread alternative of war alone remained.
"A crisis was at hand, as sharp and severe as could
possibly confront the Government; a crisis which
FAIRBANKS 69
conies but seldom in the life of a nation, and yet too
oft. The administration with one hand delayed the
oncoming storm, while with the other it pushed with
all possible dispatch the coast defenses, the purchase
of munitions of war, and the enlargement of the
navy, which was to give such a splendid report of
itself. The crisis was supreme, and it was superbly
met. When the hour for action came the Congress
of the United States, interpreting the heart and con
science and the inexorable determination of the
American people, declared for war. Spain s fatal
hour had come. The administration was prepared to
execute the decree of Congress ; it was ready to
strike. The thunderbolt of war fell first in the ob
scure harbor of Manila, today the best known harbor
on the face of the earth.
"The supreme demand of the American people
was voiced in the order of the administration which
flashed to Hongkong: Find the Spanish fleet and
destroy it. How well this order was interpreted and
executed the world knows, and history will not for
get. The intrepid Dewey, in one short hour, stood
with the foremost admirals of all ages. All honor
to him; all honor to his brave men. A nation s
gratitude to them, each and all.
"An army of a quarter of a million men was called
from the myriad vocations of peace, organized :
equipped, and put in the field with almost incredible
dispatch. I^o better soldiers ever answered the call
70 FAIRBANKS
to arms. They were American soldiers, ready and
eager to serve at the post of duty, counting no sacri
fice too great in their country s cause.
"They came from the four quarters of the Repub
lic, Federal and Confederate, and their descendants
stood together in a common cause, inspired by one
hope, actuated by one high purpose, and that was to
preserve a common inheritance, the glory of a com
mon flag. The Grants and the Lees, the Shafters
and the Wheelers, the Lawtons and the Butlers, bore
commissions from the same President. The admin
istration and the public welcomed the disappearance
of sectional differences. The Republic has experi
enced a new birth of patriotism ; and, let us hope and
pray, is reunited and unified forever.
"But it has been said with some unction that the
administration did not desire war. Be it so. It is
a grave matter to start the mighty enginery of sev
enty-five millions of people, brave and proud, though
just they are. Finite mind can compass the begin
ning, but Omniscience alone can set the boundaries
of its ending. It will indeed be a fatal hour for the
Republic when the President of the United States
shall love peace less than war.
"The administration sought no sordid ends, no ter
ritorial aggrandizement. It sought no Napoleonic
extension of empire; it desired only peace with her
boundless joys, her limitless possibilities; peace of
which the country had been so long enamored. It
FAIRBANKS 71
had added Hawaii to our domain, through the instru
mentality of diplomacy and from the dictates of the
highest statesmanship in the national interest ; but it
coveted no other lands and no other peoples. Hawaii
was indeed trophy enough to signalize any adminis
tration.
"The Congress, with due deliberation and excep
tional unanimity, declared war, and the Senate of
the United States, after protracted debate, ratified
the Treaty of Peace. With the treaty came new and
remote lands, new peoples, new and unexpected re
sponsibilities ; but they came as the logical sequence
of war, and not as the fruit of its supreme purpose.
The sword was drawn in the high and holy cause of
humanity ; it was drawn to liberate peoples from bar
barous, tyrannical rule, from horrors which disgraced
savagery.
"By the Articles of Peace Porto Rico is ours, to be
administered as an exalted sense of justice shall re
quire. Cuba is committed to us in trust, and is to be
given stable and suitable government, according to
our pledge. The Philippines are ours by title abso
lute, unassailable. They have come to us and are
ours by right universally recognized among the na
tions of the earth. They passed to the jurisdiction
of the United States by the cession of the treaty of
peace, duly ratified and exchanged by the two Powers
engaged in war. "With the extension of our sover
eignty there came the duties which American sever-
72 FAIKBANKS
eignty implies the enforcement of law and order,
the preservation of the peace.
"A portion of the inhabitants of the islands denied
the supremacy of the United States in the archipel
ago. They challenged the exalted purpose of the
Government; they wantonly fired upon the Amer
ican troops pending the ratification of the treaty of
peace. "Without the pretense of provocation or the
shadow of justification they have assailed the flag
whose mission is merciful. The administration re
sisted the attack and did what the people of the
United States desired it should do ; it did its duty by
asserting the supremacy of the national authority by
force of arms.
"Our forces in the Philippines formed no league
with Aguinaldo ; made no compact with him for sub
ordinating the authority of the United States to his
self-constituted dictatorship. Our peerless Captain
of the Seas added imperishable glory to the Amer
ican flag. He could not have surrendered the field
of his incomparable victory to the insurgent chief
tain.
"When the administration overthrew the Spanish
authority in Manila it owed a high and solemn duty
to the Americans, the British, the Germans, the
French, the Spaniards, and other nationalities in the
archipelago, to preserve them from massacre and to
save their homes and property from pillage and the
torch. It could not have withdrawn its support and
FAIEBANK.S 73
left to chance the protection of the thousands of citi
zens and subjects of the leading nations of the world
who were there under the guardianship of Spanish
authority. It would not have comported to the dig
nity, the justice and the mercy of the Republic for
the administration to have recalled our victorious
forces lest by staying we should assume some unex
pected responsibilities. Such a policy would have
been dastardly and would have dishonored the flag,
which is without its first blemish. Yea, more than
that, it would have been the master crime of the age.
Moreover, we can never forget that we were under a
large moral obligation to the peace of the world
which an abandonment of the Philippines would have
placed inevitably in serious peril.
"We are not now concerned with questions of im
perialism or of expansion. We are occupied with the
paramount question of enforcing respect for the na
tional authority, of suppressing rebellion against it.
Opposition to our authority, w r herever it has been
extended under universally recognized law, is rebel
lion, whether it is in Illinois or in the Philippines.
We have an irreversible and irrevocable code of na
tional duty ; the flag must be protected wherever it
is lawfully raised. What American can demand
less ?
"We wish the war had been honorably averted,
great and splendid as have been its results, but, in
God s providence, that was impossible. We could
74 FAIRBANKS
not desire to avoid any of the responsibilities or duties
which justly devolve upon a victorious army; a
country brave enough and good enough to go to war
in humanity s name must be just enough and brave
enough to accept the consequences, whatever they
may be. To attempt to escape the burdens fairly
arising out of our own course and conduct would
earn for us the reproach of the civilized world and
the forfeiture of our own national self-respect. We
have but one way to go, and that is in the path of
duty. There all honor lies."
* * &
"The administration has been able, well poised,
firm, courageous, avoiding no responsibility and
shunning no duty. It has been an epoch-making ad
ministration. It has walked in untried paths with
no guide except the national conscience. It has ob
served the fundamental truth that in a Republic the
people are the source of all power, and it has taken
them into its confidence in fullest measure. Its
North Star has been the people s will. It is clean;
the atmosphere which surrounds it is wholesome. A
high sense of civic duty characterizes all branches of
the public service ; and the public business is dis
patched without friction and with fidelity.
"It has managed well the finances of the Govern
ment. Illinois is entitled to her full share of credit
for this, for she gave to the administration a Secre
tary who ranks with the foremost Secretaries of the
FAIRBANKS 75
Treasury ; with Hamilton, Gallatin, Chase and Sher
man. His mastery of the science of finance enabled
him not only to preserve the credit of the country
from the shock of war, but to advance it to the high
est point ever attained. The ordinary fiscal require
ments of the Government have been promptly met,
and the war-chest has been amply supplied. Bonds
have been sold upon terms better than have been
obtained for either the purposes of peace or war.
The money came from the pockets of the people.
The capitalists of Europe were eager to take them,
but there was no need of their assistance. Syndi
cates at home wished to subscribe for them, but the
reliance of the administration was upon the great
mass of the people ; and how splendidly have they
justified its confidence ! * Their only regret was that
they could not give the Government, in the hour of
its necessity, millions more than were required.
"The United States never stood higher in the
esteem of the great Powers of the earth than now.
Her justice, her magnanimity and her power have
become manifest to all. It is, indeed, of the utmost
importance that our country should sustain relations
of amity with other countries. Our commerce is
expanding, and more than ever, seeking distant mar
kets. Nothing will more distinctly aid in its exten
sion than the existence of cordial relations with
foreign peoples. We must win our way to the com-
7f> FAIRBANKS
mand of the world s trade by compelling, through
our course and example, the world s respect.
"The administration has scrupulously observed our
international obligations. It has been no less regard
ful of the rights of other nations than it has been
rigidly insistent upon the recognition of our own. It
has cultivated good neighborhood with all of the
great Powers, and today there is no nation with which
the United States is not upon terms of cordial rela
tionship.
"It has sought no political or entangling alliance
with any Power; it is bound to none except by the
ties of commercial interest and mutual respect."
The speech was also, in part, a prophecy of what
would be the claims of the Republican party the next
year for the continued confidence of the people.
Free silverism had been badly defeated in 1896 and
the elections in the various States in 1898 had em
phasized that defeat, but free silverism was not dead.
It still was rampant and defiant, and early gave evi
dence that its spirit would control the Democratic
National Convention in 1900 and a ticket would be
nominated on that issue. It was this fact that im
pelled Republican speakers to dwell largely on the
monetary question in all their addresses before the
public.
CHAPTER VI.
HIS SERVICES TO HIS PARTY Continued.
T OXG before it came time to name candidates for
- President in 1900 it was practically known that
the two who had opposed each other in 1896 would
again be called to lead their respective parties. The
administration of President McKinley had been so
eminently successful that his party had no thought of
choosing another, and Mr. Bryan had so impressed
himself on the free-silver wing of the Democratic
party that they would be satisfied with none but him,
so the meeting of the conventions were little more
than perfunctory, except in the adoption of a plat
form and selecting candidates for the second place.
Mr. Fairbanks was again sent to represent his State,
and was made Chairman of the Committee on Reso
lutions. This distinction arose from two causes
his eminent fitness for the place, and because it was
understood he was more nearly the personal repre
sentative of President McKinley than any other dele
gate. He knew the views of the President on all the
great questions ; he was sound on the financial ques
tion, stood with the President in the manner and
-77-
78 FAIRBANKS
method of governing our new possessions and tlio pro
posed construction of an isthmian cantil.
On his return to Indianapolis he was invited to
deliver an address on the issues. In his clear, logical
manner he presented the issues as they appeared to
him and to his party. He said :
"I shall discuss in "a plain way and as briefly as
may be some of the questions engaging the attention
of the American people. We should approach them
as patriots rather than as partisans, inspired only by
the purpose to advance the best interests of our coun
try. Prejudice and passion have no rightful place
in the august tribunal where the destiny of the Amer
ican Republic is determined.
"We come before the people with no apology upon
our lips, but with a luminous record of righteous
deeds done, with promise wrought into fulfillment.
We are not ashamed of our old issues nor afraid to
frankly espouse our new ones. Our record is before
the people, and it is a part of the enduring history of
the Republic. We could not change it if we would,
and we would not if we could.
"Four years ago we promised to enact a tariff law
which would supply the federal treasury with ade
quate revenue and promote American interests. We
have redeemed this pledge by the enactment of the
Dingley law. This law established confidence, re
opened factories, erected new enterprises and opened
the way to profitable employment for the great army
FAIRBANKS 79
of unemployed workingmen. The products of the
farm found ready markets at enhanced values; the
treasury was replenished and prosperity prevailed
throughout the United States in unusual degree."
* * *
"No one has shared more in the prosperity stimu
lated by the McKinley administration than the farm
ers of the United States. No one suffered more than
they during the last administration. Their gain in
the enhanced value of live stock and ten staple crops
for four years is more than one billion dollars."
-K * -x-
"It has been but a few years since the streets and
highways were crowded with idle workmen, vainly
searching for work work at any wages. It has been
but a few years since idle men, pinched by want and
hunger, were marching upon Washington, appealing
for relief. A revolution has occurred, peaceful in its
process, mighty and significant in its results. The
ranks of the employed have been increased by hun
dreds of thousands. Labor has had work. It has
not been asking bread at the hands of charity. It
has been building homes ; it has been educating chil
dren ; it has been increasing deposits in building and
loan associations and savings banks. Shall we reverse
this gratifying condition ? Shall we again increase
the ranks of the unemployed ? Shall work continue
to seek labor, or shall we return to the days when
labor was anxiously seeking work ?"
# -x- #
(6)
80 FAIRBANKS
"Those who toil should not he defrauded of the
fruit of their lahor. There is no device that so sure
ly cheats lahor as a depreciated currency, and it is
the part of good government to provide for a circu
lating medium which shall he as good in the hands of
lahor as in the hands of capital. It must defraud
neither the one nor the other. There is something
almost cruel, it seems the very irony of fate, for the
owners of silver bullion to attenipt to secure the sup
port of those who toil to the debasement of the cur
rency which they must receive for their lahor."
* * #
"Wages are none too high. The overthrow of the
gold standard and the establishment of silver mono
metallism would mean their immediate and inevi
table reduction. A reduction in the value of the
money in which wages are paid is, in effect, a reduc
tion of wages."
* x *
"We can not contemplate the currency issue, grave
and important as it is, without acknowledging the
great debt the country owes to those splendid men
who put country above party and enabled us to
achieve a great victory in 1896 the Gold Democrats.
We must merit their further confidence and their
potential support by a steadfast adherence to sound
and wholesome policies and administration."
* # #
"The record of the administration in the war with
FAIKBANKS 81
Spain and with respect to the problems growing out
of it challenges our admiration. Its course has been
dictated by the loftiest motives, and a brilliant chap
ter has been added to American history.
"When the present administration came into pow
er there was no thought of war. It was confronted
only by pressing and important problems of peace,
the restoration of prosperity among the people, and to
these it promptly and seriously addressed itself.
"The war in Cuba, which had existed so long, be
came more and more intolerable, and it was early
apparent that an international problem of great grav
ity was at our very door. A resolution recognizing
the belligerency of the Cuban insurgents was intro
duced in the Senate soon after the inauguration of
President McKinley, and after protracted debate
passed, but it failed to pass the Eepublican House.
It was opposed by the President, who regarded such
a measure as tending seriously to involve the United
States in perplexing complications, and because such
recognition would have no beneficial effect to the
struggling Cubans, and would abate none of the hor
rors and brutalities which shocked the moral sense
of the world.
"The President desired permanent peace estab
lished in Cuba and the independence of the Cubans
secured. To this end he tendered the good offices of
the United States to the Spanish Cabinet, While
thus invoking the peaceful instrumentalities of di-
82 FAIRBANKS
plomacy, the opposition was unsparing in its criti
cism of the Executive. Cuba lay so close to our doors
that turbulence and revolution within her borders
were instantly and sensibly felt by us. Twice we
had been brought to the very verge of war by her
conduct. The Black Warrior incident and the Vir-
ginius affair had in their time profoundly disturbed
the country, and war was on each occasion averted by
the exercise of great tact and a spirit of forbearance
on the part of the Government of the United States.
"For years our coast cities were ravaged by dis
ease which had its permanent abode in the pestilen
tial cities of Cuba. Our national honor, our national
peace and the health of our people demanded that
Spanish misrule should cease in the island and it
should be permitted to enjoy an enlightened, inde
pendent government.
"In the midst of the President s efforts to bring
peace and independence to Cuba came the overwhelm
ing, unspeakable tragedy in the harbor of Havana.
The demand for immediate vengeance swept across
the land and the people were stirred as never before
except at the shot at Fort Sumter.
"The country will not forget the dark hours that
preceded the declaration of war. They will never
forget the strong, calm, conservative, straightforward
course of the President, unmoved by the clamor, the
criticism, the unkindness of the unreflective. His
resistance of the urgent cry of the opposition for war
FAIEBANKS S3
was in nowise due to any lack of confidence in the
result of the issue or to any want of faith in the
power of the government.
"We were unprepared for war. We had so long
pursued the ways of peace that we were unfit even
for one engagement. The inadequacy of our fleet
was everywhere recognized. Our coasts were unpro
tected. IKo one knew but what the opening engage
ment with Spain would be the signal for a general
engagement among European Powers. But the oppo
sition took no thought of this. The country will not
forget, amidst the smoke and fustian of a political
campaign, with what superb courage the President
held war in check when it became inevitable. Prepa
rations were pushed with the utmost expedition.
Amidst it all was to be heard the opposition clamor
for war without delay. Those who criticised most
then criticise most now. Those who were most eager
for war were quickest to run from our duty and re
sponsibility when it closed.
"The response of our countrymen to the call to
arms is the pride of all. The brave young men of
the country came from every vocation with a spon
taneity that showed that the American people be
lieved in the righteousness of our cause and were de
termined to sustain the patriotic course of the Presi
dent.
"The dramatic and decisive hour had corne. The
flag of Spain must be withdrawn and the flag of a
republic be raised in its place.
84 FA1BBANKS
"The world knows with what swiftness the Presi
dent made war when in due course it had been de
clared by Congress. The matchless victory of our
navy in the Philippines and the resplendent triumph
of our army and navy in Cuba have become an en
during part of our heroic history.
"Fellow-citizens, it is impossible to overestimate
the importance of the impending campaign, its far-
reaching significance. Indiana, great and splendid
State that she is, should not support any reactionary
policy ; she will not. She will stand firm as she has
stood heretofore in favor of a protective tariff, the
gold standard, national duty and the honor of our
flag. No stain rests upon it; symbol of liberty, jus
tice and mercy. Let us give our potential support to
an administration which makes for prosperity and
honor at home and for prestige and honor abroad."
In this masterly speech Mr. Fairbanks vindicated
the action of the President and the Republican party
in the terms granted to Spain and for what had been
done in the new possessions. Mr. Fairbanks made
many other speeches during that campaign, growing
continually in strength as a campaign speaker and
in the confidence of his party. His services were in
great demand in other States, and wherever he ap
peared he was sure of an attentive and appreciative
hearing. The campaign resulted in a great triumph
for the Republican party, not only in Indiana but in
the country. By this time the attention of the whole
FAIKBANKS 85
country had been drawn to Mr. Fairbanks, and many
prophecies were made that in 1904: he would be the
logical candidate to succeed Mr. McKinley. He was
known to possess the entire confidence of the Presi
dent, and his calm, logical and conservative mind had
taken hold on the party throughout the nation.
On the last day of December, 1900, he delivered
a notable address before the Columbia Club of Indi
anapolis, the topic assigned him being "The Future
of the Kepublican Party." The speech added much
to his reputation, and was widely circulated. He
said:
"This is indeed a propitious hour. We stand upon
the dividing line between two great centuries the
one great in arduous deeds done, in history written ;
the other mighty in possibilities of things to be. The
Republican party can look upon the good old century
which is rapidly fading away with pride and satisfac
tion, and upon the new century with hope and confi
dence.
"The old century ! What a mighty century it has
been! About midway the Republican party was
born, and made luminous its second half. It en
larged the meaning of liberty; it gave to freedom a
significance unknown to the immortal founders of the
Republic ; it wrote a brilliant chapter with the sword
and established our industrial supremacy among the
nations of the earth; it raised our flag in honor
among the great Powers,
86 FAIRBANKS
"It is indeed a favorable omen that the twentieth
century, which has already entered our eastern gates,
will witness the Republican party in the ascendancy ;
not a decrepit party, not a mere political reminis
cence, but a party in the very flush of power, radiant
with hope and high purpose, commissioned anew by
the American people. The Great German Chancel
lor, Bismarck, once said : Germany has no power to
fear except the wrath of Almighty God. We may
-appropriate this utterance without vainglory. We
realize, however, that boastfulness is vulgar, that real
strength is its own herald. Yet, as we stand at this
supreme historic hour, we may be pardoned a word
as to our greatness. Our power, which is to be found
in our vast domain and in our marvelous material
development, is not our chief glory. Our charity
and our humanity are our principal evidences of na
tional grandeur.
"Naturally, increased power brings added respon
sibility. The problems of the twentieth century will
tax the genius and courage and patriotism of the Re
publican party. The questions immediately before
us do not invite repose. Many of them will continue
to be vital, living questions far into the future. What
we have done in the past is of little matter. Our con
tinued ascendancy must depend upon the skill and
the success with which we meet the increasing and
inexorable demands of the years to come. J The high
record we have made will noi greatly aid us ; it will
FAIEBANKS 87
rather serve to make our path more difficult, for more
will be expected of us. The higher we have risen, the
higher we must rise."
* * *
"We have an abiding sense of security against
alien assault. Our institutions are not in peril from
abroad. They must be secure from perils within.
Our sense of justice must keep pace with our ex
panding power. We must see to it that right and
might dwell together as in perpetual wedlock. The
Nation is in no danger, no matter how numerous its
population and great its material resources, if the
people are pervaded with a sense of justice, and par
ties which control the Government are actuated alone
by high motives. There will, indeed, be great neces
sity in the future of a party of self-restraint.
"The Republican party had its birth in a quick
ened national conscience. Its immortal founders
dedicated it to the cause of human liberty, the high
est and best interests of the people. It must be true
to the ideals and purposes of its founders and to the
great men w r ho have raised it to its present proud
eminence. One of the greatest of these [General
Harrison] sits at this board, possessing the admira
tion and respect of his grateful countrymen. He has
made a brilliant page in the country s history which
time will not efface."
X- 4f -X-
"The Republican party will continue to be a party
88 FAIRBANKS
of broad sympathies, the advocate of human liberty
and the inflexible foe to sectional, race or class spirit.
Class has no place in its patriotic principles, for class
is the fruit of empire, the enemy of the Republic.
It will continue to be the protector of both labor and
capital the two mighty pillars upon which our
social and political fabric rests. The party which
would pull down either invites both to hopeless ruin.
The party which does not comprehend this is deficient
in statesmanship and is an enemy of the Republic.
"It will not abandon the contest it has made in
the interest of a sound monetary system, which is the
foundation rock of commercial success. Good gov
ernment and good money must co-exist. The dollar
current is essentially a Republican dollar and it must
be preserved without taint or tarnish."
* -x- #
"The Republican party will in the new century
.cut the narrow isthmus which divides the Atlantic
from the Pacific and fulfill the long-cherished hope
of the American people and under their undisputed
control. This stupendous work, the like of which in
its vastness is nowhere to be found, will be under
taken under Republican auspices in the no distant
future."
-X- -X- *
"There are more peoples under the flag today than
ever before. There are those who have been stran
gers to us. Our flag has delivered them from imperial
FAIEBANKS 89
rule. We must deal with tliem ; we must have a
care for them. They have not hitherto tasted of the
fruits of liberty. They know not the beneficent ways
of republican government. We must secure to them
the amplest fruits of the Republic, and in good time
they will come to reverence it as their deliverer from
imperialistic rule and find in it the assurance and
guaranty of freedom and civilization.
"The future of the Republican party! What
splendid possibilities lie before it ! Will it be true
to its traditions ? Will it be true to its opportuni
ties ? It will live as long as it serves well the coun
try, and it should live no longer. It is a means, not
an end. It is an instrument for the advancement of
good government and we should no more consent to
its debasement than we would welcome national deg
radation. Those in whom the thought of personal
aggrandizement is uppermost should not be permitted
to control its destiny. If we would have pure govern
ment we must have a pure party one whose sole aim
is to promote wholesome administration.
"Washington, in his immortal farewell address, ex
horted his countrymen against the excesses of party
spirit. Webster pointed out the peril to the founda
tions of our institutions if party be substituted for
country. We will not forget that the power of the
Republican party abides with the people; that, as
much as we love the party, our country must be the
real object of our concern and that our power will
90 FAIRBANKS
endure only as we shall truly serve it. Republican
ism and Americanism must ever be synonymous.
"New issues will arise, new questions will divide
the people, of which we know not now. The Repub
lican party will be found espousing those issues and
those question which will make for the stability, the
honor and the welfare of the country. It must hold
fast to those great fundamental doctrines of human
liberty for which our fathers stood ; for the rights of
all, and the equality of all before the law. If it ad
vocates principles and policies which will square with
these wholesome truths, the years of its power and
supremacy are unnumbered and its beneficent influ
ence unmeasured."
There are many sentences in this great speech that
ought to find an abiding lodgment in the hearts and
minds of all the people. They are not mere words
thrown together to make phrases for oratorical effect,
but they come from the keystone of his conscience;
they are the axioms of his political life and the
guides of his public service. They are a part of the
serious thought and conviction of the man, The
whole speech is made up of such utterances, but some
of the sentences are so telling and are so character
istic of the man that we reproduce them :
"Our power, which is to be found in our vast do
main and in our marvelous material development, is
not our chief glory. Our charity and our humanity
are our principal evidences of national grandeur."
FAIRBANKS 91
"Our sense of justice must keep pace with our ex
panding power."
"We must see to it that right and might dwell
together as in perpetual wedlock."
"The Nation is in no danger, no matter how
numerous its population and great its material re
sources, if the people are pervaded with a sense of
justice, and parties which control the government
are actuated alone by high motives."
"Good government and good money must coexist."
"It [the Republican party] will exist as long as it
serves well the country, and it should live no longer.
It is a means, not an end."
"If we would have a pure government we must
have a pure party one whose sole aim is to promote
wholesome administration."
"We will not forget that the power of the Repub
lican party abides with the people ; that as much as
we love the party, our country must be the real object,
of our concern and our power will endure only as we
shall truly serve it."
Crisp, sharp, decisive, these sentences are the ut
terances of a strong man, of a man whose soul is
imbued with thoughts of the future greatness of the
country, and the responsibilities of individuals and
parties. They are patriotic as well as wise. Some
of them contain a warning note to his own party as
well as to all other parties, that power and control
only come to the party that serves the country best.
92 FAIRBANKS
They may, indeed, be classed as political axioms.
Mr. Lincoln said that the country could not long en
dure half slave and half free. So Mr. Fairbanks
says that a political party can endure only so long
as it serves the country faithfully and well.
To those given may be added a few taken from an
address delivered before the Americus Club of Pitts-
burg.
"Without harmony between labor and capital there
can be no real, enduring progress and prosperity. It
should always be remembered that each has rights
which the other should respect, and that they should
dwell together in amity. "
"We should seek to inculcate a sense of justice
among men ; so that capital shall deal fairly with
labor, and labor deal with equal fairness with cap
ital."
"It [the Republican party] should always be care
ful in promise and quick and resolute in fulfillment.
So long as it keeps faith with the people, the people
will keep faith with it."
In 1902 he opened the political campaign in Indi
ana at Anderson ; in a speech reviewing the past
achievements of the Republican party and the record
of the McKinley administration. Like all his polit
ical speeches, it was full of crisp statements of facts,
sharply defined conclusions and fair and candid pre
sentations. fj Although it was the opening speech of
what is called in politics "an off-year campaign," it
FAIRBANKS 93
attracted wide attention at the time of its delivery,
and as a full and forceful presentation of the prin
ciples of the Republican party is worthy of reproduc
tion, but space forbids more than a few extracts from
the more striking sentences :
"Our record is written. It has been written suc
cessfully. By it we must be judged. In all Amer
ican history there is no record of any political party
which equals, much less surpasses it. -Parties, like
individuals, must be judged by deeds done, by things
accomplished, and not by mere promises made. We
must account to the people for our stewardship. We
have been entrusted with vast power. Have we been
faithful ? The past five years constitute but a brief
period in the Nation s history, yet how long it seems
when measured by things accomplished for the well-
being of the people."
* . # *
"Idle labor is not a good customer for the farmer.
Abundant crops signify nothing if there is a poor
buyer, or if they are allowed to perish in the field."
x- -x- *
"We do not hold that the protective tariff is an in
spired decree. It is, at most, an expedient of govern
ment. Tariff schedules are not sacred. They are
devised to support the government and to sustain our
industrial life not to threaten it."
* * *
"It is not at all necessary to resort to such a dan-
94 FAIRBANKS
gerous and unscientific expedient as that of over
throwing the tariff system to reach the evils which
may, from time to time, inhere in trusts. Those
evils will be eradicated, not by indirection, but di
rectly; -not by breaking down an economic system,
long established, but by laws aimed directly at them
and enforced against them. There is no combination
of capital so strong that the people are not stronger.
The power to cure all evils abides in the people and
they will never alienate it."
x- * -x-
"One of the greatest correctives of abuses is pub
licity, and publicity should be required wherever
abuses are supposed to exist. ~No great wrong will
long exist in the full light of publicity. Publicity
will not cure all wrongs, but it will result in curing
"When we overthrew Spanish power it became our
supreme duty to hold disorder in check, to protect the
dependent from pillage and the torch, and when the
islands were ceded to the United States it became as
much our duty to maintain peace there as in any
other territory belonging to the United States."
3f -X- -?f
"It pays nations, as well as individuals, to adhere
to the inflexible principles of fair dealing. No doubt
the United States could have ignored the Clayton-
Bulwer treaty and proceeded with the construction
FAIRBANKS 95
of the canal, but it preferred, as it always prefers,
the frank and honorable way."
# * *
"When we cast our ballot with one hand we should
hold in the other the records of the two great political
parties. We should ponder them, reflect upon them,
We should not be governed by what the parties have
promised, but by what they have accomplished. The
party which should win is not the party that promises
most, but which performs most."
* * &
"The destiny of the Republic is what we make it.
Let the young men of Indiana whose fathers have
wrought so well in building up State and Nation
unite with the Republican party, which has served
the country wisely and patriotically in every supreme
crisis. Inspired by its heroic past, and by the mem
ory of its mighty statesmen dead ; and by the example
of its statesmen living, aid in carrying our country
forward in the way of peace, honor and prosperity,
and to the highest and best destiny."
In this campaign Mr. Fairbanks was a candidate
to succeed himself as Senator. The result of the cam
paign was a great personal triumph. The Republican
State ticket was elected by a plurality larger than
ever before given, with one exception, while the ma
jority in the Legislature was the greatest in the his
tory of any party. Mr. Fairbanks was reflected by
the unanimous Republican vote.
(7)
96 FAIRBANKS
As lias been remarked heretofore, Mr. Fairbanks
services to his party were by no means confined to
speech-making. He advised and counseled as to the
declaration of principles and the conduct and man
agement of campaigns. And amid it all he never
ceased his efforts to lift party politics upon a high
plane of political and individual integrity, away
from the low stage of personal detraction and corrup
tion at the ballot-box.
CHAPTER VII.
HE ENTERS THE SENATE.
* I * HE entry of Mr. Fairbanks into the Senate was
* propitious. On the day that he took his seat
his friend, Mr. McKinley, took the oath of office as
Chief Magistrate of the Xation. The new President
and the new Senator were not political friends only,
but they were personal friends as well. They knew
each other intimately, and each had an exalted opin
ion of the personal and intellectual worth of the other.
They had each measured the strength of the other,
and each had an abiding faith that the other was
especially fitted in all ways for the position to which
he had been chosen. During the great campaign of
1896 Mr. Fairbanks had been one of the most inti
mate and most trusted of the advisers of Mr. McKin
ley, and the new President had learned during these
months to have great confidence in the judgment of
the future Senator. They were both moved by the
same lofty impulse to serve the people to the best
of their ability. They both were conservative by
nature and by training, and each had an exalted esti
mate of the duties and responsibilities of the station
-97-
98 FAIEBANKS
they had assumed. They both were serious and ear
nest students of public affairs, and neither would let
party considerations outweigh their deliberate judg
ment as to what was best for the people. So it was
that the new President came at once to rely upon the
wisdom and judgment of the new Senator, as he had
relied upon the campaign adviser.
Mr. Fairbanks took with him into the Senate an
established reputation as a profound lawyer, a wise
and successful party leader and a forcible speaker.
The intimate relations between him and the Pres
ident were well known, and that the President re
lied greatly upon his counsels, so he took a prom
inent place at once among his colleagues. He was
too modest, too self-contained, too much amenable
to the traditions of the august body which he had
entered to push himself unduly forward in debate,
but from the very first he was taken into the inner
councils of his party associates in the Senate.
It was at a propitious moment for himself that
Mr. Fairbanks entered the Senate, but it was a for
tuitous moment for the whole country, for it was at a
crisis in the affairs of the Nation when such calm,
deliberate, conservative,, yet really bold, tempera
ments were needed in the councils of the Nation.
For some time the war and barbarities in Cuba had
been attracting the attention of the civilized world,
and the relations between the Government of the
United States and that of Spain were becoming daily
FAIBBANKS 99
more and more strained. The effects of the war in
Cuba were felt more in this country than in any
other, owing to the proximity of the island to our
coast, and the suffering people there were calling
loudly upon us for aid in their struggle against the
tyranny of Spain. The people of the United States
were indignant, and anxious that some steps should
be taken to end the cruel war. This had been rec
ognized by the convention that nominated Mr. Mc-
Kinley for President, and the deliberate views of
the Republican party were embodied in the platform
adopted by that convention. There were many in
Congress and out of it who clamored for action, even
if it involved this country in war with Spain.
Another and most momentous question was con
fronting the Nation. For three years the country
had suffered an unexampled season of business de
pression. Everywhere factories were closed, and
hundreds of thousands of workmen were anxiously
seeking for employment they could not obtain. Dis
tress, financial and commercial, covered the country
like a pall, and the new administration was con
fronted with the duty of finding some solution of this
problem; some way to open the factories, of finding
work for the labor that was idle. Under the pressing
exigencies of the occasion President McKinley called
Congress to meet in extraordinary session, and it was
fortuitous for the country that ITr. Fairbanks had
taken his seat among the conservative Senators,
100 FAIRBANKS
Mr. Fairbanks had not been a Senator three
months when he made his maiden speech. It was
upon an exciting and most important occasion, one
fraught with great possibilities to the country. His
relations with President McKinley were such that
when he arose to speak every one felt that what he
should say would truthfully and faithfully reflect
the views of the President, and he was listened to
with much more than the usual attention given to the
maiden effort of a young Senator.
The President had called Congress to enact a tariff
law, but at the very beginning the Cuban question
presented itself, and Senator Morgan, of Alabama,
introduced a resolution recognizing the belligerency
of the Cuban insurgents. It was a question of great
moment, and if adopted the resolution was sure to
break off diplomatic relations with Spain and possi
bly lead to a war with that country. It was on this
question, fraught with such vital consequences, that
Senator Fairbanks made his maiden speech. It was
a speech full of dignity and the seriousness befitting
so important an occasion. It was also of great force.
It gave to the members the gauge of their new col
league. It was a calm and dispassionate presentation
of the situation and the consequences involved, and
was delivered with dignity and force. It was the
product of a student and of a statesman. It is now
a part of the history of the country, and no apologies
are offered for presenting it here ;
FAIRBANKS
101
"Mr. President : It has not been my purpose until
now to invite the attention of the Senate in this de
bate, and it is my present intention to add but a few
words. I shall not indulge in criticisms upon the
Senate or its members, for my brief presence here has
but increased my respect for both. My observation
is that there is no one here who possesses more pa
triotism or love of liberty than others; that in that
respect there is absolute equality here. I further
observe, Mr. President, as this debate has progressed.,
that there is no difference among the honorable Sen
ators with respect to their desire for the freedom of
Cuba. All wish to see peace reign and liberty estab
lished in the desolated island. The difference arises,
sir, with regard to the means which shall be employed
to attain the hoped-for end.
"The immediate division of opinion has been with
reference to the motion of the distinguished Senator
from Maine to refer the resolution of the honorable
Senator from Alabama to the Committee on Foreign
Relations. Those who opposed the reference felt that
they had adequate information upon which to act,
while those who favored the reference desired in an
orderly and usual way to secure information in the
State Department bearing upon the subject under
consideration, and they also desired to have the delib
erate judgment of the able Committee on Foreign
Relations with respect to it. Their desire in this
102 FAIRBANKS
regard was intensified by the partial disclosures made
yesterday by the distinguished Senator from Ohio.
"Mr. President, it seems to me that those who fav
ored the reference for the reasons indicated are not
wanting in humanity and love of country, and are
not unreasonable in their demands. Few questions
can arise in this chamber more momentous than this,
and it should have that consideration which comports
with its magnitude. Some Senators may be satisfied
with the fragmentary information of affairs in Cuba
which they have from private sources, from the pub
lic press, and from the State Department, but others
may not be.
"It would seem that as a predicate for action upon
this question, so important in its immediate results
and which shall become a notable precedent, there
should be upon the table of every Senator all the offi
cial information obtainable and a well-considered re
port from the appropriate committee. Each Senator
must act upon the solemnity of his oath, and a nice
regard for the obligations he has taken upon his en
trance to this chamber demands that he have the es
sential facts, officially ascertained, before he records
his deliberate potential judgment.
"I observe that this course was adopted by the
Senate at the last session. The resolution concern
ing Cuba was referred to the Committee on Foreign
Relations. The committee, after mature delibera
tion, reported it back to the Senate with substitute
FAIRBANKS 103
resolutions. The majority report was presented by
the honorable Senator from Alabama, who now op
poses the reference of his own resolution upon the
same subject in the same manner to the same com
mittee. If deliberation and orderly procedure were
observed then, why not now ? What exigency has
arisen which demands the present departure from
the practices of the Senate in the past ?
"Mr. President, I shall not stop to discuss the
question as to whether, under the constitution, the
recognition of belligerency is an executive or legisla
tive function, or whether the executive and legislative
branches of the Government should act conjointly.
But it seems to me that in the conduct of our foreign
affairs the practice has been for the Committee on
Foreign Relations to act upon these international
questions to some degree in conjunction with the
Executive Department of the Government. If such
has not been the practice heretofore, now is the time
to set a good precedent.
"A new administration is in power, not yet three
months old an administration charged with great
responsibility. Shall we act in this grave matter re
gardless of its views or policies respecting foreign
affairs ? Shall the Congress take one position and
the Executive another upon a question of such mo
ment and obvious delicacy ? If so, what will be the
effect, not only upon the fortune of Cuba, but upon
our domestic affairs, sensitive and unsettled as they
are?
104 FAIRBANKS
"Mr. President, if I correctly apprehend those who
favor the resolution of the Senator from Alabama,
one of the chief purposes to be accomplished by the
recognition of belligerency is to legitimatize the war
in Cuba ; it is to change barbarous warfare into civil
ized warfare. The immediate purpose is not to stop
the war, but to alter its character.
"Sir, I hold to the opinion that all war is barbar
ous. I am against war, civilized or uncivilized, ex
cept it be necessary to redeem people from oppres
sion, or be for national defense, or to sustain the na
tional honor in the protection of American citizen
ship. I preferred a reference of the joint resolution
to the Foreign Relations Committee, that it might
determine whether, under all the facts, according to
the official information in possession of the Govern
ment, it could not report a resolution which will ac
complish what the resolution offered by the Senator
from Alabama fails to secure, and that is, peace and
the independence of Cuba.
"Upon the recognition of belligerent rights, Mr.
President, we do not stop the war ; we merely dignify
it. When will it cease ? How much longer will the
slaughter continue? How much longer will the
sword and torch devour? E"o one can tell; no one
can measure the loss.
"I would prefer a policy more certain, more di
rect. Let us come out into the open and be for war
or against it. If a great moral responsibility rests
FAIRBANKS 105
upon us, as I believe it does, let us discharge it
squarely and fairly.
"Sir, I would forthwith tender the good offices of
this Government to the Spanish Cabinet, to the end
that war cease. And further, I would open amicable
negotiations to secure the independence of Cuba,
which, under the providence of the Almighty, is its
manifest destiny. If these peaceful and honorable
methods fail and the war should continue, I would
have no hesitancy in reaching out the mighty arm
of this Government and saying, This war shall
cease/ But, sir, such an extreme measure will not
be necessary to accomplish an honorable peace.
"Some of the distinguished Senators who belong to
the party which holds my loyal allegiance have pro
fessed to support the resolution of the Senator from
Alabama because, as they hold, it is in consonance
with the platform adopted at St. Louis. I heard the
distinguished Senator from Nebraska, who presided
over the deliberations of that great congress of Amer
ican citizens with such conspicuous ability, read the
platform this morning and declare his approval of
it. With due deference to the honorable Senator, I
must utterly and entirely repudiate the suggestion
that the resolution proposed by the Senator from
Alabama is in accord with the Republican platform,
for, in my judgment, it is against it. The platform
on the Cuban question declared that
" From the hour of achieving their own independ-
106 FAIRBANKS
ence the people of the United States have regarded
with sympathy the struggles of other American peo
ple to free themselves from European domination.
We watch with deep and abiding interest the heroic
battle of the Cuban patriots against cruelty and op
pression, and our best hopes go out for the full success
of th eir determined contest for liberty.
" The Government of Spain having lost control
of Cuba, and being unable to protect the property or
lives of resident American citizens, or to comply with
its treaty obligations
"Note carefully what follows
we believe that the Government of the United
States should actively use its influence and good
offices to restore peace and give independence to the
island.
"This language is free from ambiguity. Its mean
ing is not involved in the slightest doubt. Peace and
independence are to be obtained through the active
agency of the United States.
"Let me read the resolution offered by the Sena
tor from Alabama :
" Resolved by the Senate and House of Represen
tatives of the United States of America in Congress
assembled, That a condition of public war exists be
tween the government of Spain and the government
proclaimed and for some time maintained by the
force of arms by the people of Cuba, and that the
United States of America shall maintain a strict
neutrality between the contending powers, according
to each all the rights of belligerents in the ports and
territory of the United States.
FAIRBANKS 107
"The policy to which this resolution commits the
Government is one of
strict neutrality between the contending powers, ac
cording to each all rights of belligerents in the ports
and territory of the United States.
"I yield to no Senator, I yield to no Republican
in my attachment to the doctrines of the Republican
party. I believe that when the platform was adopted
at St. Louis it was a covenant to be executed honestly,
fearlessly, faithfully ; and I am here, Mr. President,
to execute it to the best of my humble ability.
"The scope and purpose of the resolution and the
Republican platform are totally dissimilar. The for
mer recognizes the rights of belligerency and main
tains an attitude of strict neutrality nothing more
while the platform requires the Government to ten
der its good offices to restore peace and give independ
ence to the island. The distinction between tendering
the good offices of the Government and acknowledg
ing belligerency, according to international law, is
broad and marked.
"I believe the golden moment of which the hon
orable Senator from Massachusetts has spoken has
arrived. The condition in Cuba, except the horrors
of the pestilential camps, which the President s mes
sage has wisely attempted to mitigate, seems to be
worse than ever; the hold of Spain on Cuba is less
certain ; her revenues have decreased ; the burdens of
war have increased. The rainy season is at hand,
108 FAIRBANKS
when the march must stop. A large army is to be
maintained at heavy cost until the seasons permit a
new campaign. The issue is in the balance. Sir,
it would seem that the highest considerations which
can move men or nations would suggest the tender
and acceptance of the good offices of this Government.
"Mr. President, before closing I wish to say that I
am deeply sensible of the distress in Cuba. I have no
doubt of the substantial accuracy of the reports of
the press of the country with respect to it. I am also
conscious of the distress and sufferings in our own
country. Every hour the pathetic appeals of our own
countrymen come to us. More than 2,000,000 good
and loyal American workmen are walking the streets
and highways of our country asking for work ; seek
ing not charity, but a chance to labor. Their eyes are
on this chamber. Every hour is precious to them.
They are not threatened by the barbarity of Weyler,
but by the cruelty of want.
"For every soldier that falls on the fields of Cuba
a hundred fall in the ranks of labor. The manufac
turers have been discouraged and the merchants have
been idle in the marts of trade. In the name of
these, sir, I protest against delay in the consideration
of the matters for which we were convoked in this
extraordinary session. Pass the tariff ! Pass the tar
iff I 9 comes from our expectant countrymen night and
day. A tariff law and a currency commission are the
imperative demands of the hour. Whatever will in-
FAIRBANKS 109
terfere with early securing them, no matter how im
portant it is, I shall steadfastly oppose."
Senator Fairbanks closed his speech by offering an
amendment to the pending resolution. This amend
ment was understood to express the views of Presi
dent McKinley. It was to the purport that the Gov
ernment tender the good offices of the United States
to Spain in an endeavor to secure independence for
Cuba. The amendment failed and the original reso
lution of Senator Morgan was adopted, but it failed
to pass the House, and the threatening crisis was
escaped for a time.
This speech fixed the status of Mr. Fairbanks in
the Senate, and from that time he has taken part in
the discussion of every important question that has
been before the Congress. He was made Chairman
of the Committee on Immigration, in view of the
vast numbers of illiterate, pauper and criminal
classes who were flocking to our shores, a very impor
tant committee. He addressed himself to the duties
of the place with the same care and industry he had
ever displayed. He made a profound study of the
whole question of immigration and its effect upon
this country. When he had thoroughly prepared him
self for an exhaustive discussion of the subject he re
ported a bill restricting the admission of immigrants
into this country, and enforced it with a speech of
some length, abounding in statements of facts and
cogent arguments as to why the bill should become a
110 FAIKBANKS
law. -In the progress of the speech he presented a
number of statistical tables of great value to the stu
dent of political and social economy. Among other
things he said :
"No more important question can engage our at
tention, and none should receive more earnest and
thoughtful consideration, than one which seeks to
guard and preserve the high standard of our popula
tion and citizenship. No policy, however venerable,
no mere sentimental considerations should dissuade
us from dealing with an evil which menaces our civil
ization, and in a manner compatible with the best in
terests of our country and all its people."
x- * *
"We are not unmindful of the immeasurable con
tributions which our foreign-born population has
made to the upbuilding of the Republic. Its work
and influence has been felt throughout the country,
and much of all that is great and splendid about us
is the fruit of its genius and industry. But those
who have aided most were those who quickly blended
with the great mass of our native-born population
and most readily renounced allegiance to their own
countries and assumed the duties of loyal citizens,
taking an interest and pride in sustaining and
strengthening the institutions of the country of their
adoption. Sir, I am pleased to say that the^ native
and foreign-born of Indiana have wrought together
in raising that splendid State to her present exalted
FAIEBANKS 111
position. They have been zealous co-workers, sharing
alike in all the labors, anxieties, and rewards incident
to carving out of the wilderness that majestic com
monwealth. Search her muster-rolls, and there you
will find thousands born beneath distant skies who
dared all in defense of the honor and the integrity
of their chosen land. They shared in the arduous
deeds of heroes on many fields, and their patriotic de
votion is a part of the imperishable glory of the
State."
* -x- #
"The absorptive power of our nation has been
great, and in the main the aliens and the natives have
easily fused into a homogeneous people. The rapid
admixture of foreign bloods here without the impair
ment of our national character has challenged the
wonder and admiration of the civilized world."
x- # #
"Until recent years immigration was invited and
stimulated by liberal homestead laws, and by coloni
zation agencies which offered alluring inducements.
All who sought our shores were accepted without
question or discrimination. The educated, moral
and patriotic were welcome. * The culprit, fleeing
from outraged justice, found a refuge here. The
physically, mentally or morally disordered were per
mitted to become residents and citizens and share
with us, as though to the manner born/ the privi
leges bequeathed to us by our fathers. Our broad,
(8)
112 KAIEBANKS
rich, unoccupied domain and expanding industries
invited numbers, and no heed was taken of their qual
ity; and it is remarkable, and indeed the subject of
congratulation, that we suffered so little from the
undesirable and really objectionable while our gates
stood unprotected."
% -K- *
"The very large per cent, of the immigration, until
quite recently, came from the United Kingdom, Ger
many, Sweden, Norway and Denmark. It was in
the main intelligent, industrious, frugal, law-re
specting and liberty-loving. It readily assimilated
with us and merged into the American with marvel
ous facility. It contributed to our statesmanship, to
our literature, to our commerce, to our agriculture,
and to all other avenues of industry."
jf * #
"If it be said that in further restricting immi
gration we are departing from the traditional policy
of our Government, we answer that conditions have
changed, and with new conditions the policy of the
Government must change to meet them. No policy
should stand against the best interests of our coun
trymen, native and foreign-born alike."
# # #
"The more recent immigration is less devoted to
home building than the former It may
be stated as axiomatic that home-builders are good
citizens, for the government that rests upon the home
FAIRBANKS 113
will better resist the shock of foreign invasion or do
mestic tumult. The American home is indeed the
cradle of liberty it is the unit of the Republic s
strength. There are taught the lessons that endure.
That immigration that does not seek to build homes
among us is the most objectionable, and its exclusion
will be no loss."
X- -X- -X-
"A patriotic regard for those to whose interests
we owe first allegiance requires us to see that the
persons who present themselves to this new compe
tition shall not be the most ignorant pauper laborers
from abroad A low wage scale is not
consistent with the most wholesome development of
the country and of its people."
x x *
"What should be more in harmony with our insti
tutions than an educational test, for the enduring
basis upon which the Republic rests is intelligence ?
The schoolroom is more potential in our preservation
than steel-armored fleets; more essential to our de
fense than the strongest fortress. A general knowl
edge among the people of the rudimentary branches
of an education is regarded as essential to the safety
of our free institutions and necessary for the enjoy
ment of American citizenship. It is in recognition
of these facts that private beneficences have endowed
schools and that many States have enacted compul
sory education laws, and that the people have volun-
114 FAIRBANKS
tavilv laid upon themselves the burden of instructing
the youth of the land. In many of the States the
truant officer has become a familiar arm of the law.
May we not demand of those without seeking our
shores that rudimentary education which we require
from our own countrymen within ?"
& & *
"Mr. President, the present bill has heretofore re
ceived the approval of the Senate. It is born neither
of a want of hospitality nor of a nativistic spirit, but
of a profound conviction that the illiterate elements
which do not make for national betterment should be
excluded, and that we should admit only those able
to read and write our Constitution and who are enam
ored of our country and its institutions. Sir, let
us exalt American citizenship, the richest legacy
which in the divine economy may be bequeathed to
the children of men, and preserve undiminished the
moral and intellectual grandeur of the Republic. 7
CHAPTER VIII.
THE WAR WITH SPAIN.
T 7" FRY early in the service of Senator Fairbanks
one of the great questions our financial sys
tem was under discussion. The election of Mr.
McKinley made it certain that for four years, at least,
there would be no free coinage of silver, but the free
silver advocates were in earnest and the silver ques
tion had many phases. It will be remembered that
Mr. Fairbanks had been chosen by Mr. McKinley for
temporary chairman of the St. Louis convention, and
to forecast in his speech what would be the financial
policy of his administration should he be nominated
and elected President. It is not surprising, then,
notwithstanding Mr. Fairbanks had been a member
of the Senate less than one year, when the subject of
silver was under discussion, that he should deliver a
set speech. Senator Teller, of Colorado, one of the
most earnest and able advocates of free silver, intro
duced into the Senate a resolution declaring, in sub
stance, that certain bonds issued by the United States
were payable, principal and interest, at the option of
the Government, in silver coin.
-115-
110 FAIRBANKS
It was a very adroit and insidious attack on the
financial policy of President McKinley, and was cal
culated to win support from the unwary, and cause
trouble for the Republican party. The speech
of Senator Fairbanks was characterized by close,
logical reasoning, and he supported his argument
with copious facts and figures taken from the past
history of the country. In view of the fact that
there are still a large number of people who continue
to advocate the doctrine of free coinage, the speech
made by Mr. Fairbanks in January, 1898, is well
worth considering at this day. Among other things
he said:
"I am reluctant to add to what has already so
admirably and forcibly been urged against the adop
tion of the resolution of the Senator from Colorado.
But I am so impressed with its subtle attack upon the
public credit and by its mischievous effect upon the
country that I can not consent to rest my opposition
solely upon my negative vote. 7
* * *
"It is wholly reactionary in its purpose. It de
clares that the principal and interest of certain bonds
shall be paid at the option of the Government in
silver dollars of the coinage of the United States
containing 412-| grains each of standard silver, re
gardless of the great decline that has occurred
in the commercial value of silver throughout the
world. It is not claimed that its terms either enlarge
FAIRBANKS 117
or restrict the obligations devolved upon the Govern
ment by existing law. It does not have the force of
law; it is at most a brutmn fulmen."
vf -X- -X-
"It is evident that the central purpose of the reso
lution is to obtain the sentiment of the Senate upon
the proposition for the free and unlimited coinage of
silver at the ratio of sixteen to one. Why was not
this purpose, Mr. President, frankly and clearly ex
pressed in. the face of the resolution, in order that
no doubt whatever might arise as to its scope and
meaning? So important a question as the currency
and the coinage of gold and silver can not be settled
by indirection, nor will we be entrapped into any
inconsiderate and doubtful expression with respect
thereto."
X- -X- -X-
"I am aware, Mr. President, of the tremendous
power of environment upon our lives and upon our
judgments. It seems to me that in the devotion of
the Senator from Colorado to the cause of free silver
he is following but an ignis f atuus, and that he would
lead his country and his followers in the pursuit of
it into the morass of commercial paralysis, degrada
tion and dishonor."
x- * -x-
"What is its purpose? What does it seek to ac
complish? Sir, it seems to me to lay the ground
work of national discredit and national dishonor.
118 FAIRBANKS
Any impairment of the public credit sensibly and
injuriously affects individual credit and private enter
prise. Any possible derangement of our commercial
interests must tend to create dissatisfaction, discour
agement, discontent, and out of such conditions it is
hoped, I believe, that the free coinage of silver will
emerge."
x- * -jc
"The present resolution is unwarranted by exist
ing circumstances. Whatever tends to arrest the
rapid restoration of prosperity, which tends to dis
turb confidence, which is the foundation-rock upon
which all true and enduring prosperity is built, is
unwise, untimely."
* * *
"The ranks of free silver have been recruited out
of adversity and disaster. I give the author of the
pending resolution credit for the perspicacity to see
that in the complete restoration of prosperity, now
imminent and manifest to all, the free and unre
stricted coinage of silver is an utter impossibility, and
as a real issue it would soon become as dead as the
Caesars."
# * #
"The enforced payment of the bond creditors of
the Government in cheap silver dollars would, in
my judgment, be in violation of the spirit and pur
pose of the contract, if not in contravention of its
letter,"
FAIRBANKS 119
"I well uecollect the invitation that was presented
soon after the war to induce the people by various
devices to repudiate a portion of the great bond debt.
But it is a part of our proudest history that the voice
of the repudiator was unheeded and that the great
mass of the people were as sensitive of preserving the
national honor by meeting the national obligations
as they were to defend it upon the battlefields of the
Kepublic."
3f * *
"I shall not stop to critically examine the letter
of the bonds of the Government, supplemented by
the provisions of the resolution before us. I shall
write into them the good faith and moral obligation
of the country to meet and discharge them fairly and
squarely and without loss to the creditor. This obli
gation, I take it, is of no less binding force upon a
country sensitive of its honor than that which may
be termed strictly the legal obligation, and I shall
consent to no interpretation which shall prevent the
Government from paying its debts in the best stand
ard of money and in full measure. This policy I
would apply in its best and most comprehensive sense
to bonds, pensions, and every other class and form of
Government indebtedness. I hold, sir, that above
all gold and all silver and of all other forms of cur
rency stand the honor and the credit of the Govern
ment."
120 FAIRBANKS
"The present is no time for quibbling, for uncer
tainty, for doubt, There must be no equivocation
with respect to the character of our money standard,
and no hesitancy nor divided purpose in its inflexible
maintenance. It is our duty to place about it such
safeguards as wisdom and prudence may suggest and
to preserve it unimpaired. The judgment and the
conscience of the American people found expression
in the platform adopted by the St. Louis convention,
in 1896, and which was triumphantly ratified at the
ballot box. The declaration made was unalterable
opposition to every measure calculated to debase our
currency or to impair the credit of the country. Op
position was pledged to the free coinage of silver
except by international agreement with the leading
commercial nations of the world, to promote which
pledge was given; and until such agreement could
be obtained the existing gold standard must be pre -
served. All our silver and paper currency must be
maintained at parity with gold, and all measures were
favored which were designed to maintain inviolably
the obligations of the United States and all our
money, whether coin or paper, at the present stand
ard, the standard of the most enlightened nations of
the earth. Sir, this constitutes our monetary creed
broad, sound, patriotic the true foundation of all
real, individual prosperity and enduring national
greatness."
A momentous crisis was approaching and the coun-
FAIRBANKS 121
try was about to be suddenly plunged into a war the
results of which were to startle the world and change
our traditional policy. The condition of affairs in
Cuba had been going from bad to worse. The bru
talities practiced on the people of the island by those
in authority had long shocked the humanity of the
world, but Spain was deaf to all protests, to all solici
tations. President McKinley watched the develop
ment of affairs with keen interest. At the very be
ginning of his administration there had been an effort
made to force the Government to take a step that
would have led to immediate war, but it had been
checked.
The excitement in this country increased, and
members of all parties urged the President to take
some decisive stand to end the barbarities practiced
in Cuba, but he steadfastly pursued his policy of
trying to maintain peace with Spain and at the same
time induce that government to better the condition
of affairs on the island. He recognized that this
country was not ready for war, and that war was to
be avoided if at all possible compatible with the honor
of the Nation. At last an electric spark was touched
that aroused the Nation as nothing had done in all
its history.
The President from the first had been profoundly
impressed with the seriousness of the situation, and
that war might come, but he was not to be hastened
into taking any step that would look like desiring
122 FAIRBANKS
war. His first official act in the affairs of Cuba was
to ask an appropriation to enable him to provide food,
medicines and transportation out of the island for
the Americans stranded there. The filibuster ele
ment kept up a constant and fierce fire upon him, but
he showed no sign of weakening in his conservative
attitude. In his first annual message to Congress
he calmly discussed the situation; spoke plainly of
the horrors of the war in the island, and very strongly
indicated that the time might come when the United
States would feel bound to interfere to end the hor
rors. He stated that his efforts to bring about an
honorable peace would be continued, and then closed
with these solemn and impressive words:
"The near future will demonstrate whether the
indispensable condition of a righteous peace, just
alike to the Cubans and to Spain, as well as equitable
to all our interests so intimately involved in the wel
fare of Cuba, is likely to be obtained. If not, the
exigency of further and other action by the United
States will remain to be taken. When that time
comes, that action will be determined in the line of
indisputable right and duty. It will be faced with
out misgiving or hesitancy, in the light of the obliga
tions the Government owes to itself, to the people who
have confided to it the protection of their interests
and honor, and to humanity.
"Sure of the right, keeping free from all offense
ourselves, actuated only by upright and patriotic con-
FAIKBANKS 123
siderations, moved neither by passions nor selfishness,
the Government will continue its watchful care over
the rights and property of American citizens and will
abate none of its efforts to bring about by peaceful
agencies a peace which shall be honorable and endur
ing. If it shall hereafter appear to be a duty im
posed by our obligations to ourselves, to civilization
and humanity, to intervene with force, it shall be
without fault on our part and only because the neces
sity for such action, will be so clear as to command
the support and approval of the civilized world."
Following the full and comprehensive recital of
the condition of affairs, and the many provocations
given to the United States, this language might well
have been looked upon as being an ultimatum, an
nouncing that the conduct of the war must change
or the United States would interfere. It was not
regarded by Spain. In February, 1898, the indigna
tion of the American people received a new impetus.
A proposition had been made to show the friendly
feeling between this country and Spain by an inter
change of visits by a warship of each nation, the
Spanish vessel to visit New York and the American
Havana. While this peaceful maneuver was in
course of preparation a letter was published, purport
ing to have been written by the Spanish Minister at
Washington, Dupuy de Lome, to a Spanish official
at Havana. This letter teemed with abusive epithets
against the President, and suggestions to the Spanish
official to continue a certain course of deception.
124 FAIRBANKS
The publication of this letter produced a storm of
excitement in this country, and the Spanish Minister
promptly cabled his resignation to his government
and left the country. This was followed eight days
later by the blowing up of the Maine in Havana har
bor. An instant demand for war followed, and Con
gress promptly gave the President $50,000,000 for
defensive purposes and for the purchase of ships to
strengthen our navy.
On the llth of April, 1898, President McKinley
sent a long and comprehensive message to Congress,
reviewing the situation, and closing with the follow
ing paragraph :
"The issue is now with Congress. It is a solemn
responsibility. I have exhausted every effort to re
lieve the intolerable condition of affairs which is at
our doors. Prepared to execute every obligation
imposed upon me by the Constitution and the law,
I await your action."
A resolution was introduced in Congress declaring
the people of Cuba free, and demanding that Spain
relinquish authority in that island. The President
was empowered and directed to use the land and
naval forces of this country to carry the resolution
into effect. A number of able speeches were made
while the resolution was pending, that of Senator
Fairbanks being especially effective. In the course
of his speech he said :
"I have not been for either peace at any price or
FAIRBANKS 125
war at any cost. I have been steadfastly for peace
if it could be maintained honorably, and for war if
the national dignity and honor required it. The
problem which is presented to us is one of the great
est gravity, one which invokes our most deliberate,
patriotic judgment."
* -x- *
"In view of our relations to the island and of our
policy of opposition to foreign interference with
Spanish control, we are morally bound to put an end
to the wrongs, the outrages, the evils which flow from
Spanish misrule. We have repeatedly tendered to
the Spanish Cabinet our friendly offices to end the
wars in Cuba and to restore peace. Our offers have
been uniformly rejected."
-x- -x- -x-
"This Government has at all times been scrupu
lously observant of her duties toward Spain, yet
Spain has either been unwilling or unable to prop
erly protect the rights of our citizens or to make ade
quate reparation for the wrongs committed against
them. They have been imprisoned without cause
and tardily released without just reparation for the
indignities and wrongs committed. The story is an
old one; is already familiar as a thrice-told tale.
History is but repeating itself."
x- -x- *
"For many months the Chief Executive, upon
whom rests, under the Constitution, the conduct of
126 FAIRBANKS
our foreign affairs, has been attempting to solve the
Cuban problem peacefully and honorably. He has
proceeded to its consideration with a broad and sym
pathetic statesmanship, and with a determination to
enforce all the just demands we could make upon the
Spanish authority, and with a purpose of defending,
in the fullest degree, the national honor. The task
imposed has been a grave and difficult one, and he has
discharged it in a manner to challenge the admira
tion of his contemporaries and, in my opinion, to
win the approval of dispassionate history. His pol
icy was an open one, known to the world; it was
peace with honor above and beyond all else, and war
with honor only as the last dread emergency. If
war was to come, it must come at such a time as we
would be able to meet it and in such manner as the
whole world would approve. He truly compre
hended the resources and the patriotism of our peo
ple, and well knew that but one result would follow
an appeal to the sword. He also knew that nothing
so became the mighty power of a great people as its
sparing use.
"But a few weeks ago the Maine, one of our war
vessels, was sent to the harbor of Havana upon a
mission of peace, for the protection of American in
terests, and not for war. Her going was but the
resumption of old-time friendly relations. While
the noble ship rested at peace in the harbor of Ha
vana, while she was enjoying Spanish hospitality, she
FAIRBANKS 127
was destroyed, and most of her brave crew perished
with her. When the blow came she was Spain s
guest, which was strong against the deed. 7 The ex
plosion aroused our countrymen and shook the earth.
It was the master tragedy of the age."
# * *
"The evidence is ample to convict Spain. ~No un
prejudiced jury in all Christendom would fail to ren
der a verdict of guilty if Spain were an individual
resting under indictment in a court of criminal juris
diction. Her conduct both before and after the fact
leaves no possible shadow of doubt. Whether the
electric current was sent upon its mission of death
by Spanish decree or by a Spanish functionary in
Havana we will not stop to inquire. It is not for us
to do so. The burden rests upon Spain. It was by
the direct order of her military authorities that the
Maine was anchored above a powerful, deadly sub
marine mine. Was this accidental? How chivalric !
What a token of friendship and esteem ! What a
graceful courtesy ! But it is said by Spain that we
have not shown that she released the fatal spark.
Be it so. It is not necessary. > The primary cause
was her act ; we will not look beyond it. The orig
inal offense was hers. ^Tor are we obliged to stop to
inquire whether the Spanish officers were negligent
or exceeded their authority. If such a duty rests
upon any one, it does not rest upon us."
# # #
(9)
128 FAIEBANKS
"Sir, the ghosts of the Maine will not down ; they
beckon us on. Would that they could tell the secrets
of their prison house. 7 Then we would know how,
sleeping, the Spanish serpent stung them. For this
grave act Spain must make due amends."
* -5f *
"Our own tranquility, our own sense of security,
our regard for our present and future comfort and
for the lives of her helpless and hapless subjects,
demand that we should interpose the mighty power
of this Government to stop the carnival of crime and
suffering and restore peace to the Island of Cuba un
til some suitable government may be formed which
shall be a guaranty to us and to the other nations of
the earth that it will at all times in the future be
ready and willing and able to discharge its domestic
and international obligations."
* * *
"No one will distrust our motives in taking this
step. We do not intervene for revenge, for the ac
quisition of territory, for the extension of our author
ity and power. Our past history is ample proof of
this. Spain has long overtaxed the generous for
bearance of our people. We have suffered wrongs
that would have justified a nation actuated by less
exalted motives than we to have struck in revenge.
Ample opportunity has heretofore occurred for the
seizure of the island by force if we had been eager
to extend our dominion. The world will acquit us
FAIEBANKS
of any base design. The misgovernment of Cuba
has become so flagrant, the barbarism, the wrongs,
the outrages there have so offended the civilized
world that we must intervene for and in the name of
humanity. No higher motive can actuate any gov
ernment."
* * *
"We are at the beginning of a new epoch in our
history. No graver emergency ever confronted us
than the one which faces us at this hour. Peace is
about to be abdicated for a policy which may lead to
war. War, if it comes, will have been forced upon
us by the misgovernment, the insolence, the cruelty
of Spain. Spain has too long presumed upon our
good nature. She has too long offended against the
sense of justice of our people. Her desultory, guer
rilla-like, barbarous warfare upon her subjects in
Cuba, upon American citizens and American com
merce, has been in effect a war upon us."
* * *
"I confess I have come to the conclusion to which
I have arrived after much deliberation reluctantly
and with profound regret. I have hoped and prayed
that this great emergency might be honorably
averted or avoided. My hesitancy did not grow out
of any doubt, as to the patriotism or the power of my
country. It was due to no possible doubt as to the
result of the issue, but to the fact that I have felt
that even Spain, cruel and merciless as she has been,
130 FAIRBANKS
would not be wholly dead to our righteous and firm
appeals."
H- * -x-
"All efforts at amicable solution have failed, and
all that remains is to invoke the mighty power of this
Government in behalf of enduring peace and imper
iled humanity. We shall now have the satisfaction
of knowing that, coi^e what may in the lottery of
war, we have left undone nothing which could be
done consistently with honor to secure a pacific set
tlement. The Spanish flag must be withdrawn and
cease forever to contaminate the air of this hemis
phere. To the high and holy cause of humanity and
the vindication of our national honor we dedicate the
lives and fortune of the Bepublic."
War was declared, and the country made prepara
tions to fill the army and the navy. It is known
how the people rallied to the standard of the nation
from every section. Those who had fought for the
gray vied with those who fought for the blue in tes
tifying their devotion to the old flag. That glorious
page in American history has been read by the world.
The United States was to step forth as the champion
of humanity and liberty, and the people were ready
for it. Men who had grown old and gray in the
service of the country tendered themselves for duty ;
young men, sons of sires who had fought on the
bloody battlefields during the civil war, came for
ward as did their fathers in the days from 1861 to
FAIKBANKS 131
1865. Among those who offered for duty at the
front was Senator Fairbanks. In the Senate he had
opposed all hasty action and advocated the exhaus
tion of every possible means to bring about a peace
before resorting to arms, but when patience ceased
to be a virtue he voted for the declaration that was
to loose the army and the navy of the United States
to drive Spain from this side of the world. He
wrote to Governor James A. Mount, of Indiana,
tendering his services for duty in the field. To this
offer of his services Governor Mount made the fol
lowing reply :
"My Dear Senator Permit me to say, in reply
to your patriotic tender of your services, that I com
mend your loyalty to the State and Nation. The
offer of your services as a soldier means that you
are ready to make any sacrifice for the preservation
of the national honor.
"I beg to assure you that you can best render that
service in the United States Senate. In this con
nection I desire to commend your patriotic course.
Your great speech on the Cuban question was the
argument of a statesman. I could not consent to
your leaving the Senate. Your constituents would
protest. We need statesmen as much as soldiers.
We can fill the places of soldiers much easier than
the seats of Senators.
"~No one can place a higher estimate than I place
upon the offer of your services to the State as a sol-
132 FAIEBANKS
dier, but above this is my measure of your services
as a Senator. Very truly yours,
"J. A. MOUNT.
"Indianapolis, May 3, 1898."
Mr. Fairbanks was a very busy man in the Senate,
especially during the continuance of the short war
with Spain. He earnestly upheld in every way the
hands of the administration in forcing a speedy
peace. He was earnest in his advocacy of all the
war measures authorizing volunteers, strengthening
the navy and the raising of the proper revenue, mak
ing a very elaborate speech on the bill for that pur
pose. He was not hasty in throwing himself into
a debate, but carefully and studiously prepared him
self with facts and authorities, just as he would pre
pare himself for an argument before a court.
One of the things to which the Republican party
the party to which Senator Fairbanks owed alle
giance had pledged itself was to enact whatever
legislation was needed to maintain the parity of the
various kinds of currency with gold. It was a per
plexing question, owing to the variance in the views
of the Republican members of Congress and to the
strong opposition of the free silver advocates, who
would be satisfied with no currency bill that did not
provide for the coinage of silver. The struggle to
harmonize the many conflicting views was long and
arduous. The sound money members kept steadily
before them the necessity of some legislation on the
FAIKBANKS 133
subject, the only question with them being what shape
the legislation should take. There were, also, seem
ingly irreconcilable differences between the two
houses of Congress. Senator Fairbanks watched the
course of the legislation and the discussion with great
interest. A bill was finally formulated that after
a long discussion passed the House and was sent to
the Senate. There it received many amendments,
and the struggle between the two houses was trans
ferred to the room of the Conference Committee.
It was not until the report of that committee was
made that Senator Fairbanks joined in the discus
sion.
He gave to the question a careful and exhaustive
study, and came to its discussion fully armed at all
points, with authorities and precedents. The speech
is an epitome of the history of financial legislation
in this country, and is valuable for reference to the
student of finance. He again emphasized his adhe
sion to the gold standard and his unalterable oppo
sition to the free coinage of silver. On any ques
tion that came up before the Senate there was never
any doubt as to where Senator Fairbanks stood. In
no speech that he ever delivered was there to be
found any equivocation or evasion. He always
stated his position plainly and clearly, that there
might be no doubt about it. So it was in this speech
on the financial bill.
"The pending measure," he said, "continues gold
134 FAIRBANKS
as the monetary unit or standard of value. It does
not attempt to establish a new standard of value with
which we are unfamiliar. It makes no new experi
ment which may lead to surprises and uncertainties,
to the embarrassment of commerce and the conse
quent injury of the interests of labor and capital.
It is a reassurance to them that no change is to occur
in our monetary system which will place them in
immediate or serious peril. Upon this renewed
pledge they may go forward, planning, building and
expanding for the future. It allays apprehensions;
dispels fears. It becomes the secure foundation of
an expanding commerce of a larger commercial
growth."
It was not the custom of the Senator, while dis
cussing a question pending before the Senate, to in
dulge in political bickerings or to contrast the atti
tude of the political parties on the question, but in
this speech he drew this sharp contrast between the
policy advocated by the Republicans and that of their
opponents :
"The issue between the two parties is sharply de
fined. The one adheres to the gold standard and
the consequent use of a large but limited volume of
silver and paper currency, its full equivalent in
effecting the exchanges of the people, while the other
is for the maintenance of the single silver standard,
with gold expelled from the channels of trade. It
is true this is not its professed policy, yet it would
be the inevitable result if its policy were adopted,"
FAIRBANKS 135
In another place he defended the Republican party
from a charge of inconsistency made against it by
Senator Teller, saying:
"It is of little profit to pause and consider whether
there has been any variation in political platforms.
The pregnant fact is not whether a party was right
or wrong in the past, but whether it is right now.
The Senator will search in vain for any equivocation
in the utterances or the purposes of the Republican
party at any time with respect to the preservation
of the absolute equality of all forms of currency.
It always has been opposed to a degraded dollar, and
at the earliest moment possible after the war brought
every dollar of our money to a plane of absolute
equality. It evolved order out of financial chaos in
1879 and has stood immovable for the preservation
of the parity with each other of our dollars gold,
paper and silver."
The Senator once said that he believed platforms
were made to be lived up to, and that all promises
should be religiously fulfilled. To him the platform
of his party meant something more than idle words
with which to catch votes. On all proper occasions
he urged the prompt keeping of all promises made
to the people. Therefore he was one of those who
rejoiced at the prospect of the passage of the financial
bill. To him it meant something in addition to
maintaining the gold standard it was one more
promise kept,
CHAPTER IX,
THE CONSTITUTION AND THE FLAG.
war with Spain placed new burdens on the
Congress and the Executive. We had taken
over Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands from
Spain, and a system of government was to be formu
lated for them. This was an exceedingly delicate
task on many accounts, principally because the whole
system of laws under which those islands had been
governed for centuries was totally different from that
which prevailed in the United States. In addition to
this was the fact that the people spoke another lan
guage, and a vast majority of them were illiterate,
and having grown up under tyranny and oppression,
they were turbulent and intractable.
A very grave and perplexing question at once
arose "Does the Constitution follow the flag?" Pos
sibly a very large majority of the American people
held that the flag took with it the Constitution and all
our institutions ; that having taken possession and as
sumed jurisdiction over Porto Rico and the Philip
pines they at once became integral parts of the United
States, and their citizens became citizens with us,
-136-
FAIKBANKS 137
with all the rights of American citizens. In our gov
ernment, they said, we know no such things as "sub
jects/ 7 and many held that the people of our new
possessions must be either citizens or subjects.
Theretofore, whenever our flag had been raised over
a new possession, at the same moment the Constitu
tion had spread its broad aegis over the people; but
here there were complications that had existed in
none of the countries that had been annexed hereto
fore." It was indeed a delicate problem one much
harder than the one presented at the close of the war
between the States, when the status of the negro had
to be defined. It is not surprising that statesmen
divided on the question when courts, the expounders
of the Constitution, divided.
A temporary solution was found so far as the in
ternal government was concerned by putting the
islands under military control for the time, but even
then difficulties were in the way. If the islands were
an integral part of the country, then the laws of Con
gress prevailed, and among those laws was one levy
ing impost duties. One day Porto Kico was a foreign
country, and its products were liable to the customs
duties if brought into this country; the next day,
when it passed under our jurisdiction, was it entitled
to have its products admitted free of customs duties ?
There "was another question that looked for awhile as
if it would be hard to solve. In the Philippines the
138 FAIRBANKS
church and the state had been practically one. Such
a condition could not remain under American rule.
Another question to be solved was how the ex
penses of the insular governments were to be paid.
This was one of the first that arose in Congress. It
was proposed to retain our tariff law as to Porto Rico,
but so far favor the products of the island as to admit
them on payment of a very small per cent, of the
duties levied on the same articles from other coun
tries. This proposition raised a storm of protest all
over the country. In Indiana the people were prac
tically united in holding that the Constitution fol
lowed the flag, and that Porto Rico, consequently,
was under the protection of that instrument and no
customs duties could be levied against its products.
Senator Fairbanks was fairly deluged with letters
and protests against the proposed law, and he was
urged to take a stand in opposition to it. Almost
every friend he had in the State counseled him so to
do.
Senator Fairbanks had studied the question for
himself, and had reached the conclusion that the Con
stitution did not of itself follow the flag, and that in
the case of our new insular possessions it would not
be safe at this time to extend it over them ; that the
Constitution not automatically extending itself, Con
gress had the power to require customs duties from
its products imported into the States, and that it was
very proper and right so to do, to provide for the
FAIRBANKS 139
necessary expenses of maintaining a government over
them. He addressed the Senate in an elaborate
speech setting forth the reasons that impelled him to
take that position, and in advocating the passage of
the pending measure he said:
"Whether the Constitution extends automatically
to a territory acquired has been a much debated ques
tion. Divergent views have been and still are sharply
entertained upon the subject. Such difference of
opinion will continue until the Supreme Court, in the
serenity of yonder judicial chamber, shall, in a case
raising squarely the issue, determine the question.
Its supreme judgment will be accepted by the country,
for in its wisdom and in the integrity of its purpose
there exists no doubt. Until it shall determine and
define the powers of Congress under the Constitution
the Congress should reserve to itself the widest pos
sible liberty, the amplest discretion in dealing with
the problems and conditions which are now facing us
and which were not within the contemplation of the
wise framers of the Constitution.
a Our Constitution, for which the American people
have a respect and veneration next only to their re
spect and veneration for Holy Writ, was framed for
the government of a people who had in them the seed
of self-government which had germinated and grow r n
for centuries, a people who were familiar with the
privileges conferred and the duties imposed by the
Constitution, and who knew how to exercise and ob-
140 FAIEBANKS
serve them. It was framed for a people whose wants
and capacities were distinctly known and understood.
"In its essential principles, in its most exalted pur
pose, the Constitution can be adapted to many peoples
and many countries that are without preliminary
training or experience ; but as to others it would be
illy adapted, and some modification as to details
would become necessary, if it were to be applied to
them. The spirit of that immortal instrument may
go everywhere, but many of its fixed and absolute
provisions would rest imperfectly upon those peoples
and races whose traditions and conditions are entirely
unlike our own."
Senator Fairbanks fully appreciated the impor
tance and gravity of the question, and in earnest
words appealed for deliberate action. He said:
"The greatest danger in dealing with the new prob
lems which engage our attention is undue haste, un-
considerate action. There will be no difficulty in
solving them if we will be content to act only upon
ample information and be willing to retrace our steps
if we go wrong. There is no mind so gifted as to
be able to see the end from the beginning. We must
obtain the best lights possible and follow them in the
settlement of the questions before us, actuated always
by the exalted purpose to deal justly and liberally
with those who, through one of the great revolutions
in history may I not say evolutions are committed
to our care.
FAIRBANKS 141
a We should remember that free government did
not spring, Athena like, into existence, but is the fruit
of centuries of trial and tribulation, and that educa
tion and experience are essential before any people
can appreciate and exercise that government which
we enjoy and which we believe is the best that human
wisdom has devised."
Having exhaustively discussed the powers of Con
gress, the conditions of the people of Porto Rico,
and the political soundness of the position he had
taken, the Senator concluded his remarks with the
following words in giving his adhesion to the pending
bill:
"We should approach and consider the subject be
fore us in no illiberal or dogmatic spirit. No matter
what shades of opinion with respect to the best course
to be pursued and the wisest measures to be adopted
with reference to Porto Rico, there is perfect unity
of purpose among all parties to provide the most lib
eral form of government and just laws under which
her welfare may be promoted in the very highest de
gree. The pending bill commands my judgment, my
conscience ; it shall have my vote. It has not been
given to finite mind to read the future of Porto Rico,
but we may believe that under the inspiration of
republican laws and the impetus of American ex
ample her people will grow in knowledge, strength
and power, and forever bless the great Republic."
CHAPTER X.
THE JOINT HIGH COMMISSION.
\T7HEN Mr. McKinley entered upon the dis-
* * charge of his duties as President several very
grave and important questions were pending with
Canada, among them being the boundary of Alaska.
The United States had purchased all the rights of
Russia over the Alaskan territory, and until the dis
covery of rich gold fields in that country there was lit
tle thought or care as to where the actual boundary
lines were. The discovery of gold, however, at once
made these lines a serious question, especially as Can
ada laid claim to much more territory than the
United States was willing to accord. The dispute
waxed warm between the two countries, but at no
time seriously threatened to involve us with our
neighbor.
In May, 1896, a protocol was signed between the
United States and Great Britain for the appointment
of a Joint High Commission for the adjustment of
the Canadian questions. The commission was to be
composed of ten commissioners, five of whom were to
be appointed by each government. Later the com-
-142-
FAIRBANKS 148
mission was increased to twelve members, six from
each country.
There were several questions to be submitted for
the consideration and determination. of the commis
sion. Many of them were of long standing and of
great importance, and it was desired by the two coun
tries to have them considered by the commission and
finally put to rest. They had been the source of more
or less friction between the two great powers for
many years, and the two governments anxiously de
sired to have them adjusted in order that good neigh
borhood between them might not be disturbed. The
principal subjects submitted were as follows:
First. The questions in respect to the fur seals
in Bering Sea and the waters of the North Pacific
Ocean.
Second. Provisions in respect to the fisheries off
the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, and in the waters of
their common frontier.
Third. Provisions for the delimitation and estab
lishment of the Alaska-Canadian boundary, by legal
and scientific experts, if the commission shall so de
cide, or otherwise. .
Fourth. Provisions for the transit of merchandise
in transportation to or from either country, across
intermediate territory of the other, whether by land
or water, including natural and artificial waterways
and intermediate transit by sea.
Fifth. Provisions relating to the transit of mer-
(10)
144 FAIRBANKS
chandise from one country to be delivered at points
in the other beyond the frontier.
Sixth. The question of the alien labor laws appli
cable to the subjects or citizens of the United States
and of Canada.
Seventh. Mining rights of the citizens or subjects
of each country within the territory of the other.
Eighth. Such readjustment and concessions as
may be deemed mutually advantageous of customs
duties applicable in each country to the products of
the soil or industry of the other, upon the basis of
reciprocal equivalents.
JSTinth. A revision of the agreement of 1817 re
specting naval vessels on the lakes.
Tenth. Arrangements for the more complete def
inition and marking of any part of the frontier line,
by land or water, where the same is now so ineffi
ciently defined or marked as to be liable to dispute.
Eleventh. Provisions for the conveyance for trial
or punishment of persons in the lawful custody of the
officers of one country through the territory of the
other.
Twelfth. Reciprocity in wrecking and salvage
rights.
President McKinley appointed as Commissioners
of the United States :
Charles W. Fairbanks, United States Senator
from Indiana ;
George Gray, United States Senator from Dela
ware:
FAIKBANKS 145
Nelson Dingley, Member of Congress from
Maine ;
John W. Foster, of Indiana, ex-Secretary of
State;
John A. Kasson, of Iowa, ex-Minister to Spain ;
T. Jefferson Coolidge, of Massachusetts, ex-
Minister to France.
Senator Fairbanks was made Chairman of the
American Commissioners.
Great Britain appointed:
Lord Herschel, Lord Chancellor of Great
Britain :
Sir Wilfred Laurier, Premier of Canada ;
Sir Richard J. Cartwright, Minister of Finance
of Canada;
Sir Louis Davies, Minister of Marines and Fish
eries of Canada ;
John Carlton, Member of the Canadian Parlia
ment;
Sir James Winter, Premier of Newfoundland.
The commission met at Quebec in August, 1898,
and addressed itself to the consideration of the sub
jects embraced in the protocol. After being in ses
sion some weeks it adjourned to meet in Washington.
It assembled in the latter place in December, 1898.
There it labored for several months in an effort to
compose the differences between the two powers.
The commission practically determined many of the
questions submitted, but the differences which arose
146 FAIRBANKS
with respect to the Alaskan boundary made a recess
necessary, without the final adjustment of any of the
questions pending before it.
The American Commissioners urged the settle
ment of those questions which were substantially
agreed upon, leaving the boundary question for the
determination of the two governments ; but the Brit
ish Commissioners declined to proceed with the fur
ther consideration of the remaining questions while
the boundary question was undetermined.
The Joint High Commission issued a statement
showing the status of the negotiations and that an
agreement had been reached practically on many of
the questions, but that on the Alaskan boundary no
agreement was possible; that the British Commis
sioners favored a submission of that question to arbi
tration, but the American Commissioners would not
agree to submit to a foreign arbitrator the question as
to the coast line boundary.
After the adjournment of the Washington meet
ing of the commission without reaching any definite
results, Senator Fairbanks, at the instance of Presi
dent McKinley, visited Alaska to obtain what light
he could on the question in dispute. He visited all
the waterways and studied the topography of the
country. He also made extensive inquiries of the res
idents as to what jurisdiction, if any, had been exer
cised by Great Britain over any portion of the dis
puted territory.
FAIKBANKS 147
On August 18, 1901, Senator Fairbanks reviewed
the work of the Commission and suggested its reas
sembling, to resume the consideration of the subjects
that admitted of ready solution. Respecting the
boundary dispute he said:
"We can not submit to a foreign arbitrator the
determination of the Alaska coast line, under the
treaty between the United States and Russia of 1SG7.
That line was established by the convention of 1825
between Great Britain and Russia. The coast line
was carefully safeguarded by Russia, and the United
States has invariably insisted that it should not be
broken. Its integrity w r as never questioned by Great
Britain until after the protocol of May, 1898.
"In short, the views of the British government in
regard to the bearing of the treaty of 1825 upon the
territorial rights around the upper part of the Lynn
Canal/ which are now entertained by that govern
ment, were not brought to the attention of the United
States until May, 1898.
"The boundary back of the coast line is not well-
defined, and should be established, and with as much
dispatch as is reasonably possible. We do not dis
agree as to this. We have been disposed to be liberal
with respect to providing for its suitable delimitation,
but as to that territory so long possessed by the
United States upon the Pacific coast and occupied by
it without challenge from any other power, we find
no subject whatever for the consideration of an arbi-
148 FAIKBANKS
tral tribunal. We are unwilling, through an Euro
pean arbitrator, to put in peril our Pacific coast line,
which was maintained unbroken by Russia and the
United States, and remained unquestioned for nearly
seventy-five years.
"Our negotiations have been characterized by a
spirit of mutual respect and good will, and by a de
sire of the respective commissioners to promote good
neighborhood between the two governments, which
must ever sustain toward each other the most inti
mate commercial and social relations.
"The American Commissioners always have de
sired, and desire still, to determine and remove from
dispute as many controverted questions as possible,
in order that the good relations of the two govern
ments may still continue unbroken. They are in no
wise interdependent, and the settlement of any num
ber of them will not, as we believe, prejudice the ulti
mate disposition of the boundary question. But, as
much as we desire to conclude the questions which we
have practically determined, we can not consent to
settle them upon the condition that we must abandon
to the chance of an European arbitrator a part of the
domain of the United States upon which American
citizens have actually built their homes and erected
their industries long prior to any suggestion from
Great Britain that she had any claim of right thereto.
We are not to be understood, from the foregoing, as
opposing a board of jurists of repute, or scientific ex-
FAIEBANKS 149
perts, selected equally by our respective govern
ments, to determine and demark the boundary back
of or east of the coast line on the main land.
"Inasmuch as the Alaska boundary is a subject
which stands by itself, and is, by the action of the
commission, remitted to the two governments, may
we not leave it with them, and proceed to further con
sider and dispose of the remaining questions at some
date mutually convenient 2 They, or the most of
them, are so advanced that they can be concluded at
a brief sitting.
"I shall be gratified to be assured that this is quite
agreeable to you.
"The views herein expressed, I am pleased to say,
have the sanction of the President and of the Secre
tary of State."
In 1902 the United States and Great Britain
agreed upon a Boundary Tribunal composed of six
jurists of repute, three of whom were appointed by
each government. This was the tribunal proposed by
the American members of the Joint High Commis
sion, but which was then rejected by the British Com
mission.
The members of the Boundary Commission ap
pointed by the United States were:
The Honorable Elihu Root, Secretary of War;
Henry Cabot Lodge, United States Senator from
Massachusetts; and George Turner, United States
Senator from Washington,
150 FAIEBANKS
The commission was organized and sat in London,
and after elaborate hearings four members of the
commission (the Lord Chief Justice of England join
ing with the three American Commissioners) held
that the construction of the treaty under which the
United States acquired Alaska was substantially as
claimed by the United States, thus justifying the posi
tion maintained by the United States Commissioners
before the Joint High Commission.
Of the work of the Joint High Commission and
the ability displayed by Senator Fairbanks, Hon.
John W. Foster, ex-Secretary of State, and one of the
American Commissioners, in a recent communication
thus speaks :
"During the administration of President McKin-
ley it was deemed desirable to make an earnest effort
to adjust the various questions between the United
States and Canada, some of which had been the
source of controversy between the two neighboring
countries for generations, and all of which tended
to disturb the harmony of their relations.
"Among these were the Northeastern fisheries,
which had been the fruitful source of discussion and
negotiations for a hundred years; the Bering Sea
seal industry, which had at one time threatened war
with Great Britain and had been the subject of in
ternational arbitration, but was still a ^vexed and un
settled question; the Alaskan boundary dispute, a
topic likely at any time to bring about a conflict of
FAIKBANKS 151
authorities; commercial reciprocity, a subject in
which the Canadians and certain sections of the
United States took a deep interest ; the bonding priv
ilege, intimately connected with our interstate com
merce laws and the unequal competition of the Cana
dian railroads ; and several other questions, as naval
armament on the Great Lakes, reciprocal mining
privileges, immigration and the labor laws, more ac
curate marking of the international boundary, etc.,
embracing no less than twelve different subjects.
"It was determined to refer all these matters to a
Joint High Commission, and six persons were se
lected by the United States and an equal number
by Great Britain. For members of this commission
it was the desire of President McKinley to name
statesmen of large experience and the highest stand
ing, as it was known that the British members would
be men of prominence and ability. It was a most
distinguished honor that Senator Fairbanks should
be chosen as chairman of the American Commission,
especially as there were associated with him men of
much longer experience in the public service. The
British Commission was headed by Lord Ilerschel,
the Lord Chancellor and the recognized head of the
English bar, and next on the Commission was Sir
Wilfred Laurier, the Prime Minister of Canada, a
resourceful and brilliant statesman.
"During the years 1898 and 1899 the Joint High
Commission held two sessions in Quebec and two in
152 FAIKBANKS
Washington, and went very fully over the important
subjects committed to it for adjustment. On several
of these it reached practically satisfactory conclu
sions, which would have taken the shape of treaty
stipulations, but for an irreconcilable difference of
opinion respecting the Alaskan boundary. Because
of a failure to agree to an adjustment of this matter,
the British members of the Commission refused to
come to an agreement on any other of the questions
before it, and the Commission adjourned to meet
again whenever convened by the chairmen of the two
sections.
"The Alaskan boundary controversy has happily
been satisfactorily settled by the London Joint Tri
bunal, and this result, so gratifying to the United
States, was largely due to the work of the Joint High
Commission. Senator Fairbanks was a member of
the sub-committee having the Alaskan boundary in
charge, and he took a deep interest in shaping the
issues which were eventually submitted to the London
Tribunal.
"The other questions before the Commission still
remain unsettled, because, owing to the irritation in
Canada over the Alaskan boundary decision, the
Commission has not as yet been reassembled; but
the work already accomplished has not been in vain.
If that body does not again come together, its work
is in the hands of the two governments, and it is
quite feasible for them to take up and adjust several
FAIBBANKS 153
of the matters which were practically agreed upon
by the Commission.
"It is a matter of pride to Americans to be assured
that in all the deliberations of the Commission, when
he was confronted by the ablest lawyers and states
men of England and Canada, Senator Fairbanks sus
tained the cause of his country with skill and success,
and represented it with great dignity and uniform
courtesy."
CHAPTER XL
THE ASSASSINATION OF PRESIDENT McKINLEY.
T N 1900 President McKinley was nominated and
-*- elected to succeed himself. The intimacy and
friendship between the Senator and the President
continually increased, and so highly did the Presi
dent regard the abilities of his Indiana friend that
he gave him notice that it was his intention in the
near future to invite him into his Cabinet. On the
sixth day of September, 1901, a terrible blow fell
upon the American people, and for the third time
within a third of a century an American President
was stricken down by the hand of an assassin. This
great calamity touched all Americans. It was a blow
at law and order.
For six years Mr. Fairbanks had been on terms
of the closest intimacy with Mr. McKinley. The
President relied much on the judgment and sagacity
of the Senator; the Senator had an exalted estimate
of the ability and patriotism of the President. Un
der these circumstances the blow fell with peculiar
force on Senator Fairbanks. To the nation it was
the President who had been slain; to Senator Fair-
154-
FAIEBANKS 155
banks it was a loved friend. When the bullet of
the assassin had found its mark all thought the end
had come, but a few days later it was announced
that the stricken President would recover. Senator
Fairbanks had been at the bedside of his friend and
chief, but when this cheering word from the surgeons
was received he left Buffalo to fulfill an engagement
to address a Thanksgiving service of the Grand Army
of the Republic at Cleveland, Ohio, to be presided
over by Senator Ilanna. That great body of patri
otic men, who had served their country on the field
of battle in the hour of the country s direst need,
held a Thanksgiving service over the announcement
that the President was to yet live. Senator Fair
banks paid a glowing tribute to the character of the
President, and said:
"Fellow citizens, it is a source of gratification to
know that in the solution and settlement of the great
problems and great questions which are yet pending
before the American people, undetermined, we shall
have the wise statesmanship of William McKinley.
We not only want him, and wish him to live for
that, but we wish him to live as the American people
wished that Abraham Lincoln might live, until he
can see the full fruition of his administration, and
live many years to receive the grateful homage of
a grateful republic My friends, let
us retire to our homes with a profounder rev
erence for law and order; let us return to our
156 FAIRBANKS
homes and continue at the fireside our supplica
tion to the Allwise Ruler that He speed the hour
when the brave President of the United States will
leave his hed of pain and walk again among the
people he loves so well, in the full possession of his
health and his magnificent manhood."
Hardly had these words died away on the air when
the startling news came that the great President was
dead. The country was shrouded in grief, and all
the nations of the earth joined America in mourning
over the awful crime.
In October, 1901, he addressed a campfire of the
Sixty-ninth Indiana and paid a tribute to the mem
ory of the late President, and thus spoke of the
crime that took from the country its Chief Exec
utive :
"I speak only the truth when I say that when the
tragedy occurred at Buffalo Democrats and Republi
cans felt that a crime had been committed against
them each alike. It seems yet like a horrid night
mare. What had this man done to deserve such a
fate? One of the kindest, one of the bravest, and
one of the best The blow was not
struck alone at him; it was a blow struck at the
state. Anarchy ! What a hated word ! Anarchists
how at war with all our conceptions of right, of
orderly government ! Anarchists ! There is no room
in this Republic, great and splendid as it is, for
anarchy! The red flag must go down in the face
FAIRBANKS 157
of the Stars and Stripes! The anarchist is the
enemy of all governments, monarchial and republican
alike. There ought to be treaties between the various
governments in the civilized world leaving no spot
for anarchy to place its foot short of perdition itself."
President McKinley worshiped at the Metropoli
tan Methodist Church at Washington, and a few
months after his death a tablet to his memory was
placed in the church. On that occasion Senator Fair
banks was one of the speakers. His short speech was
a generous tribute to the worth of the martyred Pres
ident. Because of its correct estimate of the char
acter of Mr. McKinley, and because it evidences the
sincere feeling and affection of the Senator, it is
reproduced here : ,
"My friends, we are met to perform a most gra
cious service to dedicate here, in this house of God,
a tablet to one of the few names that was born to
never die. We stand upon ground made sacred by
the presence of William McKinley. Unto this shrine
the Christians will come in the unnumbered years
before us and derive new hope and inspiration. It
seems but yesterday that our friend occupied yonder
pew, brave, strong, in the very plenitude of power,
the most beloved of our fellow-men. We can yet
almost hear his voice as it was raised in song and
thanksgiving. Here he came upon the Sabbath day
to pay tribute to his Maker, for he was a sincere
believer in religion, a devout Christian and a doer
158 FAIRBANKS
of Christian deeds. He not only taught but carried
the great truths into every act and deed of his life.
"It was here he found solace from the great and
arduous responsibilities which rested upon him, and
drew courage and inspiration to meet and discharge
them. It does not seem that it was but a few, months
ago, less than one brief year, that our friend was
here. It is, indeed, but a short time, measured by
the calendar, but measured by events how long it
is. What mighty events have come and gone; how
the great heart of the nation has been wrung with
an uncommon sorrow. The tragedy at Buffalo was
the master crime of the new century. We could not
at first believe the awful truth it was so unnatural.
We stood bereft of speech. Who could be so dead
to all sense of pity as to strike down one who so
loved his fellow-men ? About us everywhere were
the ample evidences of peace. Sectional differences
were dead; a fraternal spirit was everywhere, and
under the guidance of our great President we were
moving on to a splendid national destiny.
"The theme which this occasion suggests is a great
one too vast for the brief hour in which we are
assembled. There is in all the world nothing so
great and beneficent as a good name. It raises our
poor humanity to a more exalted plane. It lifts us
into an ampler ether and diviner air. William Mc-
Kinley was, in the fullest and best sense of the word,
f of the people. He rose by the force of his genius
FAIRBANKS 159
from an humble beginning to stand among the great
est of men. He sought to interpret the public will,
knowing full well that the wisdom of the people is
unerring, that their voice is indeed the voice of
Almighty God. He inspired confidence among men
in the integrity of his purpose and in the wisdom
of his policies. He was a total stranger to arts by
which weaker men seek to attain place and power.
He did not attempt to rise upon men ; he preferred
to rise with them. His mind and heart were filled
with no shadow of hate ; the sunshine of love, affec
tion and human sympathy filled them to overflowing.
He was in the truest and best sense a patriot. He
gave the best years of his life he gave life itself
to his country In the National House
of Eepresentatives he won enduring fame by his in
telligent service and complete consecration to the in
terests of his fellow-men. His every act was char
acterized by a high conception of his exalted trust.
When summoned by the voice of his countrymen to
the chief office in the Republic he entered upon its
grave and difficult duties with a full consciousness
of the tremendous responsibility that rested upon
him. He reverently invoked wisdom from on high
that he might well discharge the task that had come
to him.
"When others sought to plunge the Nation into
war he stood against it with all his power. He
abhorred it, although knowing full well that victory
(11)
160 FAIRBANKS
must crown our arms if war should come, and that
the prestige of his name would fill the earth. He
thought not of that, but of the loss and suffering the
war must bring. And not until all pacific means
had been exhausted and the national honor com
manded did he consent that his country should draw
the sword. When obliged to strike he struck rapidly
and with terrific power, and upon the ruins of mon
archy he planted republican institutions.
"The multitude will come and look on yonder tab
let and in time it will crumble away. Monuments
will arise throughout the land and disappear. Can
vas will seek to perpetuate and be forgotten, but the
name of our friend will live. His enduring tribute
will be found in the hearts of the people so long as
this great Republic endures. .Long after we have
lived our brief hour and the physical monuments we
have raised have been resolved into the dust, the
pure, patriotic and holy influence of William Mc-
Kinley will continue to be an inspiration and bene
diction among men. 77
So well was the intimate friendship that existed
between the Senator and the President known that
on several occasions where a tribute was to be
paid to the memory of the President Mr. Fairbanks
was invited to deliver an address. The most notable
of these occasions was the unveiling of the McKinley
monument at Toledo, Ohio, on September 14, 1903.
On that occasion the Senator delivered an elaborate
FAIRBANKS 161
: ddress in which he reviewed the life and public
Cervices of Mr. McKinley. The soldier, the man,
the Representative in Congress, the Governor, the
President, all passed in review before the audience.
It was not alone the tribute of an eulogist, but the
tribute of one acute mind to the public services of
another. As a citizen Mr. Fairbanks had lost his
President; as a party man he had lost his political
chief ; as a friend he had lost a brother ; and in pay
ing his great tribute at Toledo to the dead he spoke
as a citizen and a friend, but not as a party man.
CHAPTER XII.
OTHER SERVICES IN THE SENATE.
of the perplexing problems that have been
before Congress the one that has given the
widest latitude to debate has been the future of the
Philippine Islands. They fell to us at the conclusion
of the war with Spain, and they have been a bone
of contention between the tw r o great parties ever
since. Against the holding of them by the United
States the cry of "imperialism" was raised. All
seemingly admitted that, having dispossessed Spain,
it was the duty of this Government to establish peace
and order a duty we owed to humanity, to other
nations, and to ourselves, but the people divided en
the question of w y hat was to be done with the islands
after peace and order was established. It was a
question on which there might well be a difference
of opinion among the good and the patriotic of this
country. How to govern the islands, how much lib
erty to give to the people, how far political liberty
should be restricted, engaged the earnest thought of
our statesmen.
As a mere question of territorial expansion, few,
182-
FAIRBANKS 163
possibly, could be found to advocate the taking and
holding possession of the archipelago, but other con
siderations moved the commissioners who negotiated,
on the part of the United States, the treaty of Paris.
In 1902 a bill to provide a temporary government
for the Philippines was pending before the Senate.
The committee that had the bill under consideration
divided and two reports were made. That of the
minority called for an immediate declaration of the
future purpose of the United States in regard to the
islands .
The debate was long and at times acrimonious.
Many charges were made against the administration
of the late President McKinley. He w T as accused
of having overthrown a republic; of having set up
a government without the consent of the governed,
and of having done many other things contrary to
the traditions of this country. The debate spread
from the Congress to the country, and the newspa
pers and political orators at home joined in the hue
and cry, some demanding an immediate withdrawal
from the 1 Philippines, and others, with equal vigor,
contending that we should continue to hold the
islands.
There were some members of Congress who did
not lose themselves or their calm deliberation in this
whirlwind of political debate, for that is what the
debate had degenerated to. Among these was Sen
ator Fairbanks. He did not take part in the debate
164 FAIKBANKS
until near its close, when he delivered a speech re
viewing the history of our possession of the islands,
the course pursued in their government up to that
time, and the improved condition of the people. It
was a calm, earnest and faithful presentation
of the facts, and contained many gems of thought
that have characterized in so marked a degree all of
his public speeches. Take a few of them:
"There has been considerable debate as to whether
the Constitution follows the flag. ~No matter how
diverse and conflicting our opinions may be on this
subject, there is one opinion which we all entertain,
and that is, that the American schoolhouse follows
the flag."
"I believe we shall find in the magic of the school
room a potential influence working for the advance
ment of civilization, good order and civil government
in the Philippines."
"It is a gratifying and reassuring fact, indeed, that
the people are so sensitive of the national honor, and
that they will not sanction any supposed breach of
it."
"The questions of human rights and human liberty
are the potential questions which have summoned
our mightiest armies and have assembled our fleets
and stirred our country to the utmost depths."
"It will indeed be a sad hour for the Republic
when the President shall love peace less than war."
"Opposition to the efforts of the Government to
FAIEBANKS 165
assert its lawful authority has never been regarded
with favor. We erect no monuments to commemo
rate the efforts, no matter how earnestly and hon
estly they may have been rendered, of those who put
themselves in the pathway of national duty and prog
ress."
"I base my opinion upon the broad ground that
all wisdom and all patriotism will not die with us,
and that those who will follow us and who will, in
all probability, be obliged to deal with these ques
tions, will be as enlightened and animated by as
exalted sense of justice, and be in every respect as
sensitive of the national honor as we."
"There need be no fear, no matter what political
party may be in power, for the time being, that there
will ever go upon the statute books of the United
States a solitary oppressive act, or any measure
which shall not be inspired by a sense of the funda
mental principles of republican government."
"Havana and Manila and Santiago and Buffalo
tell of the mighty cost of human liberty ; they chasten
us ; they show how narrow is the boundary set to our
finite vision, and how we should address ourselves
to the duties of the hour and courageously and hope
fully await the demands of the future; they show
that moral duties abide with nations as with men."
The whole speech showed the careful study and
well-balanced thought of a statesman, and led the
debate back from the morass of partyism to the COB-
1(56 FAIRBANKS
sideration of the pending measure. In the consid
eration of all grave subjects before the Senate he
sank the partisan and squared his actions by the rule,
"What is wisest, what is best ?" His whole senatorial
career will be searched in vain for a display of par
tisanship.
Another one of the great questions before Congress
in which Senator Fairbanks took a deep interest was
that of excluding Chinese immigrants. This had
been an important question for many years. It had
been the subject of treaty with the Chinese Empire,
and several laws have been enacted intending to limit
and control immigration from China. Before taking
part in the debate of any question Senator Fairbanks
always made as thorough a study of it as possible,
and he followed this rule when the Chinese question,
was pending. One of the first declarations he made
in his speech was : "The duty to preserve the purity
of the currents which vitally affect the standard of
our citizenship is plain and imperative," and it was
along that broad line he proceeded in his argument
favoring the passage of the pending bill. He dem
onstrated that he was thoroughly informed as to all
prior exclusion legislation and the terms of the exist
ing treaties, and of the effect of Chinese labor in this
country. Beside the details of legislation, and of
treaties the speech contained many thoughtful decla
rations. Among other things he said :
"We value our broad fields, our great cities. They
FAIEBANKS 167
stimulate our pride, but above and beyond all that,
as great and splendid as they are, we value our citi
zenship. It is, indeed, our chief glory. It means
more to us, more to our children and to their chil
dren, more to the future strength and majesty of the
Republic than all of the myriad material things
which surround us."
"A high order of citizenship is the chief end and
aim of the Republic. We establish schools and found
universities that they may elevate our people to a
higher and better and broader plane. We have a
care for the humblest among us. We want men and
women who are in love with our institutions, and
who will support and defend them, and transmit
them unimpaired to posterity."
"They [the Chinese] do not harmonize with us.
Upon their admission they become an undigested and
undigestible mass."
"In the final analysis, great issues which engage
our attention from time to time, in fact the destiny
of the Republic, are determined at the American
fireside. Abolish the American home and the days
of the Republic are numbered."
The seven years of service in the Senate of Mr.
Fairbanks have been laborious years. His labors
were not confined to preparing speeches on the im
portant questions that have arisen during his service,
but much the greater part has been given to work
in the committee-room. His habits of industry
168 FAIRBANKS
would not permit him to be idle, and his exalted
ideas of the duties he had assumed impelled him
to give his time and his labor to the work before
him. There is no record of the committee labor he
performed, but his colleagues all bear willing testi
mony to his untiring industry, and it was in the pre
cincts of the committee-room that he impressed his
colleagues with his really great abilities and his con
scientious regard for the interests of the people. To
any measure to which he could not give the conscien
tious approval of his judgment he would not listen
or advocate.
When the great disaster overwhelmed the unfor
tunate people of Martinique Senator Fairbanks
promptly introduced a bill appropriating $100,000
for the relief of the sufferers. The bill was speedily
passed. For this prompt expression of sympathy
Ambassador Cambon sent the Senator the following
note of appreciation:
"Ambassade de France aux Etats-Unis,
"Washington, D. C.
"My Dear Senator It was very thoughtful and
generous of you to introduce and press for passage
through the Senate the bill for the relief of the
needy survivors of the Island of Martinique. I de
sire to thank you in my own name and those of the
people whose distress you sought to alleviate, and
to say that your action, which promises to be of
incalculable benefit to the sufferers, will remain al-
FAIRBANKS 169
ways a subject of tender appreciation by the citizens
of the French Republic. Very sincerely yours,
"JULES CAMBON.
"May 10, 1902."
The Republican party had pledged itself to the
speedy construction of an isthmian canal. A bill
was introduced in Congress providing for the con
struction of the canal. When it reached the Sen
ate Mr. Fairbanks, desiring to insure the speedy
beginning of the work and the rapid pushing of it
to completion, offered an amendment to the bill pro
viding for the sale of bonds with which to pay the
cost of construction. This not only provided the
money necessary, but put it beyond the power to
delay the work for want of an appropriation at any
time, and it also put a part of the burden of con
struction on the next generation that is to receive
the greatest benefit.
For years there has been a growing sentiment in
favor of settling all differences between nations by
international arbitration. To advance this move
ment a great meeting was called by some of the
leading citizens of this country to be held at Wash
ington. The matter was presented to the United
States Senate, and was referred to the Committee
on Foreign Relations. There it was referred to a
subcommittee consisting of Senators Frye, of Maine,
Fairbanks, of Indiana, and Senator Morgan, of Ala
bama, In an interview, published in the ^ew York
170 FAIRBANKS
Herald, Senator Fairbanks gave this expression of
his views :
"There is a wholesome and increasing desire for
some method of adjusting differences between na
tions in some other manner than by an appeal to
the sword. A resort to force to settle international
disputes would seem to be unnecessary, yet that has
been a too frequent means of adjustment for many
centuries. There has been no hour scarcely in all
the history of human experience when there might
not be heard in some quarter the harsh notes of war
between nations seeking to compose their differences.
"We are wont to think that we live in the most
advanced period of human development, an age when
men are wiser and more just than they have been.
Yet the flames of war light up the Far East. How
much blood will be shed or how much money wasted
to settle the questions which diplomacy has failed
to settle no finite wisdom can determine.
"The question recurs as often as we witness the
devastating effects of international strife. Can not
the wit of man devise some agency whereby to avert
it in whole or in good part ? Can not men reason
and solve grave questions in the deliberative cham
ber as well as upon the battlefield? Can not men
successfully discuss questions of international signifi
cance in the serene tribunals of peace as well as upon
the decks of men-of-war, with the air filled with the
missiles of death and destruction ?
FAIRBANKS 171
"The arbitral tribunal affords a ready, fair and
honorable way of determining most of the disputes
which arise between nations. It will not be effica
cious in all cases, but that it is capable of settling
many and serious problems there can be no possible
doubt. This agency may be invoked without the
loss of national dignity or national self-respect in
adjusting a vast range of international differences.
"Territorial disputes may in exceptional cases be
readily and properly arbitrated. In comparatively
recent years the Venezuelan boundary was settled by
arbitration and in a manner entirely consistent with
the honor of the parties concerned. The Alaskan
boundary was settled by a tribunal created . by the
United States and Great Britain. It was not an ar
bitral tribunal, but a commission composed of six
jurists, divided equally. There was no independent
arbitrator, yet a decision was reached in a friendly
way and a cause of serious difference was forever
settled.
"The Hague tribunal is a great and important
step forward one of the most significant in recent
years. It is in- its experimental stages, yet it has
already accomplished enough to justify its creation.
"The strongest nations can well lead the way in
promoting the principle of international arbitration.
Their motives will not be questioned and their exam
ple will have a far-reaching and beneficent influence.
The principle is essentially sound. It should re-
172 FAIRBANKS
ceive, as it is receiving, the utmost consideration
at the hands of the statesman and student of public
questions, to the end that it may become an acknowl
edged, permanent international policy. It makes for
peace; it will become an effective agency to avert
war.
"The move recently made in the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations looking to some plan of inter
national arbitration to go a bit beyond The Hague
conference is the most important step of this char
acter ever taken in this country. After waiting two
years the Senate Committee has at last reported fa
vorably the treaty for the arbitration of pecuniary
claims among the countries of the Western Hemi
sphere. This also is an important step in the right
direction, and will receive the support of public
opinion. Indeed, public opinion in this country, I
think, has stimulated the Senate to action, and while
it may take time to develop a practical scheme of
international arbitration to which all countries will
agree, a beginning has been made, and it is emi
nently proper that this country should take the ini
tiative."
CHAPTER XIII.
MISCELLANEOUS SPEECHES.
OENATOK FAIRBANKS has been a very popu-
^ lar orator for almost all kinds of occasions. On
the stump, addressing the people on the political is
sues of the day, few draw larger or more attentive
and appreciative audiences. As has already been
shown, in the Senate he always commanded the re
spectful and earnest attention of his colleagues, never
speaking to the galleries. As a speaker he is espe
cially popular at political and social clubs, and the
invitations that come to him from such sources are
many times in excess of the hours he can give to
such work. He has delivered several literary ad
dresses and spoken to graduating classes at colleges.
The most notable of these was his address at Baker
University, Kansas, in 1901. It was an eloquent
presentation of the duties and possibilities that lay
before the students who were about to leave the col
lege and enter on the broader sphere of life. The
following passages are samples of the whole :
"Commencement Day has no fellow. There is no
other day in all the year like unto it. It is full of
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174 FAIRBANKS
sweetness and life, of pleasant reminiscence and of
happy expectation. It is essentially the day of youth,
of splendid young womanhood and noble young man
hood. Our elders live over the blessed days which
have faded into the past, and are themselves young
again. It is not the day of the pessimist, but is the
hour of the optimist. It is the time when the virtues
which dignify and glorify humanity amplest fruitage
bear, and when we behold the splendor of our institu
tions, not with the eye of a mere political partisan,
nor with the vision of a sordid materialist."
"Your scholastic course crowned the old century
with its tremendous achievements. In all the cen
turies that are passed not one was filled with such
mighty and significant events in the onward march of
humanity. ~No such tremendous advance was before
made in knowledge, in the arts. Science seems to
have revealed the most hidden and important secrets
of nature. She has scanned the heavens and fath
omed the seas. She has asserted dominion over the
enemies of man and made them his obedient servants.
Fire and water and electricity have been made to do
his bidding in countless ways. Time and space have
been reduced in international communication and the
world made relatively smaller ; in fact, it has been re
duced to a vast neighborhood. The zone of human
liberty has been extended until about the greater por
tion of the globe man recognizes no master except
Almighty God. The beams of civilization and right-
FAIRBANKS 175
eousness are cast afar/ 1 and where they penetrate
slavery and serfdom vanish as vice before virtue."
"You will meet with both encouragement and dis
couragement. The way may sometimes look dark
and the future unpromising, but with stout heart, up
right purpose and complete consecration to your
work you can and should win success. Walk erect ;
be self-reliant. In the final analysis your victories
must be won through your own strong right arm.
The way to place and power is open to all alike. Your
future is to bo determined not by the accident of
birth, not by what your ancestors were, but by what
you arc, by what you shall yourselves accomplish.
Stand fast for the maintenance of civil and religious
liberty, for the preservation of these two great funda
mental doctrines for which our forefathers contended
with titanic power."
"Promote civic righteousness; do not avoid the
caucus, fearing it will contaminate you, but attend it
to the end that it may not contaminate the State. In
the ballot-box our liberties are compounded. See to
it that it gives true expression of the public will. Pre
serve it from pollution ; protect it and defend it as
you would preserve the Ark of the Covenant, for it
has been purchased by the priceless blood of count
less heroes upon the battlefields of the Republic."
"The greater knowledge the student bears hence,
the heavier his civic obligations. The splendid na
tional fabric, the like of which you have not thus far
176 FAIRBANKS
discovered in your historic research, is the fruit of the
wisdom and patriotism of your fathers, and it must
not be given over to those who comprehend not its
full and splendid significance."
"What is the measure of success in life ? We re
gard that life the most successful which has done most
under its particular environment for the welfare and
happiness of others. The person who is wholly self-
centered is neither fit to live nor to die, and dying
would, perhaps, better become him. The man who
gathers and hoards his money merely that he may
feast his covetous eyes upon it is of no earthly use
to man or beast. The student who does not yield the
rich treasure of his mind for the benefit of others is
of little more worth to mankind than gold which lies
forever buried in the lowest depths of earth, beyond
the reach of man."
"We erect monuments to men because they have
done something in behalf of other men ; because they
have rendered service to others. We invoke canvas
and marble and granite and bronze to commemorate
their unselfish deeds. We pay no tribute to others."
"The immortals are those who live beyond this
brief hour, in things accomplished ; accomplished for
others, and not alone for self. Neither greed nor
vanity has fellowship with immortality."
"Carry into every act a conscience. Win, i you
may, the approval of your f ellowmen, but above and
beyond all, win the approval of your own conscience.
FAIRBANKS 177
Royalty can confer no decoration which will yield
such enduring joy as the approval of one s own con
science. Neither place nor power nor the world s ap
plause can bring the measure of satisfaction, the in
expressible ecstacy, which comes from the approval
of that imperious censor, our own conscience. With
its approval we can dare all, suffer all, do all."
One of the happiest of the miscellaneous addresses
of Senator Fairbanks is the one he delivered at the
German Day celebration in Indianapolis in 1899. It
was a great occasion for the Senator, for it gave him
the opportunity to teach patriotism and love of coun
try, lie is never so happy as when inculcating good
citizenship. A large part of the citizenship of Indi
ana is made up of persons of foreign birth or foreign
parentage, and much of the greatness and prosperity
of the commonwealth is due to that class of her popu
lation. It was a great audience that gathered on the
3d of September, 1899, to hear the Senator.
"This is indeed a fit occasion," he said, "upon
which to acknowledge the supremacy of American
institutions and proclaim anew our undying pride
and glory in American citizenship. Great and
splendid it is to be a German citizen, but greater and
still more splendid it is to be an American citizen.
No matter whether you are from Germany or from
Ireland or from England or from France; no matter
from what country you may come, your proudest
boast is that you are an American citizen, and that
178 FAIEBANKS
you are enamored of the institutions of the great
Republic."
"America! The sublimest word in the human
tongue ! What limitless opportunities are here. The
way to place and power is alike open to the lowest
and highest; to native and foreign-born alike."
"The Germans are found in every avenue of use
fulness, doing their full duty as loyal American citi
zens. They have taken a conspicuous place at the
bar ; they preside in our courts of justice ; they partic
ipate in politics; they have contributed some of the
foremost statesmen in the history of the Government ;
they fill chairs in our great universities ; they occupy
the pulpit; they have increased the power of the
press ; they have added to our literature ; they have
helped to fell the forest and reclaim the waste places ;
they have been upon the frontier line of civilization,
and, in brief, they are found in every branch of in
tellectual and commercial activity. Whenever the
call to arms has come, they have marched down to
the battlefields of the Republic and shown the world
how patriots can do and die."
"I have no sort of sympathy with those who, for
some occult reason are attempting to foment discord
between the United States and the German Empire.
There is no reason why these two great nations should
not continue to exist upon terms of amity. We should
cultivate friendly relations not only with Germany,
but w r ith all the other great powers of the earth. We
FAIRBANKS 179
can never forget at least we never should forget
that Frederick the Great was the first to recognize the
birth of the Republic out of the throes of the Revolu
tion ; and that during the great civil war we had little
to encourage us among many of the European
powers, but Germany never ceased to manifest her
belief in the eternal justice and her faith in the ulti
mate triumph of our cause."
"The Germans are usually found on the side of
good government. They carry into the service of the
State the same wholesome, practical ideas of economy
and loyalty to trust which they practice in their do
mestic affairs. They hold public officials to a high
accountability, and this is well. Official place is a
trust of the highest moment, and should be executed
not for the exploitation of personal selfish ends, or
for personal aggrandizement, but for the advance
ment and promotion of the interests of the entire
body politic, and for the glory of the State. Breach
of public trust should rank among the unpardonable
sins. An official who will win the public confidence
and basely betray it is unworthy to enjoy the price
less boon of American citizenship, and should be
whipped out of place and power."
One of the strong traits of Senator Fairbanks
character is his unselfish and clear estimate of others
who are or have been prominent in the Government.
He possesses a power of selecting the strong points
in the character of others, whether they are political
180 FAIRBANKS
friends or enemies. The late Senator Morton, the
great war Governor of Indiana, died when Mr. Fair
banks had been a resident of Indianapolis less than
three years. In March, 1900, the State presented to 1
Congress a statne of the great Senator and Governor,
to occupy a place in Statuary Hall. Senator Fair
banks, as senior Senator, delivered an address, in
which he drew a picture of Mr. Morton that was a
just and true estimate of his character and abilities.
He said:
"Oliver Perry Morton was one of the commanding
figures of the United States during the most heroic
period of her history. He impressed himself upon
his State and the Nation by the force of his command
ing genius, and the history of neither State nor Na
tion would be complete without the story of his life
and work."
"The records of the Senate bear the amplest testi
mony to the extent and merit of his work. He was
neither a trimmer nor a time-server, and neither
avoided nor evaded issues. No matter what the issue,
he met it courageously, fearlessly. During his serv
ice in the Senate he participated in all the most im
portant debates which engaged its attention. He was
an aggressive and zealous advocate of the policy of
reconstruction."
"He was a total stranger in the arts of the dema
gogue. He was too great to descend to intrigue or
to desire success otherwise than through the merit
FAIRBANKS 181
and force of his cause. He was frequently the object
of the envy and the intrigue of men ; but all efforts
to strike him down were futile, and his character was
rendered the more luminous by the harmless attempts
to destroy it. No dishonorable act detracts from his
fame. His hands were clean, his integrity incorrupt
ible. He was a bold - but chivalrous political an
tagonist, for his sense of honor was acute."
CHAPTER XIV.
Mil. FAIRBANKS AND ORGANIZED LABOR.
O EXATOK FAIRBANKS is and always has been
^ a friend of labor and an advocate of their just
rights. lie was born to a life of toil. At a very
early age he did almost a man s work on the farm
of his father. It has been said that "all work and
no play makes Jack a dull boy." Whether that is
sometimes true or not, it came very near being all
work with Mr. Fairbanks in his boyhood days.
While attending college he worked with his hands
to aid in obtaining the means with which to pay his
weekly bills. He knows by hard experience what it
is to toil, and from the very first his heart and his
feelings have ever gone out to those who are com
pelled to work for their daily bread.
In his boyhood days the labor question did not
attract much attention, but as he grew older and
the question became one of more vital importance
he was always found advocating the cause of the
workingman. In the Senate he w r as the representa
tive and champion of the Cigarmakers Union, and
in a number of his speeches on questions before the
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FAIKBANKS 183
Senate he spoke in the warmest terms to advance the
cause of labor. He was Chairman of the Senate
Committee on Immigration, and as such chairman
reported a bill very largely restricting the admission
of immigrants. He supported the bill because it
was in the interest of labor. In fact, this was one
of the inducements for the introduction of the bill.
In speaking of the effects of the admission of pauper
labor from Europe, he gave utterance to a sentence
that is a keynote to his character. He said: "A
low wage scale is not consistent with the most whole
some development of the country and its people."
He said the bill "connects itself intimately and in
separably with the labor question."
In a speech he delivered at Pittsburg he said :
"Without harmony between labor and capital there
can be no real enduring prosperity and progress. It
should be always remembered that each lias rights
which the other should respect, and that they should
dwell together in amity. We should seek to incul
cate a sense of justice among men, so that capital
shall deal fairly with labor, and labor deal with
equal fairness with capital."
He often referred to labor as one of the mighty
pillars on which rests our social and political fabric.
Whenever discussing the question of sound money
he always argued that a debased currency was a
wrong committed against labor. He was invited to
address the workingmen of Kansas City 011 Labor
184 FAIRBANKS
Day, 1902, and his address was a calm, dignified,
yet earnest exposition of the question of labor.
Among other things he said :
"It is a fitting time to teach our children that
labor is honorable, and that only through it can we
possibly hope to achieve the beneficent ends for which
society is established or government founded. So
long as labor is deemed honorable there need be no
concern as to the future. There is peril only when
labor is regarded as degrading. We are essentially
a nation of laborers, and we have no hospitality for
human drones. Indeed, the Nation is the rich fruit
of labor, for our ancestors noble and splendid men
and women they were with their strong right arms
carved out of the wilderness this great Republic.
They felled the forests, founded mighty cities,
spanned rivers and knitted together all sections of
the country with vast highways of commerce and
the telegraph. They have reclaimed the waste places,
and on every hand have taught the necessity and
the true virtue and dignity of labor."
"We are so bound together as a people that we
are necessarily concerned in each other s welfare.
Whatever adversely affects any considerable number
of our population adversely affects, in a measure, all
others, and, conversely, what benefits any considera
ble number necessarily benefits, in some degree, all
others. There is no such thing as complete and abso
lute independence, and it is well that it is so. Our
FAIKBANKS 185
interests are so interlaced in the loom of the Al
mighty that we can not live apart if we would, and
we would not if we could."
"Labor organizations have their origin in the in
stinct of self-preservation, of mutual advancement,
of common good, and are as natural and legitimate
as the organization of capital. In fact, the organi
zations of labor and capital go hand in hand. The
one is essentially the complement of the other. 7
"That labor organizations have done much to ad
vance the cause of labor there can be no doubt. They
have been earnest advocates of education, knowing
full well that knowledge is real power. They have
established newspapers throughout the country, in
telligently devoted to the promotion of their inter
ests. They have founded benevolences and paid mil
lions of dollars to their membership. They have in
creased wages where inadequate, and secured reason
able hours of service. They have abolished or mod
ified conditions in the sweat-shops of great cities
which were undermining the health and morals bf
the operatives. They have stood against the abuses
of child labor. They have taught the necessity of
the observance of contracts, knowing full well that
contracts are founded in honor and are the basis
of commercial success. They have increased and
seek to maintain a higher morale among their mem
bership. They are opposed to anarchy. Anarchy
has no greater foe than they. They know that labor s
186 FAIRBANKS
best interests are dependent upon the maintenance
of orderly and stable government."
"Labor must be free ; with all the prerogatives
which pertain to freedom. It must be free to sell
its commodity in the highest market. So capital
must be likewise free to buy labor where labor desires
to sell its commodity. There must bo reciprocity
of privilege, reciprocity of opportunity."
"The true solution of the questions arising be
tween labor and capital lies in an awakened public
conscience ; in- a thorough inculcation of the princi
ples of fair dealing among men ; in organization, and
in wise, humane leadership, and in the establishment
of boards of conciliation or arbitration which are
absolutely free from the polluting touch of selfish
interests or political demagogues, to which the inter
ests concerned may freely and confidently appeal."
"Cheap labor is not the sole end we seek in the
United States. It is our pride that this is not a
cheap-labor country; that labor is better paid here
than in any other country. The sentiment is pro
claimed over and over from platform and press.
Cheap labor ? "No. We do not want cheap labor.
We want well-paid labor. We desire not only well-
paid labor, but want that labor steadily employed."
There is no class of people in the United States
more deeply interested in knowing the sentiments
and views of those who seek their suffrages than the
laboring class. On all matters concerning labor Mr,
FAIRBANKS 187
Fairbanks lias always been open, frank and clear in
his statements. He has neither sought to equivocate
nor mislead. To organized labor he has said that
organization was legitimate, was right, was necessary,
but he said that labor, organized or unorganized,
must respect the rights of others. A weaker man
would have left unsaid some things that Mr. Fair
banks so frankly uttered, but Mr. Fairbanks pre
ferred the more honorable way of frankly telling
all his views. It would be well if every workingman
in the United States would read and ponder the
frank and manly speech delivered at Kansas City.
It has already been said that Senator Fairbanks
is a very popular speaker on occasions that are non-
political, and on every such occasion has won new
laurels for the breadth of his views and the lessons
of patriotism, good citizenship, obedience to law and
order he has inculcated.
In New Jersey he was the orator on the celebration
of the one hundred and twenty-fifth anniversary of
the battle of Monmouth; at Lancaster, Massachu
setts, he spoke on the celebration of the two hundred
and fiftieth anniversary of the founding of that
town ; in Minnesota he addressed the assembled thou
sands at the State Fair. He has spoken on numerous
other like occasions, and always with the approbation
of his audience.
CHAPTER XV.
HIS HOME LIFE.
HTMIE home life of Senator Fairbanks has been
-*- ideal. Married in oarly life to one who had
won his affections when he was still a student at col
lege, he has found in the wife of his bosom one who
has shared in all his struggles, his aspirations, his
successes, and joyed in them. She has made his home
happy, because she has made it a home in very truth.
They had a very modest beginning. Mr. Fairbanks
was poor in money wealth, but rich in the determina
tion of purpose to make and hold a place in life, and
in integrity and honesty of character. Furnished by
love and equipped by high purpose, their home could
not have been anything else than a happy one.
Engaged during the hours of the day in a struggle
for an established place in his chosen profession, the
young husband always gladly turned his steps toward
his home when evening came, sure that there he
would find sympathy, encouragement and strength
for the next day s conflict. Both are by nature do
mestic in their inclinations, yet they are fond of en
tertaining their friends, and each is possessed with a
-188-
FAIRBANKS 189
happy faculty for making friends. When economy
and saving were necessary, Mrs. Fairbanks willingly
and cheerfully saved and economized, but when the
future Senator s practice had increased sufficiently
to warrant it they moved into a larger and more lux
uriously furnished house, but there was no ostenta
tion ; it was still all simple, all home-like.
Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks have been not only
husband and wife, but they have been partners, in
the fullest and most complete sense of the term. The
genial, kindly nature of Mr. Fairbanks won friends,
and the kindly, genial nature of the wife fastened
them by new and additional ties. It can be said that
the circle of personal friends of the Senator is as
wide as his circle of acquaintance, and none who has
ever visited his home has failed to receive a welcome
from Mrs. Fairbanks that made them long to repeat
the visit.
Five children, one daughter and four sons, have
been born to them. When just beginning active life
Mr. Fairbanks declared he would not enter into
politics until he had won an established place in his
profession and accumulated enough to educate and
care for his children. Blessed by a kind Providence,
and through his untiring energy, he was able to thus
accumulate, and has given to each of his children a
collegiate course, except the youngest, and he is now
preparing to enter college. The two elder children
were graduated from the college which their parents
(13)
190 FAIRBANKS
had attended. This alma mater is very dear to the
heart of both Mr. and Mrs. Fairbanks. The Senator
has long been a member of its Board of Trustees,
and he has several times given liberally to its endow
ment. The Senator has no warmer or more enthusi
astic friends anywhere than he has in the halls of
the old Ohio Wesleyan University, and the students
and faculty are alike proud of his success and of the
high station he has reached.
The Senator and his wife are both members of
Meridian Street Methodist Episcopal Church at In
dianapolis, and are consistent and earnest Christians.
Their Christianity is shown in kindly words spoken
or deeds done. "Do unto others as you would have
others do unto you," and a Love your neighbor as
yourself" have been the rules by which they have
guided and shaped their lives and their relations
with others.
They both enjoy social life, and the charming man
ners of Mrs. Fairbanks peculiarly fit her for a social
leader. In their home life, in their social life, in
their church life they have never been ostentatious,
but always simple, kindly and earnest. One has been
the complement of the other.
Senator Fairbanks is by nature kindly. In him
malice or envy or enmity never had a place. He
has a friendly word and greeting for every one he
meets, and business or public cares never press on
him so heavily or so closely occupy his thoughts as
FAIRBANKS 191
to prevent him stopping long enough to give a grasp
of the hand and a pleasant word to his friends. Some
years ago, before he entered upon a political life, he
said to a friend that when he was a boy he made
it a rule of his life to make as many friends as possi
ble, and to avoid making an enemy if it were possi
ble, and he has followed that rule. In his own State
he has always been on terms of ardent personal
friendship with the leaders of the party opposed to
him. He counted such men as the late Vice-Presi-
dent Hendricks and the late Joseph E. McDonald
as among his warm personal friends, and in the
Senate he has no enemies among the Democratic
members.
His genial and kindly nature is a part of him.
His charities and they are numerous are, like all
his other acts, done without ostentation or display.
He is not a rich man, as riches are counted in these
money-making days, but he has been successful
enough in his law practice to accumulate a modest
fortune. He lives a home life, and is most delighted
and happy when he is in his home, surrounded by
his wife and children.
His characteristics are frankness, sincerity, friend
liness and seriousness. He is frank and open in all
his dealings ; frank in his friendships, and when en
gaged in the practice of the law he always dealt
frankly with the court and jury. In all his discus
sions before the public, whether it is of the political
192 FAIKBANKS
issues before the people or one of the great questions
arising in the Congress, he is frank in his statements
of his own views and of the views of those who oppose
him. He never misstates a proposition or garbles the
words of another.
~No one ever doubts his sincerity. He gives no
occasion for doubts of that kind. He is never dog
matic as to the correctness of his own views, but
every one accords him the meed of perfect sincerity
in presenting them and in believing in them. His
evident sincerity impresses every one who listens to
him, and it is one of his marked characteristics.
He deals with all matters of life, private or public,
seriously. With him there are no trifling things in
life. Every question that calls for his attention is
given the most serious consideration. In his public
career he has many calls for endorsements of indi
viduals for office. He never gives such endorsements
lightly. The public service, to him, is a matter of
great moment. He believes that the people of Amer
ica are entitled to the best public servants that can
be obtained and entitled to the best work such serv
ants can give, hence he is never found urging the
appointment of unfit men for office. He takes a like
serious view of party politics. * Party organizations
are the great methods by which the people express
their views on public affairs, and the issues before
them affect the welfare of the people and the Gov
ernment for good or for bad, hence they are serious
FAIEBANKS 193
questions. He deals with them as serious questions,
ever using all his influence to elevate partisanship
and party methods. He stands for the highest type
of purity at the ballot box, purity in all the relations
between parties and the people. He is a foe to decep
tions, either in platforms or in discussions of political
questions. He has often said he would rather go
down to political defeat than to win a victory that
was in the least degree tainted by trickery, fraud,
corruption or deception, and he says this so earnestly
and carries it out so completely in all his actions
that those who know him know he is sincere.
Senator Fairbanks has never been a "trimmer."
It is not in his nature. There have been times in
his political and public career when a weaker man
would have trimmed his sails to the popular breeze,
but Mr. Fairbanks turned a deaf ear to popular
clamor and did what he believed was right. His sen
atorial career furnished two notable examples of this.
When Mr. McKinley assumed the reins of govern
ment the country was stirred to its depths over the
wrongs in Cuba, and from every section came an
almost imperative demand for the recognition of
the Cuban independents, even though it would in
volve a war with Spain. This feeling was very strong
in Indiana, his own State, and his personal and polit
ical friends urged him to unite with the extreme wing
in Congress. , To have done so would have rendered
him extremely popular, but he preferred to stand for
194 FAIRBANKS
the exhaustion of every peaceable means to avoid war.
The other occasion referred to was when the ques
tion of providing a revenue for Porto Rico was under
consideration. The cry that "the Constitution fol
lows the flag," swept over the country. It was heard
on almost every tongue. Once more his friends be
sought him to take what was so evidently the popular
side. He was candidly told that if he took the other
side of that question it would ruin him politically.
Firm in his convictions of what was right and best,
he refused to trim his sails to the popular breeze.
He not only took a stand in opposition to the advice
of his friends, but he made one of his boldest and
ablest speeches in favor of the views he had espoused.
When in 1896 he was just entering on a wider
political life than he had hitherto occupied there was
an opportunity the political trimmer or wabbler
would have delighted in. The whole country seemed
to be inoculated with the virus of financial heresy.
In Indiana free silver was not only the popular issue
with the Democrats, but it had invaded the Repub
lican ranks and counted thousands of supporters in
that party. Mr. Fairbanks was then a candidate for
the United States Senate. To most of the leaders in
Indiana it looked like political suicide to declare
openly against free silver. To Mr. Fairbanks was
assigned the duty of drafting the financial plank for
the State platform. He could have evaded it, and
would have evaded it had he been a weaker man. He
FAIKBANKS 195
prepared a plank not only strenuously opposing free
silver, but practically declaring in favor of a gold
standard. He was urged again and again by the
party leaders and by those who expected to have
places on the ticket not to push it, but he clung to his
work, and it was finally adopted by the convention.
This was one of the first declarations of the Repub
lican party in favor of the gold standard.
What Senator Fairbanks said of the late Judge
Gresham and of the late Senator Morton can well be
applied to himself. Of Senator Morton he said:
"He was a total stranger to the arts of the dem
agogue. He was too great to descend to intrigue or
to desire success otherwise than through the merit
and force of his cause. . . . His hands were
clean, his integrity incorruptible."
Of Judge Gresham he said:
"He was a man of positive character. He was not
negative and colorless. He possessed convictions
and adhered to them with resolution. He was not,
however, a dogmatist, but was always ready to hear
whatever might be urged against the integrity of his
own views. . . . He was always natural ; never
sought or pretended to be what God had not made
him. He never tried to veneer his true character
or obscure it by cheap meretricious acts. 7
Senator Fairbanks has always had a high standard
of duty and of life. He would no more falter in
the face of duty than a soldier would falter and hang
196 FAIEBANKS
back in the face of the enemy on the battlefield. All
his acts and all his speeches show this.
He is averse to political wrangles and never in
vites them. In this he is unlike both Elaine and
Morton. As Ingersoll said, Elaine was like a war
rior, "a plumed knight/ 7 and he always went into
a political battle with eagerness. Morton delighted
in a political contest, for there the sledge-hammer
blows of his logic caused victims to fall all around
him. On the other hand, Mr. Fairbanks prefers to
put party wrangling aside, if possible, when it comes
to discussing questions of state^or matters pertaining
to the welfare of the people.
He is a lover of books. Ey nature and training
he is a student, but he reads much of the literature
of the day.
In his speeches he appeals to the reason and not
to the emotions or sentiments of his hearers. He is
never ornate, never indulges in flowers of rhetoric,
never in metaphors, figures of speech, nor startling
similes. He never culls from the classics and never
jests. No anecdotes or stories are found in any of
his public speeches. He is never vehement in decla
mation or gesticulation. He never gets on the moun
tain top. With him any question that is worthy of
being debated is worthy of being ^treated seriously.
He is candid and open in the statement of his
position, and there is no equivocation or evasion. He
makes his statements clearly and every one can readi-
FAIKBANKS 197
ly know the position he takes. He indulges in no
waste of words, and never says anything that has
to be explained, apologized for or withdrawn. He
is never bitter, never vindictive. No irony or sar
casm is to be found in his speeches, and he never
utters a word that would wound an opponent. He
credits those who hold views in opposition to his
own with honesty and integrity of purpose, and he
respects their views. He addresses the Senate as he
would address the court, reinforcing his argument
with authorities and the opinions of others. He tries
to convince, not to captivate.
He is never a pessimist, but always optimistic, es
pecially when talking of the future greatness and
power of the United States. He would never have
advocated the seizure of Porto Rico or the Philip
pines merely to extend territory, but when those
islands fell to us as the result of a war he was opti
mistic enough to believe there was no danger to
either the institutions or the power of the country
in our holding them. He could not see ruin to us
in raising our flag in the Pacific.
He rose rapidly in the confidence and respect of
his party. He became a factor in national politics in
1896. So greatly had he grown in public confidence
by 1901 that leaders of his party in various sections
of the country began to talk of him as a logical and
fitting successor to President McKinley. He was
frequently referred to in the public press as one who
198 FAIKBANKS
would, in all probability, be selected. When Mr.
Roosevelt succeeded on the death of the President,
it was natural the party should look to him to be his
own successor. Then it was the selection of a can
didate for the second place presented itself to the
party, and the name of Mr. Fairbanks was on almost
every tongue. He was deluged with letters urging
him to become a candidate for the Vice-Presidency.
Mr. Fairbanks is strong before the people because
of his honesty and integrity in public and in private
life; because of his entire consecration to duty; be
cause of his absolute and implicit belief in the sound
judgment of the people, the final and sole arbiters
in all questions affecting the government. He be
lieves that the people, in the end, will see the right
and approve it ; that loyalty to the best interests of
the Nation is inherent in the people; that this is a
Republic, a Republic of the people, and that when
the people have thoroughly considered any question
of policy and given their verdict thereon, their judg
ment should be carried out to the end. He knows
that if he does well the people will applaud, and if
he does ill they will condemn. He is of the people
and he trusts in their unerring judgment.
CHAPTER XVI.
HE IS NOMINATED FOR VICE-PRESIDENT.
TT IS rare in the political life of any man that a
* nomination to such a high office as Vice-President
of the United States comes wholly unsought, and with
the entire unanimity of his party friends. Such a
distinction came to Senator Fairbanks on the 23d
of June, 1904. For months his name had been prom
inently coupled with that high office. He did not
seek the nomination. He had still five years to serve
as Senator, a position to which his party in Indiana
had twice elevated him. The floor of the Senate was
a fitting place for the display of his talents. He had
achieved the position there of being one of the party
leaders. He was looked upon as a conservative and
wise legislator. He loved the duties of Senator, and
although he regarded the office of Vice-President of
the Republic as one of very high distinction and
honor, he would not seek it.
Many of his ardent friends in different parts of
the country, and many of the party leaders, looking
to the advantage of the party, urged him to announce
himself as a candidate for the place. In his own
199-
200 FAIEBANKS
State his party friends were opposed to it, and ad
vised him to say he would not accept the nomination
if tendered to him. This he declined to do, holding
that it was a matter that could only be determined
in the light of public duty. They urged upon him
that his State had sent him to the Senate and had a
right to demand that he remain there ; that his seven
years of service had given him an experience that
another could only obtain by a like period of service ;
that the State needed his services in the Senate.
These arguments came from the friends who had
stood with him through all his political life, and it
was felt by the Senator that such expressions de
served to be weighed carefully.
To all he frankly said his preference was to re
main in the Senate, but, as he would not give en
couragement to those who were advising him to be
come an avowed candidate for the place, so he would
riot lightly make up his mind to openly decline it if
tendered by the party. The feeling in favor of the
nomination of Mr. Fairbanks so increased that, by
the time the convention met, hardly any other name
was mentioned in connection with the second place
on the ticket. The Senator was one of the delegates-
at-large from Indiana, and in that capacity attended
the convention. Wherever he was present he was
received with an enthusiasm that showed the hold he
had on his party. So strong was the feeling in his
favor, and that his name would add strength to the
FAIRBANKS 201
ticket, that his Indiana friends at last gave consent
to his accepting the nomination if the convention
should so desire.
The Republican National Convention of 1904 was
a great gathering. Many of the most notable men
of the Nation were present as delegates. They were
there to lend their potent aid in shaping the declara
tion of principles; to give their adherence to the
patriotic administration of President Roosevelt, and
to join in declaring him the unanimous choice of the
party to succeed himself in that high office. Mr.
Roosevelt was duly named as the candidate for Presi
dent and the time came to choose his associate on the
ticket. Senator Dolliver, of Iowa, rose, amid great
enthusiasm, and spoke as follows :
"Gentlemen of the Convention:
"The National Republican convention, now nearly
ready to adjourn, has presented to the world a moral
spectacle of extraordinary interest and significance.
It is a fine thing to see thousands of men representing
millions of people, fighting in the political arena for
their favorite candidates, and contending valiantly
for the success of contradictory principles and con
flicting doctrines. Out of such a contest, with its
noise and declamation, its flying banners, its thunder
of the captains and the shouting, the truth often se
cures a vindication and the right man comes t out
victorious. Sometimes, however, wisdom is lost in
the confusion, and more than once we have seen tho
202 FAIKBANKS
claims of leadership swallowed up in contention and
strife.
"We have the honor to belong to a convention
whose constituency in every State and Territory, and
in the islands of the sea, has done its thinking by
quiet firesides, undisturbed by clamor of any sort,
and has simplified our responsibilities by the unmis
takable terms of the credentials which we hold at
their hands.
"At intervals of four years I followed the banner
of James G. Elaine through the streets of our con
vention cities, from Cincinnati to Minneapolis, and
did my full share to see that nobody got any more
applause than the great popular leader, who had cap
tured my enthusiasm long before I was old enough
to vote.
"Not even his defeat served to diminish the hold
which our champion had upon the hearts of those
who followed him, and it has required a good deal of
experience to enable them to understand the lesson
of his defeat. Other conventions have met to settle
the fate of rival chieftains ; we meet to record the
judgment of the Republican millions of the United
States.
"They have based their opinion upon the facts of
the case. They have not concluded that we have the
greatest President of the United States since Wash
ington. They know how to measure the height and
depth of things better even than Professor Bryce,
FAIKBANKS 203
when he deals with the superlatives which find their
way into all well-regulated banquets after midnight.
They have not forgotten the grave of Lincoln, which
has become a shrine for the pilgrimage of the human
race. They remember still the day when the canon
of Westminster opened the doors of that venerable
monument to admit the name of the silent American
soldier into the household of English spoken fame.
"They have passed no vainglorious judgment upon
the career of Theodore Roosevelt. They have studied
it .with sympathetic interest from his boyhood, as he
has risen from one station of public usefulness to an
other, until at length, before the age of forty-five, he
stands upon the highest civil eminence known among
men. Their tears fell with his as he stood in the
shadow of poor McKinley s death, and as a part of
his oath of office asked the trusted counselors who
stood by the side of the fallen President to help him
carry forward the work which he had left unfin
ished, and while his administration deserved the
tribute which it received in this convention from the
eloquent lips of our temporary chairman, it is be
cause he has executed in a manly way the purpose
of the Republican party and interpreted aright the
aspirations of the American people. Nor can there
be a doubt that, if in the years to come, he shall walk
steadfastly in the same path, he will be numbered
among the great leaders of the people who have given
dignity and influence to their highest office.
204 FAIEBANKS
"But the judgment of the Republican party is not
only united upon its candidate it is unanimous
also, upon the fundamental principles for which it
stands. I think the convention has been fortunate
in harmonizing the minor differences which unavoid
ably arise in a country like ours, where speech is free
and where printing is free. We stand together on the
proposition that the industrial system of the United
States must not be undermined by a hostile partisan
agitation, and that whatever changes are necessary
in our laws ought to be made by the friends, or at
least the acquaintances, of the protective tariff sys
tem.
"The things upon which we are agreed are so great
and the things about which we differ are so small,
that we are able, without sacrificing sincere Repub
lican convictions, anywhere, to unite as one man in
defense of our common faith.
"We stand at the beginning of the new era, and
while the Republican party leans upon the counsel
of its old leaders, it has not hesitated to summon to
the responsibilities of public life the young men who
have been trained under their guidance to take up
the burdens which they are ready to lay down, and
finish the work which comes to them as an inherit
ance of patriotism and duty. That is the significance
of the nomination of Theodore Roosevelt, and that
is the explanation of the call which has been made by
the Republican party without a dissenting voice upon
FAIEBANKS 205
Charles W. Fairbanks to stand by the side of the
President in the guidance and leadership of the Re
publican party.
"While he has not sought to constrain the judg
ment of the convention, directly or indirectly, he has
kept himself free from the affectation which under
values the dignity of the second office in the gift of
the American people, and I do not doubt that his
heart has been touched by the voluntary expression
of universal good will which has already chosen him
as one of the standard-bearers of the Republican
party of the United States.
"The office has sought the man, and he will bring
to the office the commanding personality of a states
man equal to any of the great responsibilities which
belong to our public affairs. A leader of the Senate,
the champion of all the great policies which consti
tute the invincible record of the Republican party
during the last ten years, his name will become a
tower of strength to our cause, not only in his own
State, but everywhere throughout the country. A
man of affairs, the whole business community shares
the confidence which his political associates have re
posed in him from the beginning of his public life.
The quiet, undemonstrative, popular opinion, which
has given the Republican party a platform upon
which all Republicans can stand with no dissenting
voice, here or anywhere, has long since anticipated
tlio notion of this convention in adding to the national
206 FAIEBANKS
Republican ticket the name of Senator Fairbanks, of
Indiana.
"I take pleasure in presenting his name, honored
everywhere throughout the United States, as our can
didate for Yice-President."
When Senator Chauncey M. Depew rose to second
the nomination of Mr. Fairbanks, on the part of New
York, a delegate inquired whether he had had his
dinner. Mr. Depew took this inquiry for the text of
his speech, and said:
"My friend wants to know if I have had my din
ner, but what I am about to say is in behalf of
dinners for the American people. I can not help con
trasting, in listening to the eloquence with which we
have been privileged this morning, what will be the
difference when our Democratic friends meet on the
6th of July to go through with their duty of nom
inating candidates and adopting a platform. We
here have been unanimous upon our candidates, all
agreed upon our principles, all recognizing and ap
plauding our great statesmen, living and dead, and
agreeing with them, while on the other hand in that
convention there will be the only two living exponents
of Democratic principles.
"On the one side will be their only President ris
ing and saying be sane/ while on the other side, in
opposition, will come their last candidate for Presi
dent, saying be Democrats. The two are incompat
ible.
FAIRBANKS 207
"I present just two thoughts which it seems to me
in the flood of our oratory have been passed "by.
There has been criticism of this convention that it
was without enthusiasm, perfunctory and would oc
cupy little place in history. But this convention is
an epoch-making convention, because it marks the
close of fifty years of the life of the Republican
party. That fifty years, if we should divide recorded
time into periods of half a century, the fifty years
from 1854 to 1904, would concentrate more that has
been done in this world for the uplifting of humanity
than all the half centuries which have preceded.
While this half century has done so much in elec
tricity, so much in steam, so much in invention, so
much in medicine,, so much in surgery, its one dis
tinguishing characteristic will be that it was the half
century of emancipation emancipation all over the
world, led mainly by the American thought and the
success of the American experiment.
"But when for our purpose we look back over this
half century we find that the best part of it, that
which has made most for the welfare of our country,
most for emancipation, has been done by the Repub
lican party.
"In 1854 James Buchanan, at Ostend, issued the
manifesto to buy or conquer Cuba for slavery, and
in 1900 William McKinley set up Cuba as an inde
pendent republic. In 1854 the first cable flashed
under the Atlantic Ocean, and this tremendous dis-
208 FAIKBANKS
covery came from a Republican President who was
the only President since the formation of the coun
try who had presided over the destinies of a free
people, with freedom in the Constitution, and the
Declaration of Independence was no longer a living
lie.
"Now, it was only sixty years ago, ten years pre
ceding the birth of the Republican party, when that
great wit and great writer, Sydney Smith, said : Who
reads an American book ? Who eats off an American
plate ? Who drinks out of an American glass ? Who
wears American clothes ? Who buys anything Amer
ican? The answer is that from the figures coming
yesterday from the Department of Commerce we dis
cover that this year $450,000,000 of manufactured
articles from American looms and factories go into
European markets to compete with the highly organ
ized industrial nations of the world in their own mar
ket places.
"An American can start and go around the world
and not leave his country. He can cross the Pacific
to Yokohama in a Northern Pacific steamer. He
rides through Japan and China under American elec
trical appliances. He goes six thousand miles across
the Siberian Railway in American cars drawn by
American locomotives. In Spain alongside of their
orange groves he finds California oranges. In France
he drinks wine, labeled French, which has come from
San Francisco. He crosses the Nile upon a bridge
FAIRBANKS 209
made in Pittsburg. In an English hotel he goes to
his room near the roof in an elevator manufactured
in New York. His feet are on carpets made in Yon-
kers. On the banks of the Ganges he reads his cables
by an electric light run by an American and made in
America. He goes under old London in tunnels dug
by and run by American machinery and American
genius, and then he goes to Newcastle and finds that
the problem which has been unsolvable forever, coals
American coals are carried to Newcastle.
"Now, my friends, while we represent the posi
tive, the convention which meets on the 6th of July
represents that element unknown heretofore in Amer
ican politics, the opportunist. It is waiting for bank
ruptcy, waiting for panic, waiting for industrial de
pression, waiting for financial distress.
"There was an old farmer upon the Maine coast
who owned a farm with a rocky ledge running out
into the ocean called Hurricane Point. On it ships
were wrecked, and he gathered his harvest from the
rocks, and, in his will, he wrote : I divide my farm
equally among my children, but Hurricane Point
shall be kept for all of you forever, for while the
winds blow and the waves roll the Point will pro
vide. 7
"But we have put a lighthouse on Hurricane Point,
a lighthouse of protection, with a revolving light
shedding gold over the ocean, and American com-
210 FAIRBANKS
merce is going and coming in absolute safety. And
now, gentlemen, my second thought.
"It seems to me that we have not given enough im
portance to the office of Yice-President of the United
States. It was not so among the fathers. Then of
the two highest potential Presidential possibilities^
one took the Presidency, the other the Vice-Presi
dency. But in the last forty years, ridicule and cari
cature have placed the office almost in contempt. Let
us remember that Thomas Jefferson ; let us remember
that old John Adams ; let us remember that John C.
Calhoun and George Clinton and Martin Van Buren
were Yice-Presidents of the United States.
"Eighty millions of people want for Vice-Presi-
dent a Presidential figure of full size. He presides
over the Senate, but he does more than that. He is
the confidant of the Senators. He is the silent mem
ber of every committee. He is influential in that
legislation which originates and which is shaped in
the Senate, and now that we have become a world
power, now that treaties make for either our pros
perity, our open door, or our closed harbors, he is
necessarily an important factor in the machinery of
the government. By the tragic death of McKinley
the Vice-President was elevated to the Presidency,
and today for the first time we have renominated the
Vice-President who thus came to be the President.
U A11 that has been said here about Theodore Eoose-
velt all of which is true the highest tribute to him
FAIRBANKS 211
is that the American people, for the first time, unani
mously demand a Yice-President shall be the elect of
their choice for the Presidency of the United States.
"JvTow, gentlemen, it is my privilege, in looking
for Vice-Presidential possibilities, to announce what
^you all know, that we have found a Vice-Presidential
candidate of full Presidential size.
"Everybody knows that, if the towering figure of
Theodore Roosevelt had been out of this canvass, one
of the promising candidates before this conven
tion for President of the United States would have
been Charles W. Fairbanks. And i^ew York, appre
ciating his great ability as a lawyer, appreciating the
national name he has made for himself as a Senator,
appreciating his dignity, his character and his genius,
for public affairs, seconds the nomination of Charles
W. Fairbanks for Vice-President of the United
States."
Speaking for Ohio, Senator Foraker said :
"Gentlemen of the Convention :
"We have come here to do three things: Make a
platform, name the next President of the United
States, and also name the next Vice-President of the
United States ; we have done two of these things, and
are about to do the third. And we have done both
of the things we have done well.
"The platform we adopted yesterday has already
met the favorable judgment of the American people.
It is the counterpart of the best the Republican party
212 FAIRBANKS
has ever adopted, and, if you would know how high
is that tribute, recall the fact now of which every
Republican may justly feel proud that, of all the
many platforms we have made in the fifty years of
our party life, we would not today strike one of them
from our record if we could.
"Further than that, there is not a plank, or a dec
laration, or a thought, or an idea in one of them that
we would erase if we had the power. From the plat
form of 1856 down to that one adopted yesterday, all
are as solid as a gold dollar.
"If you would know what a tribute is here to Re
publican patriotism, wisdom and statesmanship, re
call the great questions with which the Republican
party has dealt in making these platforms. They are
all imperishable contributions to the political litera
ture of our day.
"If you would know the measure of our success,
read also of the damageable failure our Democratic
friends have met with in making their platforms.
"While we are today proud of the success of ours,
our Democratic friends can not find one platform
they have made in all this period that does not have
some features at least of which they are now ashamed.
~Not all of them, perhaps, because there are some
Democrats who can not be ashamed of anything.
"And on the platform made yesterday we have
placed our candidate who is to head the ticket. It
may not have been as easy in some of the conventions
FAIRBANKS 213
that have gone before to name a Republican candi
date for the Presidency as it was for us to name our
candidate here today.
"In former years, when we have been called upon
to choose between such great leaders as Conkling and
Morton and Elaine and Garfield and Harrison and
McKinley, they have weighed so evenly, their claims
for merit were so equal, that it was a harder task.
But this time one man stood head and shoulders above
all others of our Republican leaders, as has been well
said from this platform, by American people before
we took our seats in this convention.
"On the ticket with him, as his associate for the
Vice-Presidency, we want to place a man who repre
sents in his personality, in his belief, in his public
service, in his high character, all the splendid record
the Republican party has made ; all the great declara
tions of the former platforms, and a man who will
typify, as the leader of our ticket will, the highest
ambition and the noblest purposes of the Republican
party of the United States.
"I will not detain you with an eulogy of Senator
Fairbanks, beyond simply saying that, to all who
know him personally as those of us do who have been
closely associated with him in the public service, he
meets all the requirements so eloquently stated by
Senator Depew. He is of the Presidential caliber.
He has all of the qualifications for the high office for
which he has been named, and, by all of these potent
214 FAIKBANKS
considerations, in the name of the forty-six delegates
of Ohio, I second the nomination of Senator Fair
banks."
Governor Pennypacker, of Pennsylvania, speaking
for his State, said :
"The Kepublican party held its first convention
in that city of western Pennsylvania which in energy,
enterprise and wealth rivals the great mart on the
shores of the inland lake, where, after the lapse of
nearly half a century, we meet today. Pennsylvania
may well claim to be the leader among Republican
States. The principles which are embodied in the
platform of the party as we have adopted it are the
result of the teachings of her scholars and states
men.
Her majorities for the nominees of that party are
greater and more certain than those of any other
State. She alone, of all the States, since the elec
tion of Abraham Lincoln in 1860, has never given
an electoral vote against a candidate of the Repub
lican party for the presidency. She is unselfish in
her devotion. During the period of half a century
that has gone no son of hers has been either President
or Vice-P resident. She has been satisfied, like the
Earl of Warwick, to be the maker of kings. She has
been content that you should have regard to the suc
cess of the party and the welfare of the country,
rather than to the personal interests of her citizens.
"The waters of the Ohio, rising in the moun-
FAIRBANKS
tains of Pennsylvania, roll westward, bearing fertil
ity and men to the prairie lands of Indiana. The
thought of Pennsylvania turns with kindred feeling
toward the State which has produced Oliver P. Mor
ton, Benjamin Harrison and the brave Hoosiers who
fought alongside of Eeynolds on the Oak Kidge at
Gettysburg. She well remembers that when her own
Senator, who did so much for the Republican party
and whose wise counsels, alas, are missing today, bore
a commission to Washington, he had no more sin
cere supporter than the able and distinguished states
man, who then, as he does now, represented Indiana
in the United States Seriate. Pennsylvania, with the
approval of her judgment and with glad anticipation
of victory in her heart, following a leader, who, like
the chevalier of France, is without fear and without
reproach, seconds the nomination for the Vice-Presi
dency of Charles W. Fairbanks, of Indiana."
With entire unanimity and great enthusiasm the
convention declared that its choice for Vice-President
of the United States was Charles W. Fairbanks, and
the work of the convention was over.
CHAPTER XVII.
HOW HIS NOMINATION WAS RECEIVED AT HIS
HOME.
Saturday, June 25th, Senator Fairbanks re-
turned to his home at Indianapolis. Before he
left Chicago he received hundreds of telegrams from
all parts of the country congratulating him on his
nomination, and the party because of his selection by
the convention. Many of these were from his friends
in Indiana, quite a number being from prominent
Democrats. At every station on his way to Indian
apolis he was greeted by large and enthusiastic
crowds, and at several points he made brief speeches.
At Indianapolis his fellow-citizens of all parties
arranged to give him a hearty welcome. When the
train arrived at the Union Station it found a great
throng awaiting it. The station was literally packed
with people, giving ample evidence of the high re
gard in which the Senator is held by the people of his
own city. The residence of the Senator is two miles
from the station, but along the entire course the
crowds gathered to give him a warm and cordial
home-coming. In the absence of himself and Mrs.
Fairbanks the friends had taken possession of the
-216-
FAIKBANKS 217
residence and fittingly decorated it for the occasion.
At the residence and around it several thousand
citizens gathered, and the welcome they gave the dis
tinguished party was as cordial and enthusiastic as
that which had greeted them at the station. Speeches
were made by Senator Beveridge, Hon. John W.
Holtzman, Mayor of the city, Hon. John W. Kern,
and Hon. John L. Griffith, the Mayor and Mr. Kern
being two of the Democratic leaders of the State.
Mayor Holtzman welcomed the returning candi
date in the following generous words :
"Senator Fairbanks The people of your home
city are here, irrespective of party, to welcome you
to your home and to congratulate you upon the great
honor which your political party has conferred upon
you and which we feel was a distinction and honor
well earned by your fidelity and steadfastness to
those principles which your party represents, and
above that, by the upright life and career which you
have made for yourself as citizen and statesman.
"Indiana has been the political battleground in
many campaigns and her sons have been honored by
both great political parties.
"The first one was paid to our great .State in the
nomination of our distinguished fellow-citizen, the
late George W. Julian, who was nominated for Vice-
President by the Free Soil Democracy, in 1852.
Later the Republican party conferred this honor upon
Schuyler Colfax, a distinguished editor of our State,
218 FAIEBANKS
and in 1876 the Democratic party selected for the
Vice-Presidency that distinguished, genial and most
lovable citizen and statesman, Thomas A. Hendricks.
In 1880 the Democratic party again came to Indiana
to select a candidate for Vice-President and in that
year nominated that able financier and statesman,
William H. English.
"In 1884 the Democratic party, with its eye still
upon the State of Indiana, again selected to grace the
second place upon the ticket our beloved Hendricks,
and in 1888 the Republican party selected as its
standard-bearer that distinguished soldier and states
man of Indiana, Benjamin Harrison, and in this year
of our Lord, the Republican party has wisely come
to the Hoosier State to make its selection for the
Vice-Presidency, and I hope it is not out of place
for me to say here that it is my wish that the Demo
cratic party may exercise the same wisdom at its
convention in St. Louis.
"Indiana has sons in each party who would grace
either the first or second place upon either ticket,
and may I say without giving offense that we would
all have been much better pleased had the Repub
licans at Chicago made the ticket read the other way.
"I am sure that every citizen in Indiana deserving
of the name of Hoosier was proud when any of her
citizens were honored by either of the great parties.
"I am glad to see that, notwithstanding all of the
bitterness which has entered into past campaigns, we
FAIKBANKS 219
are big enough and broad enough to lay aside our
partisan feeling and to tender a reception to one of
our citizens who has won distinction for himself
which has been recognized by the party with which
he has been affiliated.
"We have a right to differ as to governmental poli
cies. We have a right to fight our political battles to
a finish, but it is well not to let our bitterness inter
fere with that pride which we should have in our
fellow-toAvnsmen in any prominence or distinction or
honor which they may attain or which may be be
stowed upon them. I am proud to live in a commu
nity where citizens turn out to tender a reception,
irrespective of party, to one who has won distinction.
"We should not allow ourselves to be controlled by
the narrowness of party spirit. To be able to meet at
all times the common amenities of life and to do the
gracious and courteous things, is the sign of progress
toward that culture which every community should
attain.
"Let us remember that we do not lose our party
allegiance in doing honor to one who has dis
tinguished himself, and I am sure that Indianapolis
has a citizenship which is broad enough, to extend a
similar reception to my very dear friend, the Hon.
John W. Kern, when he returns from St. Louis with
the Vice-Presidential nomination in his pocket.
"In the name of the people qf the city of Indian
apolis, I greet you, with the hope that such gifts and
220 FAIRBANKS
honors as lie within the power of the party to which
you belong may be bestowed upon you."
Hon. John L. Griffiths spoke as follows:
"In the civilization of Greece the city was the
unit of power Athens was the State. Enough of
the Greek spirit survives to cause us to rejoice when
an unusual honor conies to the city in which we live.
It seems in a sense to reflect honor upon each member
of a community when one of their number is se
lected for special distinction because of what he has
done in literature or art, in science or philanthropy
or statesmanship. This gathering tonight of friends
and neighbors is to testify to their appreciation of
Charles W. Fairbanks, not as a party leader, but as
a citizen. It is a beautiful and spontaneous tribute
to the worth of a man. In the stress of the campaign
he will often recall, I doubt not, these homelike sur
roundings and this vast host of men and women,
many of whom for an hour at least, forget their party
ties in their eagerness to bear witness to the high per
sonal esteem in which they hold their friend. Po
litical animosities are not as deep-rooted or as bitter
as they often appear to be. It is well that this is so.
No party can arrogate to itself all the purity and
ability, all the patriotism and courage which are to
be found in the country at any one time. We realize
more and more that chance plays little part in the
successes of men. To achieve greatly one must labor
intelligently and continuously.
FAIEBANKS
"The nominee of the Chicago convention for the
Vice-Presidency has not been the favorite of fortune.
He has fairly and justly earned all the honors which
have been bestowed upon him. He comes close to
the people because his life has been rooted in, their
lives.
"His nomination is a recognition of the growing
power of the great middle West of that section of
our common country where the people are peculiarly
frugal and resourceful, industrious and thrifty, with
sturdy notions of honesty, where they care less for
cleverness than for integrity and place a higher value
upon character than they do upon wealth.
"Charles W. Fairbanks was made one of the stand
ard bearers of his party because he has always had
e a healthy conscience in public matters and has been
actuated by an overpowering sense of duty. He has
felt as Lincoln did ; that in the tides of feeling which
sweep and surge about a public man, he must keep
some consciousness of being somewhere near the
right. He must keep some standard or principle
fixed within himself. He has been diligent in the
business of his Government. He has never regarded
the holding of an office as a pastime, but has keenly
felt the high responsibility which a lofty trust im
poses. He has always had a sweet and just tongue/
speaking what he had to say temperately but forcibly.
No public utterance of his can be recalled in which
he ever abused a political opponent. He has won his
(15)
222 FAIRBANKS
way into the hearts of men by traveling a pathway
too seldom traversed the pathway of gentleness and
fairness and moderation.
"His nomination is -a reminder that the early tra
ditions of the Republic have not entirely disappeared.
Again we have the inspiring spectacle of the office
seeking the man. Whenever this occurs, now as in
the days of Washington and Jefferson and the elder
Adams, it is the capable man that is sought the man
who by training, education, experience and ability is
best equipped for the office.
"The nomination of Charles W. Fairbanks has
also shown, in this age so much given to speech-
making, that silence is still golden.
"General Lafayette, upon his return to France,
said of Martha Washington, She is the best woman
in the world and beloved by all who know her. Re
cently I heard a woman pay this same tribute to the
wife who has contributed so much to Senator Fair
banks illustrious career. Coming from a woman,
the tribute means much more than if spoken by a
man.
"In the nomination of the husband we also see an
appreciation of the wife, who is the embodiment of all
the splendid qualities which beautify and adorn the
highest and truest womanhood. Through all the
years, Senator and Mrs. Fairbanks, your friends and
neighbors wish for both of you peace and joy and
happiness, increasing honors and widening fields of
usefulness and power."
FAIEBANKS 223
Hon. John W. Kern said :
"Senator Fairbanks To have such a home-coming
as this must be to the man of heart and generous sen
sibilities vastly more gratifying than to be nominated
and elected to any office in the gift of the people.
One may be nominated and elected to office simply
because men prompted by a sense of duty or party
loyalty vote their party ticket, but this welcome home
from your neighbors of every shade of political belief
conveys to you the pleasing fact that your neighbors
are your friends, delighting in your preferment and
rejoicing because of the high honors of which you
are the worthy recipient.
"This meeting proves that Indianapolis is not only
a city of homes, but a city of neighbors, and the
neighborly spirit of the community was never more
strikingly illustrated than tonight, when hundreds of
your fellow-citizens, who will fight you tooth and nail
on election day, are here in generous rivalry with
your most ardent political supporters, as to who may
best attest the sincerity of the personal friendship
and good will with which you are regarded by all.
"While they recognize in you a foeman worthy
the steel of their greatest leaders, they also recognize
in you an upright citizen, a genial companion, a
neighbor and friend, and so most heartily do they
extend to you their congratulations, and their best
wishes for your health, happiness and continued per
sonal prosperity.
FAIRBANKS
"It is true, in Indiana, at least, that political dif
ferences do not interfere in the slightest degree with
personal friendships. The flowers that grow upon
our garden walls of party politics are always in
bloom. We have shown to the world in many a hard-
fought conflict in the past that it is entirely possible
for us to fight each other in campaign times like
wildcats; and then, after the election, go on drink
ing out of the same canteen, as if nothing had hap
pened.
"And this,, because all realize that our differences
of opinions are honest differences, and that our dis
agreements are only on questions of governmental
policy for when the Government itself is assailed,
or the honor of the flag imperiled, all differences are
instantly forgotten and in devotion to the Republic
and loyalty to the flag, our people become as indi
visible as the sea.
"There are many of us who can not vote for you
at the polls,, because we do not subscribe to the polit
ical creed of which you are a distinguished represent
ative, and we will defeat your ticket if we can, but
we will be none the less your friends, wishing you
great prosperity in everything save politics.
"The fact is, Senator, and I think I violate no
confidence in stating it, that the voters of my party
prefer you as Senator rather than any other Repub
lican who might be elected as your successor, and are
FAIEBANKS 225
loath to give you up before the expiration of the term
for which you were elected.
"They feel that your services are really needed in
that capacity, both by your country and party, and
that you are also needed there as a companion and
friend to Senator Beveridge, to throw about him your
gentle restraining influence. We all like Senator
Beveridge, and as one of Indiana s ablest and most
brilliant sons, are proud of him, but we feel that he
will do better work by the side of an experienced and
staid companion like yourself than he is likely to
when hitched up with one of the many colts who will
be prancing about trying to get into your senatorial
harness even before you have laid it off.
"I therefore assure you that, while we may not be,
can not be, for your national ticket, we are neverthe
less for you for United States Senator even to the
uttermost limit of your term.
"But seriously and in conclusion, Senator Fair
banks, you are to be congratulated, and we, your
neighbors, do most heartily congratulate you on your
great good fortune. You have made a success of life.
You have a delightful home and family ; you have
received great honors from your State and your
party, but better and above all that, you have lived
such a life, and so walked amongst men, as to draw
to yourself from amongst those who know you best
great hosts of personal friends, who are ready on an
occasion like this to forget that there are differences
226 FAIRBANKS
of opinion amongst us, and join together as one man
in rejoicing at the new honors which have come to
YOU.
"Without regard to party lines, the people of In
dianapolis, jour beautiful home city, are one to-night
in their heartfelt congratulations to you, and invok
ing God s blessings upon you and your household.
Senator Beveridge greeted his colleague as follows :
"There are few better words in our language than
the word home, and there is no kinder word than
the word welcome. If to these another word be
added, we have the trinity which makes life worth
living, and that third word is the dear word friend.
These words and all they mean are on our lips to
night, and they are on our lips because they are in
our hearts; for we welcome home our friend. We
greet him in that solid, earnest faithful way which
distinguishes the people of our city and our State.
The people of Indiana claim no monopoly of human
virtues, but this we know: that nowhere does hospi
tality, generosity and good fellowship mean more
than here within the boundaries of our common
wealth. And when one of Indiana s sons wins dis
tinction all the people of our State are proud and
glad. It is in this spirit that we, his neighbors,
gather fonight about the roof tree of our beloved
fellow-citizen who comes _ back to us crowned
with an honor conferred upon him by men
from all over the Republic, The pride we
FAIKBANKS 227
feel in him, the gratitude which is in our hearts
to those who placed this laurel upon his brow,
is that of brothers and sisters of a family. In
a certain sense we feel that we share in the high favor
which has been conferred upon him. For we live
right beside him. For years w r e have gone with him
about the walks of the day s business ; for years been
favored by his genial presence ; for years his perfect
life has been to us all an example and inspiration.
So, as friends and neighbors we take him by the
hand tonight with the grasp of that real welcome bet
ter spoken by the touch of hand than by the sound of
words. This assemblage assures him again of what
he has always known and always may know : that he
is surrounded now as he will be hereafter by the
friendship of the people among whom he lives. One
of the greatest gifts which the Father can bestow 011
any human being is the treasure of friendship ; and
this treasure Senator Fairbanks has in noble measure.
"The law of compensation is universal, and 110
honor comes to man without corresponding duties.
Into the arduous work to which my eminent colleague
is now immediately called he will have the inspira
tion of the hearty good washes of every man, woman
and child in Indiana ; and we on our part have the
sure knowledge that in it all he will speak and work
for what he believes to be best for the Republic. In
this he will be merely a type of Americanism ; be
cause all of us, of every party and of every creed,
228 FAIRBANKS
are hoping and working in our various ways to make
and keep this Nation the noblest of all the nations
of the earth. As we are given to see the right, each
one of us is now doing and will hereafter do his part
to keep the fires of American ideals burning on Lib
erty s altar. In this sense all of us, of every party
and of every creed, hail our friend and neighbor as
a fellow-American, who,, in common with us all,
works and wishes for the Republic s good. That our
friend does this that his efforts are devoted to the
Nation s weal, that earnest consecration to high pur
poses distinguishes him none can better know than
I, who for five years have been favored by sitting at
his side in that exalted body which his presence has
honored and adorned. As friends and neighbors we
greet him and wish him good fortune and God
speed."
Senator Fairbanks said:
"Mr. Mayor, Mr. Griffiths, Mr. Kern, Senator
Beveridge, my Neighbors and Friends What can I
say ? This splendid greeting steals my tongue away.
You, good friends, have said more, and no one knows
better than I how much more, than I deserve. To
you I bring the tribute of a heart outflowing with
gratitude for this manifestation of your neighborly
respect. I recognize among the vast multitude here
many who are not in political accord with me. I
honor them none the less for that, for in this great
Republic the right of difference with respect to polit-
FAIRBANKS 229
ical questions goes unchallenged. I do not expect to
win all of you to my political beliefs, but I do hope to
convince you as to the integrity of my motives and
purposes. No word from me tonight will have about
it any political partisan flavor none whatever.
"You have alluded, my friends, to the great Na
tional Convention at Chicago, which conferred a dis
tinguished honor upon me. Great as that is, it is
incomparable to the honor which I realize in full
measure tonight. All of the political parties upon
this earth can confer no honor that is comparable to
that which I trust I enjoy in the respect and confi
dence of the people of this city and State. My
friends, honor does not abide in place, no matter
how exalted it is. It abides in the hearts and the
confidence of one s countrymen.
"This is a splendid city. All that we have been,
all that we are and all that we expect to be, is cen
tered here. Her shame is our shame; her honor is
our glory. Home/ says my beloved colleague yes,
in all the vocabulary of men, vast as it is, there is no
sweeter and no holier word than that. And you have
added to its sweetness tonight. It possesses a splen
dor and a glory it never possessed before.
a My friend, Mr. Griffiths, in the goodness of his
nature, paid a tribute
[The Senator was so affected at this point that for
a time he was unable to proceed. Mr. Griffiths had
paid a high tribute to Mrs. Fairbanks.]
230 FAIKBANKS
"All I can say, is, I thank you for it.
"This State has contributed some of the greatest
names ever contributed by your party [turning to Mr.
Kern] and ours in American history, and in the
glory they brought the State we find an equal cause
for rejoicing and gratification. The city of Indian
apolis gave to the Nation an eminent United States
Senator and a Vice-President, a friend of mine from
the time I set foot in Indianapolis Hon. Thomas
A. Hendricks. And there was Joseph E. McDonald,
a man of sound judgment, of patriotic purpose, a
United States Senator of distinction, and then there
was William H. English, who was nominated for the
second office in the gift of the people. Their mem
ories are a part of the rich inheritance that not only
Democracy enjoys, but Republicanism as well in the
State of Indiana.
"My friends, the list is a long one. There is an
other name to which I would direct your attention.
It stood a tower of strength in the perilous days of
the Republic. I refer to the Cromwell of American
politics, Oliver P. Morton.
"And there was my old-time friend and our old
neighbor, Judge Walter Q. Gresham, who rendered
conspicuous civic and military service and left us a
name without a stain. Yes, and there was another
one who wrote a high record of patriotic, intelli
gent, conservative service to the Republic the late
General Benjamin Harrison.
FAIRBANKS 231
"My fellow citizens, we have had a busy day of
it. Coming from the city of Chicago, all the way
through the State, we have been met by magnificent
assemblages of American citizens. Our countrymen,
without regard to party distinctions or partisan dif
ferences, have come to meet and to greet us. I know
very well that when the time for gathering the judg
ment of the American people at the ballot-box comes,
our differences will manifest themselves, but thus far
there has been no trace whatever of partisan division.
In that fact I find the greatest gratification. It is
an assurance to me that, after all, partisans as we are
in this great State where political battles are won in
the heat of conflict, we are all Americans, Americans
all.
"I have only this further to say, my friends : We
can make this community better, we can make the
city better, if we will. We each and all owe to it, no
matter what our political beliefs are, intelligent, de
voted service. This State, this community, is a State
and community of homes. We practice here those
virtues which are the foundation of the fireside,
which, in the final analysis, is the very bulwark and
strength of the Republic.
"Fellow citizens, permit me to return to you my
thanks, and ask for you, in the years that lie before
us, the richest blessings that the Almighty can shower
upon you, each and every one."
CHAPTER XVIII.
OFFICIALLY NOTIFIED OF HIS NOMINATION.
the 3d of August the committee appointed by
the convention to officially notify Senator Fair
banks of his nomination for Yice-President arrived
in Indianapolis, headed by Hon. Elihu Root, ex-Sec
retary of War. The committee was escorted to the
residence of the Senator, where a large crowd of cit
izens had assembled. Mr. Root, speaking for the
committee and the convention, said :
"Senator Fairbanks:
"The committee which now waits upon you was
appointed by the National Convention of the Repub
lican party at Chicago in June and its agreeable duty
is to notify you of your nomination as the Republican
candidate for the office of Vice-President of the
United States for the term to begin on the 4th day of
March, 1905.
"We give you formal notice of that nomination
with assurance of the undivided and hearty support
of the great party which has executed the people s
will in the government of this country for the better
part of the last half century. The nomination comes
FAIRBANKS 233
to you in accordance with the best methods and prac
tices of representative government. It was the result
of long and earnest consideration and discussion by
the members of the convention. It was not the
chance product of an excited hour, and it was not
upon the demand of any powerful influence politi
cal or otherwise constraining the judgment of the
delegates. It was not made for the purpose of concil
iating possible malcontents, or of swelling the cam
paign fund of the party. ~No bargains or intrigues
contributed to it. ~No suppressions of the truth or
misleading of the convention as to your principles
and opinions were necessary to bring it about. It
was the deliberate, informed and intelligent judg
ment of the delegates from every State and Territory,
and it was their unanimous judgment.
"It is a great office to which you are called. John
Adams and Thomas Jefferson, and George Clinton,
and John C. Calhoun, and Martin Van Buren, and
many others whose names are illustrious in the his
tory of our country, have filled it. It is an office of
high dignity and immediate, ever-present importance.
The credit and honor of our country are greatly con
cerned in the character and conduct of the man who
presides over the Senate of the United States that
powerful and august body, of which you are already
so experienced, so useful and so honored a member.
"But the Yice-President has other grave duties of
imperative obligation. When the people elect a
234 FAIEBANKS
President under our political system they do not
merely select the man for the office ; they give their
approval to certain controlling principles and policies
of government ; and the administration, of which the
Vice-President is a part, is bound to give effect to
these principles and policies. The primary duty of
the Yice-President to be always ready to take up the
burden of the Presidency if occasion requires, car
ries with it the duty to be always ready to continue
unbroken the policies which the people have entrusted
to the administration for execution. For the due per
formance of this duty the Vice-President should be
familiar with the conduct of affairs by the adminis
tration as it proceeds, a part of its counsels and im
bued with a knowledge of its labors, its perplexities
and its motives, that can come only from intimate
association and confidence and sympathy. Too often
it has happened that after excited contests for the
Presidential nomination the candidate for Vice-Presi
dent has been selected from the defeated faction for
the purpose of appeasing their resentment, and that
after election he has remained antagonistic in spirit,
and a stranger to the counsels of the President whom
he may be called upon to succeed. Happily we are
now in no such case. The people would fain see again
such relations of sympathy and loyal helpfulness for
the public good as existed between President Mc-
Kinley and Vice-President llobart ; and the personal
relations between President Roosevelt and yourself,
FAIRBANKS 235
your mutual esteem and good understanding assure
us that these happy conditions will come again after
the 4th of next March. We count upon your wisdom
and experience and loyal aid as an element of ever
present strength in the coming administration.
"As to the supreme responsibility of the ^ 7 "ice-
Presidency in case of succession to the Presidency,
we shall all pray, and no one more earnestly than
yourself, that it may not come to you. But we are
not at liberty to ignore the possibility that it may
come. Sad and bitter experience admonishes us that
provision for succession to the Presidency is no idle
form. Of the last twelve Presidents elected by the
people of the United States five nearly one-half
have died in office and have been succeeded by Vice-
Presidents. A serious obligation rests upon political
parties which select the candidates between whom the
people must choose, to see to it that they nominate
men for this possible succession who have the
strength of body and mind and character which shall
enable them, if occasion comes, to take up the bur
dens of the great Presidential office, to endure its try
ing and exhausting demands, to meet its great re
sponsibilities, and with firm hand and clear vision
to guide the government of the country until the
people can express their choice again.
"Our opponents of the Democratic party have sig
nally failed to perform this duty. They have nom
inated as their candidate for the Vice-Presidency an
236 FAIKBANKS
excellent gentleman who was born during the presi
dency of James Monroe, and who before the 4th of
March next will be in the eighty-second year of his
age. Before the next administration is ended he will
be approaching his eighty-sixth birthday. It is no
disparagement of this gentleman, for whom, I believe,
we all have the highest respect, to say that he shares
the common lot of mortals, and that the election of
any man of such great age would furnish no safe
guard to the American people against the disaster
which would ensue upon the death of a President
with a successor not competent to perform the duties
of the Presidential office. It is common experience
that very aged men, however bright and active they
may appear for brief periods, can not sustain long-
continued severe exertion. The demands of the Pres
idential office upon the mental and physical vitality
are so great, so continuous and so exhausting as to be
wholly beyond th.e capacity of any man of eighty-
five.
"The attempt by such a man to perform the duties
of the office would with practical certainty be speed
ily followed by a complete breakdown both of body
and of mind. In contemplating the remote possi
bility of the election of the Democratic candidate for
Vice-President, the people of the country are bound
to contemplate also as a necessary result of such an
election in case of the President s death, that others,
not chosen by the people, and we know not who,
FAIRBANKS 237
would govern in the name of a nominal successor un
able himself to perform the constitutional duties of
his office; or worse still, that serious doubt whether
the Vice-President had not reached a condition of
inability within the meaning of the Constitution
would throw the title to the office of President into
dispute.
"The serious effect of such an event upon the gov
ernment and upon the business interests and general
welfare of the country and the serious effect even of
the continual menace of such an event, must be ap
parent to every thoughtful mind.
"In your election, on the other hand, this chief
requirement will be fully met. In the full strength
of middle life you are prepared for the exhausting
duties of the Presidency. Your successful and dis
tinguished career, the ability and probity with which
you have already discharged the duties of high office,
the universal respect and esteem of the people of In
diana who have delighted to honor you, the attach
ment of hosts of friends throughout the Union all
assure us that you have the character and the ability
to govern wisely and strongly should you become
President. Many indeed among our people have al
ready turned toward you as a suitable candidate to
be elected directly to that great office.
"It is the earnest wish of your party and of many
good citizens who have no party affiliations that you
shall accept this nomination, and that you shall be
(16)
238 FAIRBANKS
elected in November to be the next Vice-President of
the United States. In expressing to you this wish,
we beg to add an assurance of our own personal re
spect, esteem and loyalty."
To this address of Mr. Koot Senator Fairbanks re
plied as follows:
"Mr. Root and Gentlemen of the Committee :
"I thank you for the very generous terms in which
you have conveyed the official notification of my nom
ination for Yice-President of the United States. The
unsolicited and unanimous nomination by the Repub
lican party is a call to duty which I am pleased to
obey.
"I accept the commission which you bring with a
profound sense of the dignity and responsibilities of
the exalted position for which I have been nominated.
My utmost endeavor will be to discharge in full meas
ure the trust, if the action of the convention shall
meet the approval of the American people.
"The platform adopted by the convention is an ex
plicit and emphatic declaration of principles in entire
harmony with those policies of our party which have
brought great honor and prosperity to our common
country, and which, if continued, will bring us like
blessings in the future.
"The monetary and economic policies which have
been so forcibly reannounced lie at the very founda
tion of our industrial life, and are essential to the
fullest development of our national strength. They
FAIBBANKS 239
give vitality to our manufactures and commerce, and
if impaired or overthrown there would inevitably
ensue a period of industrial depression, to the serious
injury of the vast interests of both labor and capital.
"The Republican party, since it preserved the in
tegrity of the Republic and gave freedom to the op
pressed, never rendered a more important service to
the country than when it established the gold stand
ard. Under it we have increased our currency supply
sufficiently to meet the normal requirements of busi
ness. It is gratifying that the convention made frank
and explicit declaration of the inflexible purpose of
the party to maintain the gold standard. It is essen
tial not only that the standard should be as good as
the best in the world, but that the people should have
the assurance that it will be so maintained.
"The enemies of sound money were powerful
enough to suppress mention of the gold standard in
the platform lately adopted by the Democratic Na
tional Convention. The leader of Democracy in two
great national campaigns has declared, since the ad
journment of the convention, that as soon as the
election is over he will undertake to organize the
forces within the Democratic party for the next
national contest, for the purpose of advancing the
radical policies for which his element of the party
stands. ... He frankly says that the money question is
for the present in abeyance. In view of these palpa
ble facts, it is not the part of wisdom to abandon our
240 FAIKBANKS
vigilance in safeguarding the integrity of our mon
etary system. We must have not only a President
who is unalterably committed to the gold standard,
but both houses of Congress in entire accord with
him upon the subject.
"In Congress and not with the President rests the
supreme power to determine the standard of our
money. Though the Chief Executive should oppose,
the Congress, acting within its independent constitu
tional authority, could at any time overthrow or
change the monetary standard.
"The wisdom of our protective policy finds com
plete justification in the industrial development of
the country. This policy has become a most vital
part of our industrial system and must be maintained
unimpaired. When altered conditions make changes
in schedules desirable, their modification can be
safely entrusted to the Republican party. If they
are to be changed by the enemies of the system along
free trade lines, uncertainty would take the place of
certainty, and a reaction would surely follow to the
injury of the wage-earners and all who are now prof
itably employed. Uncertainty undermines confi
dence and loss of confidence breeds confusion and
distress in commercial affairs.
"The convention was wise not only in its enuncia
tion of party policies, but in its nomination of a can
didate for the Presidency. During the last three
years President Roosevelt has been confronted with
FAIEBANKS 241
large and serious questions. These he has met and
solved with high wisdom and courage. The charges
made against him in the Democratic platform find an
irrefutable answer in his splendid administration,
never surpassed in all the history of the Kepublic
and never equaled by the party which seeks to dis
credit it.
"The election of the President is imperatively de
manded by those whose success depends upon the con
tinuance of a safe, conservative and efficient adminis
tration of public affairs.
"We have an ample record of deeds done, of benefi
cent things accomplished in the public interest. The
vast business of the government has been well admin
istered. The laws have been enforced fearlessly and
impartially. The treasury has been adequately sup
plied with revenue and the financial credit of the
Government was never better. Our foreign trade
balance continues to increase our national wealth.
We have adopted an irrigation policy which will
build homes in the arid regions of the West. The
Panama Canal, the hope of centuries, is in course of
construction, under the sole protection of the Ameri
can flag.
"We have peace and great prosperity at home and
are upon terms of good neighborhood with the entire
world. These conditions constitute the strongest pos
sible assurance for the future.
"Later I shall avail myself of a favorable opportu-
242 FAIRBANKS
nity to submit to you, and through you to my fellow-
citizens, a fuller expression of my views concerning
the questions now in issue.
"Permit me again to thank you and to express the
belief that we may confidently submit our cause to
the candid and patriotic judgment of our coun
trymen. "
CHAPTER XIX.
WHAT IS SAID OF HIM.
ALMOST from the moment of his entering the
Senate Mr. Fairbanks has stood among the
leaders of that great legislative hody. His colleagues
have held him in high esteem and recognized his abil
ities. In 1902 the late Senator Mark Hanna made
several speeches in Indiana, and in all of them he
referred in high terms to Senator Fairbanks. In his
speech at Bunker Hill he said :
a There is no man in the United States Senate who
is respected more highly ; who has any .wider in
fluence nor who has exerted more of that influence
in the support of the McKinley administration, and
all through his public life, than has Senator Fair
banks. You should be proud of him, and in sending
him back to the United States Senate it will be a
recognition of his eminent abilities and loyal patriot
ism to have his majority in the Legislature over
whelming."
At South Bend he said:
"This election is as important to you as if a Presi
dent was to be chosen, because you are called upon
243-
244 FAIRBANKS
this fall to say whether you will send back to the
United States Senate that splendid Senator, Charles
W. Fairbanks, a man who entered that body at a time
when trials awaited this country ; at a time when the
Nation needed good judgment, sound sense and safe
legislation; a close friend and adviser of our mar
tyred President; always right on every question, al
ways influential and powerful in debate, and in all
things which contributed to that splendid administra
tion of William McKinley, he was a prominent fac
tor ; able and attentive to all public duties and to the
interests of his constituents at home, he has never
failed to support the measures which have contrib
uted so much to the benefit of all."
Before the meeting of the Chicago convention
nearly all the Republican papers of the country spoke
in terms of high praise of Mr. Fairbanks, and urged
his selection for the second place on the ticket. Since
the convention the press of the country has spoken
at length as to his character and abilities. A few
extracts will show the temper of the whole :
Gazette, Pittsburg, Penn. :
"Senator Charles Warren Fairbanks needs no in
troduction to the public. He has carved out for him
self a career that speaks eloquently for his force of
character and his standing where he is known. On
the floor of the Senate he has been a leader, an ad
vocate of progressive and sound policies. He is a
man of affairs. He will make a model \ 7 ice-Presi-
FAIRBANKS 245
dent . . . Senator Fairbanks is in close and in
telligent touch with the interests and policies of the
Nation."
Record, Troy, N. Y. :
"Senator Fairbanks 7 Eepublicanism has never
been questioned. His addresses on public policy have
always rung true to the keynote of the issues as de
fined in the party s platforms, and as temporary
chairman of the National convention in 1896 it was
he who gave form to the issues of the campaign of
that year. He has the full courage of his convic
tions. If he is elected he will without doubt make a
dignified and thoroughly capable Vice-President."
News, Providence, R. I. :
"Fortunate indeed is the Republican party in hav
ing as its nominee for Vice-President such a wise and
progressive statesman as Charles Warren Fairbanks,
and President Roosevelt is equally fortunate in. hav
ing as his associate on the ticket a man of such com
manding mental equipment. Not only is Mr. Fair
banks of Senatorial stature, but of Presidential cali
ber, and he brings to the cause of Republicanism the
valuable assistance of his personal popularity in In
diana, a State the electoral vote of which is always
included in Democratic calculations of possible vic
tory. He has made an enviable record in the pro
fession of the law and on the higher plane of politics ;
he has served with distinction in the Senate, where he
246 FAIEBANKS
revealed himself as the possessor of a long head and
a loyal heart, and his sound judgment and familiarity
with affairs of national concern can not fail to prove
valuable assets of his party."
Times, Troy, K Y. :
"As presiding officer of the Senate, of which he is
now a valuable and respected member, as a counselor
of the President and as a representative to our own
people and those of other countries of Americanism
in high office, Charles W. Fairbanks, the present Sen
ator, will justify the complete wisdom with which
the Republican convention placed his name on its
ticket."
Express, San Antonio, Texas :
"He is a leader of distinguished ability, a man who
is held in high estimation by the whole country, a
statesman who would honor any public position."
Gazette, Delaware, Ohio :
"He is a brainy man, an intelligent man, a re
sourceful man, and a fearless man ; he is in the Presi
dential class. He is a popular man, and his name
will add a tower of strength to the ticket."
Hawkeye, Burlington, Iowa:
"Of Senator Fairbanks much that is good can be
said. Much has been said of him in times past, and
it is all to his credit as a broad, earnest, forceful,
loyal Republican. His record is without a stain;
his ability above question. He will add a great
FAIRBANKS 247
and influential strength to the National ticket, and
he will give a standing to the office of Vice-Presi
dent far above the ordinary conception of it."
Union, Springfield, Mass. :
"He will make an ideal presiding officer in stature,
dignity and intellect. He will be a most valuable
counselor, and in him the Eepublic will have, as it
always should have, a man able and worthy to take
his place at the head of the Nation should occasion
require."
Kepubiican, Johnstown, N. Y. :
"Throughout his public life his colleagues have
reposed great confidence in his wisdom, and his ad
vice has been sought on all important matters."
The Indianapolis Union, the official organ of the In
diana Federation of Trade and Labor Unions :
"There is no man living more approachable, more
humble in his simple method of living than Senator
Fairbanks. We have seen him get out of his seat in
the crowded street car and give it to a tired working-
man in his shirt sleeves ; we saw him pick up a pick
aninny and carry it across the muddy street, soiling
his own clothing while others humble in circum
stances did not notice the urchin. Committees of or
ganized labor have frequently had occasion to call
on the Senator, and they never had occasion to com
plain on account of red tape methods applied in
securing an audience, Senator Fairbanks was the
248 FAIRBANKS
speaker on Labor Day at Kansas City two years ago.
His address was full of his Senatorial utterances
upon the immigration and Chinese exclusion ques
tions which have distinguished him.
"In this particular direction one of the influential
of American statesmen is in unison with organized
labor upon at least two cardinal principles. As a
public man, Mr. Fairbanks is open to public criti
cism, but we are candid in our opinion that, reared
as a Republican, brought up amidst environments
that have taught him to believe in the tenets of the
Republican party, there are few, if any, of his polit
ical stature, of his scholarly attainments, personal
traits and character, that will more nearly serve the
people s best interests as the Vice-Presidential nom
inee and incumbent chosen by a National Republican
convention than Senator Charles Warren Fair
banks."
The United States Tobacco Journal, in its issue
of June 25, 1904, in describing the efforts of the
cigarmakers of the country to secure a modification
of the tariff on leaf tobacco, as proposed in the pend
ing Dingley bill, has this to say in regard to Sen
ator Fairbanks:
"There is no man in public life to whom the to
bacco trade is under greater obligations than Senator
Fairbanks, the nominee of the Republican party for
the Vice-Presidency.
"The United States Tobacco Journal makes this
FAIRBANKS 249
statement deliberately and will instantly proceed to
prove it. ...
"The two-dollar duty passed triumphantly the
House. Only the Senate was then left for a renewed
attempt at modification, and untiring in their zeal
the Philadelphians commenced to tackle every indi
vidual Senator. Almost the first and only one who
responded with a receptive mood was Senator
Fairbanks, from Indiana. Although then new to
his Senatorial toga he had nevertheless acquired a na
tional reputation as the presiding officer of the con
vention which nominated William McKinley for the
Presidency. In his first interview with the Phila
delphians the Senator frankly confessed his absolute
ignorance of the merits in question ; but he signified
at the same time his willingness to be instructed.
And so he was, and in less than no time he became
better informed on it than any other member of Con
gress. He then went to work with the Finance Com
mittee to consent to a reduction of the duty to $1.50.
It was the stiff est kind of a job the Senator could
have undertaken, as the influence of Senator Orville
H. Platt, from Connecticut, who naturally supported
the $2 rate in the supposed interest of the Connecti
cut tobacco growers ; seemed to be paramount in that
committee. After weeks of wrangling and haggling
there was to be one evening a meeting of the Finance
Committee at the Arlington Hotel for the final set
tling of the schedule rates. The Philadelphians were
250 FAIRBANKS
in a whirl of excitement, crowding the lobby of the
hotel and watching for the assembling of the com
mittee. Imagine their surprise, therefore, when they
saw Senator Fairbanks coming out of his room in full
evening dress, and, instead of entering the committee
room, trying to leave the hotel ! He was at once be
sieged with anxious inquiries, to which he answered
good humoredly and reassuringly that he was com
manded to dinner with the President, whose com
mand, of course, he could not disobey, but he was
provident enough to get beforehand the promise of
the committee that they would wait with the final
fixing of the tobacco rates till he should return. And
promptly at 10 o clock the anxious watchers were re
warded with the return of the Senator, who at once
repaired to the committee room, where he succeeded
in having both Platt and Dingley defeated in the ac
ceptance of the $1.50 rate by a majority vote.
"These are the unforgetable services of Senator
Fairbanks, now a Vice-Presidential candidate, on be
half of the tobacco trade, the more to be appreciated
because he had no immediate constituents to serve in
this respect. . . .
"How infinitely more is it, therefore, to the credit
of Senator Fairbanks that he placed himself at the
service, most disinterestedly and most courteously,
of men who were not even his constituents, and of a
cause that only remotely affected a not altogether too
FAIEBANKS 251
large industry in his own State ? Such a service
should be gratefully remembered."
When. Senator Fairbanks name was beino; can-
o .
vassed as a probable nominee for Vice-President the
New York Sun was not disposed to cordially support
the proposition. A few days after the Chicago con
vention the Sun quoted several extracts from the
maiden speech of the Senator, and followed with
these remarks :
"We take this speech by Mr. Fairbanks as an illus
tration of his habits of thought and direct methods
of expression. We choose this particular speech for
these reasons :
"1. This was his maiden speech in Congress, and
it is on the occasion of a first appearance that an or
ator is most likely to trim or hesitate or wabble, if he
is congenitally and habitually a trimmer, a wabbler
or a moral stutterer.
"2. The speech concerned a crucial question of na
tional policy, obtruded a year before it actually went
to the arbitrament of war ; and historical events since
the expressions of these opinions therefore afford a
ready test of Senator Fairbanks prescience, his good
sense and his patriotic courage.
"3. It contained a manly appeal to those Kepub-
licans in the Senate who had different opinions of
duty and policy regarding Cuba, to stand by the St.
Louis platform and redeem its pledges honestly, fear
lessly, faithfully.
252 FAIRBANKS
"Do these passages we have quoted above read like
the utterances of a weakling ? Do they betray a bur
rowing, Machiavellian, sophistical or an evasive and
colorless sort of mind ? Not a bit of it ! Mr. Fair
banks words on this great subject went straight and
rang clear."
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