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THE  LIFE  OF 
WHITELAW    REID 


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THE  LIFE  OF 

WHITELAW  REID 


BY 

ROYAL  CORTISSOZ 


VOLUME  II 
POLITICS  — DIPLOMACY 


(Rxns 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S   SONS 

1921 


Copyright,  1921,  by 
CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


Published  March,  1921 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

I.  Behind  the  Scenes 3 

II.  The  Campaign  of  1880 29 

III.  Garfield's  Famous  Fight 46 

IV.  Marriage  and  Travel 68 

V.  Blaine  and  Cleveland 85 

VI.  New  Interests 103 

VII.  Minister  to  France 121 

VIII.  Politics  in  France 136 

IX.  Sultan,  Khedive,  and  Empress 153 

X.  The  Campaign  of  1892 170 

XI.  In  Egypt  and  Arizona 191 

XII.  The  War  with  Spain 212 

XIII.  The  Peace  Treaty 228 

XIV.  Problems  of  Expansion 256 

XV.  Relations  with  Roosevelt 275 

XVI.  Ambassador  to  England   .           299 

XVII.  Newfoundland  and  Morocco 321 

XVIII.  A  Diplomat's  Circle 345 

V 


vi  '  CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

XIX.  A  Trouble-Making  Kaiser 365 

XX.  The  Asquith  Ministry 390 

XXI.  The  Death  of  Edward  VII 411 

XXII.  The  Closing  Years 425 

Index 453 


THE  LIFE  OF 
WHITELAW    REID 


THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

CHAPTER  I 
BEHIND  THE  SCENES 

The  year  1879  was  a  good  year  for  the  United  States. 
Those  timorous  souls  who  had  foreseen  a  disastrous  crisis 
in  the  resumption  of  specie  payment  were  well  con- 
founded. Business  did  more  than  weather  the  "experi- 
ment." It  throve  exceedingly,  and  the  state  of  the 
national  finances  was  as  a  svmbol  of  restored  health, 
lifted  above  the  brightening  horizon  of  private  enter- 
prise. It  was  at  this  time,  too,  that  agricultural  devel- 
opment received  a  new  impetus.  Like  Greeley,  Reid 
pinned  his  faith  on  the  farmer,  deprecating  the  exces- 
sive tendency  of  capital  to  gravitate  into  the  cities,  and 
regarding  with  enthusiasm  every  sign  of  widened  areas 
of  cultivation  throughout  the  Union.  He  dilated  espe- 
cially upon  the  expansion  of  our  foreign  trade  in  farm 
products,  seeing  in  it  a  promise  that  the  country  was 
destined  to  become  for  centuries  the  great  food  manu- 
factory for  Europe.  The  history  of  the  war  with  Ger- 
many supplies  interesting  confirmation  of  these  economic 
surmises  of  his,  set  down  in  print  forty  years  ago. 

The  prosperity  he  hailed  was  based,  of  course,  on 
things  quite  apart  from  the  politics  of  the  moment,  and, 
in  any  case,  he  was  never  one  of  those  who  are  fondly 
disposed  to  attribute  the  rainfall  to  the  virtuous  inter- 
position of  the  party  in  power.  Nevertheless,  it  was 
undeniable  that  the  administration  had  been  favorable 


4  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

to  business  and  industry.  Through  the  rest  of  its  course 
he  was  one  of  its  most  generous  supporters.  After  bitter 
discouragement  in  his  fight  for  party  reorganization  he 
had  won,  through  the  cipher  despatches,  his  hour  of 
exultation.  That  success  in  his  effort  to  close  up  the 
lines  only  spurred  him  to  stiffer  campaigning,  in  the 
hope  of  drawing  them  closer,  and  a  marked  trait  in  his 
personal  history  at  this  time  is  the  eager  swiftness  with 
which  he  sought  to  ward  off  every  possible  setback.  A 
typical  instance  dates  from  the  spring  of  1879,  when 
Hayes  was  not  altogether  i-eassuring  about  that  egre- 
gious army  bill  through  which  the  Democrats,  pretend- 
ing to  block  military  interference  with  the  suffrage — a 
peril  quite  imperceptible,  if  not  impossible — were  really 
seeking  to  obstruct  the  operation  of  federal  election  laws. 
"I  felt  annoyed,"  Reid  wrote  to  Evarts,  **at  the  reports 
we  had  here  that  the  Secretary  of  the  Interior  [Schurz] 
was  giving  the  Democrats  some  reason  to  doubt  the  cer- 
tainty of  the  President's  veto.  If  we  can't  show  a 
united  front  on  the  purity  of  the  ballot  box,  nothing  but 
a  stroke  of  paralysis  or  of  lightning  could  relieve  us  from 
Mr.  Tilden  as  our  next  President."  Evarts  and  the 
administration  could  always  be  sure  of  one  thing,  and 
that  was  that  there  would  be  no  ambiguity  about  the 
words  of  warning  received  from  their  editorial  counsellor 
in  New  York.  He  was  bluntness  itself  in  his  commu- 
nications with  the  secretary  of  state.  In  this  case  he 
had  ultimately  no  complaint  to  make.  Although  it  took 
about  a  month  more  for  Hayes  to  get  to  the  sticking- 
point,  when  he  got  there  his  gift  for  writing  a  veto  was 
shown  in  full  force.  *'I  want  in  a  word,"  Reid  wrote  to 
him,  "to  tell  you  how  glad  I  am  for  the  matter  as  well 
as  the  manner  of  the  last  veto,  and  to  say  how  proud  I 
am  of  the  fact — now  visible  to  everybody — that  the 
Repubhcan   party   stands   united   and   solid   behind    its 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  5 

chief."  Slow  work  it  had  been,  and  sometimes  very 
hard,  for  them  to  get  into  really  settled  harmony,  but 
it  was  done. 

Hayes  was  as  glad  of  it  as  was  Reid.  He  had  always 
been  well  aware  of  the  value  of  The  Tribune's  support. 
The  paper  was,  indeed,  more  important  to  the  adminis- 
tration than  any  of  the  State  leaders,  a  fact  which  Evarts 
once  frankly  admitted  to  Hay  in  a  talk  about  "practical 
politics"  in  New  York.  Reid,  he  said,  *'had  done  the 
Republican  party  more  service  by  the  cipher  publication 
alone  than  Conkling  had  ever  rendered  in  his  Hfe."  We 
have  seen  what  Reid  made  of  such  tangible  appreciation 
of  his  labors  as  was  shown  in  the  offer  of  the  Berlin  mis- 
sion. He  put  it  from  him  as  an  honor  beguihng  in  itself 
but  not  powerful  enough  to  draw  him  away  from  the 
work  he. was  doing  in  his  paper.  On  the  other  hand, 
while  he  would  not  accept  office  or  ask  favors  from  the 
administration,  he  was  not  ill-pIeased  when  the  latter 
leaned  toward  his  friends,  and  there  are  some  amusing 
passages  in  the  story,  as  it  comes  out  in  his  correspon- 
dence, of  John  Hay's  relations  with  Washington  in  this 
period.  Reid  had  tried  in  vain,  we  know,  to  persuade 
Evarts  to  transfer  the  Berlin  offer  from  himself  to  his 
old  comrade.  Hay  wasn't  ** politically"  strong  enough 
to  suit !  That  mythical  disability  of  the  future  secre- 
tary of  state  was  an  old  joke  between  Reid  and  Hay.  It 
turns  up  in  a  letter  as  early  as  this  one: 

New  York, 

, ,  ,,  January  22nd,  1878. 

My  dear  Hay:  ^ 

I  have  been  meaning  to  write  you  a  queer  little  bit  of  confidential 

gossip.     An  intimate  friend  of  mine  was  recently  invited  to  a  long 

and  confidential  talk  at  the  White  House.     Before  he  went,  he  and 

I  talked  over  some  things  which  it  might  be  judicious  to  bring  into 

the  conversation.     In  the  talk   I   made  use  of  the  hint  you   had 

dropped  about  not  being  unwilling  to  take  a  foreign  appointment 

before  you  got  to  be  too  much  of  a  family  man,  and  took  too  serious 


6  THE-  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

views  of  life.  So  when  the  good  President  began  excusing  the 
foreign  appointments  on  the  ground  that  it  was  hard  to  get  good 
men,  my  friend  said:  "Well,  when  you  were  casting  about  to  fill  such 
places,  why  didn*J  you  happen  to  think  of  John  Hay?"  Now  read, 
mark,  and  inwardly  digest  the  answer,  and  if  the  iron  doesn't  enter 
your  soul,  then  I  am  not  yet  revenged  for  your  leaving  New  York. 
The  President  replied:  "Why,  don't  you  know,  I  have  thought  of  it 
again  and  again,  and  would  jump  at  the  chance  if  it  were  not  for 
the  wretched  fact  that  he  has  settled  down  in  Ohio.  What  can  I  do 
in  such  a  case?"  Alas,  alas,  that  I  should  have  lived  to  see  citizen- 
ship in  my  native  state  at  such  a  discount. 

Faithfully  yours,  Wh.telaw  Reid. 


Confidential  gossip  naturally  travels  quicker  than  any 
other  kind.  ** Thanks  for  your  letter,"  replied  Hay, 
"though  I  had  heard  the  news  last  Tuesday.  New  York 
news  is  always  stale  in  Cleveland.  According  to  this 
authentic  version,  which  was  told  me  in  public,  as  I  stood 
with  parted  coat  tails  before  my  own  drawing  room  fire, 
the  Great  Father  said,  Td  send  him  anywhere  if  he 
wasn't  from  Ohio,'  and,  sotto  voce,  *I  want  the  Ohio 
places  for  my  own  friends.'  I  am  in  an  unaccountable 
state  of  mind  in  regard  to  this  subject.  I  think  I  would 
like  a  small  mission,  and  I  know  I  could  not  accept  it  if 
off'ered.  If  you  can  understand  this  paradox,  you  can 
beat  me.  I  will  tell  you  in  the  strictest  confidence,  that 
Seward  has  written  to  me  expressing  his  desire  to  have 
me  in  the  service.  I  shall  tell  him  when  I  get  to  Wash- 
ington that  I  can't  go — and  so  end  the  matter." 

The  matter  of  a  "small  mission"  did  end  there,  but 
not  the  matter  of  his  becoming,  nevertheless,  identified 
with  the  administration.  Reid  never  abated  his  con- 
viction that  Hay  was  exceptionally  fitted  for  public 
service,  and  it  dejighted  him  to  act  as  intermediary  when 
nearly  two  years  later  the  opportunity  came  for  his 
friend  to  enter  the  State  Department.  He  sent  him  the 
news  in  this  letter*: 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  7 

New  York, 

,,  TT  October  13th,  1870. 

My  dear  Hay:  ^  '^ 

Secretary  Evarts  telegraphed  me  a  week  or  so  ago  that  he  would 
be  in  town  at  the  meeting  of  the  Peabody  Trustees,  and  was  anxious 
to  see  me.  So  I  invited  him  up  to  breakfast,  and  the  result  was  a 
"session" — lasting  from  10  till  nearly  3.  I  couldn't  make  out  any 
particularly  important  or  serious  business  he  had  except  on  one 
point,  and  that  was  the  first  thing  he  brought  up.  What  the  Secre- 
tary wanted  to  know  was  whether  in  my  judgment  you  would  accept 
the  post  of  First  Assistant  Secretary  of  State  in  case  there  should 
be  any  need  of  fiHing  the  vacancy  suddenly.  I  told  him  I  thought 
you  would;  that  I  was  sure  you  would  have  done  it  at  almost  any 
time  before  the  campaign,  but  that  possibly  the  new  pohtical  promi- 
nence you  were  getting  now,  and  the  certainty  that  you  could  go  to 
Congress  next  Summer  if  you  chose,  might  interfere.  This  seemed 
to  make  him  a  Httle  thoughtful,  but  he  was  prompt  in  saying  that 
certainly  the  Assistant  Secretaryship  would  be  pleasanter  for  you  as 
well  as  more  important. 

The  point  in  the  case  is  that  Fred.  Seward  (on  account  of  illness 
in  the  family  I  believe)  may  insist  upon  retiring.  The  Secretary 
said  there  was  a  possibihty  that  he  might  stave  off  the  resignation, 
but  he  wanted  to  be  prepared  for  contingencies.  I  think  he  had 
already  settled  upon  you  pretty  positively  but  he  asked  my  opinion 
of  your  quahfications.  You  may  imagine  that  you  didn't  lose  any- 
thing in  the  recital.  There,  file  it  all  away  in  some  inner  convolu- 
tion of  the  pia  mater,  and  either  burn  this  letter,  or  put  it  with  your 

old  love  letters.  t?  vlt  ti 

Faithtully  yours,  ^   ^ 


Hay  was  surprised  by  this  letter  and  said  so.  It  im- 
pinged upon  him,  too,  at  a  moment  when  dalliance  with 
a  congressional  ambition  was  distracting  his  mind.  He 
confessed  that  he  would  find  it  difficult  to  reply  if  he 
were  put  in  a  corner.  Shortly  afterward  decision  seemed 
simpler.  With  the  nomination  to  Congress  practically 
in  his  hands  he  discovered,  to  his  amazement,  that  he 
didn't  want  it.  Evarts  formally  invited  him  to  join  the 
stafi*  of  the  State  Department,  and  he  declined.  But  the 
secretary  was  not  to  be  rebufi'ed.  He  turned  again  to 
Reid,  placing  ofi"er  and  rejection  before  him,  and  saying: 


8  THE  LIFE  OF' WHITELAW  REID 

"I  wish  you  would  write  Mr.  John  Hay  pressing  him  to 
accept  and  urging  him  to  come  on  to  Washington  and 
see  me  before  deciding  finally.  After  election  anybody 
can  be  spared  anywhere.  He  will  miss  his  figure  if  he 
doesn't  take  the  place."  The  roles  of  the  two  friends, 
as  we  have  seen  them  when  the  German  mission  was  to 
the  fore,  were  now  amusingly  reversed.  Then  Hay  had 
moved  heaven  and  earth  to  get  Reid  to  go  to  Berlin. 
Now  Reid  was  as  strenuous  in  urging  Hay  to  go  to 
Washington.  Theirs  was  a  kind  of  rivalry  in  good-will 
on  which  it  is  pleasant  to  pause,  for  the  affectionate  inti- 
macy between  them  was  one  of  the  most  characteristic 
possessions  of  their  lives.  Reid's  loyalty  to  Hay  was 
nothing  less  than  fraternal,  looking  ahvays  to  the  best 
interests  of  his  friend.  I  have  shown  how  sympatheti- 
cally and  wisely  he  advised  Hay  when  he  brought  him 
to  the  staff  of  The  Tribune  in  1870,  making  him  an 
editorial  writer  in  New  York  instead  of  a  correspondent 
in  Paris,  as  Hay  had  at  first  thought  of  being.  Once 
more,  in  furthering  Evarts's  request,  he  spoke  the  right, 
decisive  word.  He  telegraphed  as  well  as  wrote,  to  make 
the  issue  doubly  urgent.  "I  don't  fully  understand  the 
Congressional  situation  out  there,"  he  said,  *'but  I  do 
hope  you  will  not  let  any  consideration  of  mere  business 
interfere  with  what  I  know  has  been  an  ambition  of  your 
life,  and  what  I  am  sure  would  now  prove  a  most  agree- 
able stepping-stone  to  better  things.  Certainly,  I  would 
not  say  no  finally  without  paying  the  Secretary  the 
compliment  of  the  personal  consultation  he  asks.  By  all 
means  come  directly  to  New  York,  stay  with  me  till  you 
are  ready  to  go  down  to  Washington,  or  intercept  him 
here  as  you  may  prefer.  It  is  too  big  a  thing  to  reject 
without  the  fullest  dehberation  and  consultation — bigger 
a  great  deal  just  now  and  for  you,  as  it  seems  to  me, 
than  any  foreign  offer  could  be."     This  appears  to  have 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  9 

ended  Hay's  dubiety.  **Is  the  matter  still  open?"  he 
telegraphed.  '*If  so  I  shall  be  with  you  Friday  A.M."; 
and  when  he  got  there  a  long  talk  with  Evarts  in  Reid's 
library  clinched  the  matter.  A  week  later  the  appoint- 
ment was  announced  in  the  press,  to  Reid's  unbounded 
delight.  If  there  was  a  single  personal  association  of  his 
with  Hayes's  administration  for  which  he  remained  ever 
thankful  it  was  this  one,  linked  with  John  Hay's  in- 
itiation into  the  governmental  department  he  was  long 
afterward  to  rule  and  to  adorn. 

There  are  a  few  other  episodes  of  this  period  which, 
like  the  foregoing,  have  the  unusual  character  of  being 
without  the  mark  of  politics  upon  them.  One,  which  I 
cite  for  its  historic  interest,  relates  to  General  Sherman. 
There  was  printed  in  The  Tribune  an  article  by  George 
Alfred  Townsend — better  known  as  Gath — reporting 
some  talk  with  ex-Senator  Willard  Warner,  a  member 
of  Sherman's  staff  on  the  great  march  to  the  sea.  Speak- 
ing of  that  event,  Warner  gave  some  reminiscences  of 
Sherman's  grief  over  the  death  of  General  McPherson, 
the  best-beloved  of  all  his  colleagues,  at  the  battle  of 
Atlanta,  telhng  how  the  weeping  commander  paced  in 
his  slippers  up  and  down  beside  the  body,  and  through 
his  tears  wxnt  on  giving  orders  to  the  officers  constantly 
arriving  at  headquarters.  The  printed  story  led  to  cor- 
respondence between  Sherman  and  Reid,  from  w^hich  I 
take  this  fragment,  exhibiting  the  emotion  of  a  famous 
soldier  in  one  of  the  great  crises  of  his  career: 

Headquarters,  Army  of  the  United  States. 

Washington,  D.  C. 

,,  c-  March  12th,  1870. 

My  dear  Sir: 

I  don't  think  I  was  in  "my  slippers" — but  I  did  doubtless  pace 

that  floor,  to  keep  up  with  the  thoughts  whirling  through  my  brain 

in  the  midst  of  a  terrible  battle,  inaugurated  by  the  sudden  and 

unexpected  death  of  one  I  loved,  and  on  whose  advice  and  action  I 


10  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

leaned  heavily.     Realizing  at  that  instant  that  Genl.   Hood  had 

begun  his  command  by  fighting  outside  his  intrenchments,  the  very 

thing  both  I  and  McPherson  had  wanted,  I  saw  vision  of  victory, 

but  at  heavy  cost.     Who  could  tell  my  thoughts,  when  I  myself  can 

hardly  recall  th^em  or  find  words  to  describe  them  ?     I  am  more  than 

wilHng  that  everybody  should  testify  of  what  they  saw,  heard  and 

felt — and  even  then  we  will  fall  short  of  giving  a  full  picture  of  all 

the  events  around  Atlanta  on  that  eventful  day. 

With  respect,     , ,        r-  •      t 

Your  Friend,    ,,.  ry.   o 

W.  T.  Sherman. 


It  was  in  1879  ^^^^  Reid  started  a  benevolent  move- 
ment foreshadowing  in  its  services  to  poor  children  the 
work  of  the  Fresh  Air  Fund  in  later  years.  He  was  sur- 
prised one  day  by  the  visit  of  a  stranger  from  New  Eng- 
land, who  handed  him  a  thousand  dollars  in  greenbacks 
and  asked  him  to  use  it  according  to  his  own  best  judg- 
ment for  the  relief  of  cases  of  real  distress  in  New  York. 
They  talked  over  various  schemes,  and  finally  found 
their  inspiration  in  Greeley's  celebrated  admonition: 
"Young  man,  go  West."  Securing  the  co-operation  of 
the  Children's  Aid  Society,  Reid  organized  the  transpor- 
tation of  detachment  after  detachment  of  destitute  boys 
from  the  slums  of  New  York  to  homes  readily  found  for 
them  on  the  farms  of  Kansas  and  Iowa.  The  pubhcity 
he  gave  to  the  plan  brought  immediate  practical  recog- 
nition. One  sympathizer  after  another  followed  the  ex- 
ample of  the  New  England  philanthropist,  making  Reid 
their  almoner,  until  several  hundred  boys  and  a  goodly 
number  of  families  had  been  sent  West.  The  names  of 
these  generous  men  and  women  he  was  never  permitted 
to  pubhsh.  One  particularly  he  would  gladly  have 
printed  if  he  could  have  done  so.  It  was  that  of  a  man 
who  was  living  on  a  salary  of  only  $50  a  week,  but  who 
nevertheless  gave  $500  to  the  fund.  In  midsummer  Reid 
himself  got  out  of  the  city  on  an  unprecedented  hohday. 
"I  am  just  going  off  on  a  three  or  four  weeks'  run  to 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  ii 

California  and  back,"  he  jubilantly  wrote  to  Halstead; 
"my  first  trip  to  the  real  West,  and  my  first  absence  of 
that  length  from  The  Tribune  office  in  nearly  eleven 
years !"  He  went  with  CoIIis  P.  Huntington,  in  the  lat- 
ter's  private  car,  spent  four  days  amongst  the  big  trees 
and  waterfalls  of  the  Yosemite,  was  feted  by  the  editors 
of  San  Francisco,  and  returned  with  renewed  health  and 
a  store  of  golden  impressions — the  unsuspected  precur- 
sors of  the  new  and  more  durable  relation  to  the 
Pacific  slope  into  which  the  Fates  were  presently  to 
bring  him. 

He  came  back  to  a  State  campaign  in  which  the  Re- 
publicans were  handicapped  by  mediocre  leadership. 
A.  B.  Cornell  received  the  nomination  for  the  governor- 
ship, and  how  far  he  was  from  thrilling  the  political 
observer  may  be  judged  from  the  comment  of  Evarts: 
"A  really  brave  and  impressive  nomination  for  Gov- 
ernor in  New  York,*'  he  wrote  to  Reid,  **  would  have 
enabled  us  to  shake  the  Democratic  party  to  pieces  in 
the  whole  country  and  close  the  politics  of  the  Rebel- 
lion. But  now,  we  must  submit  to  the  frog-in-the-well 
process  for  another  series  of  campaigns.  However,  if  it 
were  best  that  everything  should  be  done  in  a  day,  I 
suppose  God  would  not  have  taken  six  to  make  the 
world."  Reid,  occupied  like  everybody  else  in  making 
the  best  of  an  uninspiring  nomination,  was  on  the  whole 
more  sanguine  than  the  secretary.  Though  he  had  no 
surprise,  like  the  cipher  despatches,  to  spring  upon  the 
Democrats  and  thereby  repeat  the  strategic  triumph  of 
1878,  his  opponents  saved  him  the  trouble  by  indulging 
in  a  party  split  in  which  he  rightly  saw  the  promise  of 
their  defeat.  Election  day  more  than  confirmed  his 
hopes.  Cornell  won  in  New  York,  States  ordinarily 
"doubtful"  fell  into  line,  and  in  the  general  result,  as 
The  Tribune  tauntingly  put  it,  a  solid  North  sent  its 


12  THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

greetings  to  a  solid  South.  The  victory  was,  indeed,  so 
wide-spread  that  Reid  confidently  faced  the  future  as  be- 
longing to  his  party.  The  contest  of  1880,  he  thought, 
could  now  Le  opened  with  fair  prospects.  Unless  the 
Republicans  blundered  most  strangely  they  could  elect 
the  next  President  and  shape  the  history  of  the  country 
for  the  ensuing  ten  years. 

It  was  a  not  unreasonable  forecast.  Without  any 
fortuitous  interference  existing  conditions  should  have 
promoted  plain  saihng  for  the  new  campaign.  The  return 
of  General  Grant  from  his'  European  travels,  however, 
supplied  all  that  was  necessary  to  complicate  an  other- 
wise simple  problem.  He  landed  at  San  Francisco  a 
month  or  so  before  the  State  elections,  naturally  received 
the  heartiest  of  popular  welcomes  as  he  came  East,  and 
with  surprising  rapidity  was  in  pleased  possession  of  a 
Grant  "boom."  I  say  "surprising,"  but  the  revival  of 
his  political  fortunes  was,  perhaps,  only  to  be  expected. 
None  of  our  ex-Presidents,  with  the  exception  of  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt,  has  ever  had  a  larger  or  more  devoted 
personal  following.  By  this  time,  too,  "Third  Termism" 
had  lost  its  terrors  for  many  of  his  adherents.  Voters 
who  had  balked  at  giving  him  a  third  consecutive  elec- 
tion were  not  unwilling  to  return  him  to  the  White  House 
after  an  interim  of  four  years.  By  some  queer  process 
of  reasoning  it  was  assumed  that  the  interposition  of  the 
Hayes  administration  had  taken  the  curse  off  a  policy 
previously  condemned.  It  was  condemned  again,  of 
course,  but  not  before  it  had  caused  a  prodigious  lot  of 
trouble.  In  Reid's  circle  it  raised  anxious  doubts.  Hay 
was  so  far  impressed  as  to  say  that  there  was  no  more 
chance  of  stopping  the  Grant  movement  by  sober,  seri- 
ous, sensible  presentment  of  the  facts  and  reasons  in 
the  case,  than  there  was  of  stopping  the  yellow  fever 
with   a   brass  tand.     If  Grant   lived,   and   wanted   the 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  13 

nomination,  he  would  get  it.  From  a  trustworthy  source 
Hay  reported  what  he  considered  a  most  disquieting  fea- 
ture of  the  business,  namely,  that  Mrs.  Grant  had  set 
her  heart  upon  it,  believing  that  the  general  would  be 
unanimously  elected  by  the  whole  electoral  college. 
And,  as  Hay's  informant  remarked,  **the  General  would 
rather  offend  forty  million  people  than  Madame."  Hal- 
stead  gave  way  to  something  like  fury.  **The  damned 
farce  of  the  American  people  prostrating  themselves  be- 
fore Grant,"  he  ejaculated,  **is  one  of  the  most  shameful 
chapters  in  history." 

Shameful  or  not,  it  had  to  be  reckoned  with,  and  the 
interest  in  Reid's  correspondence  centres  in  the  diplo- 
matic activities,  pro  and  con,  which  it  set  going  behind 
the  scenes.  The  special  significance  of  the  Grant  boom 
resided  less  in  the  matter  of  his  personal  chances  than 
in  the  effect  it  was  bound  to  have  upon  the  determination 
of  other  candidacies.  "It  is  my  judgment,"  wrote  Hal- 
stead,  "that  the  Republican  leader  who  fights  Grant 
first  and  hardest  will  win."  The  discussion  amongst 
Reid  and  his  friends  revolved  all  the  time  around  the 
question  as  to  who  the  early  and  invincible  gladiator 
should  be.  The  name  of  John  Sherman  was  on  many 
lips.  He  occupied  at  the  outset  a  fairly  strong  position. 
In  November  Halstead  sent  word  to  Reid  that  the  sec- 
retary of  the  treasury,  with  the  prestige  of  Resumption 
behind  him,  was  cheerfully  confident  of  his  chances  in 
the  convention.  Halstead  was  sure  that  he  would  con- 
test every  inch  of  the  field  to  the  last.  I  have  a  pointed 
souvenir  of  the  statesman's  indignation  when,  in  the 
midst  of  the  first  skirmishes,  he  met  Grant  in  Philadel- 
phia, and  was  promptly  represented  in  the  press  as  hav- 
ing, under  the  softening  influences  of  a  luncheon-table, 
actually  joined  the  Grant  movement !  To  kill  this  aston- 
ishing canard  he  wrote  to  Reid  as  follows: 


14  THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Fifth  Avenue  Hotel, 

,,  ^  December  21st,  1870. 

My  dear  Sir:  ^ 

I  wish  very  much  to  have  an  interview  with  you  during  my  visit 
here,  and  venture  to  name  today  at  some  convenient  hour  to  you. 
I  will  be  at  this  Hotel  at  or  after  3  P.M.  or  can  call  at  your  House. 
I  take  this  occasion  to  say  that  the  story  I  see  in  the  "Herald"  this 
morning  is  untrue  in  every  material  respect.  I  did  see  Gen.  Grant 
at  Drexel's  Party  on  Friday  evening  but  had  no  conversation  with 
him  or  with  any  one  about  his  Candidacy  either  in  form  or  sub- 
stance. On  the  contrary  I  am  now,  as  four  years  ago,  utterly 
opposed  to  the  3rd  term  and  believe  Gen.  Grant  would  make  a 
fatal  mistake  in  accepting  a  nomination  and  the  Republican  party 
in  offering  it.  While  I  do  not  care  over  my  own  signature  to  make 
this  statement  you  are  authorized  to  say  so  in  The  Tribune. 

Very  truly  yours.  j^^^  Sn^^^. 


The  interview  was  arranged  and,  as  was  plain  the  next 
morning,  The  Tribune  was  only  too  glad  to  *'say  so," 
making  the  most  of  Sherman's  sturdy  challenge,  and 
leaving  no  possible  excuse  for  any  further  pubhc  mis- 
understanding as  to  his  position.  Nevertheless,  through- 
out the  period  leading  up  to  the  convention,  Reid  ap- 
pears to  have  had  no  illusions  at  all  as  to  the  potentiaH- 
ties  of  Sherman  in  the  fight  against  Grant.  He  had  the 
promptitude  and  the  courage.  He  could  count  upon  his 
State,  Ohio.  But  the  wider,  national  drift  was  not  in 
his  direction.  Blaine,  in  Reid's  opinion,  was  unmistak- 
ably marked  for  the  critical  role  in  the  impending  con- 
flict. The  only  virtue  of  Sherman's  boom,  as  he  saw  it, 
was  that  it  might  help  to  weaken  Grant's,  without  hurt- 
ing Blaine's. 

On  the  verge  of  the  presidential  year  Blaine  himself 
was  debarred  by  circumstances  from  mixing  to  any 
extent  in  the  deployment  of  candidacies.  The  fall  elec- 
tions in  his  own  State  had  developed  a  grave  imbrogho, 
threatening  the  fraudulent  reversal  of  a  clear  majority. 
A  Republican  governor  was  seated  only  after  the  supreme 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  15 

court  had  been  called  upon  for  a  decision,  and  until 
that  was  rendered  Blaine  was  too  busy  in  Maine,  as  the 
mentor  of  his  party,  to  work  upon  anything  else.  In  his 
memoir  of  the  statesman  Mr.  Stanwood  says  that  he 
could  not  be  induced  to  promote  his  own  candidacy  in 
any  way  at  this  time;  he  could  not  even  be  persuaded  to 
leave  Augusta  before  the  judicial  verdict  had  been  pro- 
nounced, which  was  not  until  the  middle  of  January, 
1880.  Meanwhile,  however,  there  were  others  who  were 
thinking  of  him  in  relation  to  the  campaign.  One  of 
these  was  Halstead.  He  preferred  Sherman  as  a  candi- 
date, but  he  was  not  at  all  unfriendly  to  Blaine,  and  he 
thought  he  saw  a  way  in  which  the  latter  might  aid  in 
taking  the  bloom  off  the  Grant  boom.  This  was  to  be 
by  the  exertion  of  his  influence  in  designating  the  place 
for  the  national  convention.  If  Chicago  were  fixed 
upon,  the  complexion  of  local  pohtics  would  be  heavily 
in  favor  of  Grant's  backers.  At  Cincinnati  those  gen- 
tlemen would  be  ill  at  ease,  if  not  in  danger  of  political 
frost-bite,  and  Halstead  bombarded  Reid  with  letters 
urging  that  Blaine  be  persuaded  to  act  in  the  matter. 
Ultimately  these  epistles  were  forwarded  to  him.  They 
elicited  a  notable  reply,  notable  for  Its  manly  revelation 
of  Blaine's  state  of  mind  on  the  whole  question  of  presi- 
dential ambition.     I  give  it  In  full; 

Augusta, 

^^  x/r      r»  December  loth,  1879. 

My  dear  Mr.  Reid: 

I  have  been  so  much  engaged  in  fightmg — or  at  least  exposing — 
the  Democratic  conspiracy  in  this  state  that  I  have  really  given  no 
attention  to  the  possible  action  of  the  National  Committee  touching 
time  and  place  of  the  Convention.  And  in  fact  my  general  conclu- 
sion, without  going  into  details,  that  I  had  no  special  interest  of  a 
personal  nature  in  the  result,  has  tended  to  keep  my  mind  off  the 
matter. 

Circumstances  outside  of  my  own  original  designs  or  desire  made 
me  fight  an  aggressive  battle  in  1876-^against  all  the  candidates 
combined,  against  the  Grant  Administration,  against  a  hostile  city 


i6  THE  LIFE  OP  WHITELAW  REID 

[Cincinnati]  highly  inflamed  by  the  course  of  "those  two  d — d 
Kentucky  papers,"  as  an  Oregon  delegate  styled  the  "Gazette" 
and  "Commercial."  I  will  never  again  fight  an  aggressive  battle, 
horses  cannot  drag  me  into  it,  and  as  you  well  know  I  am  literally 
doing  nothing  in  the  matter.  Grant's  friends  are  very  active. 
Sherman's  friends  are  very  active.  Mine  are  not.  If  I  am  taken 
it  will  be  as  an  alternate.  If  I  should  go  out  actively  in  the  fight  I 
should  very  probably  end  with  a  combination  of  Grant  and  Sher- 
man against  me.  That  would  not  be  half  so  unnatural  a  result  as 
the  coalition  of  Conkling,  Morton,  Hayes  and  Bristow  at  Cincinnati 
in  '76. 

Therefore  my  conclusion  is  that  I  ought  not  to  attempt  any  inter- 
meddling with  the  possible  conclusion  of  the  National  Committee. 
I  cannot  be  in  Washington  on  the  17th  and  could  do  httle  by  writing. 
I  have  not  the  remotest  objection  to  Cincinnati  being  selected  and 
yet  if  I  should  say  so  publicly  it  would  require  the  space  of  a  quarto 
dictionary  to  explain  my  position  to  my  friends.  I  do  not  retain 
any  soreness  out  of  the  conflict  of  '76,  and  least  of  all  would  I,  if  I 
could,  do  a  resentful  act  towards  the  "Gazette"  or  "Commercial." 
While  I  think  they  dealt  unjustly  by  me  in  '76,  when  I  was  on  my 
back  and  helpless,  I  count  that  all  as  belonging  to  the  Silurian  epoch, 
and  I  never  recur  to  it  otherwise  than  I  am  now  doing  for  cool  com- 
ment. Both  papers  treat  me  very  well  of  late  and  Halstead  I  think 
has  gone  out  of  his  way  to  say  kind  and  friendly  things  of  me,  and  I 
certainly  have  no  feeling  adverse  to  friendly  relations  with  him — 
entirely  irrespective  of  Presidential  plans  and  plots. 

If  I  should  say  publicly  that  I  am  not  anxious  to  be  nominated 
in  '80  it  would  simply  be  taken  as  a  piece  of  aff'ectation.  Therefore 
I  never  say  it;  and  yet  if  I  know  my  own  "true  inwardness,"  I  could 
say  it  with  absolute  candor.  Not  that  I  feel  indiff'erent  to  the 
exalted  position,  with  its  mighty  power,  but  because  of  the  bitter 
struggle  and  its  doubtful  end  at  last — doubtful  by  the  double  dan- 
ger of  defeat  at  the  polls  and  cheat  in  the  final  count.  And  then  I 
have  had  one  great  ambition  of  my  life  filled.  Many  of  those  who 
aided  in  beating  me  at  Cincinnati  congratulated  themselves  that  I 
was  done  for  and  ended  as  a  public  man,  that  I  had  lost  my  grip, 
and  was  injured  in  my  character.  I  have  hved  to  see  some  of  the 
most  mahgnant  of  these  men  relegated  to  private  Hfe — by  no  agency 
of  mine — and  I  have  hved,  if  it  is  a  pardonable  boast  in  a  private 
note,  to  find  myself  with  a  larger  personal  following  than  any  or  all 
of  those  who  combined  against  me.  And  I  have  not  done  it  by 
demagoguery  or  double-dealing  on  any  question  or  with  any  man. 
And  now  if  the  great  American  people  don't  choose  to  nominate  me 
for  the  Presidency  (as  they  almost  certainly  will  not)  you  will  not 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  17 

find  me  a  fool,  or  a  weakling,  or  a  sorehead  or  a  mourner — but  I 
shall  go  into  the  campaign  of  1880  for  the  candidate,  with  all  the 
cheerfulness  in  the  world. 

I  enjoy  my  place  in  the  Senate  and  unless  the  deuce  comes  to 
be  counted  as  the  ace  in  Maine  I  can  hold  it  indefinitely.  Why 
then  should  I  fret  to  get  into  a  doubtful  contest?  Had  I  succeeded 
in  '76  I  would  now  be  on  the  eve  of  "muster  out"  at  fifty  years  of 
age,  with  the  best  part  of  my  life — if  I  am  to  be  blessed  with  length 
of  days — to  be  passed  as  a  walking  gentleman  in  the  play,  Hke  Fill- 
more, or  as  Justice  of  the  Peace  and  Quorum,  Hke  Madison,  or  trav- 
elling the  earth's  surface  after  the  fashion  of  the  Wandering  Jew,  as 
Grant  does.  Frank  Pierce  once  told  me  that  God  Almighty  had 
permitted  no  torture  to  be  invented  so  cruel  as  the  life  of  an  Ex- 
President;  in  fact,  as  he  said  to  Gov.  Shaw,  "there  is  nothing  left 
for  him  but  to  get  drunk."  As  I  have  no  taste  for  liquor  even  that 
resource  would  have  been  cut  off  from  me. 

Therefore,  with  all  these  warnings  before  me  (like  the  English 

lady's  horror  of  the  bull  fight  and  her  eager  desire  to  see  one)  it 

only  remains  for  me  to  say  that  of  course  I  would  enjoy  being  made 

miserable  after  the  pattern  of  those  illustrious  predecessors.     But 

Heavens !     What  a  letter  I   am  writing,  and  with  what  reckless 

candor  I  am  talking.     But  of  course  it  is  private  for  all  the  world 

except  Phelps.  tt      -t         j        t 

Hastily  and  truly,  j    ^    3^^^^^ 

P.  S.  In  reading  over  my  ten  pages,  written  without  looking 
back,  it  might  seem  that  1  had  by  some  possibility  manifested  an 
unconcern  for  those  who  have  steadily  honored  me  with  their  friend- 
ship, "of  whom  you  are  chief"  Of  course  you  could  not  so  under- 
stand me  for  indeed  the  friendship,  attachment  and  love  that  have 
been  shown  to  me  and  for  me,  by  so  many  of  the  best  and  bravest, 
are  as  sweet  to  me  as  the  "odors,  which  are  the  prayers  of  saints." 

J.  G.  B. 


He  went  on  struggling  with  what  Reid  called  "the 
Maine  diabolism,"  but  in  January,  as  I  have  said,  that 
was  finally  disposed  of,  and  back  in  Washington  he  could 
see  that  he,  as  well  as  Grant  and  Sherman,  had  sup- 
porters who  were  "very  active."  Hay's  letters  con- 
stantly testify  to  this  fact.  It  hadn't  taken  him  long  to 
recognize  the  superiority  of  his  friend's  judgment  on  the 
net   value   of  Grant's    prospects.     "About   that   Grant 


i8  THE  LIFE  OF.  WHITELAW  REID 

boom,"  he  writes  in  January.  "I  hear  wonderful  news 
this  morning.  Murat  Halstead  came  to  see  me  and  told 
me  that  the  jig  was  up,  that  the  intimate  Grant  circle  in 
Philadelphia  admitted  it  and  said  that  before  long  there 
would  be  an  authoritative  announcement  to  that  effect. 
The  thoroughbred  stallion  James  Gillespie  Blaine  seems 
to  be  the  favorite  in  the  pools  at  this  moment.  Don 
Cameron's  four-in-hand  seems  to  be  running  away  with 
him."  The  next  day  his  conviction  has  gone  a  little 
deeper.  **I  think  Blaine  is  the  Bully  Boy  with  the  cel- 
luloid ear,"  he  gleefully  proclaims.  All  seemed  then  in 
train  for  the  complete  dispersal  of  Blaine's  doubts  and 
fears.  But  the  allusion  to  Don  Cameron's  four-in-hand 
directs  attention  to  the  ambiguous,  misleading  move- 
ments which  certain  chariots  sometimes  make  on  the 
political  highway.  The  hereditary  "boss"  in  Pennsyl- 
vania, Don,  son  of  Simon,  was  engaged  just  then  in 
manoeuvres  upon  which  the  supporters  of  the  leading 
candidates  gazed  with  emotions  determined  altogether 
by  the  degree  of  their  acquaintance  with  his  wily  ways. 
When  Cameron  was  made  chairman  of  the  RepubHcan 
National  Committee  John  Sherman  told  Reid  that  he 
had  favored  the  election  "because  he  was  by  all  odds 
the  best  man  for  the  place,"  a  comment  made,  as  we 
shall  presently  see,  with  almost  pathetic  bhndness.  The 
Tribune's  remark  that  the  action  of  the  committee  would 
probably  be  regarded  as  a  gain  for  General  Grant  proved 
in  the  upshot  only  too  true.  Of  the  three  United  States 
senators  who  were  peculiarly  active  in  bolstering  up  the 
candidate  for  a  third  term,  Conkhng,  of  New  York,  and 
Logan,  of  IIHnois,  were  unquestionably  powerful  enough, 
and  in  the  convention  the  first  of  these  was  to  develop 
an  exceptional  influence;  but  while  the  grooming  of  can- 
didates was  going  on  Cameron  was  impressive  in  weight 
and  mischievous  intent.     As  chairman  alone  he  counted 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  19 

to  some  purpose.  With  the  Pennsylvania  machine  at 
his  back  his  influence  was  doubled  in  force.  This  was  to 
be  made  grimly  manifest  in  the  spring.  In  the  preceding 
winter  appreciation  of  what  was  sinister  in  his  conduct 
varied,  as  I  have  indicated,  with  knowledge  of  the  boss, 
his  environment,  and  his  antecedents.  Hay,  for  exam- 
ple, required  fuller  initiation.  Chuckling  over  Blaine's 
seemingly  secure  seat  in  the  Cameronian  equipage,  he 
was  still  not  quite  certain  of  what  was  developing.  In 
some  bewilderment  he  informed  Reid  of  a  singular  talk 
he  had  had  with  the  great  man.  Don  hadn't  been  en- 
tirely consistent  and  coherent,  but  the  nub  of  it  was  that 
Grant  was  only  his  figurehead  and  Blaine  really  his 
man.  If  he  were  to  be  let  alone  and  not  antagonized  by 
the  Blaine  men  in  Pennsylvania,  he  would  give  the 
Plumed  Knight  his  fifty-eight  votes.  He  said  that  the 
State  convention  would  instruct  for  Grant — it  had  to 
do  so  as  part  of  his  plan — but  Blaine  would  lose  nothing 
by  the  process.  Reid's  reply  is  illuminating,  exposing 
at  once  the  motivation  of  insincere  pohtics  in  general 
and  the  sweetly  ingenuous  art  of  Don  Cameron  in  par- 
ticular: 

New  York, 

,,  TT  January  29th,  1880. 

My  dear  Hay:  ^    ^ 

You  have  doubtless  forgotten  one  point  which  I  fancy  you  must 
have  heard.  When  Cameron  was  driven  out  of  Lincoln's  cabinet 
John  Sherman  voted  against  his  confirmation  as  Minister  to  Russia. 
When  Cameron  got  back  into  the  Senate  he  went  to  the  record  of 
Executive  Sessions,  and  looked  that  interesting  fact  up.  Don  won't 
throw  the  vote  of  Pennsylvania  for  the  man  that  voted  to  disgrace 
his  Father — at  least  not  while  the  venerable  Simon  could  still  reach 
for  his  scalp.  So,  if  Don  can't  get  Grant,  of  course  he  wants  Blaine, 
or  somebody  else,  to  beat  Sherman.  I  believe  that's  the  true  in- 
wardness of  his  talk  with  you. 

But  his  effort  to  get  Pennsylvania  to  instruct  for  Grant  is  dan- 
gerous and  ought  to  be  defeated.  I  suggested  very  earnestly  the 
other  day  to  Blaine  that  his  friends,  if  strong  enough,  should  put 
through  the  Pennsylvania  convention  a  simple  resolution  reafhrm- 


20  THE  LIFE  OF.WHITELAW  REID 

ing  their  3rd  term  plank  of  1875 — that  and  nothing  more.  No 
instructions  for  Blaine.  Please  talk  with  him  about  it.  The  thing 
seems  to  me  of  great  importance.  _^,  _^ 


Blaine's  friends  in  the  Pennsylvania  convention,  held 
a  week  later,  were  not  strong  enough  to  withstand  Cam- 
eron. He  saw  to  it  that  the  delegation  was  instructed 
for  Grant,  with  orders,  also,  to  vote  as  a  unit  on  all 
questions.  But  he  won  his  point  on  so  narrow  a  major- 
ity that  the  repulse  of  the  Blaine  forces  was  more  appar- 
ent than  real.  "It  winds  up  Grant,"  was  Garfield's 
comment. 

When  the  Third  Term  movement  was  later  successful 
in  the  New  York  convention,  Reid  recognized  the  fact 
that  Conkhng,  who  controlled  that  body,  would  be  in  a 
position  to  make  serious  trouble  at  Chicago,  yet  he  still 
could  not  believe  that  at  the  crucial  moment  the  hated 
scheme  would  go  through.  Republican  leadership  would 
see,  he  prophesied,  the  absurdity  of  embarking  upon  a 
losing  fight.  If  Grant  secured  the  nomination  the  party 
would  be  committed  beyond  all  peradventure  to  a  de- 
fensive campaign,  and  to  the  managers  contemplating 
that  suicidal  course  he  commended  the  parable  of  the 
seeker  after  a  trustworthy  coachman.  All  the  candi- 
dates were  asked  the  same  question:  "Suppose  that  you 
were  driving  my  carriage  alongside  of  a  precipice — how 
near  could  you  go  to  the  edge  without  going  off?"  The 
first  named  a  limit  of  two  feet,  the  second  was  content 
with  only  six  inches,  but  the  man  who  got  the  job  was 
the  one  who  said  he  should  keep  as  far  away  from  the 
edge  as  possible.  Grant's  supporters  maintained,  in 
effect,  that  they  could  take  the  Republican  party  within 
six  inches  of  the  abyss  of  defeat  and  still  save  it.  Reid 
knew  they  couldn't  do  it,  and  said  so  from  day  to  day 
with  all  the  vigor  at  his  command.     To  the  remonstrances 


BEHIND  THE   SCENES  21 

of  those  political  leaders,  some  of  them  in  his  own  State, 
who  deprecated  opposition  to  Grant,  he  retorted  simply 
that  a  defensive  campaign  was,  in  the  circumstances,  a 
campaign  thrown  away,  resting  upon  this  broad  princi- 
ple rather  than  upon  the  advocacy  of  any  other  candi- 
date. At  the  same  time  he  gave  them  furiously  to  think 
by  quietly  printing  certain  facts  in  his  news  columns. 
These,  gathered  from  many  parts  of  the  country,  clearly 
showed  the  increasing  popularity  of  Blaine. 

In  his  December  letter  Blaine  had  declared  that  he 
would  never  again  fight  an  aggressive  battle.  *' Horses 
cannot  drag  me  into  it,"  he  had  said.  As  the  winter 
waned  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  resist  the  tide  of 
political  activity  which  eddied  round  him,  and  Walter 
Phelps,  in  March,  gives  the  measure  of  Blaine's  concern 
for  his  own  candidacy  as  it  throve  in  the  atmosphere  of 
Washington.  "Blaine  is  very  happy,"  he  wrote  to  Reid, 
**and  his  home  is  in  the  fever  of  a  perpetual  exchange. 
MacVeagh  said  he  doubted  if  I  or  any  one  else  could 
see  him  alone.  Blaine  is  at  least  hopeful  enough  to 
take  an  interest,  and  is  himself  apparently  putting  his 
fingers  to  the  wire — certainly  not  publicly,  perhaps  not 
confessedly  to  himself,  but  he  certainly  is  doing  it.  And 
this  personal  activity  is  one  reason — I  hope  not  the  only 
one — why  he  is  so  cheerful."  On  the  evening  at  Blaine's 
when  he  gathered  this  impression  he  also  met  Cam- 
eron, who,  however,  did  not  talk  up  the  prospects  of 
their  host.  On  the  contrary,  he  tried  to  convince  Phelps 
that  Grant's  nomination  was  necessary,  as  he,  and  only 
he,  could  carry  Louisiana,  Virginia,  or  any  other  Southern 
State !  A  marplot,  indeed,  was  the  persistent  gentle- 
man from  Pennsylvania.  Writing  to  Reid  at  the  end  of 
April,  Hay  says:  "I  think  Grant  is  not  yet  beaten  but 
he  is  beatable,  by  a  miracle  or  two.  Don  Cameron  is 
the  absolutely  unknown  quantity.     He  swears — profanely 


22  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

— that  Pennsylvania  and  New  York  will  be  solid,  and 
that  Blaine  is  a  goner.  He  says  if  Blaine  is  wise  he  will 
take  the  Vice-Presidency.  He  even  said  so  to  Mrs. 
Blaine.  You^may  fancy  how  it  was  received."  If  the 
astute  Pennsylvanian  thought  that  with  desperate  coun- 
sels he  could  "rattle"  Blaine,  he  was,  for  once,  a  little 
too  astute.  Preliminary  skirmishes  had  renewed  in  the 
Maine  statesman  all  his  wonted  zest  and  resourcefulness. 
There  are  some  reveahng  words  in  a  long  despatch  of 
his  to  Reid,  sent  early  in  May.  "The  Grant  forces  are 
making  superhuman  efforts  in  Illinois,"  he  says,  "but 
up  to  this  time  I  hold  the  lead.  The  fight,  however,  is 
desperate."  That  was  the  kind  of  fight  to  bring  out 
Blaine's  most  characteristic  traits,  and  he  could  display 
them  with  the  knowledge  that  he  had  a  growing  sup- 
port. A  careful  analysis  which  The  Tribune  just  then 
made  of  the  voting  at  a  large  number  of  State  conven- 
tions showed  that  the  set  of  Republican  opinion  was 
strongly  in  his  favor.  For  one  thing,  a  majority  against 
a  third  term  seemed  already  quite  assured.  On  May 
23d  William  E.  Chandler,  expert  in  reading  the  signs  of 
political  weather,  was  predicting  that  Blaine  would  have 
a  plurahty  on  the  first  ballot  and  would  be  nominated 
on  the  second.  This  was  the  view  generally  prevailing 
when  the  convention  was  organized  at  Chicago  on  June 
2d.  And  everybody  concerned  was  there  to  be  taught 
anew  the  ancient  lesson  of  politics — which  is  that  it  is 
the  unexpected  that  happens. 

One  expectation  of  Reid's  was  in  nowise  disappointed. 
He  said  that  the  convention  would  bring  up  more  con- 
testable questions  than  any  since  1864,  and  he  was  right. 
Trouble  began  even  before  organization.  A  resolution 
against  the  unit  rule  was  introduced  at  a  meeting  of  the 
National  Committee.  Don  Cameron,  as  chairman,  per- 
emptorily refused  to  entertain  it,  or  to  permit  an  appeal 


BEHIND  THE   SCENES  23 

against  his  decision.  Whereupon  he  was  hotly  accused 
of  using  the  high-handed  methods  of  Tammany  and 
threatened  with  deposition.  From  the  compromise  that 
was  effected  the  anti-Grant  men  issued,  however,  with 
courage  heightened  and  hopes  not  by  any  means  cast 
down.  In  the  upshot  it  gave  them  as  permanent  chair- 
man of  the  convention  Senator  G.  F.  Hoar,  of  Massachu- 
setts, who  had  no  love  for  the  unit  rule,  and  under  his 
impartial  auspices  there  were  much  better  chances  for 
justice  when  the  crucial  battle  opened.  On  the  first  trial 
of  strength,  a  ballot  on  a  resolution,  the  delegates  ignored 
the  unit  rule,  each  man  voting  for  himself,  and  this  was 
a  token  of  defeat  for  Grant.  Reid  hailed  the  omen. 
There  was  never  a  possibility,  in  his  opinion,  of  the 
nomination  of  the  general,  except  by  the  deprival  of 
many  of  the  delegates  of  their  freedom  in  voting,  and 
when  the  report  of  the  committee  on  rules  was  called  up 
he  saw  his  liveHest  hopes  confirmed.  The  Grant  faction 
strove  mightily  to  bring  about  nominations  before  the 
unit  rule  should  be  formally  smashed.  It  strove  in  vain. 
Garfield,  in  terse,  telhng  sentences,  and  with  great  par- 
liamentary skill,  led  the  opposition  to  this  intrigue,  the 
convention  played  up,  and  the  unit  rule  was  thrown  into 
the  discard,  where  it  belonged.  When  the  nominations 
began  it  had  taken  nearly  four  days  to  clear  the  way  for 
them,  but  a  point  of  inestimable  value  had  been  made 
— the  free  and  voluntary  action  of  every  delegate  had 
been  recognized  and  reaffirmed  as  the  fundamental  law 
of  the  party.  In  the  process  the  Third  Term  movement 
had  been  smitten  in  its  tracks. 

Six  names  were  presented  to  the  convention  at  the 
Saturday-night  session  which  found  the  delegates  at  last 
ready  for  their  task — Grant,  Blaine,  Sherman,  Edmunds, 
Washburne,  and  Windom,  and  oh  the  following  Monday 
morning  The  Tribune  expressed  the  current  opinion  in 


24       the;  life  ofwhitelaw  reid 

saying  that  it  was  ** anybody's  race/'  But  the  first  bal- 
lot cast  on  that  day  showed  that  the  contest  was  essen- 
tially between  Grant  and  Blaine,  and  this  situation  re- 
mained unchanged  through  two  sessions.  Twenty-eight 
ballots  were  taken  without  the  making  of  a  choice.  On 
the  other  hand,  they  had  left  it  fairly  evident  that  neither 
Grant  nor  Blaine  could  win.  I  have  indicated  the  per- 
sonal significance  of  a  State  "boss"  in  a  crisis  of  this 
kind  in  alluding  to  Don  Cam_eron  of  Pennsylvania.  To 
his  assertion  that  *' Blaine  was  a  goner,"  an  even  keener 
edge  was  given  on  the  scene  of  tattle  by  Roscoe  Conkling, 
of  New  York.  In  his  speech  presenting  Grant's  name  to 
the  convention,  not  content  with  uttering  a  panegyric 
upon  his  candidate,  he  went  out  of  his  way  to  make 
remarks  which  could  only  be  construed  as  insinuations 
against  the  general's  most  dangerous  rival.  Never  were 
sneers  more  grossly  ill-advised.  If  they  gratified  Conk- 
ling's  private  spleen  they  also  raised  amongst  Blaine's 
supporters  an  anger  absolutely  fatal  to  the  plans  of  the 
vindictive  orator.  If  forced  to  it,  the  Blaine  men  might 
have  shifted  to  another  candidate,  but  never  to  Grant. 
The  two  camps,  antagonistic  enough  before  Conkling 
spoke,  were  now  mutually  implacable.  There  was  no 
mistaking  this  when  the  twenty-eighth  ballot  had  been 
taken.  It  spelled  a  deadlock  only  to  be  broken  by 
recourse  to  a  third  candidate.  There  seemed  here  a  for- 
lorn hope  for  John  Sherman.  Garfield  had  led  the  Ohio 
delegation  in  its  devoted  support  of  that  candidate,  pre- 
senting his  name  to  the  convention  in  a  brilliant  speech, 
one  which,  as  The  Tribune  expressed  it,  was  admirably 
adapted  to  make  votes  for  his  candidate,  if  speeches 
ever  made  votes.  But  through  the  long-drawn-out  bal- 
loting of  the  first  day  the  secretary,  starting  with  93 
votes,  ended  with  91,  and  although,  when  the  struggle 
to  break  the  deadlock  began,  he  jumped  to  116  and  sub- 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  25 

sequently  made  a  trifling  gain,  thenceforth  his  strength 
gradually  melted  away. 

It  was  on  the  thirty-fourth  ballot  that  Garfield — as  the 
**dark  horse"  that  Conkling  had  protested  against,  and 
dreaded — came  into  view.  The  frequent  mention  of  his 
name,  early  in  the  convention,  as  a  possible  compromise 
candidate,  had  seemingly  made  no  serious  impression, 
least  of  all  upon  Garfield  himself.  Through  thirty-three 
of  the  apparently  interminable  ballots  he  had  received 
the  nominal  honor  of  one  vote,  sometimes  rising  to  two. 
Then,  on  the  thirty-fourth,  the  germ  of  the  final  nomina- 
tion was  deposited.  Sixteen  of  Wisconsin's  twenty  votes 
were  cast  for  Garfield,  and  critical  developments  in  the 
situation  seemed  imminent.  Perhaps  he  vaguely  sensed 
them,  for  when  he  rose  in  his  place  to  address  the  chair 
he  was  pale  with  excitement.  Senator  Hoar,  instantly 
alert  for  an  infraction  of  the  rules,  sought  to  head  off 
any  personal  explanation  or  declination,  which  would 
have  been  a  clear  violation  of  them.  He  did  not  suc- 
ceed, altogether.  Garfield  pointed  out  that  no  one  had 
any  right  to  cast  votes  for  a  gentleman  in  the  convention 
without  his  consent.  *'And  that  consent,"  he  exclaimed, 
**I  refuse."  The  matter  was  beyond  his  control.  On 
the  next  ballot  50  votes  were  cast  for  him,  and  on  the 
one  that  followed — the  last — the  trend  in  his  favor  was 
soon  unmistakable.  The  Tribune  thus  described  Gar- 
field's demeanor  as  the  taking  of  the  thirty-sixth  ballot 
proceeded,  the  Blaine  and  Sherman  States  began  to  pour 
in  their  strength,  and  the  choice  of  the  Ohio  senator  was 
clearly  indicated: 

There  was  a  universal  uproar;  half  the  convention  rose  to  its 
feet.  While  the  building  was  resounding  with  loud  cheers  for  Gar- 
field there  was  a  cluster  of  excited  delegates  about  the  General  him- 
self, who  sat  quiet  and  cool  in  his  ordinary  place  at  the  end  of  one 
of  the  rows  of  seats  in  the  Ohio  delegation.  He  wore  the  white  badge 
of  an  Ohio  delegate  on  his  coat,  and  held  his  massive  head  steadily 


26  THE  LIFE  OF'  WHITELAW  REID 

immovable.  But  for  an  appearance  of  extra  resoluteness  on  his 
face,  as  that  of  a  man  who  was  repressing  internal  excitement,  he 
might  have  been  supposed  to  have  as  little  interest  in  the  proceed- 
ings as  any  other  delegate  on  the  floor  of  the  convention.  He  was 
in  fact  going  through  one  of  the  most  extraordinary  experiences 
ever  given  to  an  American  citizen.  He  was  being  struck  by  Presi- 
dential lightning  while  sitting  in  the  body  which  was  to  nominate 
him.  He  was  being  nominated  for  President  at  half  past  one  o'clock 
in  the  afternoon,  when  he  could  hardly  have  dreamed  of  such  a 
thing  at  nine  o'clock  in  the  morning. 

The  situation  was  indeed  not  only  dramatic  but  pecu- 
liar, as  the  report  continued.'  Garfield  had  entered  the 
convention  as  the  loyal  representative  of  Secretary  Sher- 
man, who  was  still  a  candidate.  The  Ohio  delegates, 
most  of  whom  were  the  warm  friends  of  both  men,  were 
in  honor  bound  to  support  Sherman  so  long  as  there 
was  any  possibihty  of  his  nomination.  Like  a  truthful 
and  honorable  gentleman,  Garfield  had  from  the  first  set 
his  face  against  all  suggestions  that  he  should  himself 
become  a  candidate,  feeling  that  any  yielding  to  such 
suggestions  would  be  rankly  disloyal  to  the  friend  he 
had  come  to  support.  But  now  he  was  being  forced  into 
the  field  in  spite  of  himself,  and  the  indications  were 
that  his  own  vote  would  surpass  that  of  his  candidate. 
He  passed  Grant  as  the  vote  of  Massachusetts  was 
thrown  into  the  balance  and  thereafter  his  lead  was 
swiftly  increased.  When  Wisconsin,  that  had  set  the 
ball  rolling  on  the  thirty-fourth  ballot,  once  more  came 
to  the  front,  he  could  reckon  up  399  votes,  where  only 
378  were  necessary  for  a  choice.  It  was  a  fitting  con- 
clusion to  a  strange  sequence  of  events.  The  Republi- 
can convention  of  1880  proved  true  to  its  exceptional 
character.  Sharply  distinguished  in  the  annals  of  the 
party  by  an  extraordinary  prolongation  of  factional  strife, 
it  wound  up  with  a  nomination  unforeseen  alike  by  the 
nominee  and  his  fellow  countrymen. 


BEHIND  THE  SCENES  27 

The  convention  did  more  than  give  the  party  a  win- 
ning candidate.  It  squelched  at  last  the  Third  Termers 
who  had  planned  to  control  its  deliberations,  and  in  this 
circumstance,  as  the  reader  will  doubtless  have  already 
surmised,  there  was  a  special  balm  for  Whitelaw  Reid. 
He  had  fought  the  abhorred  heresy  long  and  faithfully. 
It  looked  now  as  if  he  would  never  have  to  fight  it  again. 
The  name  of  Grant  no  longer  conveyed  to  his  ears  the 
sound  of  a  hateful  challenge.  That  it  had  done  so 
through  such  an  extended  period,  waking  in  the  columns 
of  The  Tribune  constant  echoes  of  warfare,  had  led  to 
the  belief  in  some  quarters  that  the  course  of  the  paper 
had  been  actuated  by  personal  animosity.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  Reid  had  never  in  his  life  opposed  Grant  on  any 
save  purely  pohtical  grounds.  Rejoicing  on  the  day 
after  Garfield's  nomination  that  not  for  a  century  could 
another  successful  soldier  ask  for  a  third  term,  he  pro- 
tested that  by  this  he  meant  no  reflection  upon  the  great 
mihtary  leader  he  had  always  endeavored  in  his  paper 
to  treat  with  the  admiring  respect  due  to  his  noble 
service  and  exalted  career.  What  he  acclaimed  was, 
simply,  the  settled  judgment  of  the  Repubhcan  party 
and  of  the  American  people  that  protracted  terms  of 
service  in  our  highest  ofiice  were  not  in  harmony  with 
the  spirit  of  our  institutions.  As  the  subject  disappears 
from  these  pages  it  is  pleasant  to  recall  the  cordial — and 
not  unamusing — circumstances  in  which  he  himself  bade 
it  farewell. 

Just  after  the  campaign,  in  which  Grant  had  made  a 
number  of  speeches  for  the  candidate,  giving  him  the 
most  sportsmanlike  support,  the  Lotos  Club  entertained 
the  general  at  dinner.  Reid  presided,  and  when  he  rose 
to  pay  a  tribute  of  welcome  to  the  guest  sitting  at  his 
right  hand,  there  was  not  a  man  present  who  failed  to 
realize  the  piquancy  of  the  moment  and  the  bristling 


28  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

nature  of  the  hurdles  which  the  speaker  faced.  He  took 
them  with  candid  directness,  pausing  only  to  eulogize 
the  soldier  and  to  recall  his  own  observation  of  Grant's 
calm  carriage  at  Pittsburg  Landing.  Then  he  plunged 
straight  at  the  question  which  had  so  recently  been  occu- 
pying the  American  people,  the  question  as  to  what  was 
to  be  done  with  their  ex-President.  He  spoke,  he  said, 
not  as  the  general's  partisan.  That  he  had  never  been. 
Often,  in  civil  affairs,  he  had  not  been  able  to  follow 
where  Grant  had  led,  and  a  long  laugh  went  round  the 
tables  as  he  expressed  the  fancy  that  the  general  would 
probably  be  quite  willing  to  give  him  a  certificate  for 
having  practised  great  freedom  of  speech  upon  that  sub- 
ject. But  speaking  confessedly  as  a  political  opponent 
he  had  a  solution  to  offer  for  the  problem  that  was  in  so 
many  minds.  It  was  that  Grant,  and  every  retiring 
President  in  the  future,  should  be  given  life  membership 
in  the  United  States  Senate. 

In  the  debate  on  the  subject  which  forthwith  ran 
through  the  press  there  were  signs  that  certain  irrecon- 
cilable ** Grant  organs"  found  httle  to  their  liking  in  this 
suggestion.  It  had  too  much  the  air  of  implying,  as 
Reid  meant  it  to  imply,  that  the  Third  Term  hypothesis 
had  been  exploded  forever.  But  it  was  as  graceful  as  it 
was  pointed,  striking  the  right  note  for  the  occasion  that 
brought  it  forth.  There  was  nothing  left  for  acrimony 
between  the  political  adversaries  of  a  long  period,  now 
breaking  bread  together  in  peace  and  amity. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  IM) 

From  a  iriend  of  Garfield's  who  saw  him  at  his  home 
in  the  summer  of  the  nomination  I  have  received  a  brief 
but  telling  reminiscence.  There  was  about  him  not  a 
trace  of  the  self-consciousness  of  a  successful  candidate. 
His  happy  spirit  appeared  to  draw  nothing  of  its  vitality 
from  the  pohtical  situation.  Sauntering  arm  in  arm  with 
his  guest  down  the  lanes  of  the  Mentor  farm,  his  easy, 
interesting  talk  was  now  of  the  prosperous  fields  on 
either  hand,  and  now  of  bookish  things.  The  impression 
he  left  was  of  a  mind  and  a  personality  equally  strong, 
original,  and  lovable.  All  of  the  private  souvenirs  that 
I  have  come  upon  in  the  Reid  papers  unite  on  the  sheer 
human  attractiveness  of  Garfield's  character.  Hay,  for 
example,  speaks  of  him  as  '*so  thoroughly  upright  and 
able,  one  who  knows  so  much  of  men  and  books,  who  is 
not  only  a  statesman  but  a  good  fellow  besides."  And 
the  richness  of  his  traits  is  shown  by  their  carrying 
power,  which  impressed  them  upon  people  who  had 
never  seen  him.  Walter  Phelps,  travelling  in  Germany 
during  the  campaign,  writes  in  one  of  his  letters  home: 
"White,  in  Berlin,  was  nice.  I  went  with  him  to  call  on 
Auerbach,  who  lives  in  a  handsome  suburb.  He's  a 
jolly,  fat  little  gentleman,  who  looks  like  Falstaff.  He 
knew  all  about  Garfield.  He  said  he  was  *a  scholarly 
Lincoln.'  Not  bad,  was  it?"  This  observation  by  the 
German  novelist  had  been  anticipated  by  Whitelaw  Reid 
in  1868,  when  he  wrote  "Ohio  in  the  War."  The  biog- 
raphy of  Garfield  therein  set  forth  discloses  the  remark- 

29 


30  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

able  range  of  Garfield's  qualities,  the  moral  and  intellec- 
tual energy  which  carried  him  from  the  tow-path  to 
academic  distinction,  made  him  not  only  a  brave  soldier 
but  a  brilliant  chief  of  staff,  and  in  political  life  won  him 
the  name  of  **  Great  Majority  Garfield,"  the  easy  winner 
of  one  contest  after  another.  When  The  Tribune  pub- 
lished its  campaign  life  of  the  candidate  this  memoir 
from  Reid's  book  furnished  forth  the  bulk  of  the  pam- 
phlet, requiring  only  to  be  brought  up  to  date  in  order 
to  show  the  American  people  what  manner  of  man  was 
destined  to  be  their  next  President.  Phelps  then  wrote 
of  it:  "You  have  no  idea  how  graceful,  complete  and  ^ 
interesting  that  is.  Vm  hugely  dehghted.  I  read  it 
through  without  pausing  from  beginning  to  end.  And 
no  one  can  rise  from  its  perusal  without  thinking  highly 
of  Garfield.  I  think  more  of  him,  even,  than  I  did.  And 
the  fact  that  he  is  photographed  so  nicely  as  he  appeared 
then,  when  the  photographer  had  no  temptation  in  the 
fame  of  his  subject,  to  powder  or  pose  him,  makes  it 
remarkably  effective."  I  cite  the  tribute  not  so  much 
for  its  bearing  upon  one  of  Reid's  hterary  productions  as 
for  the  sake  of  the  friendship  to  which  it  points.  The 
tragic  brevity  of  Garfield's  service  in  the  White  House 
would  in  any  case  exclude  from  this  chapter  the  history 
of  "an  administration."  But  all  the  circumstances  of 
the  period,  from  the  nomination  to  the  inauguration  and 
after,  emphasize  the  importance  of  markedly  personal 
issues. 

In  previous  chapters  I  have  noted  the  close,  almost 
fraternally  intimate  terms  on  which  Garfield  and  Reid 
had  long  foregathered.  The  former  was  the  older  by 
six  years,  but  under  the  pressure  of  the  war,  which  had 
such  an  extraordinary  power  of  turning  youths  into  men, 
they  may  be  said  to  have  come  to  maturity  together. 
They  had  the  same  principles  and  ideals,  the  same  tastes 


THE   CAMPAIGN  OF   1880  31 

in  classical  and  modern  letters.  They  were  sons  of  the 
same  State — a  point  of  sentiment  not  without  its  value 
— and  their  attachment  as  men  was  ratified  in  the  expe- 
riences determining  their  attitude  toward  the  methods 
and  aims  of  pohtical  life.  Amongst  all  the  presidential 
candidacies  with  which  Reid  had  to  do — and  as  the 
reader  will  have  realized  by  this  time,  they  formed  one 
of  the  leading  interests  of  his  life — there  was  not  one  into 
the  promotion  of  which  he  could  throw  himself  with 
more  heart  than  into  Garfield's.  The  ticket,  as  a  ticket, 
may  not  have  been  absolutely  what  he  wished.  In 
nominating  for  the  vice-presidency  Conkling's  friend  and 
adherent,  Chester  Arthur,  the  convention  had  caused 
many  a  stanch  Republican  to  wince.  Nevertheless,  with 
a  President  like  Garfield  to  elect,  the  question  of  the 
second  office  seemed  then  a  matter  to  take  with  more 
than  the  usual  philosophy.  The  nomination  set  Reid 
to  work  with  literally  unbounded  enthusiasm.  It  placed 
him  again,  too,  quite  as  much  as  in  1872,  if  not  more 
decisively,  in  the  role  of  counsellor.  The  interchange  of 
ideas  which  had  been  going  on  between  them  through 
much  of  Garfield's  congressional  career  took  on  redoubled 
energy  and  an  even  firmer  status  in  the  campaign  of 
1880. 

It  was  a  hot  campaign,  carried  to  a  fairly  close  deci- 
sion. Tildcn's  withdrawal  before  the  Cincinnati  con- 
vention undoubtedly  reheved  the  Democrats  of  an  em- 
barrassing handicap,  and  they  framed  a  ticket  which  if 
in  nowise  formidable  was  not,  either,  to  be  altogether 
despised.  The  principal  charge  to  be  levelled  against 
General  Winfield  Scott  Hancock  was  that  his  experience 
had  been  purely  military;  as  a  candidate  for  the  presi- 
dency he  had  had  no  initiation  whatever  into  the  civilian 
side  of  public  life.  From  the  point  of  view  of  political 
ability  Mr.  W.  H.   English,  of  Indiana,  nominated  for 


32  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  vice-presidency,  had  not  even  Arthur's  mixed  claims. 
He  was  a  mediocrity,  pure  and  simple.  But  his  influ- 
ence in  his  own  very  important  State  was  not  by  any 
means  a  negligible  quantity.  It  will  be  recalled,  also, 
that  this  was  the  campaign  in  which  a  plank  in  the  Dem- 
ocratic platform  demanding  "a  tariff"  for  revenue  only" 
supplied  that  party  with  a  potential  slogan,  renewing  the 
impetus  of  an  agitation  which  was  to  carry  far.  De- 
cidedly Garfield  was  not  to  have  a  walkover,  and  as  the 
files  of  The  Tribune  register  progress  it  seems,  neverthe- 
less, quite  characteristic  of  Reid  to  revive,  at  the  height 
of  the  contest,  his  accustomed  warning  against  Repubh- 
can  overconfidence.  However,  the  party  made  a  hard 
and  ever  more  assured  fight.  The  earlier  State  elections 
were  auspicious.  Vermont  gave  cheering  tokens,  Maine 
was  close  but  ultimately  came  up  to  scratch,  and  in 
October,  when  Ohio  and  Indiana  rolled  up  solid  Republi- 
can majorities,  the  final  verdict  to  be  expected  on  elec- 
tion day  throughout  the  country  could  be  regarded  as 
settled — as  it  was.  The  eleventh-hour  attack  made  upon 
Garfield  through  the  famous  forgery  of  the  **  Morey  let- 
ter," meant  to  bedevil  his  chances  with  the  labor  vote, 
was  as  futile  as  any  of  the  similarly  scandalous  charges 
flung  at  him  on  the  opening  of  the  campaign.  He  was 
borne  to  election  as  he  had  been  borne  to  nomination, 
not  only  on  a  wave  of  good  fortune  but  on  his  merits,  a 
thoroughly  popular  victor.  The  Tribune  laid  stress 
upon  the  normal,  wholesome  manner  in  which  the  simple 
affirmation  of  the  candidate's  character,  open  for  aH  men 
to  see  at  his  home  in  Mentor,  where  he  had  welcomed 
multitudes  of  friends  and  strangers,  had  grown  upon  the 
people.  "The  more  they  learned  of  his  career,  his  stud- 
ies, his  ideas,  and  his  daily  life,  the  stronger  he  became." 
If  the  hearty  acceptance  of  Garfield  by  the  people  were 
all  with  which  the,  historian  had  to  reckon,  I  could  readily 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1880  33 

pass  from  his  election  to  his  few  administrative  weeks 
and  the  assassin's  fatal  shot.  But  none  of  our  Presidents 
was  ever  made  more  sharply  aware  of  the  fact  that  in 
getting  elected  and  forming  an  administration  it  is  nec- 
essary to  deal  not  only  with  the  people  but  with  the 
politicians,  and  from  the  very  nature  of  the  case  I  must 
treat  in  some  detail  of  Garfield's  struggle  with  the  latter. 
It  constitutes,  indeed,  the  salient  feature  of  his  short 
occupancy  of  the  White  House,  dominating  if  not  com- 
pletely filling  that  chapter  in  American  history  which 
is  devoted  to  his  presidency.  All  through  this  struggle 
he  counted  heavily  upon  the  aid  and  advice  of  Whitelaw 
Reid.  The  interest  of  their  correspondence  lies  largely 
in  what  it  exhibits  of  political  developments  behind  the 
scenes. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  biography  from  "Ohio  in  the 
War"  that  is  apposite  here.  Garfield,  it  says,  "once 
recorded  his  vote,  solitary  and  alone,  against  that  of 
every  other  voting  member  of  the  House,  on  a  call  of 
the  yeas  and  nays.  But  he  is  not  factious;  and,  without 
ever  surrendering  his  independence  of  judgment,  he  is 
still  reckoned  among  the  most  trusty  of  the  Radical 
majority."  In  other  words,  a  good  party  man,  the  friend 
of  every  party  measure  that  seemed  to  him  sound,  sym- 
pathetic to  a  firm  policy  of  party  discipline,  accustomed 
to  work  in  harmony  with  party  organization.  Where- 
fore, with  impish  irony,  the  Fates  decreed  that  he  should 
inherit,  as  the  Republican  candidate,  some  of  the  bitter- 
est factional  dissensions  that  ever  afflicted  any  party ! 
We  have  seen  how  they  manifested  themselves  at  Chi- 
cago. The  truce  called  with  the  adoption  of  a  ticket  was 
hardly  more  than  nominal.  It  left  unimpaired  the  cleav- 
age in  the  Republican  ranks  which  had  persistently 
widened  under  the  administration  of  Hayes.  The  Third 
Termers  who   had   howled   for  Grant,  the  "Stalwarts," 


34  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

with  the  envenomed  Roscoe  at  their  head,  continued  to 
nourish  hot  hatred  against  the  "Half  Breeds"  who  had 
seized  the  balance  of  power.  Now,  in  the  domain  of 
practical  politics  this  boded  ill  for  Garfield.  If  his  ad- 
ministration was  to  be  a  success,  if  he  was  to  put  his 
measures  through  the  legislative  mill,  he  needed  an  in- 
finitely more  tactful  understanding  with  Congress  than 
Hayes  had  been  able  to  establish.  He  had  to  beat 
Hayes  in  the  difficult  art  of  getting  a  united  party  behind 
him,  to  achieve  this  earher  and  more  durably,  and  as 
the  convention  broke  up  it  was  clear  that  he  would  be 
kept  more  than  busy  with  the  task.  Hence  the  steady 
recurrence  in  his  exchanges  with  Reid  of  a  keen  anxiety 
as  to  matters  calling  for  judicious  pohtical  management. 
Garfield  had  wisdom  in  public  affairs.  He  had  discre- 
tion, too,  and  the  precious  faculty  of  making  friends. 
"Personally  he  is  generous,  warm  hearted,  and  genial," 
says  Reid,  in  the  memoir  aforementioned.  "No  man 
keeps  up  more  cordial  relations  with  his  political  antag- 
onists." It  was  an  open  question  as  to  whether  he  would 
be  equally  successful  in  his  relations  with  the  malcon- 
tents in  the  house  of  his  friends,  where,  in  fact,  geniality 
needed  to  be  tempered  with  a  good  deal  of  the  ruthless 
wariness  of  the  serpent.  Hay  went  to  the  root  of  the 
matter  in  one  of  his  humorous  ejaculations:  "As  you  will 
see  Garfield  before  I  do,  I  hope  you  will  inoculate  him 
with  the  gall  which  I  fear  he  lacks." 

The  one  thing  which  Reid  and  Hay  both  wished  for 
their  friend  was  a  clear  vision  amid  the  plots  and  coun- 
terplots thickening  around  him.  Their  counsel  was 
directed  toward  his  obtaining  the  whip-hand  over  those 
selfish  political  influences  which  he  could  afford  neither 
to  accept  nor  to  ignore.  The  measure  of  Reid's  solicitude, 
and  of  the  frankness  characterizing  their  intercourse,  is 
given  in  his  first  Jetter  following  the  nomination: 


1232378 

THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1880  35 

New  York, 

, ,  ^  June  1 2th,  1880. 

My  dear  General: 

You  got  away  from  Chicago  much  earlier  than  I  expected,  or  I 
should  have  said  to  you  what  I  now  set  down  below.  First  of  all, 
I  beg  of  you  to  make  no  promises  to  anybody.  Hundreds  of  others 
will  probably  say  the  same  thing.  I  however  have  seen  such  mis- 
fortunes resulting  from  hasty  promises  by  Presidential  candidates 
that  I  am  specially  anxious  to  impress  the  point.  Don't  be  misled 
by  the  idea  that  this  man  or  that  man  is  necessary  to  secure  the 
German  vote.  Mr.  X.  will  be  especially  earnest  and  prompt  in  im- 
pressing upon  you  his  importance.  I  don't  believe  he  has  anything 
like  the  influence  with  which  he  is  credited,  and  I  am  sure  that  the 
early  promise  he  extorted  from  Hayes  four  years  ago  was  unfor- 
tunate. .  .  .  One  final  word;  please  don't  make  any  journeys  or 
any  speeches.  E.  V.  Smalley  has  just  been  telling  me  that  you  are 
likely  to  go  on  to  Washington  to  close  up  your  house.  I  hope  that 
even  this  can  be  avoided.  There  is  no  place  where  you  can  do  so 
much  for  your  supporters  and  be  so  comfortable  yourself,  from  now 
on  until  November,  as  on  your  farm. 

Very  truly  yours,  Wh.telaw  Re.d. 

Garfield  had  to  go  to  Washington  just  then,  for  papers 
which  no  one  but  himself  could  gather  up,  but,  he  added 
in  telling  Reid  this,  "  I  shall  make  the  trip  as  quietly  and 
quickly  as  possible — and  you  may  be  sure  I  shall  con- 
tinue as  I  am,  wholly  untrammelled  by  pledges."  So 
precautionary  a  policy  might  seem  incongruous  enough, 
and  even  a  little  derogatory  to  the  dignity  of  a  presi- 
dential candidate;  but  in  glancing,  as  I  have  said,  behind 
the  scenes,  one  comes  closer  to  the  human  issues  involved 
and  learns  something  more  of  the  problems  with  which 
a  man  in  Garfield's  position  has  to  contend.  Some  com- 
mentators have  thought  that  he  "blundered"  in  the 
course  of  his  duel  with  Roscoe  Conkling.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  we  can  only  wonder  that  he  postponed  open 
warfare  as  long  as  he  did.  In  illustration  of  the  ineff'able 
Stahvart's  statesmanhke  conduct  I  may  cite  a  single 
incident.  When  in  Washington  Garfield  called  upon 
him,  but  he  was  not  at  home.     He  returned  the  call,  but 


36  THE.  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

in  his  turn  found  that  the  candidate  was  out.  Garfield 
presently  wrote,  suggesting  an  appointment,  but  received 
no  reply,  and  the  explanation  of  Conkling's  silence  edify- 
ingly  illuminates  his  nature.  It  seems  that  on  complet- 
ing some  business  at  the  Interior  Department  Garfield 
quite  casually  fell  in  with  Schurz,  who  was  on  his  way  to 
a  cabinet  meeting.  They  rode  a  short  distance  together, 
since  they  were  both  going  in  the  same  direction,  and 
this,  as  it  happened,  was  enough  to  breed  trouble.  Some 
zealous  tell-tale  rushed  off"  to  inform  the  senator  from 
New  York  that  at  the  very  moment  when  he  was  wait- 
ing in  vain  on  Garfield's  door-step  that  heedless  being 
was  actually  "riding  publicly  with  Schurz,"  and  the 
damning  news  drove  Roscoe  into  the  sulks ! 

Could  silliness  any  further  go?  Yet,  I  repeat,  the 
success  of  Garfield's  administration  hinged  in  a  measure 
upon  the  pacification  of  that  silliness.  The  New  York 
delegation  in  Congress  was  an  important  factor.  Conk- 
ling  could  be  helpful  or  harmful,  as  he  chose.  Reid's 
exasperated  comment  recognizes  the  fact.  "  I  know  how 
trivial,  beggarly  things  of  this  sort,"  he  says,  "have 
turned  awry  enterprises  of  great  pith  and  moment  in 
past  campaigns."  Practically  all  things  were  in  train 
for  victory  in  the  State.  Garfield,  as  he  pointed  out, 
did  not  need  to  do  anything  to  secure  the  support  of  the 
Hayes  Republicans;  he  had  them  already.  All  the  Civil 
Service  reformers,  nearly  all  the  Independents,  nearly  all 
the  Liberal  Republicans,  most  of  the  college-bred  men, 
who  formed  the  bulk  of  the  scratching  element,  were  with 
him  anyway.  But  the  Stalwarts  remained  incalculable, 
if  not  pretty  certainly  inimical.  There  was  promise  of 
an  opportunity  to  smoke  them  out  in  August,  when  a 
joint  meeting  in  New  York  of  the  National  and  Con- 
gressional Committees  brought  Garfield  on  to  confer  with 
the  leading  politicians  of  both  factions.     He  hesitated  at 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1880  37 

first  about  coming  and  asked  Reid's  advice.  It  was 
only  grudgingly  favorable  to  the  journey.  "  In  general/' 
he  said,  **I  don't  believe  in  running  after  the  malcon- 
tents. Let  them  run  after  you.  More  than  enough  was 
done  for  conciliation  when  Arthur  was  taken.  They 
can't  help  themselves,  and,  if  they  could  throw  away 
the  State  they  dare  not.  They  want  promises  about 
office.  They  haven't  any  right  to  them.  Nobod}-  has." 
He  reported  Conkling  as  "behaving  like  a  spoiled  child." 
But  he  counselled  his  friend  to  make  the  trip,  adding  an 
allusion  to  a  book  of  Froude's  that  they  had  both  re- 
cently been  reading:  *'Do  you  remember  how  Caesar,  dur- 
ing the  campaign  in  Gaul,  frequently  had  to  accept  situ- 
ations which  were  manufactured  for  him  by  the  com- 
manders of  his  legions?  He  knew  they  were  not  the 
best,  but  circumstances  made  them  necessary,  and  his 
genius  made  them  the  means  of  triumph."  Garfield 
took  the  Roman's  philosophy  to  heart.  He  girded  up 
his  loins.  He  came,  he  saw,  he  conquered.  And  Conk- 
ling promised  to  be  good.  Onl}^  he  wasn't  there  to 
make  the  promise  in  person  to  the  candidate,  a  circum- 
stance adding  one  more  cynically  amusing  touch  to  the 
story  of  his  perfunctory  relation  to  the  campaign.  Reid 
thus  discloses  the  point  after  Garfield  had  returned  to 
Mentor: 

New  York, 

,  -  ^  August  15th,  1880. 

My  dear  General: 

The  newspapers  will  have  sho\sTi  you  already  that  Mr.  Conkling 
has  announced  his  willingness  to  go  to  work,  and  that  the  date  for 
his  appearance  in  New  York  is  fixed.  One  of  his  close  friends,  U.  S. 
Marshal  Sayre,  told  me  yesterday  that  he  had  spent  two  hours  with 
him  that  day,  and  gave  me  a  summary  of  the  talk.  Briefly  stated 
it  was  George  William  Curtis  that  drove  him  away  from  the  con- 
ference; not  Blaine  or  Sherman.  These  it  would  seem  he  could 
have  stood,  but  the  idea  of  "conferring"  with  Mr.  Curtis  was  too 
much  for  him.  Payn,  Piatt  and  others  of  his  close  friends  have 
talked  to  him  with  great  plainness,  not  to  say  severity.     His  answer 


38  THE.  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

is  that  he  is  in  the  hands  of  his  friends  and  will  do  whatever  they 
ask.  They  have  already  asked  that  he  speak  first  here,  then  in 
Indiana  and  Ohio,  and  they  are  thinking  of  asking  that  he  also  go 
to  Maine.  This  last,  I  suspect,  would  be  a  dose  hard  to  take,  and 
I  doubt  whether  ft  will  be  pressed  upon  him. 

Everything  I  have  seen  since  the  conference  convinces  me  that 
it  turned  all  our  way,  that  every  point  was  made,  and  that  the  only 
one  in  any  way  injured  by  it  was  Mr.  Conkhng  himself.  Energetic 
action  on  his  part  is  now  a  necessity  and  so  it  may  prove  that  his 
behavior  at  the  time  of  the  conference  will  after  all  result  in  real 
good  for  the  campaign.  He  is  undoubtedly  of  great  value  on  the 
stump,  especially  in  this  State,  and  we  shall  now  have  him  as  active 
as  he  can  be.  ,,       ^    . 

Very  truly  yours.  ^hitelaw  Re.d. 

At  last  the  hatchet  was,  momentarily,  buried,  and 
Conkling  did  excellent  service  with  that  eloquence  of 
his,  the  virtue  of  which,  as  a  poHtical  asset,  nobody 
could  deny.  The  Maine  "dose"  was,  wisely,  not  forced 
to  his  lips.  He  spoke  in  New  York,  in  Ohio  and  Indi- 
ana, and  in  all  three  States  with  effects  to  which  The 
Tribune  paid  becoming  tribute.  But  neither  in  that 
paper  nor  amongst  any  RepubHcans  conversant  with  the 
inside  workings  of  the  campaign,  was  there  any  disposi- 
tion to  overestimate  the  weight  of  his  influence  or  to 
accept  the  idea  of  it  current  in  his  own  tabernacle.  Hay, 
as  always  on  these  topics,  is  refreshing.  *'  I  have  heard," 
he  says,  **some  incredibly  ridiculous  things  about  Conk- 
ling's  demeanor.  He  really  thinks  he  is  the  Savior  of 
the  Situation,  and  makes  no  bones  about  it."  He  made 
no  bones  about  it  either  before  or  after  the  election,  but 
he  was  to  discover  that  others  besides  Hay  could  take 
a  view  of  his  pretensions  drastically  divergent  from  his 
own.     It  is  a  subject  to  which  we  shall  return. 

The  devotion  to  Garfield's  interests  which  broadly 
marks  Reid's  private  correspondence  at  this  time  is  re- 
flected in  every  issue  of  his  paper,  which  performed 
really   magnificent  services   for  the   candidate   and   the 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1880  39 

party  in  the  campaign  of  1880.  "The  Tribune,"  wrote 
Hay,  **  seems  as  incapable  of  fatigue  or  exhaustion  as  if 
it  were  made  of  steel."  To  Reid,  both  as  a  personal 
friend  and  adviser,  and  as  an  editorial  supporter,  Gar- 
field was  profoundly  grateful,  and  after  election  their 
counsels  were,  if  anything,  closer  than  before.  Walter 
Phelps,  wTiting  from  Vienna,  put  into  words  the  thought 
common  to  many  observers  of  what  Reid  had  done  to 
help  secure  Republican  success.  "The  various  consuls 
are  all  eager  over  Cabinet  appointments,"  he  said. 
"When  I  see  how  much  they  make  of  it  all,  I  catch  my- 
self wishing  that  you  were  personally  and  conspicuously 
to  get  some  of  it,  for  you  have  contributed  wonderfully 
to  the  attainment  of  it.  I  wish  there  were  left  a  con- 
spicuous Tribune  man,  who  could  wear  the  crown  for 
you.  Or,  if  it  were  only  known  to  a  larger  circle,  that 
Hay  was  your  old  and  intimate  friend,  he  could  furnish 
a  nice  conductor  for  your  hghtning.  *0h,  yes.  Hay's 
in  to  represent  Reid.'"  But  Reid  had  no  favors  to  ask. 
The  friendship  between  him  and  Garfield  was  never  more 
disinterested,  on  both  sides,  than  when  the  herculean 
task  of  forming  an  administration  was  faced. 

Neither  was  there  any  other  period,  in  their  long 
association,  at  which  Garfield  leaned  more  confidently 
upon  his  old  comrade  for  criticism  and  suggestion.  He 
had  need  of  both,  a  circumstance  repeatedly  receiving 
earnest  attention  in  Hay's  letters.  After  election,  warn- 
ing its  readers  against  idle  speculation  anent  the  compo- 
sition of  the  new  cabinet.  The  Tribune  added  the  assur- 
ance of  one  precious  fact,  that  it  would  be  Garfield's 
own,  "not  that  of  President  Hayes,  in  whole  or  in  part." 
Hay  came  upon  this  paragraph  only  as  it  was  quoted  in 
some  exchange,  with  additions  dragging  in  obscure  im- 
plications of  Conkling's  having  something  to  do  with 
the  matter,  and  straightway  he  clamored  for  information. 


40  THE.  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Washington, 

T>.         r»  November  6th,  1880. 

Dear  Reid: 

What  did  you  mean  any  how?  If  you  have  got  a  "straight  tip" 
don't  be  mean  about  it — but  divide.  Has  he  given  hostages?  All 
the  boys  on  the  Row  have  Cabinets  made — but  your  information  is 
more  direct  than  other  people's  and,  I  take  it,  was  given  you  to  use 
— hence,  therefore,  (as  Henry  Clews  says)  give  me  a  wink. 

Your  announcement  in  The  Tribune  about  the  Cabinet  taken  in 

connection  with  the  "Herald's"  two  columns  of  gibbery  gosh  has 

caused  all  the  damfools  here  to  think  that  Conkling  is  to  name  the 

Cabinet  and  run  the  Administration.     Of  course  you  meant  nothing 

of  the  sort.     As  a  general  proposition,  a  new  President  should  have 

a  new  Cabinet.     But  Conkling  did*  not  carry  New  York,  as  you 

know,  and  it  would  be  a  fatal  error  for  Garfield  to  abdicate  at  the 

start.     There  is  infinitely  more  reason  why  you  should  name  the 

New  York  member  than  why  R.  C.  should.  j      " 

J.  ri. 

Reid  assuaged  his  anxiety,  telling  him  that  no  man  in 
the  United  States  better  understood  than  Garfield  did 
how  Conkhng  had  tried  to  keep  out  of  the  campaign, 
and  how  he  had  only  come  in  when  he  had  found  that 
the  party  was  going  on  without  him.  "I  am  glad  to 
hear  you  say  that,"  Hay  replied.  "Conkhng  is  not  in 
the  least  formidable  when  opposed  or  ignored.  He  has 
not  in  the  least  embarrassed  this  Administration  and 
could  not  embarrass  Garfield's.  Besides,  he  will  not 
quarrel  with  Garfield.  He  has  learned  something  in 
four  years.  But  he  will  pull  down  any  Administration 
that  surrenders  to  him.  The  work  of  electing  Garfield, 
after  Indiana  and  Ohio,  was  in  New  York  City  and 
Brooklyn  and  Connecticut,  and  Roscoe  Conkhng  clearly 
did  not  do  it.  If  you  go  to  Mentor  give  our  great  and 
good  friend  all  the  wisdom  you  have  got  on  the  cabinet 
question.  He  will  need  it.  Every  despatch  I  have  seen 
from  Washington,  Columbus  or  Cleveland,  on  that  sub- 
ject, is  not  only  unutterably  base  and  grovelling  in 
spirit,  but  portentous  of  disaster,  if  certain  influences  get 
control."     As  the  weeks  ran  on  his  fears  only  increased. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1880  41 

In  December  he  reiterates  his  adjuration:  "I  hope  you 

will  go  to  Mentor  before  very  long — not  for  any  special 

interest,  but  simply  because  this  is  the  time  when  G. 

is  making  the  future  of  his  administration.     Deadbeats 

and  office-seekers  there  will  be  in  plenty — but  he  needs 

to  talk  occasionally  with  a  strong,  disinterested  friend, 

who  knows  men." 

The  foregoing  remarks  of  Hay's  date  from  a  time  when 

he  himself  was  the  object  of  flattering  proposals  from  the 

new  President,  though  he  did  not  know  it.     While  he 

was  thinking  about  Garfield,  Garfield  was  thinking  about 

him,  thus: 

Mentor,  Ohio, 

T^         T^  December  yth,  1880. 

Dear  Reid: 

I  am  more  at  a  loss  to  find  just  the  man  for  Private  Secretary, 
than  for  any  place  I  shall  have  to  fill.  The  man  who  holds  that 
place  can  do  very  much  to  make  or  mar  the  success  of  an  adminis- 
tration. The  position  ought  to  be  held  in  higher  estimation  than 
Secretary  of  State.  There  is  one  man  who  fills  my  ideal  of  the 
fidehty,  comradeship,  culture,  statesmanship,  acquaintance  with 
men,  and  address  required  to  make  that  place  one  of  power  and 
brilliancy.  But  I  suppose  he  is  wholly  beyond  my  reach.  I  mean 
John  Hay.  I  would  not  dare  to  ask  him,  for  I  know  he  deserves  very 
much  more.  But  he  could  double  my  strength,  and  give  me  a 
great  sense  of  security  on  the  most  dangerous  side  of  the  White 
House.  Tell  me  if  it  is  altogether  preposterous  to  think  of  it  as  a 
possibility,  for  a  year  at  least.  I  beg  you  to  say  nothing  to  Hay 
unless  you  are  sure  he  would  not  be  displeased  at  the  suggestion. 

Very  truly  yours.  j  ^  Garfield. 

Reid  was  less  hopeful  this  time  than  he  had  been  when 
Evarts  came  to  him  to  lure  Hay  into  the  State  Depart- 
ment. He  wrote  to  Hay,  and  with  no  encouraging  re- 
sults. **I  am  greatly  pleased  and  complimented,"  came 
the  reply,  "but  I  do  not  see  how  I  can  do  it.  It  will  cost 
me  about  $10,000  a  year,  beyond  the  salary,  and  the 
work  is  terrific.  I  mean  the  bores.  Not  a  dozen  have 
even  spoken  to  me  this  year  outside  of  this  Department. 


^  * 


42  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

I  could  not  stand  a  million  of  them/'  When  Garfield 
failed  to  advance  the  project  through  Reid  he  opened 
negotiations  himself,  but  no  more  successfully.  Hay's 
letter  to  Reid,  describing  the  correspondence  and  its 
upshot,  contains  some  passages  of  interest  as  explaining 
why  his  refusal  of  the  private  secretaryship  meant  for 
him  a  temporary  retirement  from  public  life.  "This 
ends,"  he  says,  **any  possibility  of  employment  for  me 
by  this  administration.  For  after  declining  so  intimate 
a  place  with  Garfield,  I  cannot  accept  what  Blaine  offers, 
with  decency,  even  if  I  wanted  to."  And  a  few  days 
later  he  continues:  "I  am  very  sorry  this  matter  came 
up.  Garfield  will  be  good  natured  about  it,  of  course, 
but  he  will  be  disappointed  and  it  will  make  a  little  cloud 
on  our  relations  which  I  shall  greatly  regret.  But  I 
could  not,  with  my  eyes  open,  go  into  such  a  false  posi- 
tion, where  the  work  he  would  expect  me  to  do  would 
be,  so  to  speak,  absolutely  unconstitutional, — a  sort  of 
general  meddling  with  all  the  other  departments.  In 
short,  the  place  does  not  suit.  As  to  my  holding  it  a 
little  while  and  then  taking  something  else,  it  would  be 
the  worst  possible  taste.  No  matter  who  a  man  is,  if  a 
President  appoints  his  Private  Secretary  to  an  important 
post,  it  is  in  the  public  view  a  glaring  and  indecent  piece 
of  favoritism."  So  on  leaving  the  State  Department  he 
went  back  to  the  literary  life — with  a  journahstic  inter- 
lude to  which  we  shall  presently  have  occasion  to  refer. 
In  the  meantime  he  continued  to  discuss  with  Reid  the 
all-engrossing  topic  of  the  period  just  before  the  inaugu- 
ration— the  building  of  the  cabinet. 

I  have  spoken  of  Garfield's  pohtical  temperament  as 
that  of  the  good  party  man.  It  was  manifested  through- 
out his  cabinet  developments.  It  was  certain,  as  The 
Tribune  had  announced,  that  the  cabinet  would  be  his 
own.     But  he  was^  resolved  to  do  everything  in  his  power 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1880  43 

to  bring  it  into  harmony  with  the  sentiments  of  the 
party  leaders.  His  view  of  the  matter  comes  out  in  a 
letter  written  at  the  height  of  the  campaign,  when  there 
were  disquieting  stories  floating  about  on  the  possibihty 
of  his  taking  over  one  of  Hayes's  men. 

Mentor,  Ohio, 

, ,  rt  October  7th,  1880. 

My  dear  Reid: 

In  answer  to  the  rumor  that  I  have  made  some  arrangement  with 
Mr.  Schurz  which  includes  or  implies  a  seat  in  the  Cabinet  for  him, 
I  have  to  say  that  there  is  no  foundation  whatever  for  the  story. 
My  idea  of  the  construction  of  a  cabinet  requires  such  choices  as 
will  realize  the  prevailing  wishes  of  the  Republican  party,  and  it  is 
clear  to  me  that  his  appointment  would  displease  a  large  majority 
of  the  party.  For  this  and  for  other  reasons  I  have  never  enter- 
tained the  thought  of  doing  so — and  shall  not. 

Very  truly  yours.  j.  a.  Garfield. 

The  one  choice  he  was  inclined  to  make,  even  though 
this  had  been  against  party  sentiment — which  was  not 
the  case — the  choice  of  Blaine,  was  delayed,  curiously, 
by  the  hesitations  of  that  statesman  himself.  There  is 
something  almost  comically  ironical  in  the  circumstance, 
as  though  the  topsyturvydom  of  pohtics  could  not  by 
any  possibility  be  escaped.  Here  was  Garfield  beset  by 
factional  issues  in  the  making  of  his  cabinet,  feehng  sure 
that  in  picking  the  right  man  for  the  premiership  he 
would  not  only  please  himself  but  the  dominant  wing  of 
the  party  and  an  immense  body  of  pubhc  opinion.  Yet 
the  right  man  balked !  Indeed,  his  mood  on  the  subject 
was  so  uncertain,  even  as  his  closest  friends  observed  it, 
that  the  President-elect  could  not  tell  whether  to  make 
him  an  offer  or  not.  Garfield  sought  light  on  the  prob- 
lem from  Reid.  They  had  a  conference  in  Washington 
early  in  December,  and  on  the  way  back  to  New  York 
Reid  and  Blaine  happened  to  share  the  same  compart- 
ment.    Garfield  wanted  to  know  **if  he  had  any  indica- 


44  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

tions  of  the  tone  of  his  fellow  traveller."  Reid  could 
only  reply:  "He  left  on  my  mind  the  impression  that  he 
could  be  induced  to  take  it,  although  I  don't  think  his 
mind  is  yetj:^learly  made  up."  Hay,  in  frequent  com- 
munications, revealed  the  same  dubiety,  but  finally,  on 
December  iid,  wrote,  saying:  "I  had  a  pretty  full  talk 
with  Blaine  yesterday.  I  think  he  will  take  the  place  if 
It  is  offered,  and  he  evidently  expects  it  to  be  offered — if 
it  has  not  been.  Nichol  thinks  it  has  not  been,  but  will 
be.  Some  of  us — who  are  'steady  and  wise' — ought  to 
be  authorized  by  Garfield  to  go  to  Blaine  and  ascertain 
that  the  appointment  will  be  accepted,  before  the  formal 
off"er  is  made.  It  would  not  do  to  have  it  formally  made 
and  declined.  Give  me  all  the  wisdom  you  have  got." 
Two  days  later  Reid  wrote  to  Walter  Phelps  that  Blaine 
was  "considering"  whether  to  take  the  secretaryship  of 
state  in  case  it  was  offered  to  him.  "My  opinion  is," 
he  added,  "that  I  can  get  it  offered  to  him  the  day  I  can 
convey  the  assurance  that  he  will  certainly  take  it." 
And  then,  within  twenty-four  hours,  he  had  a  letter  from 
Blaine,  saying  that  he  didn't  rehsh  the  rumors  flying 
around  in  regard  to  the  secretaryship,  and  intimating 
that  he  might  go  off  in  March  to  join  Phelps  for  six  or 
eight  months  of  European  travel !  Matters  thereupon 
promptly  came  to  a  head,  and  before  the  new  year  Reid 
could  write  this  letter: 

New  York, 
My  dear  W.  W.  p.:  December  31st,  1880. 

In  the  deepest  confidence,  the  head  of  the  Cabinet  is  fixed.  Mr. 
Blaine  has  been  offered  the  Secretaryship  of  State  and  has  accepted, 
and  it  is  mutually  agreed  that  nobody  but  their  wives  shall  know 
it  for  some  weeks  or  months  yet.  I  am  told  as  having  been  con- 
sulted in  the  matter  from  the  outset  by  both.  About  the  20th 
January  Blaine  and  I  are  to  go  out  to  Mentor  for  a  consultation, 
very  secretly,  in  a  private  car  already  at  our  disposal  for  the  trip. 
By  that  time  the  Cabinet  will  begin  to  take  shape. 

Next,  as  to  you.  ^  It  is  agreed,  and  to  do  Blaine  full  justice  he  had 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1880  45 

thought  of  It  just  as  quick  as  I,  that  you  are  to  have  the  Italian 
mission.  You  are  to  take  Italy  because  the  climate  suits  you  and 
because  the  classical  surroundings  will  specially  interest  you. 

Allison  is  much  talked  of  for  Secretary-  of  the  Treasury-.  There 
seems  a  chance  for  Depew  on  the  Senatorship.  Piatt  and  Morton 
are  both  keen,  but  Conkling  doesn't  decide.  I'm  to  go  to  Albany 
Sunday  night,  to  tell  our  friends  that  they'll  be  defended  if  they 
defy  Conkling  and  that  they  won't  lose  the  good  graces  of  Garfield. 
0\xr  this  last  we've  had  a  dinner  here  tonight,  Blaine,  Depew, 
Robertson  and  some  others,  and  they've  only  just  left  me. 

Faithfully  yours,  ,,     ^ 

It  is  precisely  as  in  a  play.  With  action  and  counter- 
action the  interests  of  the  central  personage,  Garfield, 
are  alternately  advanced  and  threatened,  the  cHmax  is 
postponed — and,  in  this  case,  Roscoe  Conkling  is  always 
the  villain  of  the  piece.  The  premiership  had  been  set- 
tled, yes,  but  now  was  to  arise  **the  Senatorship."  An 
observation  of  Hay's  comes  perfectly  between  the  lower- 
ing of  the  curtain  upon  one  act  of  the  drama  and  its  ele- 
vation upon  another.  *'It  would  do  you  good  to  hear 
Sherman  talk,"  he  says.  "He  is  just  itching  for  the 
beginning  of  Conkling's  fight  against  the  administration 
— which  he  thinks  inevitable."  Sherman's  itch  was  to 
be  reheved  without  delav. 


CHAPTER  III 
GARFIELD'S  FAMOUS  FIGHT 

In  the  matter  of  the  senatorship  Conkling  had  the 
choicest  of  opportunities  for  the  indulgence  of  his  whim 
for  political  sabotage.  The  term  of  his  Democratic  col- 
league at  Washington,  Francis  Kernan,  was  to  expire  on 
March  4th,  1881.  In  January,  at  Albany,  the  legislature 
was  to  designate  his  successor.  Whether  that  successor 
went  to  the  capital  a  Garfield  or  a  Conkhng  RepubHcan 
was  to  both  men  a  question  of  signal  importance,  for 
reasons  on  which  I  have  already  made  sufficient  com- 
ment. And  there  were  wheels  within  wheels  to  be  con- 
sidered in  this  affair.  At  the  Chicago  convention  certain 
members  of  the  New  York  delegation,  led  by  Judge 
W.  H.  Robertson — a,  gentleman  from  whom  we  shall 
hear  again,  in  the  last  and  most  exciting  act  of  the  drama 
— had  made  the  bolt  which  brought  about  the  rejection 
of  Grant.  Conkhng,  of  course,  had  marked  down  their 
scalps  for  future  lifting,  and  in  this  tussle  over  the  sena- 
torship he  was,  above  all  things,  anxious  so  to  control 
the  decision  that  it  would  deprive  them  of  any  hope  of 
recognition  from  the  new  President. 

At  the  dinner-party  at  Reid's,  mentioned  at  the  close 

of  our  preceding  chapter,  plans  were  laid  not  only  for 

the  defeat  of  Conkhng,  which  was  desired  in  any  case, 

but  for  the  protection  of  the  so-called   " recalcitrant*' 

legislators,  the  men  at  Albany  who  were,  as  a  matter  of 

fact,  the  flower  of  the  flock.     Reid  thus  described  to 

Garfield  what  he  and  his  guests  had  arranged: 

46 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS   FIGHT  47 

New  York, 

January  ist,  1881. 

, ,  ^  I  o'clock  A.M. 

My  dear  General: 

Blaine  has  written  a  strong  "by  authority"  announcement  which 
he  wants  me  to  print,  double  leaded,  at  the  head  of  the  editorial 
columns  on  Monday  morning,  to  the  effect  that  the  Administration 
is  not  to  be  used  as  a  make-weight  in  the  Senatorial  contest,  and 
specially  not  against  the  [Chicago]  seventeen.  He  is  clear  that  it 
is  best  to  put  it  in  the  most  emphatic,  semi-official  way,  and  on  his 
advice  I  shall  do  it — though  I  don't  generally  go  very  far  in  that 
way. 

It  really  looks  as  if  we  had  a  chance  to  carry.  At  any  rate  we 
shall  show  that  Mr.  Conkling  doesn't  own  the  State.  Half  his 
strength  at  present  consists  in  the  belief,  which  his  friends  are  every- 
where inculcating,  that  he  is  to  control  your  administration  abso- 
lutely, and  that  all  its  patronage  will  be  wielded  against  the  men 
who  dare  to  oppose  him. 

There  is  absolutely  no  change  in  his  feeling  or  that  of  his  people 
towards  you.  They  mean  to  confront  you  with  the  two  Senators 
from  the  State,  and  to  demand  the  entire  patronage  of  the  State. 
In  a  word  they  mean  to  be  your  masters,  and  when  you  submit  they 
will  like  you  well  enough.  But  they  don't  trust  you;  even  their 
common  mode  of  alluding  to  you  shows  their  feeling.  It  is  always 
"this  man  Garfield." 

The  happiest  of  New  Years  to  you  and  yours, 

Always  faithfully  yours.        ^y^,^^^^  ^^^^ 

The  *'by  authority'*  blast  duly  appeared,  serving  notice 
that  the  administration  was  to  be  for  the  whole  Repub- 
lican party,  not  for  any  faction  of  it,  and  thereby  rousing 
the  Conkling  organs  throughout  the  State  to  the  highest 
pitch  of  wrath.  They  were  furious  because  it  "exploded 
the  lie  about  the  Treaty  of  Mentor,"  that  ingeniously 
spread  canard  which  in  November  John  Hay  had  reported 
as  causing  all  the  "damfools*'  in  his  neighborhood  to 
expect  Conkling  to  name  the  cabinet  and  run  the  admin- 
istration. With  the  political  atmosphere  rendered  por- 
tentously electrical,  the  battle  was  joined. 

Depew  was  Reid's  candidate,  which  is  to  say  the  man 
upon  whom  the  anti-Conkling  forces  pinned  their  hopes. 


48  THE  LIFE  OF'  WHITELAW  REID 

and  in  a  letter  of  Reid's  to  Walter  Phelps  there  is  a  pas- 
sage showing  in  what  a  disinterested  spirit  the  railroad 
man  went  into  the  fight.  "Depew,"  runs  the  letter, 
"has  a  fixed -income  now  of  about  ten  thousand  dollars 
a  year;  and  when  he  came  to  consult  with  me  about  it 
we  agreed  that  with  that  amount  sure  he  could  afford 
to  go  into  poHtics  and  neglect  money-making  for  the 
future.  For  this  neglect  he  deliberately  throws  away, 
as  he  says  himself,  the  assurance  of  a  great  fortune  which 
he  can  easily  make  in  the  next  ten  years.  Vanderbilt 
disHkes  to  give  him  up,  but  will  give  him  his  moral  back- 
ing." Alack  and  alas  for  Depew's  unworldly  hopes ! 
A  sacrifice  other  than  that  of  fortune  was  soon  put  before 
him.  The  combat  raged  at  Albany  day  after  day.  The 
friends  of  the  half-dozen  candidates  in  the  field  exhorted, 
canvassed,  pulled  wires,  and  raised,  in  short,  one  of  the 
most  fearsome  rumpuses  to  which  the  State  capital  had 
ever  echoed.  And  for  their  pains  they  got  a  maddening 
deadlock.  It  turned  out  truly  enough  that,  as  Reid  had 
said,  Conkhng  wasn't  to  decide  the  issue.  In  vain  did 
General  Arthur,  flinging  to  the  winds  the  discretion — to 
say  the  least — implied  in  his  position  as  vice-president- 
elect, hurry  to  Albany  to  do  what  he  could  for  Conkhng's 
candidate  and  his  own  personal  friend.  Congressman 
Crowley.  Though  the  anti-machine  men  could  not  have 
their  way,  they  could,  and  did,  impose  the  same  depri- 
vation upon  their  opponents.  Reid  was  in  Washington 
for  a  state  dinner  at  the  White  House  when  the  strug- 
gle approached  its  climax,  and  in  the  multitude  of  his 
papers  there  is  nothing  more  pungently  redolent  of  the 
smoke  of  political  warfare,  of  the  lightning-Hke  muta- 
tions in  the  ancient  game  of  campaigning,  than  the 
sheaf  of  despatches  disclosing  how  the  decision  was 
made. 

Since   the  anti-machine  men  couldn't  rally  sufficient 


GARFIELD'S  FAMOUS  FIGHT  49 

support  for  Depew,  they  were  willing  to  take,  rather  than 
Crowley,  whom  they  simply  wouldn't  take  at  all,  ex-' 
Congressman  Thomas  C.  Piatt.  A  machine  man,  un- 
questionably, was  the  only  candidate  with  whom  the 
deadlock  could  be  broken.  To  that  extent  Conkling  was 
a  victor.  But  the  choice  of  Piatt  was  regarded  at  the 
time  as  robbing  Conkling  of  any  substantial  laurels.  In 
view  of  subsequent  events  the  record  of  this  circum- 
stance reads  to-day  a  little  quaintly;  yet  it  is  neverthe- 
less true  that  in  January,  1881,  Piatt  had  not  fore- 
shadowed the  peculiar  eminence  of  his  later  career.  The 
machine,  indeed,  so  far  from  seeing  in  him  one  of  its 
brightest  lights,  suspected  him  of  a  dangerous  disposition 
to  "set  up  for  himself."  The  antis  took  the  same  view 
of  him.  Though  nobody  expected  him  to  break  with 
Conkling,  he  seemed  the  man — after  Depew — most  likely 
to  deal  with  the  senior  senator  on  independent  terms. 
He  realized  perfectly  that  he  could  not  take  over  Depew's 
strength  in  the  legislature  and  win  the  race  without  rati- 
fying this  impression,  and  he  was  ready  to  give  guaran- 
ties. His  offer  of  these  was  put  before  Reid,  who  forth- 
with set  the  wires  humming.  He  received  the  proper 
assurances  from  Piatt.  He  advised  Depew  to  withdraw. 
The  penultimate  despatch  in  the  collection  I  have  men- 
tioned is  one  from  Depew,  saying:  "I  saw  him  [Piatt]  last 
night  and  transferred  the  decisive  strength."  Amid  the 
solemnities  of  the  White  House  banquet  aforesaid,  which 
was  given  to  the  justices  of  the  supreme  court  and  had 
a  particularly  ceremonious  tempo,  came  the  last  despatch 
of  all,  stating  that  Piatt  had  been  elected. 

The  first  stiff  engagement  had  terminated  in  some- 
thing like  a  draw,  but  with  the  scales  inclining  toward 
Garfield.  It  seemed  to  have  contributed  toward  the 
smoothing  out  of  his  path,  and  Reid  wrote  to  Mentor  in 
fairly  cheerful  vein: 


50  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

New  York, 

T.,  ^  January  i6th,  1881. 

My  dear  General:  *^ 

The  inside  facts  as  to  the  Senatorial  election  are  these. 

Piatt  had  the.4nost  alliances  with  us,  and  our  people  made  excel- 
lent terms.  He  gave  me  personal  pledges  which  insure  not  only- 
fair  but  friendly  general  treatment.  To  Depew  he  pledged  himself 
that— 

1.  He  would  countenance  no  effort  at  crushing  or  ignoring  the 
Chicago  bolters. 

2.  He  would  not  oppose  their  getting  either  from  State  or  Nation 
their  fair  share  of  patronage. 

3.  He  would  not  oppose  their  confirmation,  if  any  of  them  should 
come  before  the  Senate,  but  on  the  contrary  would  do  all  in  his 
power  to  help  it. 

4.  He  would  help  in  the  prompt  confirmation  of  your  Cabinet — 
even  in  so  extreme  a  case  as  the  possibility  of  its  containing  the  name 
of  Judge  Robertson — though  much  opposed  to  such  a  nomination. 

5.  He  would  do  all  he  could  (not  much,  probably)  to  keep  Conk- 
ling  reasonable. 

On  these  conditions  Depew  transferred  to  him  twenty  votes,  and 
thus  nominated  him,  on  the  first  ballot,  by  one  majority.  He  has 
since  acknowledged  his  indebtedness  to  those  votes,  and  to  that 
agreement  preceding,  for  his  nomination. 

Faithfully  yours.  Whitelaw  Re.d. 


There  was  exasperation  as  well  as  satisfaction  in  this 
settlement  of  the  business.  It  irked  Reid  beyond  mea- 
sure that,  while  the  serious  problems  of  a  presidential 
administration  were  toward,  it  should  be  obhgatory  upon 
anybody  to  **keep  Conkling  reasonable."  Garfield  was 
too  big  a  man  to  be  thus  handicapped  by  a  petty  politi- 
cian, and  in  any  event  the  whole  thing  was  offensive  in 
principle  to  a  man  deahng  on  high  grounds  with  pubhc 
affairs.  But  I  have  referred  before  this  to  Reid's  habit 
of  facing  facts.  The  ineffable  Roscoe  and  the  pohtical 
conditions  that  had  grown  up  around  him  were  inex- 
pugnable facts.  The  boss's  following  was  as  imperme- 
able to  reason  as  the  boss  himself.  "The  difficulty," 
said  Reid  to  Garfield,   **is  that  New  York  poHticians 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS   FIGHT  51 

have  now  been  so  long  under  the  Conkling  harrow  that 
they  do  not  have  the  courage  of  their  convictions."  But 
the  new  senator  seemed  bent  upon  rising  above  the 
status  of  a  toad.  His  protestations  of  good  faith  were 
too  ardent  and  explicit  to  be  doubted  and  Reid  was  un- 
feignedly  hopeful  that  the  last  had  been  heard  of  a 
troublesome  possibility.  "Piatt  has  been  in  to  renew 
allegiance,"  he  wrote  to  Hay.  "He  means  it.  What 
we  now  look  to  is  a  broadening  of  the  machine,  with  our 
fellows  in  and  a  united  party,  minus  Conkling,  who  won't 
last  forever !  Piatt's  last  words  to  me  were,  *  I  am  yours 
to  command;  draw  on  me  at  sight.'"  Cabinet-making 
went  on  apace. 

It  enriched  the  correspondence  that  flowed  between 
Mentor  and  New  York  with  a  multitude  of  suggestions 
and  personahties.  Hay  often  took  part  in  the  discus- 
sion, as  Blaine  did,  and  Reid  transmitted  to  Garfield  the 
result  of  numerous  consultations  with  Thurlow  Weed, 
whose  long  experience  and  ripe  counsel  gave  his  ideas 
great  weight  with  everybody  concerned.  He  had — the 
wise  old  pohtician — a  keen  sense  of  just  what  the  situa- 
tion required  politically.  Reid  suggested  that  Joseph  H. 
Choate  would  make  a  good  cabinet  officer.  The  sage 
praised  the  idea,  said  it  was  a  good  thing  to  turn  over  in 
the  mind — but  he  feared  Choate  knew  too  little  about 
pohtics.  Levi  P.  Morton  is  a  figure  to  be  noted  at  this 
juncture.  He  had  a  startling  way  of  suddenly  posing 
Reid  with  a  momentous  question  as  to  his  own  career. 
Thus,  prior  to  the  convention,  he  offered  this  paralyzing 
query:  "As  there  appears  to  be  a  serious  idea  in  certain 
quarters  of  using  my  name  as  a  candidate  for  the  Vice 
Presidency,  I  shall  feel  obliged  if  you  will  give  me  frankly 
and  freely  your  advice  as  to  my  course  of  action  in  case 
it  becomes  necessary  for  me  to  assent  or  dissent  from 
proposed   action   by   others   in   that   direction."     Later, 


52  THE  .LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

when  the  conflict  at  Albany  was  developing,  his  name 
was  again  in  the  field,  but,  as  I  have  shown,  the  cabinet 
was  being  constructed,  too,  and  that  also  had  an  interest 
for  him.  Onc^more  he  turned  to  Reid.  '*In  case  the 
choice  of  the  Senatorship,  or  Secretaryship  of  the  Trea- 
sury off^ers,"  he  asks,  "which  would  you  advise  me  to 
take?"  Reid  had  to  do  a  lot  of  thinking  for  his  friends 
in  those  days.  Yet  it  is  plain  from  his  correspondence, 
as  I  may  appropriately  note  here,  that  the  only  one  for 
whose  interests  he  really  gave  up  his  nights  and  days 
was  Garfield.  "I  care  precious  little,"  he  says,  almost 
on  the  eve  of  inauguration,  *' about  the  men  appointed, 
but  am  intensely  anxious  about  men  who  should  not  be 
appointed."  He  thought  well  of  Wayne  MacVeagh  for 
the  attorney-generalship,  as  he  did  of  Thomas  L.  James 
for  postmaster-general,  and  said  so,  speaking  as  freely  as 
he  had  naturally  always  spoken  about  Blaine,  but  his 
hardest  work  was  done  in  threshing  out  all  the  pros  and 
cons  of  specious  candidacies. 

A  glint  of  humor  is  occasionally  struck  forth  from 
these  latter  processes.  There  was  a  time  when  Garfield 
thought  of  asking  Judge  Charles  J.  Folger  into  his  cabi- 
net. He  wanted  Judge  Robertson's  views  on  the  idea, 
which  were  expressed  in  this  terse  communication: 

Albany, 

My  dear  Reid:  ^^^^^^^  ^^^^»  '^^'' 

With  two  stalwart  Senators  and  Vice  President  from  the  State, 
the  incoming  Administration  could  in  no  other  way  so  effectually 
put  our  Independent  delegates  to  the  Chicago  Convention  in  a 
political  metallic  casket,  hermetically  sealed,  as  by  placing  in  the 
Cabinet  a  stalwart  from  New  York.  It  would  surely  give  the  dele- 
gation from  the  State  to  Grant,  Conkling  or  Cornell  in  1884. 

Yours  very  truly,  W.H.Robertson. 

Exit,  upon  this,  Judge  Folger.  He  had  to  wait  until 
Arthur  came  into  power,  when  he  was  made  secretary 
of  the  treasury. 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS   FIGHT  53 

There  remains  one  other  episode,  illustrative  of  Gar- 
field's perplexity  and  of  the  diplomatic  excursions  it 
prompted,  which  in  its  oddity  is  perhaps  the  most  inter- 
esting of  all.  Talking  the  problem  over  with  Reid, 
Blaine  struck  out  the  suggestion  that  the  secretaryship 
of  the  treasury  should  be  poHtely  offered  to  Conkhng 
himself!  The  chances  were  a  hundred  to  one  that  he 
would  decline.  But  suppose  he  accepted?  Then  he  was 
fairly  harnessed  to  Garfield's  car.  There  was  no  chance 
for  him  to  make  a  great  reputation,  for  Sherman  had 
reaped  the  laurels  of  the  department,  and  for  twenty 
years  to  come  no  man  could  do  anything  there  which 
would  not  look  feeble  or  small  by  the  side  of  Sherman's 
success.  On  the  other  hand,  if  he  declined,  his  mouth 
and  the  mouths  of  all  his  friends  were  forever  sealed. 
Walter  Phelps,  writing  from  Nice,  made  the  wittiest  of 
comments  upon  this  Machiavellian  scheme.  "The  offer 
to  Conkling  would  be  genius,"  he  says.  "Just  getting 
it,  I  have  no  time  for  an  opinion — whether  it  would  be 
sense.*'  Garfield  received  the  suggestion  with  the  remark 
that  he  had  for  some  weeks  been  thinking  of  the  same 
thing  himself,  but  as  he  and  his  counsellors  deliberated 
they  united  on  rejecting  it.  Weed  strongly  opposed, 
and  Robertson  frankly  stigmatized  the  idea  as  nothing 
more  nor  less  than  an  omen  of  certain  disaster.  When, 
about  the  middle  of  February,  Conkhng  astonished  the 
quidnuncs  by  paying  a  visit  to  Mentor,  and  there  was  a 
general  feeling  that  olive-branches  were  waving  in  the 
air,  the  most  hazardous  of  all  devices  for  keeping  them 
there  had  been  definitively  abandoned. 

The  cabinet  was  still  inchoate,  with  inauguration  day 
hardly  more  than  a  fortnight  in  the  future.  Neverthe- 
less, Garfield  awaited  the  ordeal  at  Washington  with 
unrufHed  spirit,  confident  that  even  at  the  eleventh  hour 
he  would  be  able  to  reconcile  the  jarring  elements  in  the 


54  THE.  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

situation.  To  do  that  he  was  resolved  to  stay  both 
open-minded  and  firm.  The  frame  of  mind  in  which  he 
approached  the  moment  for  decisive  action  is  reflected 
down  to  the  last  shade,  I  think,  in  a  sentence  casually 
falling  into  one  of  his  letters  to  Reid:  **I  ought  to  be 
ready  for  fight  but  should  not  begin  it."  On  this  diplo- 
matic key-note  the  scene  shifts  from  Mentor  to  the 
national  capital. 

In  traversing  what  Garfield  did  there  in  the  launching 
of  his  administration,  the  purpose  of  an  historian  would 
ordinarily  be  served  by  noting  simply  the  names  of  the 
men  finally  chosen  to  assist  him.  But  my  own  object, 
as  I  have  said  before,  is  to  expose  the  human  comedy 
hidden  behind  the  official  pageant,  and  in  Reid's  corre- 
spondence this  is  revealed  in  such  wise  as  to  convey 
more  than  ever  the  impression  of  swiftly  moving  drama. 
It  appears  especially  in  letters  to  Miss  Mills,  who  was 
soon  to  become  his  wife.  These  constitute  in  some  sort 
a  daily,  almost  hourly,  journal  of  the  events  in  which 
Reid  and  Garfield's  other  friends  shared,  as  they  rallied 
around  him  in  Washington,  and  I  cite  them  in  that  form: 


Washington, 

. 

March  ist,  1881 

The  Cabinet  is  now  made  up  as  follows: 

Secretary  of  State, 

Jas.  G.  Blaine. 

"  the  Treasury, 

Wm.  Windom. 

"     "   Interior, 

W.  B.  Allison. 

"  War, 

Robert  Lincoln. 

"  the  Navy, 

L.  P.  Morton. 

Post  Master  General, 

Judge  Hunt. 

Attorney  General, 

Wayne  MacVeagh. 

Morton  has  accepted  the  Navy.  So  we  have  carried  our  exact 
point  there,  and  Conkling  is  at  once  utterly  foiled  and  left  without 
any  cause  of  quarrel.  The  grave  uncertainty  is  as  to  whether  Alli- 
son can  be  persuaded  to  take  the  Interior,  and  on  this  point  I  am 
asked  to  do  missionary  work,  if  needful,  tonight.  AHison  and  I 
are,  as  perhaps  you  know,  old  friends.     He  would  have  taken  the 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS   FIGHT  55 

Treasury,  but  both  Garfield  and  Blaine  are  doubtful  about  the 
Interior.  He  is  now  with  Garfield,  having  been  sent  for,  to  the 
Senate,  an  hour  ago.  I  saw  MacVeagh's  invitation  mailed  before 
coming  up  to  my  room.  Lincoln,  Morton  and  Blaine  have  already 
accepted.  Windom's  letter  has  not  been  sent,  and  probably  will 
not  be  till  the  Allison  matter  is  decided. 

Washington, 
March  2nd,  1881. 
The  storm  over  the  Cabinet  is  lively.  Blaine  is  up  in  arms  against 
Windom.  At  one  o'clock  last  night  the  Conkling  people  got  Morton 
out  of  bed  and  spent  the  night  "bulldozing"  him  into  a  refusal  to 
accept  the  Navy.  Allison  last  night  refused  the  Interior.  Blaine 
an  hour  ago  wanted  to  unite  our  forces  on  James  as  Post  Master 
General,  if  that  concession  to  New  York  would  secure  in  turn  an 
agreement  to  AIHson  in  the  Treasury.  Garfield  appealed  to  me  to 
suggest  some  man  from  New  York,  if  Morton  refused,  and  declared 
that  he  was  tempted  to  appoint  Judge  Robertson  himself,  the  very 
head  and  front  of  the  anti-Conkling  people.  But  that  will  surely 
not  be  done. 

Washington, 
March  2nd,  1881. 
The  Cabinet  has  changed  like  a  kaleidoscope.  After  finally  agree- 
ing again  to  accept  the  Navy  Department,  Morton  has  finally  been 
worried  out  of  it  by  the  Conkling  people,  and  has  written  a  letter 
withdrawing  his  consent.  This  happened  while  I  was  at  the  White 
House.     Blaine  then  patched  up  a  new  deal,  thus: 

Allison,     Treasury. 

Hunt,         Interior. 

Baldwin,    Navy. 

James,        Post  Master  General. 

Garfield  assented  to  this  if  I  would  be  responsible  for  James's 
loyalty  to  him  rather  than  Conkhng,  and  messengers  were  straight- 
way sent  after  me.  They  hunted  at  the  hotel,  the  office,  the  State 
Department,  Hay's  house,  and  pretty  much  everywhere  excepting 
at  the  White  House.  But  I  went  over  soon,  encountered  Blaine  at 
the  door,  was  rushed  into  his  carriage  and  driven  up  home; — then 
before  the  parlor  fire,  with  the  servant  told  nobody  was  at  home, 
had  the  story  told,  and  was  urged  to  communicate  with  James.  I 
went  first  to  Garfield's,  talked  it  all  over  with  him,  and  then  tele- 
graphed James  to  come  on,  on  the  night  train.  I'm  a  Httle  afraid 
of  it  yet,  but  it  looks  as  if  the  plan  would  work.     The  poHcy  is  to 


^6  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

detach  James  from  Conkling  and  make  him  feel  that  he  owes  his 
appointment  to  that,  and  to  his  volunteered  pledge  to  me  last 
Monday. 

'  *-  Washington, 

March  3rd,  1881. 

Since  eight  o'clock,  when  I  was  waked  by  a  tremendous  knocking 
at  the  door  by  a  passenger  just  off  the  New  York  train,  I've  had 
an  embryo  Post  Master  General  on  my  hands, — with  charges  to 
keep  him  out  of  harm's  way,  and  particularly  to  keep  him  away 
from  his  old  political  associates.  So  I  took  him  first — after  telling 
him  why  I  had  telegraphed  for  him,  and  just  what  the  stage  of  the 
affair  was — to  Mr.  Blaine's.  The  Maine  statesman  was  still  in 
bed  but  in  time  we  got  him  out.  He  was  delighted,  and  wanted 
the  interview  over  with  Garfield  at  once.  So  I  took  him  over  at 
once,  caught  Garfield's  boy  at  the  door,  whisked  James  into  a  pri- 
vate room,  and  in  three  minutes  had  them  together  without  the 
crowd's  having  discovered  James's  face.  Garfield  didn't  even  know 
him,  and  so  I  had  to  introduce  the  man  to  whom  he  was  about  to 
tender  a  Cabinet  portfolio.  Next  I  had  to  get  Piatt,  and  make  him 
say  that,  while  Conkling  had  nothing  to  do  with  this,  and  knew 
nothing  of  it,  and  had  refused  to  recommend  James  or  even  men- 
tion him,  he  could  not  object  with  any  reason,  which  he  (Piatt) 
fully  approved.  This  I  did, — taking  Piatt  up  and  asking  the  ques- 
tions myself  in  Garfield's  presence.  G.  is  greatly  pleased.  He  does 
not  make  the  absolute  offer  until  he  arranges  the  only  unsettled 
place,  the  Navy,  for  which  he  is  now  thinking  of  Gresham  of  Indiana 
— having  dropped  Baldwin.  Meantime  he  asked  me  to  keep  James 
as  quiet  as  possible  and  to  get  him  out  of  town  on  the  afternoon 
train.     It's  done. 

I'm  not  wildly  enthusiastic,  but  it  will  be  the  most  popular  ap- 
pointment that  could  be  made  from  New  York,  and  will  placate  all 
sensible  Conkling  people.  James  is  profoundly  grateful,  and  pledges 
loyalty  in  the  strongest  fashion,  whether  Conkling  supports  the 
administration  or  fights  it,  and  you'll  see  that,  while  Conkling  is  as 
ignorant  of  it  or  of  the  intention  of  doing  it  as  a  baby,  he  and  his 
friends  will  instantly  claim  it  as  his  work. 

Washington, 
March  4th,  1881. 
At  Mr.  Blaine's. 
We  are  in  a  turmoil  over  Allison's  action  in  refusing  the  Treasury. 
Today  I  was  in  the  Reporters'  Gallery  of  the  Senate  during  the  cere- 
monies there,  and  with  the  ladies  of  the  Blaine  household  on  the 
East  portico  during  the  delivery  of  the   Inaugural — within  three 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS   FIGHT  ^-j 

seats  of  the  retiring  and  incoming  Presidents.  The  procession  I 
saw  partly  from  James  M.  Varnum's  room  on  the  Avenue,  and 
partly  from  Mrs.  Gen.  Sherman's  at  the  Quarter  Master  General's 
office.  And  then  Walker  Blaine  brought  me  the  bad  news  about 
AIHson  and  that  I  was  wanted  at  the  White  House  whither  his 
Father  had  gone.  But  when  I  got  up  the  Williams  College  people 
were  making  a  speech  at  poor  Garfield  in  the  East  Room  and  there 
was  little  chance  for  anything  else. 

The  real  secret  of  Allison's  defection  is  the  state  of  his  wife's 
health.  The  Blaine  people  have  now  been  urging  Gresham  for  the 
Treasury,  but  not  with  much  success; — nor  do  I  think  the  scheme 
deserves  it. 

Here  dinner  was  served.  Since  then  we've  sent  Wm.  E.  Chandler 
to  Allison,  with  messages.  The  James  matter  is  all  right,  apparently, 
and  our  New  York  people  are  generally  pleased. 

Washington, 
March  5th,  1881. 
The  long  agony,  I  suppose,  is  over.     At  half  past  twelve,  when  I 
left  the  new  President,  he  had  decided  to  send  in  his  Cabinet  at 
three  this  afternoon. 

Conkling,  in  his  interview  with  G.  on  the  night  of  the  3rd,  com- 
plained of  the  interference  of  "the  tall  young  man  from  New  York" 
in  the  Cabinet,  while  he,  Conkling,  had  not  been  consulted.  G. 
told  me  of  it  with  a  chuckle. 

As  the  cabinet  emerged  from  under  the  hands  of  its 
manufacturers,  with  every  strong  factor  recognized  in  its 
composition,  Grant  as  well  as  anti-Grant,  Reid  felt  that 
he  could  congratulate  Garfield  on  having  a  united  party 
behind  him.  The  outlook  certainly  had  its  auspicious 
aspects.  The  Forty-sixth  Congress,  in  making  its  un- 
lamented  exit,  promised  to  carry  divers  unfortunate  ele- 
ments and  conditions  into  everlasting  oblivion,  and  in 
the  forthcoming  reorganization  of  both  houses  Republi- 
can control  assured  the  new  administration  a  fair  field 
for  its  measures.  At  the  moment  there  appeared  to  be 
only  one  untoward  situation  in  Washington,  that  to 
which  Reid  makes  joking  allusion  in  a  letter  to  Blaine — 
**I  hope  everything  goes  well  with  you,  and  that  the 
enormous  rush  of  ofiice  hunters  is  getting  a  little  diked 


58  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

and  dammed  out  of  the  Department — most  probably  the 
latter."  The  clamor  for  jobs  was  beyond  all  precedent. 
Hay  heard  it  rumbhng  all  day  long  in  the  marble  corri- 
dors of  the  St^te  Department,  like  the  sound  of  beasts 
at  feeding-time.  He  described  the  President  and  the 
secretary  of  state  as  living  in  a  whirlwind,  fighting  like 
baited  bulls  against  the  mob,  hounded  down  by  poli- 
ticians from  morning  till  midnight.  The  frogs  of  Egypt 
weren't  a  circumstance  to  the  crowd  surging  around 
them.  "Heaven  preserve  you  from  being  President," 
he  said.  "I  could  be  Secretary  of  State  easily  enough, 
because  I  am  not  genial  and  magnetic,  and  have  no 
friends,  God  be  thanked."  I  have  no  occasion,  how- 
ever, for  pausing  here  upon  any  of  the  routine  business 
of  the  new  administration,  or  upon  any  of  the  serious 
matters  that  claimed  attention,  such  as  plans  for  a  new 
funding  bill,  or  the  problems  of  Civil  Service  reform,  or 
the  Star  Route  inquiry,  or  the  ever-troublous  question 
of  Southern  patronage.  I  pass  over  all  these  things  in 
deference  to  the  leading  motive  of  this  chapter,  the  duel 
with  Conkhng,  which  now  rapidly  approached  its  bit- 
terest stage.  The  New  York  senator's  complaint  that 
he  "had  not  been  consulted"  was  renewed,  and  this 
time  under  circumstances  moving  Garfield  to  indulgence 
in  something  far  grimmer  than  a  chuckle.  Their  conflict 
was  revived  when  on  March  23d  the  President  sent  a 
batch  of  nominations  to  the  Senate,  among  them  one  to 
the  most  important  office,  outside  the  cabinet,  within  his 
gift — the  collectorship  of  the  port  of  New  York.  He 
named  Judge  Robertson  for  the  post,  and  Conkling  forth- 
with declared  war  to  the  knife. 

Judge  W.  H.  Robertson,  of  Westchester  County,  mem- 
ber of  the  State  Senate  in  New  York,  was  a  man  of  char- 
acter and  ability  whose  services  to  the  party  had  been 
conspicuously   marked   in   the   convention   of   1880.     It 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS   FIGHT  59 

was  his  leadership  of  the  independent  group  in  the  New 
York  delegation  that  had  made  the  defeat  of  Grant 
possible.  But  for  him  the  New  York  bolt  would  never 
have  occurred.  But  for  the  New  York  bolt  the  Penn- 
sylvania bolt  would  never  have  occurred.  And  but  for 
these  bolts  Grant  would  have  gone  through  roughshod. 
Obviously,  that  particular  achievement  in  his  record 
which  confirmed  Garfield's  regard  for  him  could  only 
make  him  more  than  ever  the  object  of  Conkhng's  hatred. 
The  issue  at  the  outset,  when  the  nominations  were  sent 
in,  was  clearly  enough  drawn.  The  New  York  senator 
was  out  at  once  to  revenge  himself,  by  blocking  con- 
firmation, upon  a  political  opponent  who  had  beaten  him 
in  the  earlier  fight.  But  much  more  was  really  involved. 
The  issue,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  went  deeper.  It  bore 
upon  the  whole  question  of  appointment  to  federal  office. 
Did  such  appointment  rest  in  the  hands  of  the  President, 
subject  to  confirmation  by  the  Senate  as  a  body,  or  was 
it  only  nominally  so  placed?  Was  the  power  in  ques- 
tion to  be  vested  actually,  and  as  a  matter  of  practical 
usage,  in  the  senators  of  a  given  State,  authorized  by  an 
unwritten  law  to  control  the  federal  patronage  within 
their  commonwealth,  as  a  kind  of  personal  perquisite? 
The  settlement  of  this  issue  could  not  but  have,  of  course, 
the  most  far-reaching  eff'ects,  involving  as  it  did  the 
very  life  principle  of  administrative  independence,  and 
as  the  reader  will  have  already  foreseen,  in  the  struggle 
over  Robertson's  nomination  it  was  not  his  individuality 
that,  strictly  speaking,  was  concerned.  He  figured  rather 
as  a  symbol.  It  was  not  so  much  his  fate  as  the  fate  of 
the  administration  that  was  to  be  determined.  That  is 
why  I  have  been  at  pains  to  exhibit  Conkling's  inimical 
attitude  toward  Garfield  from  the  beginning,  and  must 
follow  the  story  to  the  end. 

The  same  despatches  which  bore  to  The  Tribune  news 


'^ 


6o  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

of  Robertson's  nomination  brought  echoes  of  the  wrath 
it  had  instantly  roused  in  the  Conkling  camp.  Piatt 
gave  the  paper's  Washington  correspondent  the  views 
prevailing  arnongst  the  Stahvarts,  and  Reid  prepared  for 
action,  at  first  a  httle  incredulous  as  to  the  power  of  the 
boss  to  carry  out  his  obstructive  plans.  **I  have  had 
the  new  Collector  of  the  Port  and  Chauncey  Depew  here 
all  morning,"  he  wrote  to  Miss  Mills  on  the  26th,  **deep 
in  pohtical  talk.  Mr.  Conkling  is  very  mad  and  vicious; 
but  I  don't  see  how  he  can  prevent  Robertson's  confirma- 
tion." The  fight,  however,  was  to  be  a  stiff  one,  as  he 
learned  when  Depew  hurried  in  the  next  day  with  news 
of  "a  flank  movement  on  the  Judge."  This  was  on 
Sunday,  but  Reid  contrived  to  get  hold  of  the  facts  in 
the  situation  and  telegraphed  them  to  Hay,  to  be  pre- 
sented by  the  latter  in  person  to  Garfield  the  first  thing 
Monday  morning.  With  the  facts  there  went  these  sen- 
tences of  solemn  exhortation: 

I  wish  to  say  to  the  President  that  in  my  judgment  this  is  the 
turning  point  of  his  whole  Administration — the  crisis  of  his  Fate. 
If  he  surrenders  now,  Conkling  is  President  for  the  rest  of  the  term 
and  Garfield  becomes  a  laughing  stock.  On  the  other  hand,  he  has 
only  to  stand  firm  to  succeed.  With  the  unanimous  action  of  the 
New  York  Legislature  [in  ratifying  Robertson]  Conkling  cannot  make 
an  effective  fight.  That  action  came  solely  from  the  behef  that 
Garfield,  unlike  Hayes,  meant  to  defend  his  own  administration. 
The  Assembly  is  overwhelmingly  Conkling,  but  they  did  not  dare 
go  on  the  record  against  Robertson,  so  long  as  they  thought  the  Ad- 
ministration meant  business.  In  one  word,  there  is  no  safe  or  hon- 
orable way  out  now  but  to  go  straight  on.  Robertson  should  be 
held  firm.  Boldness  and  tenacity  now  insure  victory  not  merely  for 
this  year  but  for  the  whole  term.     The  least  wavering  would  be  fatal. 

This  trumpet-call  was  long  afterward  to  have  some 
sensational  reverberations.  The  despatch,  at  the  time  it 
was  sent,  was  stolen  from  the  wires,  and  when  Garfield 
was  in  his  grave  it  was  maliciously  published  with  rep- 
resentations that  he  had  been  a  "puppet,"  amenable  to 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS   FIGHT  6i 

the  wire-pulling  of  Whitelaw  Reid  and  others.  Its  sim- 
ple aim,  of  course,  was — in  answer  to  his  repeated  writ- 
ten requests — ^to  let  him  know  the  precise  posture  of 
affairs  in  New  York  pohtics,  and  I  may  remark  in  pass- 
ing that  as  the  investigation  of  the  theft  of  the  telegram 
went  on,  ultimately  nailing  the  thief,  the  general  verdict 
was  that  Reid  had  done  his  friend  high  service  in  com- 
municating to  him  what  Reid  called  **a  great  deal  of 
frozen  truth."  Garfield  listened  to  it  with  the  deepest 
attention  when  Hay  came  over  to  the  White  House  on 
Monday  and  read  him  the  long  despatch.  **  Robertson 
may  be  carried  out  of  the  Senate  head  first  or  feet  first," 
he  then  grimly  observed.  "  I  shall  never  withdraw  him." 
A  little  later  in  the  day  the  President  had  another 
visitor  in  the  person  of  his  postmaster-general.  Mr. 
James  brought  w4th  him  a  written  protest  against  the 
nomination  for  the  collectorship,  signed  by  himself, 
Conkling,  Piatt,  and — of  all  men  in  the  world — Vice- 
President  Arthur.  The  recipient  of  this  preposterous 
document  remained  disappointingly  unmoved.  He  told 
James  politely  enough  that  the  nomination  was  none  of 
his  business.  He  should  run  the  post-office  and  not 
fash  himself  about  the  New  York  Custom  House.  Piatt 
turned  up,  not  very  ferocious,  as  Hay  said,  but  protest- 
ing that  if  the  President  had  only  consulted  him  trouble 
might  have  been  avoided.  Garfield  told  him  that  he 
had  had  the  right  to  believe  him  friendly  to  Robertson. 
The  resolution  with  which  he  proceeded  to  deal  with  the 
crisis  is  shown  in  this  letter: 

Executive  Mansion, 
Washington, 

, .  T^  March  30th,  1881. 

My  dear  Reid: 

After  giving  the  majority  wing  of  the  Republican  party  almost 
every  place  in  New  York  so  that  no  one  failed  to  see  they  were  gen- 
erously treated,  the  President  nominated  a  prominent  RepubHcan 
of  unquestioned  ability  to  a  place  now  held  by  a  man  whose  appoint- 


62  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

ment  was  resisted  by  the  New  York  Senator.  He  considers  himself 
affronted  because  he  was  not  consulted.  It  is  a  worrying  struggle  of 
two  years  or  a  decisive  settlement  of  the  question  now.  It  better 
be  known,  in  the  outset,  whether  the  President  is  the  head  of  the 
Government,  or'T:he  registering  clerk  of  the  Senate.  That  question 
shall  be  settled  by  the  confirmation  or  rejection  of  Robertson.  I 
understand  that  efforts  are  being  made  to  induce  Robertson  to  de- 
cline. I  hope  he  will  not  yield.  It  is  the  crucial  test  of  the  Admin- 
istration. Do  you  know  whether  Gov.  Cornell  has  taken  a  position 
on  the  question?     He  ought  to  be  with  us. 

The  course  of  Piatt  is  extraordinary.  He  bases  it  upon  the  ground 
that  he  was  not  consulted.  Suppose  he  had  been?  Would  he  then 
have  voted  for  Robertson?  If  yes,  on  what  ground  of  reason  can 
he  now  vote  no?  In  either  case  he  would  vote,  not  on  the  merits 
of  the  nominee,  but  upon  the  wholly  irrelevant  question  of  his  being 

consulted.  . 

As  ever  yours,  t    a    ^ 

J.  A.  Garfield. 

The  situation  in  the  Senate,  meanwhile,  was  such  as 
to  threaten  an  indefinite  prolongation  of  the  most  fatu- 
ous of  deadlocks.  From  the  opening  of  its  special  ses- 
sion on  March  4th  that  august  body  had  marked  its 
reorganization  by  squabbhng  over  the  distribution  of  its 
own  offices,  the  Democrats  holding  up  the  pubHc  busi- 
ness while  they  strove  to  retain  those  priceless  plums. 
Such  an  exacerbated  state  of  affairs  was,  naturally.  Just 
what  ConkHng  required  for  the  exploitation  of  his  own 
hand  and  he  undoubtedly  made  the  most  of  it.  Hay 
was  dumfounded  at  the  pusillanimity  of  the  men  who 
thus  permitted  themselves  to  be  made  parties  to  an 
ignoble  intrigue.  "Conkling  seems  to  have  a  magic  in- 
fluence over  them,"  he  said.  "They  talk  as  bold  as 
lions  to  me,  or  anybody  else — and  then  they  go  into 
caucus,  or  the  Senate,  and  if  he  looks  at  them  they  are 
like  Little  Billee  in  the  ballad.  They  are  a  strange 
race."  Nor  was  ConkHng  content  with  intimidating  the 
Senate,  and  trying  to  intimidate  the  President.  Part  of 
his  plan,  as  was  to  be  expected,  was  to  see  if  the  hateful 
nominee  himself  eould  not  be  worked  upon,  and  presently 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS'  FIGHT  63 

stories  were  running  about  that  the  strongest  efforts 
were  being  made  to  persuade  Robertson  to  withdraw. 
He  did  not  know  the  doughty  judge  any  better  than  he 
knew  Garfield.  *' Under  no  circumstances,"  wrote  the 
judge  to  Reid,  'Svill  I  ask  President  Garfield  to  withdraw 
my  nomination  as  Collector  of  the  Port  of  New  York; 
nor  will  I  consent  to  its  withdrawal.  And  this  would 
be  my  course  were  the  President's  interests  alone  in- 
volved, as  the  withdrawal  of  my  name  at  his  instance 
or  upon  my  request  would  make  him  Conkling's  abject 
slave  for  the  residue  of  his  term." 

Thus  the  quarrel  stood  as  April  advanced,  Garfield 
and  his  nominee  holding  firm,  with  the  enemy  leaving  no 
stone  unturned  to  shake  their  purpose.  A  letter  of 
Reid's  written  at  this  time  gives  a  withering  exposure  of 
the  stratagems  to  which  the  conspirators  had  recourse 
as  their  plot  grew  desperate: 

New  York, 

T,^  ^  April  nth,  1881. 

My  dear  General:  '^ 

Mr.  Piatt  was  here  over  Sunday.  He  had  some  important  busi- 
ness matters  to  attend  to  with  me,  but  he  was  so  engrossed  in  politics 
that  instead  of  coming  as  usual  he  barely  sent  me  a  hurried  note. 
He  has  not  been  either  at  my  house  or  office  since  the  Robertson 
nomination. 

What  he  came  for,  however,  was  to  set  on  foot  another  of  his  de- 
vices for  compromise.  He  sent  U.  S.  Marshal  Payn  to  a  gentleman 
who,  as  he  thought,  could  reach  and  possibly  control  Judge  Robert- 
son with  an  earnest  appeal  for  a  secret  meeting  between  Judge 
Robertson  and  Mr.  Piatt  in  which  a  final  effort  was  to  be  made  to 
persuade  the  Judge  to  withdraw  and  take  the  U.  S.  District  Attor- 
neyship on  the  pledge  that  Mr.  Conkling  would  not  opp>ose  his  con- 
firmation for  that  office,  and  that  Merritt  should  be  left  in  the  Cus- 
tom House.  In  the  course  of  the  conversation  Payn  revealed  more 
than  has  yet  been  known  to  us  of  the  inside  of  the  Conkling  situa- 
tion. He  admits  frankly  that  last  summer  and  fall  Conkling  was 
from  the  outset  in  favor  of  having  you  defeated.  He  was  only 
pulled  into  the  campaign  at  all  by  main  strength,  and  all  the  time 
he  kept  protesting  that  he  believed  it  was  a  mistake,  and  that  **this 
man  would  cheat  us  yet,"  meaning  thereby  that  this  man  would 


64  THE  LIFE  OP  WHITELAW  REID 

really  not  make  over  everything  to  them.  Now  he  admits  that 
Conkhng  has  thrown  off  all  disguises,  and  cannot  be  kept  from 
speaking  with  the  utmost  bitterness  and  violence  against  you  every- 
where, avowing  his  personal  contempt  and  hatred  and  his  resolute 
purpose  to  do  e^rything  he  can  from  this  to  the  end  of  his  term  to 
break  you  down. 

He  recognizes  clearly  that  this  means  the  division  of  the  Republi- 
can party  in  the  State  and  probable  defeat,  but  this  makes  no  dif- 
ference to  him,  as  he  has  already  made  up  his  mind  that  he  must 
leave  politics  at  the  end  of  this  term,  and  go  to  work  to  earn  some 
money.  Payn  further  represents  that  Conkling  has  utterly  aban- 
doned all  idea  of  the  Presidency,  or  of  any  future  whatever  in  poli- 
tics, that  he  would  resign  now  but  for  the  Robertson  row,  and  that 
his  present  purpose  is  to  spend  the 'next  four  years  simply  in  wreak- 
ing his  revenges.  Piatt,  Payn,  and  the  rest,  of  course,  do  not  like 
this  prospect.  Whether  Mr.  Conkling  has  any  political  future  or 
not,  they  think  they  ought  to  have,  and  their  appeal  to  us  there- 
fore, is  to  save  them  from  the  destruction  their  own  leader  is  about 
to  bring  upon  them. 

'  Of  course  all  this  is  utterly  unimportant  save  in  one  regard.  It 
shows  how  absolutely  you  are  master  of  the  situation.  The  one 
thing  to  be  done  with  a  firm  hand  is  to  adhere  to  your  own  pro- 
gramme, sustain  your  friends  and  teach  those  who  fight  against  you 
that  they  can  have  no  favors  from  you.  This  done,  Robertson  is 
soon  confirmed  and  Conkling  will  every  month  become  more  and 
more  powerless.  I  really  believe  you  have  him  where  there  is  a 
chance  to  make  an  end  of  him,  and  of  the  corrupt,  insolent  and 
bullying  elements  which  he  has  carried  into  our  politics. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Whitelaw  Reid. 


The  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished,  indicated 
at  the  close  of  this  letter,  w^as  even  then  nearer  than  any- 
body guessed.  And  it  w^as  being  brought  nearer  every 
minute  by  Garfield's  steadfast  stand.     He  thus  replied: 

Executive  Mansion, 

Washington, 

April  1 8th,  1881. 
Dear  Reid: 

Yours  of  the  nth  was  read  with  interest.     The  facts  you  give  are 

quite  fully  confirmed  by  others  of  similar  import.     If  the  person  in 

question  has  resolved  on  suicide  and  murder,  he  may  not  be  able  to 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS'  FIGHT  65 

enlist  a  very  large  force  of  followers.  The  cry  which  is  giving  them 
some  strength  here  is  that  the  confirmation  of  Robertson  will  inevita- 
bly defeat  the  party  in  New  York.  Arthur  says  he  knows  it.  I 
answer,  Yes,  if  the  leaders  determine  it  shall.  Summed  up  in  a 
word,  Mr.  C.  asks  me  to  withdraw  Robertson  to  keep  the  other 
leaders  of  the  party  from  destroying  themselves.  Of  course  I  depre- 
cate war,  but  if  it  is  brought  to  my  door  the  bringer  will  find  me  at 

home.  * 

As  ever  yours,  t    a    ^ 

J.  A.  Garfield. 

Against  this  serene  defiance  of  his  the  pertinacious 
malcontents  wore  themselves  out,  and  while  they  fretted 
in  vain  over  retaliatory  schemes  the  Senate  slowly  appre- 
hended the  egregious  spectacle  it  .was  presenting  before 
the  country.  Preparations  at  last  were  made  to  go  into 
executive  session,  and  in  May  the  legislators  were  ready 
to  vote  on  federal  appointments.  Garfield,  in  his  turn, 
was  ready  for  those  members  who  had  sought  to  cow 
him  into  submission.  In  order  to  let  them  know  exactly 
where  he  stood  he  withdrew  all  his  New  York  nomina- 
tions— save  that  of  Robertson.  The  thrust  went  home. 
Conkling  was  beaten,  he  knew  that  he  was  beaten,  and 
ten  days  later  he  publicly  gave  the  measure  of  his  cha- 
grin in  one  of  the  most  amazing  acts  ever  committed  by 
an  American  statesman.  Balked  of  his  aim  to  put  Gar- 
field's administration  in  his  waistcoat  pocket  he  resigned 
from  the  Senate,  and  Piatt  resigned  with  him.  It  was 
on  Tuesday,  May  17th,  that  the  bizarre  news  was  made 
pubHc.  On  Wednesday,  May  i8th,  a  purged  Senate 
confirmed  the  nomination  of  Judge  W.  H.  Robertson  to 
be  collector  of  the  port  of  New  York. 

If  in  his  relation  to  this  controversy  President  Gar- 
field had  been  actuated  by  any  small  motives,  the  dis- 
comfituie  of  the  two  senators  from  New  York  was  of  a 
nature  to  give  him  the  fullest  satisfaction.  The  measure 
they  adopted  to  salve  their  pride  served  only  to  render 
them   ridiculous.     Their   histrionic   departure   from   the 


66  THE  LIFE  OFWHITELAW  REID 

scene,  a  play  to  the  gallery  as  indiscreet  as  it  was  insin- 
cere, provoked  a  shout  of  derision  that  rang  through  the 
country.  But  I  would  recall  again  what  Reid  had  writ- 
ten of  Garfield  in  ''Ohio  in  the  War,"  long  before:  "Per- 
sonally he  is  generous,  warm  hearted  and  genial."  The 
fight  over  the  collectorship  had  inspired  in  him  con- 
tempt as  well  as  wrath,  yet  there  came  to  him  no  emo- 
tion of  gratified  spite;  it  was  not  because  he  had  won  that 
he  rejoiced.  The  victory  as  he  saw  it  was  purely  a  vic- 
tory for  good  government.  The  question  settled  was 
not  one  between  himself  and-  Roscoe  Conkling.  It  was 
the  question  which  we  have  seen  him  stating  to  Reid, 
"whether  the  President  is  the  head  of  the  Government, 
or  the  registering  clerk  of  the  Senate."  The  vote  ulti- 
mately secured  was  nothing  if  not  a  vindication  of  Re- 
pubhcanism.  This  was  the  object  all  along  pursued  by 
Garfield  and  his  friends.  In  the  correspondence  I  have 
traversed,  covering  the  whole  period  of  the  feud  with 
Conkling  from  the  date  of  the  convention  onward — and 
my  extracts  constitute  only  a  small  fraction  of  the  mass 
— the  personal  note  is  necessarily  sounded  again  and 
again.  Yet  the  purpose  of  these  men  is  plainly  directed 
at  just  one  impersonal  thing — the  expulsion  of  what 
Reid  called  the  corrupt,  insolent,  and  bullying  elements 
in  our  politics.  There  is  a  characteristic  saying  of 
Hay's,  written  during  the  long  pull  over  the  cabinet, 
which  may  serve  as  a  tag  to  this  story  of  a  fight  for 
political  freedom.  "I  think  several  things  are  working 
out  right — i.  e.,  as  you  and  I  think  right — which  is  right 
enough  for  all  practical  purposes."  They  could  be  thus 
sure  of  themselves — Hay  and  Reid,  Garfield  and  Blaine 
— for  all  they  had  in  view,  if  my  story  proves  anything, 
was  an  untrammelled,  honest  administration.  Garfield 
was  to  be  denied  the  opportunity  to  show  what  he  could 
do  through  four  years  in  the  White  House.     But  he  had 


GARFIELD'S   FAMOUS   FIGHT  67 

not  been  in  the  White  House  four  weeks  before  he  showed 
that  what  he  did  would  be  "right  for  all  practical  pur- 
poses.*' That  is  why  the  narrative  of  his  battle  with 
Conkling  has  here  been  set  down  in  full. 


CHAPTER  IV 
MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL 

Garfield's  election  added  to  Reid's  hard  summer  a 
harder  winter.  The  most  strenuous  passages  in  the 
campaign,  indeed,  had  imposed  upon  him  no  such  strain 
as  that  of  the  teasing  factional  war  I  have  just  outhned. 
He  had  never  drunk  so  deeply  of  the  political  cup  and 
never  before  had  it  contained  a  more  potent  brew.  At 
the  same  time  there  were,  for  him,  no  bitter  dregs  to 
drain.  On  the  contrary,  he  had  every  reason  to  feel 
exhilarated  and  refreshed.  In  the  triumph  of  the  Presi- 
dent, for  which  he  had  done  a  good  share  of  the  fighting, 
he  could  take  the  pride  of  a  stanch  Republican,  and  with 
this  there  went,  of  course,  the  gratification  a  man  derives 
from  the  ascendancy  of  his  friends.  Garfield  was  now 
dominant  over  Bis  foes.  Blaine  and  MacVeagh  were  in 
the  cabinet,  and  the  only  diplomatic  appointment  in 
which  he  had  any  interest,  that  of  Walter  Phelps,  was 
one  of  the  earhest  sent  in  to  the  Senate.  The  proposal 
of  a  Roman  mission  I  have  already  indicated.  Subse- 
quently Blaine  was  eager  to  have  his  friend  take  the 
post  from  which  Hay  was  retiring  in  the  State  Depart- 
ment, but  that  did  not  prove  acceptable,  and  Phelps 
was  nominated,  instead,  minister  to  Austria.  These  and 
other  things  were  well  calculated  to  sustain  Reid's  spirit 
far  above  the  power  of  a  Conkhng  to  annoy,  and,  as  a 
matter  of  fact,  he  had  much  else  to  think  about,  though 
seemingly  he  had  no  energy  to  spare  for  anything  save 
politics.  This  ever-burdened  winter,  packed  with  work 
and  anxiety,  was  nevertheless  the  happiest  in  his  life. 

68 


MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL  69 

He  was  not  always  at  his  desk,  a  circumstance  which 
Evarts  quaintly  mourned  one  night  when  he  sought  him 
out  for  political  talk  at  his  office,  and  found  he  had  gone 
to  the  theatre.  **I  stopped  at  ten  o'clock  on  my  way 
down  town  from  dinner,"  wrote  the  statesman,  ''but 
alas !  too  early  for  a  radiant  editor  who,  studying  the 
scenery  and  actors  of  pubhc  fife,  all  day,  flies  to  the 
mimic  scene  and  paid  performers  for  substance  and  sin- 
cerity." Reid  was  indeed  radiant  at  this  time,  but  not 
all  his  friends  knew  it,  and  it  will  lend,  I  think,  a  cer- 
tain delightful  force  of  contrast  to  the  picture  if  I  quote 
here  part  of  a  letter  from  Walter  Phelps: 

Naples, 

T,,  ,,r  January  13th,  1881. 

My  dear  Warwick:  *^    ^ 

Your  letter  of  Christmas  Eve  finds  me  seeing  Naples  and  not 
dead;  and  calls  me  quickly  back  from  the  dreams  of  the  Mediter- 
ranean to  the  activities  of  the  Hudson.  But  before  plunging  into 
the  cauldron,  which  boils  near  your  library  table  and  cooks  now  a 
little  Attorneyship  and  now  a  great  Premiership,  as  under  your 
stirring  it  throws  to  the  top  the  head  of  a  Shepard  or  a  Blaine,  I 
had  rather  pause  a  moment  over  the  young  and  melancholy  wizard. 
Every  now  and  then  the  comical  irony  of  fate,  perhaps  never  better 
illustrated  than  in  your  own  case,  of  which  we  are  both  conscious 
all  along  the  years,  comes  to  a  head  and  especially  forces  our  notice 
and  comment. 

And  this  Christmas  Eve  you  were  writing  me,  as  I  you,  and  about 
the  same  thoughts  were  in  both  minds,  the  one  tabernacled  in  Flor- 
ence, the  other  in  New  York.  The  great  contrasts.  Money  abun- 
dant. The  Wabash  preferred  made  its  profits  just  right  for  Christ- 
mas. Power  never  greater.  The  very  division  of  the  New  York 
Legislature  making  your  influence  the  more  valuable.  Garfield 
more  than  grateful.  The  possibility  that  one  of  your  best  friends, 
Blaine,  would  be  chief  of  the  Administration;  that  Grow  would  be 
Senator;  that  Hay  or  Lloyd  would  be  Private  Secretary;  that  future 
judgeships  were  measurably  at  your  nomination — and  you  sit,  in 
the  centre  of  your  own  library,  with  heat  and  light  and  comfort 
and  beauty  about  you,  at  Christmas  Eve — alone.  You  clear  your 
table,  and  go  slowly  up  to  your  lonesome  chamber,  the  most  envi- 
able man  in  that  great  metropolis,  not  knowing  whether  you  are 
happy  or  not.     If  that  is  not  the  irony  of  fate,  what  is? 


70  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

I  would  like  to  be  home.     And  you — don't  you  think  that  unless 

you  get  married,  of  which  I  now  despair,  you  would  want  to  see 

me  and  have  me  around?  ,,,    ,,.    t^ 

W.  W.  r. 

With  a  stroke  Refd  turned  his  friend's  "despair''  to 

rejoicing,  and  completely  routed   "the  irony  of  fate." 

In    February    he   announced    his    engagement   to    Miss 

Ehsabeth    Mills,   the   only   daughter   of  Darius   Ogden 

Mills,  of  California  and  the  East.     Things  political  fell 

into  the   background.     From  Washington,   in   place  of 

cabinet  difficulties,  came  a  letter  like  this: 

» 

Washington, 
My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  February  13th,  1881. 

I  congratulate  you  I 

I  congratulate  Miss  Mills  I 

I  congratulate  all  your  friends ! 

I  congratulate  all  her  friends ! 

I  congratulate  the  readers  of  The  Tribune ! 

And  last  but  not  least  I  congratulate  myself  I 

It  has  my  fullest  approval  and  my  warmest  sympathy,  though 
good  as  you  are  I  do  not  see  what  you  ever  did  to  merit  such  good 
luck.  I  was  very  greatly  impressed  by  the  young  lady  the  only 
time  I  ever  talked  with  her.  Had  I  been  in  single  blessedness  and 
a  youngster  like  you,  why  then  I  why  then !  Miss  Mills  would  have 
had  one  more  to  make  miserable ! 

I  am  glad  you  have  it  bad !  It  is  the  healthiest  and  most  delight- 
ful of  sensations!  Be  just  as  "spooney"  as  you  please,  despise 
those  who  laugh,  and  see  only  your  own  world  that  is  filled  with 
light  and  joy — as  it  may  indeed  I  trust  be  to  both  of  you  forever !  I 

I  write  propped  up  with  pillows,  having  been  suffering  horribly 
all  the  week  with  gout,  which  I  preferred  should  go  to  the  public 
as  rheumatism.  This  is  my  only  autograph  for  the  whole  time — 
and  only  a  great  occasion  could  have  called  it  out.  My  sincere 
regards  to  the  young  lady.     God  bless  and  preserve  you  both. 

Sincerely,  j    ^    g^^,^^ 

The  wedding  followed  not  long  after  the  announce- 
ment of  their  engagement.  They  were  married  in  New 
York  on  April  26th,  and  after  a  brief  visit  to  Reid's 
mother  in  Ohio  they  sailed  in  May  for  Europe,  to  be 


MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL  71 

gone  several  months.  On  the  eve  of  his  marriage  he  was 
once  more  given  the  opportunity  to  consider  taking 
public  office.  Garfield  asked  him  to  accept  the  Berlin 
mission.  But  Mrs.  Mills's  health  was  not  firm  and  her 
daughter  was  unwilling  to  take  up  her  home  too  far 
away  from  her.  Nor  was  diplomacy  just  then  to  Reid's 
mind.  He  preferred  to  adopt  Blaine's  advice  on  the 
advantage  of  "seeing  only  his  own  world."  In  a  letter 
to  the  President  he  said:  "Don't  bother  your  head  about 
offices  for  me,  but  make  the  best  fight  you  can,  and 
make  those  Senators  understand  that  this  Administra- 
tion intends  to  take  care  of  itself , at  any  cost.  For  the 
rest,  if  you  still  hanker  after  pleasing  me  personally, 
come  over  with  Mrs.  Garfield  on  the  Limited  Express 
next  Tuesday  morning."  That  Tuesday  morning  marked 
the  glad  relinquishment  to  other  hands,  for  a  time,  of 
the  stirring  of  the  political  caldron,  and  all  its  cognate 
interests.  For  the  ensuing  summer  the  editorship  of 
the  paper  was  left  to  John  Hay. 

From  England  and  Scotland,  where  they  spent  their 
first  weeks  abroad,  the  Reids  went  for  a  rambhng  trip 
on  the  Continent.  They  visited  Paris,  Amsterdam,  and 
Brussels,  travelled  down  the  Rhine  into  Switzerland, 
and  from  there  went  on  to  Italy.  They  saw  Rome  and 
made  an  extended  stay  in  Venice.  Turning  northward, 
through  the  Austrian  Tyrol,  they  continued  on  to  Vienna, 
where  Walter  Phelps  was  now  estabhshed  as  minister, 
and  afterward  paused  in  Berlin  on  their  way  back  to 
London.  It  was  just  as  they  were  starting  on  their 
Continental  wanderings  that  the  news  of  Garfield's  assas- 
sination reached  them,  and  thenceforth  they  were  in 
constant  receipt  of  bulletins  on  the  President's  condition, 
telegraphed  by  Phelps  as  they  came  to  him  from  Blaine. 
They  were  at  Salzburg  when  the  end  came,  in  Septem- 
ber, and  proceeded  to  Vienna  just  in  time  to  be  at  the 


72  THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW   REID 

memorial  meeting  organized  there.  Reid  was  asked  to 
share  in  the  ceremonies  and  embodied  in  his  tribute  to 
Garfield  some  reminiscences  of  the  man  as  he  had  known 
him  for  so  niany  years.  From  the  beginning  there  had 
been  between  the  two  more  than  the  sympathy  and 
understanding  of  a  common  political  aim,  there  had  been 
the  affection  which  springs  from  the  bases  of  character, 
and  there  could  not  have  been  any  of  the  dead  man's 
intimates  more  moved  than  Reid  was  over  the  plans 
and  aspirations  now  laid  low.  No  one  knew  better  than 
he  their  scope  and  their  nobihty.  He  could  look  back 
to  the  country  school-teacher  he  had  first  known,  just 
elected  to  the  Ohio  Senate;  he  could  recall  his  friend  as 
he  had  left  him  only  a  few  weeks  before,  at  the  apex  of 
political  life,  and  in  all  that  crowded  career  he  could 
see  but  one  motive  force,  a  great-hearted  ideal.  Here, 
indeed,  as  he  bade  farewell  to  his  comrade,  there  was 
something  of  the  irony  of  fate  upon  which  he  was  bound 
to  reflect. 

Yet  the  practical  issues  of  the  moment  could  not  be 
postponed,  and  the  mourner  had  to  give  way  to  the 
editor.  On  the  day  of  Garfield's  death  there  was  need 
of  communication  with  Hay,  anxious  in  New  York  about 
the  course  to  follow,  and  the  realistic  habit  of  Reid's 
mind  comes  out  in  the  cable  which  he  sent  in  the  midst 
of  his  sorrow:  "Arthur's  antecedents  do  not  inspire  con- 
fidence. He  is  now,  however,  entitled  to  support,  unless 
he  forfeits  it.  No  man  can  have  either  the  support  or 
the  respect  of  the  American  people,  who,  succeeding 
Garfield,  undoes  Garfield's  work."  His  reservations 
point  to  possibilities  which  were  only  too  well  fulfilled. 
Detached  from  public  aff*airs,  preoccupied  utterly  with 
other  things,  he  yet  sniff*ed  the  battle  from  afar  off. 

The  European  tour  was  crowded  with  interesting  per- 
sonahties  and  incidents,   like  a  meeting  in   Paris  with 


MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL  73 

Clemenceau,  then  characteristically  active  as  editor  of 
*'La  Justice";  but  perhaps  a  livelier  significance  attaches 
to  their  experience  of  England,  where  they  spent  the 
greater  part  of  their  sojourn  abroad.  In  London  that 
spring  and  autumn  old  ties  with  Enghshmen  who  had 
visited  the  United  States  were  confirmed  and  new  ones 
were  developed,  foreshadowing  the  s^'mpathetic  atmos- 
phere in  which  Reid  was  long  aftenvard  to  carr\'  on 
his  diplomatic  missions.  He  dipped  into  the  currents 
eddying  through  and  around  the  House  of  Commons, 
and  was  carried  by  others  through  a  wide  range  of  Lon- 
don life.  There  were  breakfasts  and  dinners  at  which 
to  talk  histor}^  with  Kinglake  and  Lecky,  science  with 
Huxley,  poetry  with  Lord  Houghton,  positivism  with 
Frederic  Harrison,  Continental  politics  with  Drummond 
Wolf,  and  ever^-thing  under  the  sun  with  the  diarist 
Grant  Duff.  Reid's  old  affiliations  with  certain  leaders 
of  the  stage  brought  him,  too,  once  more  into  their  joy- 
ous company.  This  was  the  season  of  Edwin  Booth's 
memorable  venture  at  the  Prince's  Theatre  and  his 
subsequent  joining  of  forces  with  Ir\'ing.  John  McCuI- 
lough  was  on  the  scene,  and  one  day  in  June  he  carried 
Reid  off  for  a  drive  with  a  tremendous  galaxy  of  stars, 
down  through  the  parks  to  Richmond  and  a  banquet  at 
Hampton  Court.  Booth,  Irving,  J.  L.  Toole,  ''Billy" 
Florence,  Edmund  Yates,  F.  C.  Burnand,  George  Augus- 
tus Sala,  and  the  younger  Dickens  were  of  the  party. 
But  it  was  chiefly  in  the  world  of  pohtical  society  that 
the  Reids  lived  on  the  occasion  of  this  visit,  and  they 
had  come  to  England  at  a  fortunate  moment. 

Disraeh's  six  years  of  '*  spectacular  adventure  abroad 
and  seemingly  undimmed  triumph  at  home  "  had  been 
dramatically  repudiated  at  the  general  election  of  1880. 
The  Liberals  had  come  in  on  a  huge  tidal  wave,  and 
Gladstone  had  entered  upon  his  most  brilliant  period. 


74  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Reid  met  the  prime  minister  at  The  Durdans,  Lord 
Rosebery's  place  near  Epsom;  he  heard  Gladstone  make 
at  Leeds  one  of  his  great  speeches,  and  at  dinner  in  Lon- 
don they  had^ome  talk.  Years  afterward  Smalley  set 
down  what  Gladstone  had  said  to  him  at  that  earlier 
time:  "Your  countryman  seemed  to  me  a  man  so  excep- 
tional that  I  wished  to  know  more  about  him.  When 
you  have  men  like  that  why  do  you  not  put  them  in 
positions  of  high  public  trust,  where  their  abilities  can 
be  of  most  use  to  you?"  Smalley  replied  that  Reid  used 
his  influence  in  The  Tribune.  "Yes,'*  Gladstone  said, 
"but  here  we  should  not  leave  a  man  like  that  in  private 
life.  Mr.  Reid  talks  to  me  like  one  who  understands 
aff*airs  of  state  and  has  dealt  with  them.  He  is  of  a  type 
on  which  the  state  has  a  claim  as  the  state."  The 
American  editor  saw  a  good  deal  of  members  of  Glad- 
stone's circle.  It  was  his  luck  to  find  in  the  London  of 
1 88 1  much  of  the  same  sort  of  political  sentiment  for 
which  he  had  himself  been  contending  since  the  founda- 
tion of  the  Republican  party,  a  circumstance  giving  a 
keener  edge  to  the  interest  of  his  encounters  with  such 
people  as  Morley,  Rosebery,  Vernon  Harcourt,  Dilke, 
and  the  Lyulph  Stanleys.  He  had  left  politics  behind 
him  when  he  had  sailed  away  from  New  York,  only  to 
be  pleasantly  absorbed  by  them  again  in  London.  Nor 
could  the  theme  as  it  was  developing  at  home  be  alto- 
gether ignored.  Evarts  thought  it  could.  He,  too,  had 
come  abroad,  and  one  day  in  London  breakfasted  with 
Reid,  to  meet  the  old  friend  whom  he  had  transferred 
from  the  Spanish  to  the  English  mission,  James  Russell 
Lowell.  There  is  a  typically  humorous  allusion  to  the 
woes  of  the  new  administration  in  a  note  of  his  at  this 
time.  "It  used  to  be  thought  safer  in  politics,"  he  says, 
"to  talk  than  to  write,  but  in  the  present  outbreak  of 
perfidy  in  politics  it  is  safe  only — to  be  in  England." 
For  Reid  not  even  distance  and  the  sundering  seas  could 


MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL  75 

abate  the  importunities  of  the  "situation"  at  Washing- 
ton. Walter  Phelps  could  see  how  they  were  always 
pressing,  and  in  his  role  of  affectionate  counsellor  he 
writes  at  the  end  of  the  Reids'  English  spring  to  warn 
of  the  hard  work  ahead  for  the  winter.  "What  a  time 
you  had  in  England,  and  what  a  series  of  rencontres  with 
the  great  of  every  kind.  And  do  you  know%  as  I  laid  the 
record  dow^n,  not  a  little  puffed  that  friends  of  mine  were 
easily  and  properly  in  such  grand  compan}^  (I  wonder 
if  I  shall  ever  cease  to  be,  like  Mrs.  Gummidge,  'worrit- 
some,')  I  felt  my  pride  all  merging  into  anxiety  for  a 
firm  hold  of  The  Tribune.  Statesmen  don't  get  such 
honor,  nor  do  wits,  nor  savants,  nor  capitalists.  You 
could  go  as  Senator,  author,  rich  man,  gentleman,  and 
get  all  evidences  of  honor  and  respect;  but  no  such  hurry- 
skurry  on  the  part  of  all  to  exhibit  it,  if  not  the  con- 
troller of  the  great  organ,  that  can  aid  or  retard  the  sic 
itur  ad  astra  of  the  greatest  of  them."  It  would  soon 
be  time  to  think  again  of  the  workaday  world  and  all 
the  problems  pouring  in  clouds  athwart  the  horizon  of 
The  Tribune. 

John  Hay  was  a  representative  uniquely  reassuring  to 
have  in  the  editorial  chair.  As  Phelps  wittily  put  it,  he 
had  been  wound  up  for  the  period  of  Reid's  absence  and 
had  kept  perfect  time.  His  letters  reported  no  great 
difficulties,  either,  in  the  way  of  his  maintaining  the 
policy  he  had  adopted  from  the  start.  "I  am  keeping 
the  paper  in  such  a  position,"  he  wrote  in  July,  after  the 
assassination  of  the  President,  "as  to  give  you  entire 
freedom  of  action  when  you  come  back — avoiding  quar- 
rels and  commitments  in  any  direction.  Arthur  and  I 
have  exchanged  calls — both  of  us  were  out — so  that  we 
are  on  civil  terms  both  personally  and  publicly."  Nev- 
ertheless, he  could  not  conceal  the  prospect  of  trouble. 
Conkling  was  always  in  the  offing,  even  after  his  resigna- 
tion from  the  Senate,  and,  in  requital  for  his  defeat  at 


76  THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Garfield's  hands,  was  looking  forward  to  a  resumption 
of  power  under  Garfield's  successor.  As  the  President's 
long  struggle  with  death  drew  to  a  close  Hay's  messages 
centred  more  and  more  about  the  doubts  enveloping  the 
probable  course  of  the  new  administration.  *'You  will 
certainly  have  war  with  Arthur,"  he  says,  "but  I  will  try 
to  stave  it  off  as  long  as  I  can,  if  possible  until  you  come 
home."  He  had  a  talk  with  Arthur  shortly  before  the 
latter  took  the  oath  of  office.  "He  was  very  civil  but 
nothing  of  consequence  was  said  by  either  of  us."  Writ- 
ing of  the  situation  as  it  appeared  to  public  view,  he 
added:  "Everything  is  at  sea  about  Arthur.  Perhaps 
the  cable  will  tell  you  in  a  day  or  two  what  he  is  up 
to.  But  at  present  the  Cabinet  knows  nothing  what- 
ever of  his  intentions.  The  facts  are:  i.  He  is  hving 
with  Jones.  2.  Jones  has  gone  to  Utica  to  confer  with 
Conkhng.  3.  The  Grant  crowd  seems  happy."  This 
was  early  in  October.  Before  Reid  sailed  for  home,  in 
the  following  month,  he  had  made  up  his  mind  that  he 
was  going  back,  if  not  to  war,  at  least  to  a  condition  of 
affairs  in  which  his  own  wing  of  the  Repubhcan  party 
would  hardly  be  happy. 

Of  one  thing  he  was  in  the  meantime  absolutely  cer- 
tain, and  this  was  that  the  cabinet  over  which  he  and 
Garfield  had  labored  with  such  earnestness  would  be 
unrecognizable  in  a  few  short  months.  The  conviction 
is  disclosed  in  a  letter  which  shows,  also,  how  he  was 
prepared,  as  regarded  himself  and  his  friends,  for  a 
poHtical  interregnum,  a  period  to  be  spent  more  or  less 
detached  from  anything  like  intimacy  with  the  admin- 
istration : 

London, 

My  dear  Mr.  Blaine:  O'^tober  28th,  1881. 

Today's  news  seems  to  make  It  clear  that  Grant  is  already  exer- 
cising the  power  we  all  felt  he  must  have  in  the  new  Administration. 
Let  me  tell  you  how^it  looks — as  to  you — at  this  distance. 


MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL  77 

To  remain  in  the  Cabinet  (beyond  a  reasonable  time,  for  the  selec- 
tion of  a  successor)  unless  to  be  the  real  head  and  controller  of  it, 
would  be  a  mistake.  But  with  Folger  in,  and  Orant  at  the  elbow, 
you  can't  control  it.  To  take  the  mission  to  England  would  be  to 
confess  your  fall,  and  accept  a  pension  from  your  conqueror.  It 
would  be  to  become  a  dependent  of  Chester  Arthur,  instead  of  the 
greatest  independent  |X)litical  force  in  the  country.  To  go  quietly 
to  Augusta,  take  care  of  your  health,  have  a  good  time  and  take 
your  fair  share  in  political  campaigns,  as  they  come  along,  is  to  gamer 
and  increase  that  force. 

You  are  the  popular  representative  of  Garfield's  Administration, 
the  residuar}'  legatee  of  his  popularity,  "^'ou  ought  to  be  and  can 
be  chosen  at  the  next  election,  as  his  successor.  To  that  end  Augusta 
is  worth  a  thousand  Londons.  The  Panama  letter  is  a  great  hit. 
So  is  the  letter  to  Garfield.  Thej're  enough  to  retire  on.  No  doubt 
all  this  has  been  better  thought  out  by  you,  long  ago.  Still,  I've 
fancied  rt  might  be  of  interest  to  know  how  the  situation  looked  to 
friendlv  eves,  far  outside  the  home  hurlv-burlv. 

Faithfully  you.^.        "  Whitei^w  Reid. 

It  was  good  to  be  back  again  in  November,  absorbed 
in  a  new  life  and  surrounded  by  a  multitude  of  friends. 
A  rich  aspect  of  his  correspondence  at  this  time  is  that 
which  has  no  {X)IiticaI  implications  whatever.  Hay,  re- 
turned to  a  life  of  law,  literature,  and  leisure  in  Cleve- 
land, kept  up  as  always  his  running  fire  of  sparkling 
notes.  "You  can't  imagine,"  he  says  in  one  of  them, 
"the  pleasure  I  take  in  reading  The  Tribune  now  that 
another  fellow  is  blowing  the  bellows.  It  is  a  good 
paper  and  no  mistake."  To  cheer  like  this  he  added  the 
solid  aid  of  brilliant  "copy."  Henr\'  James  gave  him 
one  of  his  subjects,  in  the  pubhcation  that  winter  of  his 
"  Portrait  of  a  Lady."  After  writing  an  exhaustive  and 
glowing  review  Hay  throws  in,  privately,  this  character- 
istic saying:  "It  is  a  remarkable  book — as  unhappy  as 
malaria  itself — but  perfectly  done."  In  all  the  little 
gaieties  and  amenities  of  the  letters  there  is  a  strain 
which  I  would  willingly  follow.  Watterson,  of  course, 
like  Hay,  never  fails  in  good  cheer.     "Welcome  home, 


78  THE^  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

dear  boy,"  he  wrote  when  the  ship  came  in.  '*Have 
you  a  red  herring,  fleur  de  lis,  on  your  left  ear?  Did 
you  run  a  Sicihan  nobleman  through  the  body  on  your 
travels?"  It -^vas  the  serenest  of  w^orlds  to  which  the 
Reids  had  returned,  and  his  correspondence  reflects 
the  wxll-being  in  it,  which  was  perfectly  rounded  out 
when  their  son,  Ogden  Mills  Reid,  was  born  early  that 
summer.  But  just  when  Watterson,  a  Southern  Demo- 
crat, was  welcoming  him  home  with  aff*ectionate  levity, 
an  unconsciously  comic  contrast  to  their  friendhness  was 
supplied  by  a  card  left  at  The  Tribune  office  by  a  North- 
ern poHtical  leader  of  Reid's  own  party.  It  is  his  mes- 
sage that  sets  the  key  for  my  next  few  pages.  He  had 
called,  said  the  secretary  who  received  him  in  the  edi- 
tor's absence,  **as  a  messenger  from  Grant,  Arthur, 
Chaffee,  John  A.  Logan  and  others,  and  the  substance 
of  it  was  that  they  wanted  peace,  and  were  anxious  that 
The  Tribune  should  not  persecute  them."  The  inno- 
cent little  pasteboard  is  freighted  with  the  presages  of 
a  long  period  of  activity.  Hay  had  w^arned  him,  **You 
will  certainly  have  war,"  and  though  his  visitor  came  to 
ingeminate  peace  it  was  not  precisely  peace  that  ensued. 
The  expected  cabinet  changes  were  swift  enough  in 
coming.  Robert  Lincoln,  in  the  War  Department,  was 
the  only  one  who  remained  throughout  the  administra- 
tion. The  secretary  of  state  got  out  in  December,  as 
early  as  the  exigencies  permitted.  From  outside  Blaine 
watched  with  growing  vexation  what  his  successor,  Fre- 
linghuysen,  did  with  his  foreign  pohcies;  but  quite  apart 
from  any  personal  chagrin  he  knew  well  enough  that 
Reid  had  been  right  in  advising  him  to  leave  the  cabinet. 
The  atmosphere  of  that  body  was  determined  by  an 
attitude  on  the  part  of  the  President  which  Blaine  him- 
self bluntly  indicates.  Candid  students  of  this  admin- 
istration will  admit  that  it  was  no  private  bitterness 


MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL  79 

but  a  sound  political  judgment  which  he  thus  expressed 
— "I  tell  you  Arthur  means  death  and  political  destruc- 
tion to  every  Garfield  man."     That  was  perhaps  a  savage 
but  hardly  an  overwrought  w^ay  of  stating  the  fact  that 
the  star  of  the  Stalwarts  was  steadily  rising  on  the  hori- 
zon.    Everj'body  could  see   it,   though  Arthur  himself 
fostered  the  illusion  that  he  was  proceeding  with  the 
discreetest  impartiality.     He  was  a  well-meaning  but  not 
a  strong  executive.     From  certain  confidential  and  au- 
thoritatr\'e  reports  made  to  Reid  it  appeared  that  he  was 
sensitive  and  irritable,  disgusted  with  the  Star  Route 
scandal  in  the  p>ostaI  service,  investigation  of  w^hich  was 
one  of  the  first  features  of  his  administration,  and  alto- 
gether out  of  humor  with  the  trend  of  affairs.     When  his 
appK)intment  of  Folger  as  successor  to  \\'indom  in  the 
Treasury*  was  criticized  on  political  grounds,  he  queru- 
lously adopted  the  feeble  ex^planation  that  that  gentle- 
man, and  others  he  favored,  were  not,  after  all,  "pro- 
nounced Stalwarts";  and  when  the  charge  was  pressed 
he  impatiently   intimated  that   if  he  was  to  have  the 
name  he  would  have  the  game,  meaning  that  if  he  was 
to  be  accused  of  putting  nobody  but  Stalwarts  in  office 
none  but  Stalwarts  should  go  in.     The  comedy  is  a  little 
amusing,   until  it  trails  off*  into  the  minutiae  of  petty 
p>oIiticaI  chifHchop.     I  note  here  the  state  of  the  Arthur- 
ian mind  chiefly  to  point  the  eff'ect  which  it  had  upon 
Reid's  course.     Arthur  was  by  no  means  indiff*erent  to 
newspaper  criticism.     As  far  back  as  the  time  when  he 
had  descended  upon  Albany  to  lend  Conkling  a  hand, 
the  editorials  in  The  Tribune,  temperate  though  they 
were,  had  driven  him  nearly  frantic.     Still,  he  was  not 
ready  to  disarm  criticism  by  eschewing  factional  inter- 
ests, and  the  result,  as  I  have  hinted,  if  not  war,  was 
not   unblemished  peace.     From   V'ienna   Walter   Phelps 
rej>eated  with  a  chuckle  the  news  he  had  received  from 


8o  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

home,  that  the  Stalwart  politicians  were  making  merry 
over  the  fact  that  he  and  the  editor  of  The  Tribune 
would  now  "keep  on  the  back  benches  for  a  season." 
The  bench  from  which  the  editor  of  The  Tribune  ob- 
served the  scene  was  not,  just  the  same,  an  uncomfort- 
able one.  Neither,  I  may  add,  did  it  engender  any  acri- 
monious prejudice,  hurtful  to  the  point  of  view. 

The  course  of  the  paper  through  this  administration 
might  be  described  as  one  faithful  to  the  party  and 
friendly  enough  to  Arthur,  but  frankly  critical.  The 
Tribune  wished  nothing  from  the  President  but  good 
government.  It  proposed  to  give  the  administration  "a 
cordial  though  self-respecting  support,"  and  accepted 
Arthur's  first  message  to  Congress  as  a  judicious,  mod- 
erate, and,  in  most  respects,  satisfactory  document. 
Naturally  it  spoke  freely  and  to  the  point  as  the  cabinet 
was  made  over,  a  fact  on  which  Hay  offers  a  significant 
comment.  Alluding  to  a  good  appointment  Arthur  had 
made,  and  to  the  popular  magnanimity  giving  the  ad- 
ministration more  credit  for  one  wise  choice  than  it 
withheld  for  twenty  bad  ones,  he  went  on  to  say:  "I 
don't  mean  that  you  are  magnanimous — bet  your  neck. 
That  notice  of  James  and  Howe  [the  retiring  postmaster- 
general  and  his  supplanter]  was  pure  reason,  untouched 
by  charity." 

It  was  very  much  in  the  light  of  pure  reason  that 
The  Tribune  approached  the  subject  of  the  hour,  tariff' 
revision.  Over  Arthur's  nomination  of  Conkling  to  be 
an  associate  justice  of  the  supreme  court  it  discoursed 
with  a  contempt  which  was  in  nowise  placated  by  the 
nominee's  dechnation,  and  there  were  other  errors  as 
roundly  trounced.  But  the  paper  was  eager  to  serve 
where  the  matter  of  the  tariff*  was  concerned.  The  ap- 
pointment of  a  commission  on  the  subject  was  heartily 
approved,  and  its  labors  received  constant  support.     On 


MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL  8i 

this  complex  topic  I  may  note,  briefly,  that  The  Trib- 
une, stanchly  protectionist,  nevertheless  preached  as  the 
sound  Republican  doctrine  that  the  system  had  a  liberal 
essence.  Its  object,  ran  the  argument,  was  to  adapt 
legislation  to  the  actual  and  varying  circumstances  of 
diff'erent  branches  of  industry,  and  not  to  subject  all  to 
the  operations  of  a  stupid  cast-iron  rule.  The  need  for 
revision  in  certain  schedules  was  freely  admitted.  But 
in  the  meeting  of  it,  what  was  counselled  was  modera- 
tion and  common  sense,  a  solicitude  for  the  welfare  of 
American  industries  which  would  thwart  the  dangers 
of  a  free- trade  policy.  Against  free  trade  the  paper 
carried  on  relentless  warfare.  The  Tariff*  Commission 
was  protectionist  in  its  personnel,  a  fact  of  favorable 
augury,  and  for  a  long  time  Reid's  hopes  ran  high.  But 
it  is  an  old  story  that  by  the  time  the  Forty-seventh 
Congress  got  through  with  the  bill  passed  in  its  closing 
stages,  only  the  seeds  for  further  trouble  had  been  planted. 
Blaine,  who  was  to  be  brought  to  grips  with  the  subject 
in  the  next  presidential  campaign,  wrote  these  prophetic 
words  just  before  the  bill  was  approved: 

Washington, 

My  DEAR  Mr.  Reid: February  19th,  1883. 

The  attitude  into  which  tariff  legislation  is  drifting  promises  the 
most  serious  discomfiture  to  the  Republicans  and  immense  advantage 
to  the  Democrats.  Practically  it  amounts  to  this,  that  the  Repub- 
licans, being  held  responsible  by  the  country  for  all  that  is  done,  are 
yet  being  driven  to  submit  to  such  tariff  adjustment  as  the  Demo- 
crats dictate.  The  anomaly  is  presented  of  a  total  ignoring  of  the 
iron  interest,  every  other  petty  fabric  being  taken  care  of,  especially 
by  our  New  England  Senators  and  Representatives,  and  the  iron 
and  steel  men — the  largest  of  all — pushed  mercilessly  to  the  wall 
in  a  time  of  great  and  widespread  depression  among  their  leading 
men.  See  the  failure  of  the  Stone  steel  works,  and  now  of  the  Ayres, 
and  an  impending  calamity  possible  to  all  the  big  concerns  in  Ohio 
and  elsewhere.  If  this  bill  is  pushed  through  under  whip  and  spur 
the  Democrats  have  an  easy  road  before  them  and  the  Republicans 
a  very  rough  one.     Look  out  for  big  breakers  in  Pennsylvania  and 


82  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Ohio  I  We  need  one  of  your  old  fashioned  bugle  blasts  in  The 
Tribune,  for  the  protection  interest,  strong,  aggressive,  cogent,  such 
as  you  know  how  to  write.  Otherwise  we  are  drifting,  first  to  de- 
fense, then  to  destruction.  The  Democrats  like  Carlisle  of  Ken- 
tucky are  in  ecstasy  over  the  situation  and  well  they  may  be !  You 
can  issue  the  word  of  command.  If  it  is  not  given  there  will  be 
regret  when  too  late.  The  bill  as  the  Senate  is  perfecting  it  with 
Beck's  leave  should  be  mercilessly  slaughtered  by  RepubHcans  in 
the  House — and  will  be  if  you  say  so  boldly  in  The  Tribune. 

Very  hastily.  j    ^    ^^^^^^ 

Better  than  any  analysis  of  the  bill  itself  is  this  urgent 
appeal  as  an  index  to  the  manner  in  which  the  tariff 
tinkering  going  on  in  Congress  stirred  not  only  the 
business  thoughts  of  men  but  woke  their  emotions  and 
made  the  whole  question  an  intensely  political  issue. 
Reid  shared  his  friend's  forebodings.  Writing  to  Hay, 
he  declared  that  the  things  essential  to  success  in  the 
canvass  of  1884  were  the  reduction  of  the  tariff  and  the 
abolition  of  war  taxes.  To  Demarest  Lloyd,  his  Wash- 
ington correspondent,  who  had  conveyed  messages  to 
him  from  Blaine  in  the  sense  of  the  letter  quoted  above, 
he  sent  the  appropriate  instructions.  "The  people  will 
not  stop  to  inquire  too  curiously  about  these  things," 
he  wrote.  "They  will  simply  say:  *The  RepubHcans 
had  both  branches  of  Congress  and  the  President;  they 
neither  reduced  the  internal  revenue  nor  the  tariff;  they 
did  not  even  reduce  so  glaring  a  duty  as  that  on  Bes- 
semer steel  rails.'  Nobody  can  successfully  defend  them 
before  the  people,  and  I  don't  think  I  shall  try  it."  He 
felt  very  strongly  that  even  an  imperfect  bill  was  better 
than  no  bill  at  all.  On  the  very  day  that  Blaine  was 
writing  to  him  he  was  writing  to  Blaine,  expressing  the 
hope  that  they  might  get,  substantially,  the  Tariff 
Commission  bill.  "If,  besides,"  he  added,  "we  can  go 
to  the  country  on  the  record  of  having  made  an  honest 
and  united  effort  to  readjust  and,  to  some  extent,  lower 


MARRIAGE  AND  TRAVEL  83 

the  tariff  without  impairing  its  protective  character, 
then  we  can  doubtless  make  a  good  fight  and  have  the 
benefit  of  having  the  tariff*  as  an  issue."  The  eff'ort  made 
had  in  itself,  as  he  saw  it,  a  value  to  serve  as  an  off^set 
to  the  extreme  alarm  Blaine  had  expressed.  He  recog- 
nized merits  as  well  as  defects  in  the  bill  as  it  was  passed 
and,  I  repeat,  was  doubly  appreciative  of  its  being  passed 
at  all,  considering  that  the  Democrats  were  to  be  in  con- 
trol of  the  next  House.  But  there  were  free-trade  ten- 
dencies even  then  working  in  the  Republican  forces. 
The  bill  was  the  fruit  of  jangling  and  uninspired  debate, 
and  it  ended  by  promoting  more  heated  discussion  than 
had  accompanied  its  construction.  As  one  party  his- 
torian has  candidly  put  it,  the  new  law  was  unscientific 
in  the  extreme,  and  it  did  not  take  long  to  prove  that 
the  Tariff*  Commission  was  a  failure.  In  the  moment 
of  the  conflict,  and  when  at  least  he  had  got  his  "eff'ort," 
Reid  saw  that  as  the  political  complexion  of  the  House 
was  changed  in  March,  1883,  the  tariff"  issue  would  con- 
tinue to  be  very  much  alive.  It  stayed  ahve  and  kicked 
more  lustily  as  time  went  on.  Democratic  economic 
wisdom  proved  no  more  efficacious  than  Republican, 
developing  a  characteristic  party  split,  and  the  Morrison 
bill  died  through  the  murder  of  its  enacting  clause  in 
the  house  of  its  friends.  There  is  a  phrase  which  I  must 
borrow  here  from  one  of  Blaine's  later  campaign  letters. 
**  I  wish  you  would  agonize  more  and  more  on  the  tariff*," 
he  asks.  Agonizing  on  the  tariff*  was  the  order  of  the 
day  all  through  Arthur's  administration.  It  is  late, 
now,  to  repeat  the  process,  but  if  I  have  hastily  sketched 
the  earlier  phases  of  the  battle  it  has  been  not  to  recall 
controversies  over  rates  but  to  bring  into  sharper  relief 
a  burning  issue  of  1884.  The  superstition  dies  hard  in 
some  quarters  that  Republican  defeat  was  then  due  to 
the  choice  of  a  bad  candidate,  and  The  Tribune's  defense 


84  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

of  him  has  been  interpreted  as  an  instance  of  blind  preju- 
dice. The  issue  was  framed  long  before  Blaine  was 
nominated,  as  I  have  shown,  and  The  Tribune  went 
into  the  fight  Jor  him  not  only  with  an  open-eyed  con- 
viction of  his  sterling  character  as  a  man  but  with  the 
belief  that  he  was  the  most  potent  available  champion 
of  the  protective  system. 


CHAPTER  V 
BLAINE  AND  CLEVELAND 

The  caldron  bubbled  fiercely,  but  Reid  had  many 
diversions.  It  was  in  the  early  eighties  that  he  began 
the  annual  visits  which  he  made  to  his  wife's  California 
home,  in  the  San  Mateo  Valley.  They  meant  rest  and 
recuperation,  and  made  him  thenceforth  almost  a  citizen 
of  the  Pacific  slope.  In  later  years  some  of  his  most 
important  speeches  were  made  there  before  university 
and  other  audiences.  When,  in  1908,  as  our  ambassa- 
dor to  Great  Britain,  he  told  "the  story  of  San  Francisco 
for  English  ears,"  he  recited  the  ravages  of  the  earth- 
quake as  one  who  had  in  some  sort  made  the  Western 
city  his  own.  I  speak  of  his  Californian  associations 
here  because  they  begin  to  run  a  new  and  delightful 
thread  through  his  life  in  the  eighties,  supplying  a  respite 
that  he  peculiarly  welcomed  from  the  strain  of  political 
combat.  It  is  from  the  early  eighties,  too,  that  there 
dates  one  of  the  undertakings  in  which  he  took  a  special 
satisfaction.  I  have  already  spoken  of  his  work  in 
sending  boys  West.  In  1882  he  assumed  responsibility 
for  the  Fresh  Air  Fund,  then  in  its  infancy  under  the 
management  of  the  "Evening  Post,"  and  gave  it  in  The 
Tribune  a  new  lease  of  life,  bringing  it  to  the  vigorous 
state  in  which  it  thrives  to  this  day.  To  this  fund, 
through  which  many  thousands  of  poor  children  have 
been  sent  to  the  country  for  a  fortnight's  vacation  in 
the  heated  term,  he  gave  in  its  formative  years  constant 
personal  attention,  and  all  his  life  he  was  watchful  of 
its  interests.  In  these  years  the  steady  excitement  of 
political  afl'airs  was  varied  by  far  more  of  social  relaxa- 

85 


86  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

tion  than  his  bachelor  routine  had  seemed  to  make  pos- 
sible. Looking  over  old  souvenirs,  I  find  echoes  of  his 
English  sojourn  perceptible  in  meetings  with  travellers 
from  London-^Matthew  Arnold,  Henry  Irving,  and  Rose- 
bery.  Hay,  now  making  a  long  holiday  abroad,  sent 
him  lively  budgets  about  himself;  about  Clarence  King, 
**  buying  bric-a-brac  with  unerring  judgment  and  un- 
flinching extravagance";  about  Howells,  fleeing  from  the 
hospitalities  of  London  for  the  quiet  of  Switzerland, 
where  he  might  write  in  peace;  and  about  a  whole  squad- 
ron of  literary  celebrities — James,  Harte,  Dudley  War- 
ner, and  others.  Returning  to  Cleveland  in  the  sum- 
mer of  1883,  Hay  suff'ered  some  iflness,  but  was  as  resil- 
ient as  ever,  "because  I  scarcely  ever  die  in  these 
attacks." 

That  year,  in  the  August  number  of  the  *' Century," 
Hay  began  publication  of  "The  Bread  Winners,"  and, 
publishing  it  anonymously,  gave  his  readers  one  of  the 
most  tantalizing  of  literary  mysteries.  Reid  wrote  him 
that  the  sleuths  were  on  his  track  and,  apropos  of  the 
first  instalment,  said:  "Without  being  quite  sure  that 
you  wrote  it  I  spotted  the  story  at  once  as  relating  to 
Cleveland  and  to  you  and  as  having  some  touches  singu- 
larly Hke  your  work."  Hay's  reply  throws  interesting 
light  on  his  demeanor  in  Sir  Walter  Scott's  predicament: 

Cleveland, 
Dear  Reid:  ^"g"^*  3rd,  1883. 

I  can't  tell  you,  honorably,  what  I  know  about  it,  as  yet.  I  may 
be  released  before  long  and  then  I  will  make  a  paragraph  for  you,  if 
you  want  any,  that  will  not  hurt  anybody.  "Deal  gently  with  the 
young  book — even  with  the  Bread  Winners,"  for  it  was  written  by 
one  who  is  a  good  friend  of  yours  and  mine.  Meanwhile  if  any- 
body asks  you  about  me,  say  I  absolutely  and  teetotatiously  repu- 
diate it.  I  am  very  desirous  the  thing  should  not  be  attributed  to 
me.     My  love  to  Mrs.  Reid  and  the  Boy. 

Yours  sincerely,  j    j^ 


BLAINE  AND  CLEVELAND  87 

It  was  not  long  before  Reid  was  put  in  possession  of 
the  secret.  In  fact,  he  received  and  cashed  for  Hay  one 
or  two  checks  from  the  pubhshers  for  copyright  pay- 
ments on  account  of  the  work.  The  author,  in  frank 
talk  on  the  subject,  spoke  of  some  of  the  subjects  dis- 
cussed in  **The  Bread  Winners"  as  extra-hazardous,  and 
alluded  humorously  to  the  possible  wrath  of  **the  man 
who  hadn't  anything." 

There  is  another  semi- mysterious  subject  touched  upon 
in  correspondence  with  Hay,  to  which  I  refer  in  the 
interest  of  those  readers  who  care  for  the  more  personal 
chapters  in  journalistic  history.  It  is  Reid's  ancient 
feud  with  Dana.  Its  existence  and  what  it  added  to 
editorial  vivacities  in  New  York  are  matters  on  which, 
first  and  last,  there  has  been  perhaps  sufficient  com- 
ment. How  it  was  patched  up  is  another  story,  not 
generally  known,  which  Reid  told  to  Hay,  saying:  "I 
can  imagine  the  blank  astonishment  on  your  face  when 
you  read  that  I  have  been  in  a  two  hours'  conference 
with  Dana."  It  came  about  when  the  Associated  Press, 
of  which  Reid  and  Dana  were  both  members,  got  into  a 
tangle  with  the  Western  Union  Telegraph  Company  and 
the  Western  Associated  Press.  Dana's  solicitude  for  his 
own  service  caused  him  to  move  at  a  meeting  in  Reid's 
absence  that  the  question  at  issue  be  put  in  the  hands 
of  a  special  committee.  Reid  was  one  of  those  ap- 
pointed, and  thus  he  and  his  old  foe  met  around  the 
Associated  Press  table  for  the  first  time  in  ten  years. 
They  had  not  set  eyes  upon  one  another  in  five  or  six. 
The  situation  was  droll.  Without  any  greeting  they 
solemnly  and  scrupulously  transacted  their  business. 
Presently  Reid  had  some  odd  experiences  with  contracts 
to  tell.  Dana  let  out  a  laugh.  Before  he  knew  it  he 
was  insisting  that  Reid  was  particularly  fitted  to  serve 
on  a  sub-committee  that  was  found  necessary.     "Neither 


88  THE  LIFE  OF  'WHITELAW  REID 

of  us  grinned,"  Reid  explained,  but  he  revelled  in  the 
fun  of  it,  and  he  refers  with  gusto  to  the  climax  to  one 
of  their  meetings:  "This  brought  Dana,  Hurlbert  [oh 
shades  of  Cipher  Alley !],  Stone  and  myself  together — a 
happy  family  that  Barnum  in  his  prime  would  never 
have  allowed  to  pass  the  old  Museum  corner  in  dispers- 
ing to  our  separate  offices  again.  We  would  have  been 
caged  in  a  twinkling."  As  the  meetings  multiplied  the 
ice  was  melted.  Dana  and  Reid  reached  a  point  of 
friendly  co-operation,  in  which,  for  the  nonce,  their  his- 
toric enmity,  the  old  soreness*  of  the  Greeley  days,  was 
submerged  if  not  forgotten. 

In  politics,  at  about  this  time,  friendly  co-operation 
was  hard  to  get.  Reid  made  a  brave  fight  against  heavy 
odds  in  the  fall  campaign  of  1882,  but  Stalwart  influ- 
ences in  his  own  party  proved  his  heaviest  handicap. 
"The  Tribune  throughout  was  inspired,"  Blaine  told 
him.  "It  was  the  battle  axe  of  Coeur  de  Lion  descend- 
ing on  the  heads  of  the  recreants  with  terrific,  irresistible 
force."  None  the  less  the  Democrats  gave  the  admin- 
istration a  crushing  defeat.  They  elected  Grover  Cleve- 
land governor  of  New  York.  In  Pennsylvania,  Massa- 
chusetts, Connecticut,  and  Indiana  as  well  they  were 
ominously  successful.  Reid  told  his  party  without 
mincing  words  that  the  extent  to  which  boss  rule  had 
overtaken  the  Republican  organization  was  largely  re- 
sponsible. I  have  portrayed  him  all  along  as  a  loyal 
party  man,  but  I  have  endeavored  also  to  expose  the 
unfailing  independence  allied  with  his  partisanship. 
Nothing  is  more  characteristic  of  The  Tribune  as  "a 
Republican  organ"  than  its  way  of  telling  the  Republi- 
cans unpleasant  truths.  As  the  election  aforesaid  drew 
on,  the  paper  protested  that  no  candid  person  with 
ordinary  powers  of  observation  could  deny  that  "the 
Republican    party    in    many    of    the    states — perhaps 


BLAINE  AND   CLEVELAND  89 

throughout  the  entire  country — is  rent  with  internal 
dissensions,  disorganized  and  divided  to  an  extent  never 
before  known  in  its  history."  It  admitted  the  reasons, 
in  detail,  and  when  defeat  came,  as  I  have  said,  rubbed 
salt  in  the  wound.  Bad  leadership  had  done  it.  The 
party  still  contained,  in  Reid's  opinion,  "the  brains  and 
the  conscience  of  the  country,"  and  he  was  quite  clear 
and  outspoken  as  to  those  responsible  for  its  setback. 
**The  conduct  of  the  men  who  have  assumed  to  manage 
and  have  mainly  represented  the  Republican  party  since 
Mr.  Garfield  died,"  he  said,  "has  disgusted  Republican 
voters,  and  deprived  the  party  of  public  confidence;  that 
is  the  precise  difficulty." 

He  preached  reorganization  as  essential  in  all  the 
States,  and  moved  heaven  and  earth  to  further  it  in  his 
own.  At  the  same  time,  of  course,  he  went  on  animad- 
verting upon  Democratic  shortcomings,  fought  Tam- 
many misrule  in  New  York  tooth  and  nail,  and  in  pounc- 
ing upon  every  one  of  Governor  Cleveland's  errors  never 
for  a  moment  lost  sight  of  that  official's  growing  prestige 
as  a  possible  presidential  candidate.  A  pleasant  inter- 
lude is  that  which  marks  his  helpful  association  with  the 
earlier  political  life  of  Theodore  Roosevelt.  He  was  an 
old  friend  of  the  young  assemblyman's  father.  He 
watched  Roosevelt's  developing  career  at  Albany  with  a 
personal  interest  enhanced  by  his  sense  of  the  novice's 
courage  and  ability.  The  Tribune  was  of  great  influence 
in  carrying  the  fight  for  municipal  reform  to  the  State 
capital,  and  when,  early  in  1884,  Speaker  Sheard  engi- 
neered action  on  its  exposures  of  New  York  frauds,  Reid 
was  quick  to  offer  assistance  to  Roosevelt  as  chairman  of 
the  investigating  committee.  There  could  not  have  been  a 
happier  prelude  to  their  many  years  of  private  and  public 
intercourse  than  this  letter,  in  which  an  "old  political 
hand"  places  his  experience  at  the  service  of  a  beginner: 


90  THE   LIFE  OF-WHITELAW  REID 

New  York, 
Dear  Mr.  Roosevelt:  January  17th,  1884. 

Your  Committee  seems  an  admirable  one,  and  I  am  heartily  glad 
that  you  have  taken  the  chairmanship.  As  I  am  to  some  extent 
responsible  for  the  interest  you  have  taken,  I  feel  on  this  account 
all  the  more  anxious  that  you  should  make  a  great  success,  and 
venture,  therefore,  at  this  early  stage,  a  suggestion  or  two  which 
perhaps  you  may  think  it  worth  while  to  consider. 

The  subject  you  are  to  investigate  is  a  large  and  complicated  one 
with  many  details.  The  man  to  be  attacked  is  able,  adroit,  fertile 
in  expedients  and  thoroughly  familiar  with  every  point.  We  hear 
here  that  he  has  already  engaged,  for  his  purposes,  probably  the  best 
counsel  he  could  get  in  the  city  of  New  York. 

Under  the  circumstances  it  is  extremely  desirable  that  your  com- 
mittee should  familiarize  itself  pretty  thoroughly  with  the  business 
it  has  in  hand;  should  decide  upon  the  points  first  to  be  investigated; 
ascertain  clearly  what  is  likely  to  be  found  out  and  who  are  the  best 
witnesses;  provide  itself  with  the  very  best  counsel  and  experts,  and, 
in  a  word,  have  its  plan  of  campaign  matured  before  it  begins  firing 
its  guns. 

You  may  be  ready  for  a  public  session  and  the  examination  of 
witnesses  on  Saturday,  but  I  should  doubt  it.  At  any  rate,  I  am 
quite  sure  that  thorough  preparation  is  indispensable  to  prevent 
Thompson  and  his  astute  counsel  from  seeming  to  gain  advantage 
at  the  outset. 

We  will  gladly  place  whatever  information  or  clues  we  have  in 
your  hands,  and  render  any  assistance  in  the  way  of  suggesting  wit- 
nesses or  otherwise  that  we  can. 

With  the  heartiest  congratulations  and  good  wishes,  I  am, 

Faithfully  yours.  Wh.telaw  Reid. 

He  was  as  good  as  his  w^ord.  The  Tribune  backed  the 
investigation  w^ith  enthusiastic  and  constructive  cam- 
paigning. In  after  years  they  sometimes  had  political 
differences,  but  a  sentimental  interest  attaches  to  the 
fact  that  when  Roosevelt  was  new  to  the  conflict  Reid 
did  all  that  he  could  to  uphold  his  hand. 

With  this  attempt  at  housecleaning  in  New  York, 
with  the  advancement  of  Republican  reorganization 
there  and  elsewhere,  the  campaign  for  the  presidency 
was  ushered  in.     Half  a  dozen  candidates  were  on  the 


BLAINE  AND  CLEVELAND  91 

horizon — Arthur,  Blaine,  John  Sherman,  Senator  Ed- 
munds, Secretary  Lincoln,  and  Senator  Logan.  The 
number  was  even  increased,  in  the  upshot,  but  not  with 
serious  implications.  Reid  is  jocose  about  one  addition 
made  to  the  list,  but,  as  usual,  kept  his  eyes  open  for 
contingencies.  "It  is  an  uncertain  quantity,"  he  wrote 
to  Walter  Phelps,  **a  good  deal  like  the  Connecticut 
man's  cow,  which  was  brought  to  run  against  the  famous 
blooded  stock.  They  all  backed  out,  you  remember — 
they  didn't  know  what  the  old  thing  might  do."  The 
Tribune  held  itself  in  reserve,  waiting  to  see  who  prom- 
ised most  clearly  to  have  the  country  with  him,  and 
reminding  its  readers  late  in  the  winter  preceding  the 
convention  that  "the  man  who  begins  to  run  very  fast 
in  February  is  likely  to  get  out  of  breath  before  Novem- 
ber." Meanwhile  Blaine  was  moving  to  the  front. 
While  in  his  retirement  at  Augusta  he  was  happily  en- 
gaged in  putting  together  his  "Twenty  Years  of  Con- 
gress," the  first  volume  of  which  was  to  appear  in  good 
time  for  the  campaign.  He  was  receptive,  but,  as  re- 
garded the  presidency,  in  no  mood  to  force  the  fight. 
In  November,  1882,  he  did  not,  as  he  wrote  to  Reid, 
"wish  to  pose  for  an  hour  as  a  Presidential  candidate." 
He  wanted  to  abstain  from  politics,  anyway,  for  a  time, 
and  the  only  temptation  that  could  lure  him  back  was 
an  odd  one,  suggested  by  himself  in  the  following  year, 
when  Reid  was  giving  a  dinner  to  ex-President  Hayes. 
Blaine  couldn't  come,  but  he  wanted  Hayes  told  that, 
having  saved  Ohio  by  running  for  governor  in  two  crises 
of  the  past,  he  might  have  to  do  it  a  third  time.  "If  I 
could  be  induced  to  make  a  political  speech  anywhere 
in  the  year  of  grace  1883,"  he  said,  "it  would  be  in 
Ohio  if  the  Ex-President  should  be  the  candidate  for 
Governor."  Hayes  was  agreeably  afi'ected  over  Blaine's 
letter,  when  Reid  handed  it  to  him  after  dinner.     But  he 


92  THE  LIFE  OFWHITELAW  REID 

put  it  in  his  pocket,  and  when  he  got  home  returned  it 
with  the  comment  that  though  it  made  pleasant  reading 
he  was  out  of  the  category  suggested.  The  only  candi- 
dacy Blaine  h^d  to  mull  over  was  his  own,  for  the  highest 
office  of  all.  Walter  Phelps,  out  of  diplomacy  and  back 
in  Congress,  kept  watch  of  developments.  The  Third 
Term  embers  were  not  altogether  cold,  and  in  July,  1883, 
he  asked  G.  W.  Childs,  who  was  very  close  to  the  gen- 
eral, what  Grant  really  thought  of  the  prospect.  "  Grant," 
he  replied,  "thinks  Blaine  will  be  nominated."  A  note 
of  Depew's  dating  from  this  period  is  amusing: 

West  End  Hotel, 
My  dear  Reid:  ^^^^  ^^^^'  ^883. 

Cornell  is  here  and  fairly  lifted  me  off  my  feet  a  few  days  since 
by  following  a  question  as  to  your  whereabouts  with  an  abrupt  and 
utterly  irrelevant  declaration  for  Blaine.  He  acted  like  the  young 
man  who  asked  the  girl  if  her  Mother  was  fond  of  sardines  and  then 
popped  the  question.  He  had  got  the  thing  off  his  mind  anyhow. 
Do  you  suppose  the  very  shadowy  spectre  of  Arthur  as  his  own 
successor  startled  the  Ex-Governor  so  that  he  plunged  at  once  into 
Blaine's  bath  tub?  This  being  Sunday,  I  may  remark  that  like 
Paul  I  thanked  God  and  took  courage.  At  this  distance  from  Sun- 
day School  days,  and  stranded  in  a  summer  hotel,  I  am  unable  to 
say  whether  the  circumstances  under  which  the  Apostle  made  that 
observation  were  similar  to  mine. 

Very  faithfully  yours, 

Chauncey  M.  Depew. 

The  Arthur  spectre  was  to  stalk  not  altogether  ob- 
scurely in  the  convention,  but  its  potency  to  scare  was 
pretty  well  discounted  in  advance  of  that  event.  **AII 
in  the  world  we  want  of  him,"  wrote  Reid  to  Phelps  in 
February,  1884,  "is  to  die  with  reasonable  decency  when 
the  necessity  of  his  political  death  at  last  dawns  on  his 
vision";  and  the  certainty  of  the  obsequies  is  signifi- 
cantly supplied  .in  a  bit  of  news  which  Phelps  had  to 
communicate  in  the  same  month:  ** Blaine  is  at  it — but 
slow."     Reid  did  not  mind  the  slowness.     In  March  he 


BLAINE  AND  CLEVELAND  93 

wrote  to  Blaine:  'Tve  been  a  little  scared  of  late  over 
what  some  of  us  persist  in  calling  your  boom.  It  began 
to  look  too  booming  for  March."  If  Blaine  was  to  come 
in  he  wanted  him  to  do  so  at  just  the  psychological  mo- 
ment, summoned  by  an  unmistakable  popular  mandate 
and  riding  on  a  mighty  wave.  The  hour  impended. 
Not  even  a  Democratic  victory  in  Ohio  in  the  preceding 
fall  election  could  darken  the  signs  of  increasing  Repub- 
lican unity,  which  gained,  of  course,  as  the  Morrison 
bill  got  into  deeper  waters,  and  in  the  spring,  with  its 
multiplying  evidences  of  Blaine's  popularity,  the  revival 
of  the  old  Little  Rock  and  Fort  Smith  charges  only 
rallied  his  supporters  closer  around  him.  Walter  Phelps 
traversed  the  tale  of  the  so-called  Mulligan  letters,  as  it 
was  retold  in  the  **  Evening  Post,"  and  in  a  long  com- 
munication to  that  paper  he  tore  it  conclusively  to 
shreds.  The  Tribune  made  that  smashing  argument  its 
own.  The  popular  verdict  had  dismissed  the  charges  in 
1876  and  again  in  1880  as  '*  false,  mahgnant  and  unsus- 
tained  by  the  evidence."  Reid  believed  profoundly  that 
they  remained  nothing  but  *' stale  slanders"  in  1884,  and 
he  went  into  the  campaign  on  that  belief.  Since  the 
facts  supported  this  view  of  the  matter,  what,  then, 
was  "the  nigger  in  the  woodpile"?  Why  this  virulent 
campaign  of  defamation?  Why,  for  example,  was  Blaine 
so  conspicuously  hounded  when,  as  was  shown  by  Phelps 
in  his  point-by-point  analysis,  others  went  scot-free  from 
similar  aspersions,  though  the  records  bracketed  them 
with  Blaine  as  persons  of  the  same  innocent  conduct? 
While  Blaine's  enemies  were  industriously  painting  him 
as  so  black  that  his  personal  turpitude  could  not  but 
carry  his  party  to  defeat.  The  Tribune  upheld  his  in- 
tegrity and  pointed  out  the  real  issue  as  lying  in  the 
tariff.  The  collapse  of  the  Morrison  bill  only  intensified 
the  heat  of  this  troublous  question.     Blaine  was  marked 


94  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

out  for  vilification  on  any  grounds  as  the  most  for- 
midable exponent  of  the  protective  system.  Hence  the 
Mugwump  bolt.  He  was  dreaded  not  only  by  the  oppo- 
sition but  by  the  Free-Trade  elements  in  the  Republican 
camp.  The  Tribune  did  not  hesitate  repeatedly  to  charge 
that  the  bolt  against  Blaine  was  the  result  of  a  dehb- 
erate  conspiracy  of  Free-Traders,  who  had  been  called 
Republicans,  with  the  Democratic  party.  The  legend  of 
the  Mulligan  letters  and  of  *'the  tattooed  man"  fostered 
by  haters  of  the  Maine  statesman  found  its  true  status 
as  a  political  dodge,  a  sort  of  -* anything  to  beat  Blaine" 
slogan.  He  himself  put  it  in  the  proper  light  when  he 
adjured  Reid  to  "agonize  more  and  more  on  the  tariff." 
He  said  that  not  to  divert  attention  from  the  Mulligan 
charges,  which  he  had  disproved,  but  to  fasten  it  upon 
the  essential  issue  of  the  campaign.  And  the  rightness 
as  well  as  the  sagacity  of  his  opinion  is  shown  by  his  for- 
tunes in  the  convention  and  in  the  canvass,  though  in 
the  latter  he  met  portentous  hostility.  He  was  willing, 
even  anxious,  to  have  the  notorious  correspondence  re- 
published, and  welcomed  the  '*new  letters"  brought  for- 
ward as  well  as  the  old  ones.  When  The  Tribune  ana- 
lyzed the  lot  and  found  only  vindication  in  them  he  was 
not  surprised,  and  neither  were  his  multitudinous  parti- 
sans. The  latter  could  see  what  was  undoubtedly  true, 
that  much  of  the  moral  opposition  to  him  was,  though 
mistaken,  sincere.  They  could  see,  also,  that  more  of  it 
was  pure  buncombe. 

The  influence  of  Blaine's  friends  in  the  country  at 
large  was  unmistakable  at  Chicago.  He  led  on  the  first 
ballot  and  kept  his  lead  through  the  three  that  followed. 
A  note  of  Reid's  to  him  in  April  points  to  the  part  sure 
to  be  played  by  convention  management.  "Elkins  tells 
me  today,"  he  says,  "that  Gen.  Tom  Ewing  says  he  has 
assurances  from  John  Sherman  that  at  the  proper  time, 


BLAINE  AND  CLEVELAND  95 

if  necessary,  you  will  be  sure  to  get  his  strength  in 
Ohio/'  I  have  no  wish  to  minimize  the  significance  of 
political  strategy  in  the  convention.  At  the  same  time 
Blaine  could  say  that  he  owed  the  nomination  to  the 
complaisance  of  no  rival.  The  convention  was  funda- 
mentally his  when  it  was  opened,  and  on  the  decisive 
ballot  he  had  130  more  votes  than  those  necessary  for  a 
choice.  Throughout  the  campaign  The  Tribune  sup- 
ported him  as  beyond  all  peradventure  a  candidate  of 
the  people,  and  as  such  he  marched  rapidly  to  the  very 
verge  of  triumph.  His  speaking  tours  over  the  country 
were  merged  into  one  tumultuous  ovation.  In  the  Sep- 
tember elections  a  small  Republican  majority  in  Ver- 
mont was  overshadowed  by  a  tremendous  victory  for 
the  party  in  Maine.  Rousing  receptions  in  New  Eng- 
land, New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  and  the  West  were 
crowned  by  a  superb  Republican  triumph  in  Ohio.  The 
Tribune  wanted  a  decisive  election,  to  put  an  end  to 
the  recurring  disturbance  of  American  industry,  to  stop 
tariff  blundering,  to  end  control  of  the  Southern  oli- 
garchy, and  two  weeks  before  the  nation  went  to  the 
polls  there  was  every  reason  to  believe  that  Blaine  would 
win  it.  The  war-cries  of  the  Democrats,  "The  Repub- 
lican Party  Must  Go,"  and  **Turn  the  Rascals  Out," 
fell  upon  ears  too  well  qualified,  in  too  many  instances, 
to  distinguish  between  war-cries  and  facts,  and  the  tide 
continued  to  run  in  Republican  favor.  Nor  was  the 
opposition  as  strong  as  it  had  promised  to  be.  Grover 
Cleveland  had  justified  the  withdrawal  of  Tilden  in  his 
favor,  he  gained  in  strength  as  a  candidate,  but  it  was 
not  plain  that  he  was  irresistible,  and  as  the  campaign 
progressed  there  seemed  brighter  hopes  of  beating  him 
in  his  own  State,  which  from  the  beginning  had  been  a 
knotty  Republican  problem.  On  the  other  hand,  Reid's 
surmise  before  the  convention  that  the  nomination  of 


96        .  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Blaine  would  heal  factional  strife  in  New  York  was 
answered  by  the  pharisaical  Mugwump  movement  and 
other  untoward  developments.  New  York  had  to  be 
fought  for  tooth  and  nail. 

Blaine,  in  the  West,  flushed  with  Repubhcan  victory 
in  Ohio,  was  nevertheless  mindful  of  the  narrow  margin 
trembhng  in  the  balance  in  New  York,  and  telegraphed 
in  October  for  Reid's  views  on  the  situation.  The  long 
letter  he  got  in  reply  shows  that  by  this  time  Reid  was 
frankly  anxious.  The  party  organization,  though  im- 
proved, was  not  perfect.  Around  Utica,  Conkhng's 
stronghold.  Stalwart  dissatisfaction  was  rife,  and  it  was 
not  unknown  in  other  sections  of  the  State.  Republican 
disgruntlement  in  New  York  City  was  still  "alarmingly 
large."  It  had  its  principal  source  amongst  the  readers 
of  the  "Evening  Post"  and  other  journals  resolute  in 
their  representation  of  Blaine  as  a  man  who  would  not 
do.  In  the  clubs  it  was  hard  to  find  any  one  who  was 
going  to  vote  for  him.  All  this  was  yery  discouraging. 
Repubhcans  were  saying  that  if  they  lost  New  York 
everything  was  lost,  while  if  they  gained  it  they  could 
afford  to  lose  Indiana  and  Wisconsin,  too.  On  reading 
his  letter  over,  Reid  admitted  in  a  postscript  that  it 
gave,  seemingly,  "a  blue  view  of  the  situation."  Yet  he 
did  not  intend  this,  and  closed  on  a  cheerfuller  note. 
The  fight  was  not  yet  lost.  Indeed,  as  the  election  ap- 
proached, the  prospect  of  winning  grew  very  fair.  On 
Blaine's  return  from  his  travels  he  paused  in  New  York 
to  receive  a  welcome  which  seemed  the  happiest  of  augu- 
ries, so  spontaneous  was  it  in  its  warmth,  so  impressive 
in  its  volume.  But  conditions  in  the  State  were  ner- 
vous, unstable,  ready  to  be  swayed  by  almost  any  un- 
toward trifle,  and  in  an  episode  of  this  very  welcome 
there  lurked  the  compefling  cause  of  his  defeat. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  famihar  stories  in  American  poli- 


BLAINE  AND  CLEVELAND  97 

tics,  the  story  of  how  Doctor  Burchard,  spokesman  for  a 
clerical  delegation,  hailed  Blaine  as  the  champion  of  the 
Repubhcan  electorate  .against  **Rum,  Romanism  and 
Rebellion,"  and  thereby  injected  into  the  campaign  an 
element  of  prejudice  and  angry  passion  destined  to  have 
a  decisive  effect  upon  the  Irish  vote.  For  once  the  swift 
readiness  which  had  so  often  been  so  brilliantly  used  in 
parhamentary  debate  abandoned  the  candidate.  He 
heard  the  foolish  inflammatory  words  without  instantly 
taking  in  their  full  import,  without  seizing  upon  the 
need  for  summary  repudiation,  and  when  he  ofi*ered  that 
a  day  or  two  afterward  it  was  too  late  to  arrest  the  mis- 
chief. The  religious  issue,  to  which  it  had  not  been  in 
his  nature  to  give  a  moment's  thought  or  hospitality, 
was  now  forced  by  his  opponents,  and  it  raised  up  the 
grotesquely  minute  majority  which  was  nevertheless  big 
enough  to  turn  the  scale  against  him  in  New  York,  the 
pivotal  State.  The  vote  was  maddeningly  close;  so  close 
that  it  remained  for  days  in  doubt.  Until  the  official 
count  was  rendered,  Blaine  was  steadfast  in  the  fight, 
and  urged  upon  Reid  an  aggressive  policy.  "It*s  the 
time  for  a  word  with  the  bark  on  it,  as  the  children  say," 
he  wrote  from  Augusta.  '*l  have  a  sort  of  instinctive 
faith  that  courage  will  win  the  day."  Reid  needed  no 
urging.  He,  too,  was  fervid  on  seeing  the  battle  through. 
But  that  tactless  alliteration  had  lost  the  day,  and 
courage  could  not  retrieve  it. 

With  rueful  humor  Reid  told  one  of  his  friends  that  he 
wished  Doctor  Burchard  had  had  a  sore  throat  of  the 
most  aggravated  type  known  to  the  profession.  If  some 
such  visitation  had  only  kept  him  mute,  the  promise  of 
the  campaign  would  have  been  fulfilled  and  Blaine  would 
have  brought  about  the  first  distinct  and  considerable 
break  ever  made  in  the  solid  Democratic  Irish  vote. 
But  for  the  incredible  fofly  of  the  clergyman's  speech,  as 


98  THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Reid  said,  the  Republicans  should  have  carried  the  State 
of  New  York  by  ten  thousand  majority.  There  was  no 
blinking  the  fact.  Never  was  evidence  clearer,  or  swifter 
in  forthcoming.  How  the  results  of  Burchard's  error 
sprang  to  the  eyes  is  shown  in  a  letter  to  Hay,  which  I 
cite  for  the  sake  of  the  intimate  reality  with  which  it 
brings  back  the  revelations  of  the  moment: 

New  York, 
My  dear  Colonel:  December  ist,  1884. 

I  am  glad  you  liked  the  course  of  the  paper.  If  it  had  only  been 
a  little  more  effective ! 

Don't  deceive  yourself  about  Burchard,  however.  He  did  defeat 
us.  He  did  more  than  that.  He  took  ten  thousand  votes  away 
from  us  in  this  city  and  Brooklyn.  I  could  give  you  dozens  of  in- 
stances. Take  two:  Mayor  Wickham  told  me  of  a  Cathohc  church 
in  Brooklyn  where  a  hundred  men  had  signed  their  names  to  a 
pledge  to  vote  for  Blaine.  By  the  Saturday  before  the  election  92 
of  these  men  had  gone  to  the  parish  priest  and  demanded  that  their 
names  be  erased  from  the  pledge.  In  McDonald's  livery  stable  on 
41st  St.,  where  I  used  to  keep  my  horse,  there  were  forty  men  who 
were  going  to  vote  for  Blaine.  By  Friday  or  Saturday  McDonald 
sent  for  friends  to  try  to  get  them  right  again,  but  without  avail. 
Practically  the  whole  force  went  against  us.  Rachel  Sherman  dis- 
covered that  the  very  waiter  at  her  room  in  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel 
had  decided  to  go  against  Blaine  because  of  the  Burchard  speech. 
She  argued  and  entreated  and  even  her  influence  only  extorted  a 
reluctant  promise,  while  he  assured  her  that  most  of  the  others 
were  hopelessly  gone.  Up  to  that  speech  we  were  sure  of  the  unani- 
mous vote  of  the  whole  lot.  I  could  add  to  these  instances  indefi- 
nitely. 

I  was  awfully  blue  for  a  while  but  have  been  helped  to  bear  the 
party  misfortune  somewhat  of  late  by  contemplating  The  Tribune's 
advantages.  We  have  come  out  of  the  fight  in  better  shape  than 
the  paper  has  ever  been  in  its  history.  You  see  how  philosophy 
enables  us  to  bear  the  misfortunes  of  our  friends. 

Seriously  though,  the  calamity  is  appalling,  and  will  be  almost 

fatal  if  we  don't  contrive  to  pull  together  within  the  next  year  or 

two.     I  believe,  however,  that  we  can  do  it,  and  that  we  shall  elect 

in  '88  and  quite  possibly  elect  Blaine.     The  amount  of  talk  for  him 

now  takes  one's  breath  away. 

Faithfully  yours,  ,,.  r» 

-^  -^  WHITELAW   Reid. 


BLAINE  AND  CLEVELAND  99 

Reid  always  scorned  the  Mugwump  disposition  to  be- 
cloud the  issue.  He  knew  that  the  Republican  candi- 
date had  won,  morally,  an  extraordinary  success.  To 
Blaine,  himself,  he  wTOte  in  January-  that  "next  to  being 
elected  President,  it  seems  to  me,  is  the  glory  of  having 
made  such  a  canvass."  In  accepting  the  inevitable  and 
citing  some  of  its  causes  he  said  editorially:  **Yet,  of  all 
these,  only  Doctor  Burchard  was  fatal."  He  stated  a 
fact  which,  with  the  tabled  results  of  the  canvass,  is 
sufficient  answer  to  all  the  '* holier  than  thou"  attacks 
upon  Blaine's  personal  character.  Whatever  the  Mug- 
wump press  made  of  the  Mulligan  letters,  the  immense 
popular  vote  cast  for  him  showed  that,  as  Reid  had 
steadily  maintained,  he  was  the  candidate  of  the  people, 
and  the  American  people  have  never  yet  stood  in  such 
force  behind  a  bad  man. 

Of  Reid's  own  share  in  the  campaign,  beyond  what  I 
have  already  indicated,  I  may  leave  Watterson  to  speak: 

Louisville,  Ky. 

,,  T^  November  2 1  St,  1884. 

My  dear  Reid: 

Well,  the  election  is  over,  and,  whatever  may  be  its  disappoint- 
ments, in  the  general  political  sense,  j'ou,  personally,  and  The  Trib- 
une, have  no  cause  for  regret.  You  have  made  a  great  and  lasting 
mark,  professionally.  My  sole  gratulation  relates  to  the  change  of 
parties  for  the  sake  of  change,  and  the  invigoration  which  the  trans- 
fer of  power  peacefully  from  one  party  to  another  will  give  to  our 
Republican  system.     Otherwise,  that  is  {personally,  I  am  indifferent 

to  the  aspects  of  the  case.        ^.        r  •      t 

Your  triend,      ^t  h- 

Henry  vVatterson. 

What  the  party  thought  of  his  sersices  may  be  inferred 
from  the  fact  that  from  around  the  time  of  the  convention 
there  was  a  good  deal  of  talk  among  the  politicians  about 
sending  him  to  the  United  States  Senate,  when  a  suc- 
cessor to  Elbridge  G.  Lapham  had  to  be  chosen  by  the 
legislature  in  Januarj%   1885.     Even  in  the  camp  of  the 


100         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

opposition  the  idea  had  its  supporters,  as  is  shown  by 
this  note  from  Whitney: 

2  West  57th  Street, 
My  dear  Reid-:^  January  13th,  1885. 

The  lookers  on,  you  know,  sometimes  see  more  than  the  players. 
I  want  to  say  to  you  that  if  you  care  for  it  the  senatorship  is  drift- 
ing into  a  place,  as  it  seems  to  me,  where  you  could  have  it  without 
much  trouble  if  you  should  choose.  Now  don't  commit  yourself  to 
any  third  candidate.  You  may  want  it  yourself.  This  may  not  be 
so,  but  it  looks  so  to  an  outsider,  and  you  will  have  it  in  your  hands 
soon  if  you  want  it,  I  think.     I  thought  I  would  warn  you  a  little. 

^°"'^^'  w.cw. 

The  contest  for  the  office  opened  with  a  troop  of  per- 
sonalities involved,  some  of  them  Reid's  close  friends. 
The  names  of  Morton,  Depew,  Evarts,  and  Cornell  were 
strongly  urged,  and  Arthur's  claims  were  assiduously 
pressed  by  a  powerful  faction.  But  from  the  start  Reid 
was  settled  as  to  his  course,  too  conscious  of  what  was 
attached  to  his  role  as  editor  to  contemplate  any  devia- 
tion into  the  field  of  political  preferment.  As  early  as 
June,  1884,  ex-Governor  Cornell  called  upon  him,  in  a 
mood  of  indifference  to  any  candidacy  of  his  own,  and 
said  frankly  that  if  Reid  were  to  enter  the  race  his  re- 
sources and  influence  would  be  found  in  support.  Reid 
thanked  him,  but  did  not  succumb  to  the  temptation, 
and  before  the  campaign  at  Albany  had  gone  very  far  he 
wrote  for  publication,  to  his  friend  and  fellow  regent, 
the  editor  of  the  Rochester  *' Democrat  and  Chronicle," 
this  letter  of  formal  withdrawal: 

New  York, 
The  Hon.  Charles  E.  Fitch.  November  22nd,  1884. 

Dear  Sir: 

Your  favor  of  the  19th  inst.,  asking  if  I  am  a  candidate  for  United 
States  senator,  is  at  hand.  I  am  not  a  candidate,  have  not  been,  and 
have  not  proposed  to  be.  The  mention  of  my  name  in  connection 
with  this  or  any  other  office  has  been  entirely  without  any  sugges- 
tion or  approval  from  me,  and  whenever  approached  on  the  subject 
I  have  uniformly  given  the  same  answer.  It  cannot  but  be  gratify- 
ing to  be  thought  of  in  connection  with  an  office  worthy  to  fill  the 


BLAINE  AND  CLEVELAND  loi 

measure  of  any  man's  ambition;  but  my  duties  are  already  exacting, 
and  I  cannot  seek  new  ones.  It  has  not  seemed  becoming  to  rush 
into  print  to  decline  an  office  before  it  was  offered,  but  under  two 
administrations,  as  is  known,  I  have  declined  office  whenever  it  was 
offered. 

I  am  very  grateful  to  you  and  your  friends  for  their  good  opinion, 
and  trust  that  they  will  continue  to  think  well  of  me  in  private  hfe. 

Very  truly  yours.  Wh.telaw  Re.d. 

As  the  time  for  legislative  action  drew  near,  the  sub- 
ject was  still  urged  upon  him  by  leaders  who  believed 
both  in  his  qualifications  for  the  Senate  and  in  his  ability 
to  carry  off  the  prize.  Yet  those  who  knew  him  best 
were  constrained  to  admit  the  wisdom  of  his  choice. 
Blaine's  words  to  him  are  typical  of  the  feehng  among 
his  intimates: 

Washington,  D.  C. 
My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  ^  ^  January  5th,  1885. 

When  your  name  was  originally  mentioned  for  Senator  I  believe 
your  New  York  friends  thought  the  impending  combinations  un- 
favorable to  your  success.  Hence  you  did  not  permit  yourself  to 
be  considered  a  candidate.  Don*t  you  believe  that  in  the  compHca- 
tions  which  have  since  resulted  a  new  candidate  is  hkely  to  be 
chosen?  If  so,  is  there  any  one  who  could  possibly  compete  with 
you?  If  you  cherish  any  ambition  for  the  place  you  should  cer- 
tainly have  a  trusted  and  discreet  friend  in  Albany  for  the  next 
few  days. 

At  the  same  time  I  have  never  been  able  to  comprehend  how  in 
any  event  you  would  be  willing  to  take  the  place.  I  know  all  about 
the  Senatorship  in  all  its  phases — and  the  editorship  of  The  Tribune 
is  inconceivably  wider  and  larger  and  grander  and  more  potential 
in  every  point  of  view.  You  remember  the  reply  of  the  elder  Roths- 
child when  it  was  suggested  that  he  might  be  the  Sovereign  of  Pal- 
estine, estabHshed  as  a  Jewish  Kingdom.  He  thought  it  better  to 
be  Jew  of  the  Kings  than  King  of  the  Jews.  So  I  say  it  is  better  to 
be  Tribune  of  Senators  than  a  Senator  of  the  Tribune.  There  are 
no  twenty  Senators  who  combinedly  influence  public  opinion  to  one 
twentieth  the  extent  you  do. 

Are  you  coming  to  Washington  soon?  Or  do  you  intend  to  wait 
until  you  can  see  the  Capital  under  Democratic  rule?  With  kind 
regards  to  Mrs.  Reid  believe  me 

Very  sincerely  yours, 

James  G.  Blaine. 


102         THE  .LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

In  the  competition  at  Albany  he  welcomed  with  the 
most  sympathy  the  drift  to  Evarts,  "surely  a  senato- 
rial figure,"  as  he  wrote  to  Fitch,  and  he  did  his  best 
to  strengthen  The  growing  support  for  this  candidate. 
When  Evarts  was  chosen  he  was,  personally,  delighted, 
and  from  a  purely  political  point  of  view  he  thought  the 
decision  about  the  happiest  at  which  the  legislature 
could  have  arrived.  It  was  to  be  recognized  not  as  a 
Blaine  triumph  or  an  anti-BIaine  triumph,  a  Stalwart 
or  Half  Breed  triumph,  a  Conkling,  a  Cornell,  or  an 
Arthur  triumph,  but  simply  as' the  dehberate  choice  of  a 
conspicuous,  able,  and  trusted  Republican,  by  a  majority 
of  Republicans  of  all  wings  and  shades,  in  the  best  inter- 
ests of  the  whole  Republican  party.  What  made  the 
result  most  satisfactory  to  him  was,  as  he  said,  that  it 
left  few  wounds  and  was  full  of  promise  for  the  future  of 
the  party  in  New  York. 


CHAPTER  VI 
NEW  INTERESTS 

The  period  of  the  eighties  was  one  of  new  interests  and 
decisrv'e  changes  in  the  life  of  Whitelaw  Reid,  following 
upon  his  marriage.  He  was  as  busy  as  ever  profession- 
ally, but  with  a  difference.  The  demands  of  politics 
were  necessarily  less  engrossing  for  a  time,  after  the  elec- 
tion of  Cleveland,  and  in  any  case  he  was  now  realizing 
how  wise  was  Blaine's  advice  on  the  occasion  of  his  en- 
gagement, to  **see  only  his  own  world."  As  I  have 
noted  before,  it  was  for  years  a  constant  habit  amongst 
his  intimates  to  protest  against  his  burning  the  candle 
at  both  ends,  giving  to  The  Tribune  an  often  inhuman 
proportion  out  of  the  hours  of  the  day  and  night.  Family 
life  was  efficacious  where  mere  good  counsel  in  the  inter- 
ests of  his  health  had  been  unavailing.  His  correspon- 
dence reflects  a  fuller  measure  of  rest  and  relaxation, 
Journeyings  to  California  which  took  him  completely 
out  of  the  turmoil,  and  all  the  incidents  which  point  to 
a  man's  home  rather  than  to  his  office.  It  was  a  happy 
period.  "The  Boy,"  as  Hay  loved  to  call  Ogden,  throve 
lustily.  In  the  summer  of  1884,  when  the  political  fight 
was  on,  the  Reids  forgot  all  about  it  in  an  event  in  their 
own  household,  the  birth  of  their  daughter,  Jean  Tem- 
pleton  Reid.  If  the  letters  still  contain  echoes  of  pubhc 
afi'airs,  they  have  quite  as  many  allusions  to  those  of  a 
private  nature. 

Conspicuous  is  the  matter  of  building.  Reid  used  to 
say  with  a  laugh  that  from  the  day  he  laid  the  corner- 
stone of  The  Tribune's  new  home  he  had  been  occupied 

103 


104         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

with  architects  and  contractors  for  a  little  hfetime.  It 
never  bored  him.  On  the  contrary,  his  liking  for  such 
transactions  was  a  marked  trait.  He  was  always  keep- 
ing an  eye  on  ;the  homestead  at  Cedarville,  making  re- 
pairs, and  finally  giving  it  a  thorough  overhauling.  I 
may  mention  here  an  enthusiasm  which,  hke  his  love  of 
horseback  riding  and  of  swimming,  was  in  his  blood — 
an  enthusiasm  for  trees  and  tree-planting.  He  loved  the 
very  timbers  that  had  gone  to  the  building  of  his  father's 
house  in  1823,  but  he  loved  equally  the  surrounding 
woods,  and  each  tree  left  upon  the  lawn,  which  had 
remained  unbroken  by  the  plough  since  the  Indians 
roamed  over  it.  To  care  for  the  trees  already  on  the 
farm  was  not  enough.  Every  year  additions  were  made 
to  them.  The  catalogues  of  booksellers  were  rivalled  in 
his  mail  by  those  of  the  nurserymen.  Orders  were  an- 
nually going  forward  for  seedlings  to  be  sent  to  Cedar- 
ville, and  he  was  i!ot  more  exacting  in  the  typographical 
make-up  of  The  Tribune  than  he  was  in  the  pages  upon 
pages  of  instruction  which  he  gave  for  the  planting  of 
his  trees.  In  1886  he  was  delighted  to  receive  from  the 
authorities  in  the  town  of  South  Charleston  evidence 
that  his  fervor  in  these  matters  was  appreciated.  They 
planted  a  tree  in  his  honor,  giving  it  his  name,  in  front 
of  the  old  schoolhouse  in  which  he  had  as  a  youth  held 
sway. 

When  the  Reids  returned  from  their  wedding  journey 
in  the  fall  of  1881  they  settled  in  the  house  at  Lexington 
Avenue  and  Thirty-seventh  Street.  For  five  years  they 
lived  there.  Then,  in  1886,  they  acquired  a  larger  struc- 
ture at  Madison  Avenue  and  Fiftieth  Street,  which  was 
thenceforth  to  be  their  city  home,  and  at  about  the 
same  time  began  to  look  for  a  country  place.  This  they 
found  in  the  estate  of  about  a  thousand  acres  in  West- 
chester County,  lying  some  three  miles  east  of  White 


NEW   INTERESTS  105 

Plains,  which  had  been  developed  by  Ben  Halliday,  of 
Overland  Mail  Express  fame,  and  named  by  him  Ophir 
Farm,  for  the  mine  in  the  West  out  of  which  he  had 
taken  much  of  his  fortune.  From  his  possession  it  had 
passed  into  the  hands  of  John  Roach,  the  ship-builder, 
from  whom  the  Reids  took  it  over.  It  was  already  pro- 
vided with  a  large  granite  house,  and  this  was  so  readily 
put  in  shape  that  the  family  was  comfortably  installed  in 
the  summer  of  1887.  But  this  life  in  the  country  had 
scarcely  been  begun  when  fire  laid  the  building  in  ruins. 
Reid  cabled  news  of  the  loss  to  his  father-in-law,  who 
was  then  in  Europe.  Mr.  Mills,  with  his  usual  gener- 
osity, not  only  cabled  back  his  sympathy  but  offered 
to  help  in  the  rebuilding,  and  in  due  course  Ophir  Farm, 
or  Ophir  Hall,  as  it  came  thereafter  to  be  called,  remained 
for  the  Reids  a  precious  resource  for  relief  from  the 
pressure  of  city  life. 

As  for  The  Tribune  at  this  time,  the  sturdy  condition 
of  the  paper  at  the  end  of  the  campaign  of  1884  has 
already  been  shown  in  Reid's  letter  to  Hay  on  the  fatal 
intervention  of  Burchard.  It  had  come  out  of  the  fight 
stronger  than  ever.  This  was  consequently  the  period 
of  an  important  step  in  the  improvement  of  the  plant, 
the  introduction  of  the  linotype  machine  into  the  com- 
posing-room. As  a  leading  spirit  in  the  syndicate  formed 
to  underwrite  the  Mergenthaler  invention  Reid  was  not 
only  a  preponderant  stockholder  but  an  extremely  active 
official.  He  served  for  some  years  as  treasurer,  and  from 
the  beginning  he  was  immersed  in  a  prodigious  corre- 
spondence looking  now  to  the  finances  of  the  enterprise 
and  now  to  the  slow  stages  of  manufacture.  What  was 
most  like  him  in  this  aff'air  was  the  patient,  temperate 
view  he  took  of  the  fortunes  of  the  machine,  never  mak- 
ing large  promises  of  prompt  success,  but  never  losing 
confidence  in  the  final  outcome.     It  took  time,  of  course, 


io6        THE  LIFE  OFWHITELAW  REID 

to  perfect  the  working  of  the  linotype,  even  after  its 
principles  were  clearly  established.  There  had  to  be 
experiments  without  number,  breakdowns,  and  crudities 
in  the  early  results.  The  familiar  tale  of  every  mechan- 
ical revolution  was  re-enacted,  and  had  its  familiar 
stages  of  discouragement.  But  Reid's  evenly  held  faith 
had  its  reward.  Much  of  the  experimental  work  was 
carried  on  in  his  own  composing-room,  and  there  the 
machine  first  functioned  triumphantly  as  part  and  parcel 
of  the  process  of  getting  out  a  great  daily  paper.  There 
was,  for  him,  a  lasting  satisfaction  in  his  association  with 
this  progressive  achievement.  It  had  been  a  matter  of 
pride  to  have  seized  with  promptness  upon  every  advan- 
tage that  developments  of  the  Hoe  press  had  offered. 
There  had  been  pride,  too,  in  the  erection  of  The  Trib- 
une's towered  home.  But  in  his  support  of  the  linotype, 
and  especially  in  the  backing  he  had  given  it  in  the 
composing-room,  he  had  borne  a  part  in  a  movement 
affecting  an  art  he  loved,  the  art  of  printing,  all  over  the 
world. 

In  turning  from  the  linotype,  the  great  practical  issue 
of  Reid's  life  as  an  editor  in  this  period,  to  the  political 
aspects  of  his  work,  it  is  important  to  keep  in  mind  the 
personal  rather  than  the  historical  purpose  of  this  nar- 
rative. From  one  point  of  view  the  election  of  Grover 
Cleveland  would  seem  to  give  occasion  here  for  a  glance 
in  retrospect.  He  brought  the  Democracy  back  into 
power  for  the  first  time  since  the  administration  of 
Buchanan,  which  is  to  say  after  a  sojourn  in  the  wilder- 
ness lasting  for  practically  quarter  of  a  century.  The 
Repubhcan  party,  as  it  withdrew  from  control,  left  a 
record  upon  which  it  could  more  than  congratulate  itself, 
and  to  a  sketch  of  the  campaign  of  1884  such  as  has  been 
given  in  the  preceding  chapter  a  brief  outline  of  that  I 
record  would  SQem  a  natural  pendant  in  the  biography 


NEW  INTERESTS  107 

of  a  Republican  editor  who  had  gone  on  the  stump  for 
the  party's  first  candidate,  and  had  been  active  in  its 
interests  ever  since.  More  fitting  in  this  place,  how- 
ever, than  any  comment  on  public  events,  is  a  note  on 
what  I  might  call  Reid's  private  relation  to  them.  Cir- 
cumstances mark  the  period  as  one  of  far  greater  change 
for  him  than  that  from  the  status  of  the  "ins"  to  the 
status  of  the  "outs."  He  had  been  to  a  certain  extent 
in  opposition  before,  using  the  prerogatives  of  indepen- 
dent journalism,  as  we  have  seen,  under  Republican 
Presidents.  But  when  he  witnessed  the  retirement  of 
his  party  he  bade  farewell,  for  a  time,  to  an\'  number  of 
old  habits  and  associations.  Blaine's  querj^  in  January', 
1885,  as  to  whether  he  intended  to  defer  visiting  Wash- 
ington until  he  could  see  the  capital  under  Democratic 
rule,  stirs  some  curious  reflections.  For  Reid  to  see  the 
city  thus  transmogrified  was  like  seeing  his  boyhood's 
home  in  the  hands  of  strangers.  He  had  Irved  with  the 
Republican  party  since  its  earliest  years.  In  his  young 
manhood  he  had  formed  friendships  with  its  leaders 
which  had  been  strengthened  and  multiplied  in  suc- 
ceeding campaigns,  and  as  his  own  influence  in  journal- 
ism had  waxed  he  had  come  to  bear  a  more  and  more 
constructive  part  in  their  councils.  It  had  been  part  of 
his  life  to  be  in  fairly  close  personal  touch  with  the  seat 
of  government.  In  1884  the  break  of  an  order  which  by 
that  time  had  taken  on  an  air  of  j>ermanence  signified 
for  him  not  only  a  political  reverse  but  the  interruption 
of  a  characteristic  phase  of  his  career.  The  f>oIiticaI 
conflict  went  on.  Its  atmosphere  was  in  a  measure 
altered.  Even,'  one  in  public  life  felt  this.  The  worst 
agitations  of  the  reconstruction  period  had  died  down. 
A  difficult  chapter  in  American  history-  which  the  war 
had  left  to  be  wTitten  was  virtually  closed.  Though  the 
tariff*  question  was  unsettled,  statesmen  were  confronted 


io8         THE.  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

with  what  was  largely  a  clean  slate.  To  both  parties 
this  very  fact  constituted  a  stimulating  appeal.  In 
sketching  Reid^s  response  to  it  I  haven't  the  smallest 
reason  for  representing  him  as  in  any  way  cast  down  by 
the  loss  of  the  Republican  ticket.  His  energies  were 
not  in  the  least  abated  by  the  cessation  of  personal  inter- 
course with  administration  leaders.  But  it  is  impossible 
to  ignore  the  change  in  sentiment  which  came  at  the 
parting  of  the  ways.  To  a  man  like  Reid,  who  had  had 
such  close  contact  with  them  since  before  the  war,  public 
developments  were  bound  to  have  in  them  a  tincture  of 
private  sadness  around  the  inauguration  of  Cleveland, 
the  sadness  which  always  goes  with  the  putting  away 
of  a  host  of  ancient  memories. 

It  would  be  a  not  unnatural  assumption,  I  dare  say, 
that  he  was  prepared  for  little  good  in  Cleveland's  admin- 
istration. He  certainly  had  no  love  for  the  Democracy, 
and  in  this  particular  instance  pretty  close  observation 
had  failed  to  discover  anything  in  the  record  of  the 
governor  of  New  York  that  promised  a  wonder-working 
President.  Yet  Reid  had  shown  in  his  relations  with 
Tilden,  in  the  earlier  years,  before  they  had  parted  com- 
pany over  the  weird  proceedings  in  Cipher  Alley,  that 
his  partisanship  was  not  of  the  hidebound  variety.  He 
could  render  justice  to  Grover  Cleveland.  Partisanship 
was  not  going  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  supporting  what- 
ever was  good  in  the  new  administration.  But  there 
was  small  likelihood  of  his  overlooking  any  of  its  sins. 

This  is  apparent  from  his  candor  with  the  only  mem- 
ber of  the  cabinet  with  whom  he  was  on  intimate  terms, 
William  C.  Whitney.  "We  have  seen  so  much  of  life 
as  friends  together,"  remarks  that  devoted  Democrat  in 
one  of  his  letters,  and  their  correspondence  discloses 
mutual  sympathy  and  understanding.  Whitney  was 
wont  to  turn  to  Reid  for  advice  in  old  years.     When  in 


NEW   INTERESTS  109 

1875  ^^  began  his  brilliant  career  as  corporation  counsel 
in  New  York,  their  positions  in  rival  political  camps  did 
not  prevent  their  uniting  on  many  a  pubhc  issue.  Reid 
advocated  his  resigning  in  1880,  but  there  was  a  fight  on 
and  Whitney  stuck.  The  following  year,  when  he  was 
*Sveary  of  the  drudgery  and  labor,  tired  of  politicians 
and  politics,"  he  asked  his  friend  once  more  to  give 
judgment  on  the  problem  of  resignation.  Their  alliance 
on  questions  of  office  was  still  intact  when  Cleveland 
came  in,  as  may  be  seen  from  this  announcement  of 
Whitney's  entry  into  the  cabinet: 

New  York, 

, ,  j^  February  28th,  1885. 

My  dear  Reid:  -^  ^ 

It  may  be  weak  but  I  have  succumbed.  I  think  you  advised  me 
to  take  something.  I  have  at  the  urgent  solicitation  of  both  Cleve- 
land and  Manning  consented  to  take  the  Navy  Department.  I 
refused  yesterday  at  Albany  but  they  asked  me  to  consider  and  I 
have  consented.     "So  goes  the  world." 

Yours,  ,^,    ^    ,,. 

\\  .    C.     \\  HITNEY. 

The  episode  is  cited  here  because  in  the  tone  of  Reid's 
reply,  making  the  best  of  the  outlook  for  the  benefit  of 
a  friend,  there  is  revealed  not  only  the  writer's  point  of 
view  but  the  sentiment  of  many  Republican  observers. 

New  York, 

,,  ,,,  March  2nd,  1885. 

My  DEAR  WnrrNEY: 

I  congratulate  you  very  heartily.  It  is  for  you  the  best  outcome 
of  the  situation.  You  know  I  don't  look  for  a  great  success  for  the 
incoming  Administration.  But  there  ought  to  be  a  chance — if  your 
Congressmen  will  only  behave  well — to  make  a  decided  success  in 
the  Navy  Department.  The  President  ought  to  be  grateful  to  you 
— both  for  what  you  did  before,  and  for  the  sacrifice  you  certainly 
make  now.  May  he  appreciate  his  mercies.  With  the  heartiest 
good  wishes  for  good  luck  and  public  favor  for  at  least  one  of  the 
Departments  in  the  incoming  Government,  I  am. 

Faithfully  yours.  Wh.telaw  Reid. 


no         THE  ^  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

It  is  both  friendly  and  candid.  And  what  followed 
showed  that  when  public  questions  arose  not  all  the 
friendship  in  the  world  could  lessen  Reid's  candor.  Whit- 
ney himself,  as^a  matter  of  fact,  was  one  of  the  first  men 
in  the  administration  to  encounter  rough  weather  and 
to  read  in  The  Tribune  the  frankest  possible  animad- 
versions upon  the  conduct  of  his  department.  They 
bore,  like  blisters,  upon  his  treatment  of  John  Roach  in 
the  famous  affair  of  the  Dolphin,  But  this  was  only 
one  of  the  **sins"  to  which  I  have  alluded.  In  the  mat- 
ter of  Civil  Service  Reform  the  ^nagnitude  of  the  upheaval 
incident  to  Democratic  assumption  of  control  made  it 
a  little  difficult  to  strike  a  just  balance.  Cleveland 
"removed,  suspended  and  called  for  resignations  of  more 
public  officials  of  admitted  worth  and  fitness  than  any 
other  President  in  American  history."  In  a  turnover  so 
sweeping,  some  good  as  well  as  some  evil  was  bound  to 
be  done.  But  the  evil  was  serious.  So,  as  it  seemed  to 
The  Tribune,  was  Secretary  Bayard's  handling  of  the 
fishery  question  with  Great  Britain,  and  in  the  Depart- 
ment of  Justice  the  conduct  of  Attorney-General  Gar- 
land was  attacked  as  nothing  less  than  scandalous. 
There  were  other  defects  in  the  administration  on  which 
I  need  not  linger.  On  the  second  anniversary  of  Cleve- 
land's inauguration  The  Tribune  minutely  set  forth  an 
indictment  under  the  title  of  **HaIf  Way  Through,"  a 
broadside  which  Blaine  characterized  as  "without  prece- 
dent or  parallel." 

To  traverse  the  paper  at  this  time  is  to  conclude  that 
it  was  never  livelier  or  more  powerful  than  when  in 
opposition.  "Half  way  through"  it  was  pretty  well  con- 
vinced that  Cleveland  would  have  a  Republican  succes- 
sor, and  even  before  that  crisis  Reid  and  the  men  of  his 
circle  were  full  of  talk  as  to  who  that  successor  would  be. 
It  leads  up  to  the  most  interesting  personal  association 


NEW   INTERESTS  in 

of  the  period,  his  association  with  Blaine  on  the  question 
of  the  latter's  position  in  the  field  of  candidates.  Early 
in  1886,  at  a  dinner  of  Democrats  of  Mugwump  leanings, 
where  quite  another  gospel  was  to  have  been  expected, 
Hay  heard  it  conceded  that  Blaine  would  again  be  the 
candidate  and  would  be  elected.  At  the  same  time  Wal- 
ter Phelps  reported  from  Washington  that  the  friends  of 
the  administration  daily  diminished  in  number,  and  that 
even  that  stanchest  of  Mugwumps,  Henry  Adams,  was 
saying:  "It's  beyond  words.  If  Blaine  were  nominated 
today  he  would  go  in  without  an  opposition.''  Hay 
protested  that  he  had  never  heard  a  President  so  riddled 
by  his  own  party  as  was  Cleveland.  Nobody  but  the 
Mugwumps  had  a  good  word  for  him,  and  all  they  could 
do  was  to  "shut  their  eyes  and  scream  praises."  But 
he  believed  that  in  spite  of  the  current  blasphemy  the 
Democrats  would  renominate  Cleveland  for  want  of  any 
one  else.  What,  in  that  case,  he  wanted  to  know,  was 
to  be  the  Republican  game?  Reid's  answer  gives  a  good 
idea  of  the  situation,  as  the  Republicans  began  to  see 
the  probability  of  their  coming  back  into  power. 

New  York, 
My  dear  Colonel:  June  loth,  1886. 

I  begin  to  think  with  you  that  the  Democrats  will  renominate 
Cleveland.  It  seems  clear  that  those  of  us  who  have  been  held  by 
the  public  in  the  past  as  the  special  personal  friends  of  Mr.  Blaine 
ought  not  to  be  active  in  putting  him  forward  again.  It  is  too  big  a 
responsibility  to  take.  If  the  Republican  party  wants  him,  it  will 
make  the  fact  known.  If  it  does  not  want  him,  we  must  not  under- 
take to  force  him  upon  voters. 

My  own  impression,  however,  is  that  he  is  going  to  be  nominated 
and  that  if  he  is  we  can  probably  elect  him.  I  believe  he  would 
have  a  better  chance  in  this  state  against  Cleveland  than  he  had 
four  years  ago,  and  we  don*t  need  to  improve  that  record  very  much, 
you  know,  to  win.  Then  it  looks  to  me  as  if,  with  the  friendship 
of  some  of  the  Southerners  and  the  obvious  necessity  for  a  break-up 
there  sooner  or  later,  his  nomination  might  be  the  signal  for  it. 

Faithfully  yours,        Whitelaw  Reid. 


112         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

There  remained  the  problem  of  obtaining  a  decision  in 
the  matter  from  Blaine  himself,  and  the  search  after  it 
makes  diverting  reading  in  the  private  records  of  the 
time.  While  he  was  making  up  his  mind,  the  situation 
in  which  he  was  so  important  a  factor  kept  all  the  lead- 
ers on  tenter-hooks.  In  the  summer  of  1887  Reid  had 
an  interesting  interview  with  John  Sherman,  who  was 
to  prove  of  substantial  weight  in  the  convention.  The 
senator  called  to  explain  that  the  time  was  coming  when 
it  was  more  important  than  ever  that  nothing  should  be 
permitted  to  prevent  the  most  cordial  understanding 
and  relation  between  his  friends  and  Blaine's.  He  was 
not  doing  anything  to  encourage  the  movement  in  his 
own  favor.  He  did  not  feel  as  eager  for  the  office  as  he 
had  felt  in  1880  or  in  1884.  ^^  1880  particularly  he 
had  thought  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  him,  after  hav- 
ing been  senator  and  secretary  of  the  treasury,  to  round 
out  his  career  in  the  presidency.  Now,  he  felt  older, 
the  office  looked  less  attractive,  he  was  elected  senator 
for  six  years  longer,  and  at  the  expiration  of  his  term 
would  be  seventy  years  of  age.  He  would  be  contented, 
if  it  so  turned  out,  to  make  the  senatorial  term  close  his 
public  life.  On  no  account  would  there  be  any  mis- 
understanding between  his  partisans  and  Blaine's,  or 
any  clashing  between  the  latter  and  himself.  He  thought 
the  thing  to  do  was  to  make  every  effort  for  success  in 
1888,  and  to  select  the  man  who  could  best  secure  it. 
If  Blaine  desired  to  be  a  candidate,  or  if  his  friends 
decided  to  put  him  forward,  Sherman  would  not  be  in 
the  way. 

All  this,  with  cogent  reflections  on  the  probable  status 
of  the  party  in  this  or  that  region  of  the  country,  was 
expounded  not  only  for  Reid's  edification  but  with  the 
plain  purpose  of  laying  the  speaker's  cards  before  Blaine. 
His  move  in  the, game,  however,  was  to  turn  his  back 


NEW  INTERESTS  113 

upon  It.  He  went  off  for  a  long  holiday  in  Europe. 
Hay  likewise  went  abroad,  and  meeting  the  supposedly 
potential  candidate  in  London,  observed  simply  that  he 
seemed  to  be  having  a  very  good  time,  going  about 
amongst  English  statesmen,  and,  for  the  nonce,  appar- 
ently forgetting  American  politics.  It  was  in  a  mood 
of  detachment  from  them  that  Blaine  had  sailed.  Writ- 
ing to  Reid  from  Paris  he  showed  that  this  mood  had 
only  been  confirmed  by  reflection  at  a  distance. 

Paris, 
Dear  Mr.  Reid:  October  nth,  1887. 

I  have  got  on  very  well  with  my  year  of  idleness  thus  far  but  I 
must  say  that  considering  the  season  and  the  climate  the  least  agree- 
able place  I  have  been  in  is  Paris.  It  seems  to  be  a  dull  and  dis- 
pirited city.  The  contrast  which  I  see  with  my  recollections  of  a 
brilliant  month  in  Paris  when  the  Empire  was  at  the  height  of  its 
power  is  almost  painful.  That  reverse  of  1870  was  a  fearful  humili- 
ation to  France. 

Touching  politics,  I  have  been  in  a  condition  favorable  to  tem- 
perate conclusions.  I  have  read  much  and  said  nothing.  My  judg- 
ment is  that  the  Republican  party  has  grown  and  is  growing  in 
strength,  and  that  with  ordinary  good  sense  and  good  management 
we  ought  to  win  next  year.  But  personally  I  feel  very  strongly  dis- 
inclined to  run.  In  the  first  place  and  radically ,  I  do  not  feel  that  I 
want  the  office — conceding  the  election.  In  the  next  place  I  do  not 
want  the  turmoil  and  burdensome  exactions  of  a  canvass.  My 
health  is  good  and  above  all  things  earthly  I  wish  to  keep  it  so. 
You  of  all  men,  certainly  better  than  any  other  man,  know  how 
reluctant  I  was  to  run  in  1884  and  how  I  would  have  pulled  out  if 
I  could  have  done  so  after  the  matter  became  serious.  And  then  it 
is  to  be  considered  that  a  defeated  candidate  cannot  be  in  the  can- 
vass gracefully  except  upon  a  general  call  of  the  party  at  least  ap- 
proaching unanimity. 

Although  I  think  it  probable  I  could  be  nominated  there  will  be 
a  contest,  serious  with  Sherman  and  incidental  and  irritating  with 
Allison,  Lincoln,  possibly  Harrison  and  some  other  favorite  sons. 
Above  all  I  abhor  the  idea  of  becoming  a  chronic  candidate,  a  sort 
of  "Tichborne"  claimant  for  the  Presidency.  At  the  proper  time  if 
the  friends  entitled  to  be  consulted — of  whom  you  are  chief — shall 
agree  upon  with  me,  I  will  pull  out,  and  do  it  in  a  direct,  open,  above- 
Most  sincerely,  James  G.  Blaine. 


114         THE  ^  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

It  was  not  easy  for  him  to  withstand  his  friends. 
They  sorely  wanted  him  to  run,  becoming  every  month 
more  convinced  that  he  would  win,  and  conviction  deep- 
ened into  certainty  when  he  took  up  the  famous  chal- 
lenge on  tariff  revision  flung  down  by  Cleveland  in  his 
annual  message  in  December,  1887.  It  was  printed  in 
the  papers  here  on  the  7th,  and  an  abstract  was  cabled 
abroad  in  time  for  it  to  appear  in  the  European  press  on 
the  same  day.  Blaine  read  it  in  Paris.  Smalley  was 
at  hand  and  arranged  for  an  interview.  The  result  was 
three  columns  in  The  Tribune- of  the  next  day,  in  which 
the  great  champion  of  the  protective  system  made  one 
of  his  most  crushing  answers  to  the  free-trade  tendencies 
of  Democratic  policy.  He  spoke  the  right  word  at  pre- 
cisely the  right  moment.  "That  is  a  magnificent  docu- 
ment you  print  today,''  wrote  Hay  to  Reid.  "What  a 
tremendous  contrast  between  the  penny-cracker  of  the 
man  inside,  and  the  roar,  as  of  great  guns,  from  the  man 
outside.  If  brains  were  votes,  how  easy  our  battle  would 
be."  The  interview  marked  Blaine,  of  course,  as  the 
candidate  wanted  beyond  all  others  by  the  Republicans. 
In  a  letter  describing  its  eff'ect  and  the  "ocean  of  eulogy" 
it  had  undammed,  Reid  frankly  revived  the  question  of 
the  presidency.  "Nobody  now  considers  the  nomina- 
tion of  any  other  Republican  candidate  probable,"  he 
said,  "and  few  doubt  that  the  nomination  will  come  to 
you  with  substantial  unanimity."  With  such  a  nomina- 
tion clearly  foreshadowed,  he  deprecated  above  all  things 
any  statement  definitely  taking  Blaine  out  of  the  race. 
"Your  friends  have  the  right  to  assume,"  he  maintained, 
"without  calling  for  any  information,  written  or  oral, 
from  you,  that  you  do  not  disown  the  obligations  of  citi- 
zenship and  that  if  your  party  calls  upon  you  conspicu- 
ously and  by  general  consent  for  a  pubhc  service,  you 
will  not  refuse  it  J'     A  few  days  later  he  wrote,  saying: 


NEW  INTERESTS  115 

"I  have  had  interesting  talks  with  Henry  Cabot  Lodge 
and  Theodore  Roosevelt — both,  as  you  will  remember, 
intensely  hostile  to  you  in  1884.  Both  now  say,  first, 
that  they  think  the  chances  are  that  nothing  can  prevent 
your  nomination,  and,  secondly,  that  at  any  rate  they 
prefer  your  nomination  to  that  of  any  other  man,  because 
they  beheve  it  would  be  the  strongest  nomination  possi- 
ble and  because  they  are  particularly  eager  to  beat  the 
Mugwumps  with  you." 

For  Blaine,  however,  the  die  was  cast.  Continuing 
on  his  travels,  he  wrote  from  Venice  in  January  to  reit- 
erate what  he  had  written  from  Paris  in  the  fall.  There 
was  something  like  solemnity  in  his  renunciation.  "For 
your  long  strong  friendship  and  sterhng  devotion  to 
my  personal  and  pubhc  interests,'*  he  said,  "I  will  at- 
tempt no  expression  of  my  gratitude.  God  knows  my 
heart  overflows  towards  you."  In  that  same  month  he 
wrote  from  Florence  his  formal  letter  of  withdrawal  to 
the  chairman  of  the  Republican  National  Committee, 
and  it  is  a  testimony  to  the  rock-bed  foundations  of  his 
popularity,  unshaken  by  repeated  slanders  and  the  most 
malignant  assaults,  that  even  then  the  party  hesitated 
to  accept  his  refusal.  There  were  those  in  the  opposi- 
tion who  liked  to  pretend  that  he  was  only  manoeuvring, 
and  that  his  followers  were  manoeuvring  with  him.  Reid 
knew  the  truth.  **He  is  perfectly  sincere,  red-hot,  in 
fact,"  he  wrote  to  General  Cassius  M.  Clay,  "in  insisting 
that  his  name  shall  not  be  used."  The  men  who  knew 
him  best  knew  that  he  was  in  earnest,  and  they  were  ter- 
ribly depressed.  Walter  Phelps,  with  political  interests 
of  his  own  afoot — he  was  being  advocated  both  for  the 
Senate  and  for  the  vice-presidency — nevertheless  could 
not  dwell  on  anything  save  his  absent  friend's  grave 
resolution.  "Just  now  I  think  more  of  Blaine  than  of 
Phelps,"  he  wrote.     "It's  as  if  I  went  out  of  business." 


ii6        THE  LIFE  OFWHITELAW  REID 

Hay  was  similarly  disheartened.  "I  want  to  see  you," 
he  wrote  to  Reid,  "and  if  possible  get  some  wisdom  and 
courage  from  you,  for  the  prospect  seems  excessively 
gloomy  to  m^"  Reid  himself  adhered  to  the  idea  that 
the  demand  for  Blaine  might  yet  be  so  overwhelming 
that  there  would  be  no  course  possible  save  acquiescence. 
A  few  weeks  before  the  convention  he  wrote  to  Colonel 
Clapp,  the  editor  of  the  Boston  "Journal,"  a  letter  sum- 
ming up  the  feeling  of  a  multitude  of  Republicans. 


New  York, 

May  2nd,  iJ 
My  dear  Colonel: 

Your  view  of  the  absolute  sincerity  of  Mr.  Blaine's  letter  has  my 
full  concurrence.  Nobody  could  honestly  question  the  perfect  sin- 
cerity of  his  letter,  and  least  of  all  those  who,  getting  alarmed  from 
hints  about  his  state  of  mind,  did  their  best  to  prevent  its  being 
written.  But  if  you  will  look  the  letter  over,  you  will  agree  with 
me,  I  am  confident,  in  finding  nothing  in  it  absolutely  inconsistent 
with  his  accepting  a  nomination.  He  withdraws  his  name  as  a 
candidate,  which  is  his  right.  The  Convention  will  then  consider 
the  names  of  other  candidates  who  are  volunteering.  If,  after  full 
consideration  they  feel,  as  Mr.  Lincoln  did  at  the  critical  period,  that 
the  volunteer  business  is  played  out  and  that  a  draft  must  be  ordered, 
then  I  see  no  reason  why  Mr.  Blaine,  more  than  any  other  citizen 
who  has  sought  and  received  high  honors  from  his  party,  could,  or 
should,  be  exempt  from  the  draft.  In  fact  to  refuse  under  such 
circumstances  would  seem  to  me  much  akin  to  desertion  in  the  face 
of  the  enemy.  There  is  a  good  deal  of  sense  in  the  old  maxim  that 
the  Presidency  may  not  be  an  office  to  be  sought,  but  is  certainly  not 
one  to  be  refused.  It  does  not  seem  to  me  that  there  is  anybody 
in  the  United  States  so  big  that  he  can  refuse  the  greatest  office  on 
earth  without  making  himself  ridiculous  or  worse.  I  certainly  do 
not  believe  Mr.  Blaine  would. 

Now,  above  all  things  we  must  nominate  this  time  to  win.     If 

anybody  can  show  a  better  prospect  of  winning  with  somebody 

else,  I,  for  one,  should  be  content.     If  they  cannot,  I  shall  feel  it  is 

our  duty  to  draft  Mr.  Blaine  into  the  service  and  his  absolutely 

imperative  duty  to  accept.     His  health  is  perfect,  and  there  could  be 

no  other  excuse. 

Faithfully  yours, 

Whitelaw  Reid. 


NEW   INTERESTS  117 

On  the  day  he  wrote  this  Reid  had  a  letter  from 
Andrew  Carnegie,  stating  that  Blaine  had  accepted  an 
invitation  to  go  with  him  on  a  coaching  trip  of  seven 
hundred  miles,  and  this  ratified  conclusions  as  to  his 
health.  "From  all  the  signs,"  Carnegie  added,  "I  judge 
he  is  to  be  nominated  by  acclamation.  He  will  be 
elected."  So  went  the  Republican  faith,  in  countless 
quarters,  but  from  Paris,  on  May  17th,  Blaine  wrote 
the  letter  to  Reid  which  was  published  in  The  Tribune 
on  the  30th,  placing  his  refusal  on  record  with  an  empha- 
sis that  was  meant  to  end  discussion.  And  still  it  was 
not  ended.  At  the  convention  in  June,  it  is  true,  Blaine 
was  not  put  in  nomination,  but  so  persistent  were  the 
hopes  of  his  supporters  that  for  a  time  they  contributed 
to  a  deadlock.  "The  trouble  is,"  said  The  Tribune 
humorously,  "that  the  first  choice  of  every  candidate, 
after  himself,  is  Blaine."  He  was  never  a  stronger  can- 
didate than  when  he  declined  to  accept  nomination,  a 
fact  giving  the  handsomest  of  touches  to  the  story  of 
his  presidential  aspirations.  The  Tribune  thus  suc- 
cinctly paid  him  tribute:  "Mr.  Blaine  has  done  the  most 
magnanimous  thing  in  the  history  of  American  pohtics — 
intended  it  from  the  start,  and  could  not  be  swerved 
from  it  by  the  most  glittering  temptations  or  the  most 
persuasive  appeals." 

All  through  the  strenuous  debate  leading  up  to  Blaine's 
withdrawal  Reid  had  been  his  friend  and  counsellor, 
handling  the  subject  in  The  Tribune  meanwhile  with 
what  the  much-besought  candidate  called  "consummate 
tact,"  letting  both  sides  be  heard  and  holding  the  scales 
even.  A  fitting  epilogue  to  their  consultations  together 
is  written  in  this  letter:  q^^^  Castle, 

Kingussie,  N.  B. 
My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  July  6th,  1888. 

I  should  do  the  gravest  injustice  to  my  own  feelings — at  the  close 
of  my  personal  aspirations  for  the  Presidency — if  I  should  fail  to 


ii8        THE  LIFE  OF"  WHITELAW  REID 

make  sincere  acknowledgment  of  the  unfailing  cordiality,  the  marked 
delicacy  and  the  extraordinary  efficiency  with  which  for  twelve  years 
you  have  given  me  the  influence  of  The  Tribune,  superadded  to  the 
personal  weight  of  your  own  name.  Pray  be  assured  that  if  I  have 
said  little  I  have^felt  deeply  and  have  now  the  profoundest  gratifica- 
tion in  recording  in  this  simple,  informal  way  my  sense  of  gratitude. 

You  know,  better  in  fact  than  anyone  else,  for  you  have  seen  my 
precise  state  of  mind  at  each  quadrennial  struggle  for  the  nomina- 
tion, what  a  sense  of  relief  it  is  to  me  to  be  out  of  the  fight.  The 
nomination  never  attracted  me  except  in  '76.  In  '80  I  should  have 
gone  out  if  I  had  not  seen,  as  you  so  cogently  pointed  out,  that  by 
doing  so  I  could  hand  over  all  my  friends  to  the  Grant  and  ConkHng 
axe — and  in  '84  in  the  same  degree  to  an  axe  somewhat  weaker  but 
equally  bent  on  the  destruction  of  my  friends. 

I  thought  I  saw  clearly  that  no  such  danger  could  follow  in  '88. 
I  therefore  felt  at  liberty  to  act  on  my  own  conclusion  and  did  it. 
I  believe  it  has  resulted  well,  and  though  I  feel  gratified  in  a  high 
degree  with  the  popular  demonstration  in  my  favor,  I  do  rejoice 
with  joy  exceeding  in  my  liberty.  I  notice  that  some  of  my  " friends" 
are  quick  to  announce  that  I  have  retired  Jrom  political  life.  That 
travels  somewhat  beyond  the  record  and  there  may  be  time  and 
opportunity  to  correct  it. 

Faithfully  yours  always, 

James  G.  Blaine. 


He  went  on  the  stump  for  Harrison  and  Morton,  and 
through  his  vigorous  protectionist  speeches  contributed 
measurably  to  their  election. 

Reid  faced  the  campaign  with  another  personal  dis- 
appointment besides  that  which  Blaine's  withdrawal  had 
caused  him.  If  Sherman,  who  had  led  on  several  ballots 
in  the  convention,  had  been  nominated,  it  was  on  the 
cards  that  Walter  Phelps  would  have  gone  on  the  ticket 
with  him.  Reid  would  have  been  peculiarly  happy  with 
that  nomination.  But  the  ticket  once  adopted,  he  worked 
for  it  with  his  characteristic  thoroughness.  There  is  an 
apposite  passage  in  a  letter  of  Theodore  Roosevelt's  in 
the  summer  stage  of  the  fight.  **I  do  not  think,"  he 
says,  "there  has  ever  been  a  better  piece  of  campaign 
work   than   you?:   examination   of  Cleveland's   appoint- 


NEW  INTERESTS  119 

ment  record."  The  Tribune  was  full  of  such  things 
dovm  to  the  last  hour  and  its  influence  was  hea\y.  Hay, 
as  ever  the  first  to  recognize  what  his  friend  did  for  the 
part>%  sent  him  the  morning  after  the  triumph  of  that 
party  at  the  polls  these  words  of  greeting: 

Washington, 

, ,  D  November  7th,  1888. 

My  de-\r  Re  id: 

The  merest  justice — if  friendship  had  nothing  to  say — compels  me 
as  an  old  Republican  whose  heart  is  with  his  party,  to  write  and 
thank  you  for  the  splendid  fight  you  have  made  in  The  Tribune, 
cro^-sTied  by  the  glorious  \'ictorv'  of  yesterday.  I  have  never  seen  a 
year  when  The  Tribune  has  been  stronger,  firmer,  more  vitalized 
than  this.  And  it  has  been  so  splendidly  good-natured  throughout 
— and  good-nature  is,  after  all,  the  great  distinguishing  American 
quality.     "Well  done.  Tribune,"  is  the  signal  the  Republican  flags 

should  hang  out  today.  ^ours  faithfufly.  ,         ^ 

^  John  Hay. 

Before  the  month  was  out  Hay  heard  such  rumors 
as  he  had  heard  before  when  a  national  election  was 
closed,  rumors  that  his  friend  would  accept  office  under 
the  government.  There  were  always  plenty  of  com- 
mentators on  a  Republican  victors*  who  recognized  Reid's 
work  in  helping  to  bring  it  about  and  expected  the  new 
administration  to  offer  him  some  tangible  evidence  of 
its  appreciation.  WTien  these  expectations  had  been 
fulfilled,  Reid,  for  his  part,  had  baffled  the  oracles  by 
refusing  all  offers.  Twice  he  had  declined  a  foreign 
mission.  Hay  was  confident,  however,  that  when  the 
third  occasion  arrived  Reid  would  have  to  turn  diplomat 
whether  he  liked  it  or  not,  and  he  amused  himself  by 
swearing  that  nevertheless  he,  Hay,  would  not  again  run 
The  Tribune.  He  would  content  himself,  instead,  with 
crossing  the  sea  in  order  to  dine  with  the  Reids  abroad. 
He  was  a  good  prophet.  The  appointment  was  kept,  in 
Paris.     Before  he  went  there  as  minister  to  France  Reid 


120        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

made  humorous  acknowledgment  of  his  surrender  in  re- 
plying to  a  telegram  of  congratulation  from  Murat  Hal- 
stead.  He  said  simply:  **Do  you  remember  Benedick 
in  the  play?"-- 


CHAPTER  VII 
MINISTER  TO  FRANCE 

Benjamin  Harrison  was  of  a  deliberate  habit  of  mind, 
and  not  only  took  his  own  time  but  kept  his  own  counsel 
in  settling  the  personnel  of  his  administration.  To  a 
certain  extent  this  seemed  to  have  been  settled  for  him 
by  unmistakable  circumstance.  "It  has  been  evident 
from  the  outset,"  Reid  wrote  in  a  private  letter,  shortly 
before  the  inauguration,  "that  General  Harrison  started 
his  Cabinet-making  with  two  points  settled — i,  that  the 
Secretaryship  of  State  should  go  to  the  man  who  was 
the  last  chosen  Republican  leader  and  came  within  1200 
votes  of  being  the  Republican  President,  and,  2,  that 
the  Treasury  should  go  West."  The  points  were,  in- 
deed, practically  unavoidable,  and  in  the  upshot  there 
was  no  surprise  in  the  choice  of  Blaine  and  Windom. 
But  it  was  long  before  the  President-elect  would  put  his 
imprimatur  even  upon  that  which  had  been  "evident 
from  the  outset."  An  interesting  explanation  of  his 
inaction  and  reticence  is  given  in  one  of  Reid's  letters 
to  Blaine.  "A  remark  made  to  me  by  General  Harrison 
last  October,"  he  says,  "may  shed  a  little  hght  on  the 
present  situation.  The  talk  had  been  running  on  some 
of  Garfield's  embarrassments  about  office.  The  General 
said  he  had  often  felt  so  strongly  the  embarrassments 
that  must  sometimes  come  from  having  promises  of 
office  out,  that,  like  notes  of  hand,  had  to  be  paid  or  go 
to  protest,  that  he  thought  he  should  never  communi- 
cate a  positive  intention  to  make  an  appointment  till 
he  was  actively  ready  to  write  the  nomination."     While 

121 


'> 


122        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  newspapers  were  taking  him  as  conclusively  "slated" 
for  the  State  Department,  Blaine  himself,  for  weeks, 
was  without  any  information  on  the  subject. 

His  appointment,  of  course,  was  bound  to  excite  some 
opposition.  Hay  took  note  of  the  grumbhngs  amongst 
the  politicians  of  Harrison's  own  State.  As  he  tersely 
put  it,  they  feared  for  the  run  of  the  kitchen  if  a  first- 
class  man  were  fixed  in  the  leading  cabinet  position. 
They  belabored  Harrison  with  warnings  as  to  his  "hold- 
ing second  place,"  just  as  the  small-minded  gentry  had 
belabored  Garfield  eight  years  before.  At  the  begin- 
ning of  the  administration  just  enough  capital  was  made 
out  of  this  beggarly  surmise  to  inspire  prudence  in  both 
Harrison  and  Blaine  and  in  all  their  friends.  Against 
the  malcontents  who  were  persistently  trying  by  under- 
ground methods  to  breed  dissension  between  the  Presi- 
dent and  his  secretary  of  state,  it  became  a  matter  of 
party  loyalty  to  emphasize  the  harmony  in  the  cabinet. 
The  situation  had  its  influence  upon  Whitelaw  Reid's 
acceptance  of  the  French  mission. 

He  had  not  given  a  thought  to  public  preferment  for 
himself  during  the  campaign,  and  he  had  nothing  what- 
ever to  do  with  the  talk  about  it  that  ran  through  the 
press  after  election  day.  "I  want  you  to  know,"  he 
wrote  to  one  friend  in  March,  "that  this  whole  talk  of 
office  for  me,  foreign  or  at  home,  is  entirely  without  any 
suggestion  on  my  part.  In  no  way  whatever  have  I 
put  myself  forward  or  indicated  a  desire  for  anything; 
and  the  subject  has  never  been  even  alluded  to  between 
the  President  and  myself  or  between  any  of  his  family 
and  myself.  We  are  from  the  same  college,  and  his 
wife's  brother  and  I  were  class  mates,  so  that  there  is  a 
natural  friendship;  but  that  hasn't  turned  me  into  an 
office  seeker."  He  was  merely  amused  to  come  in  the 
papers  upon  rujnors,  portentously  circumstantial,  to  the 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE  123 

effect  that  he  was  to  enter  Harrison's  cabinet  as  secre- 
tary of  the  navy.  Neither  he  nor  the  President  knew 
anything  about  this  supposedly  certain  appointment. 
They  were  equally  in  the  dark  as  to  any  assignment  to 
the  English  mission,  but  association  of  Reid's  name  with 
this  nevertheless  persisted,  to  such  an  extent  that  many 
of  his  friends  regarded  the  thing  as  settled,  taking  Blaine's 
approval  of  the  idea  as  a  matter  of  course.  Hay,  for 
example,  was  sure  of  it.  "I  think  there  should  be  no 
question  about  your  being  offered  the  English  mission 
or  anything  else,"  he  wrote.  "So  I  shall  hope  to  meet 
you  next  May  in  London  town."  Later  he  said:  "Have 
you  made  up  your  mind  about  England?  I  should  judge 
it  is  yours  if  you  want  it."  And  in  still  another  note  on 
the  current  rumors  he  remarks:  "I  suppose  you  have 
got  on  your  thinking  cap  about  England.  I  take  it  for 
granted  you  will  have  to  accept  or  refuse  it."  Walter 
Phelps  was  "morally  sure"  that  his  friend  would  be 
offered  England,  and  represented  Blaine  as  "hot  for  it." 
While  the  subject  was  in  the  air  Reid  was  content  to 
leave  it  to  the  ministrations  of  his  friends.  "I'm  not 
indifferent  to  the  distinction,"  he  wrote  to  one  of  them. 
"Least  of  all  would  I  like  to  be  thought  affected  enough 
to  pretend  to  be.  But  I  am  very  busy,  and,  much  as  I 
might  be  flattered  by  the  offer,  I  should  be  even  more 
embarrassed  in  arranging  to  accept  it.  I  haven't  been 
in  any  sense  a  candidate.  Offices  generally  don't  come 
to  those  who  don't  seek;  and  if  this  one  by  any  chance 
should — well,  you  remember  the  great  comfort  Lincoln 
got  out  of  his  decision  not  to  cross  Fox  River  till  he  got 
to  it!"  When  the  crossing  was  reached,  and  took  an 
unexpected  direction,  it  was  John  Hay's  part  to  disclose 
some  curious  developments  in  the  whole  affair. 

Blaine  wrote  to  Hay  asking  him  to  call  one  evening 
in  March  and  see  the  President.     The  latter  began  at 


124        THE  LIFE  OF'WHITELAW  REID 

once  to  talk  about  Reid.  He  said  that  the  matter  had 
drifted,  without  any  fault  on  his  part,  into  a  position 
which  was  very  disagreeable  to  him;  that  the  press  was 
representing  Mr.  Reid,  or  his  friends  for  him,  as  apply- 
ing for  the  English  mission,  and  himself  as  refusing  to 
give  it  to  him;  that  both  these  ideas  were  false.  There 
had  not  been  a  moment  since  the  election  in  which  he 
had  not  fully  intended  to  offer  Mr.  Reid  some  distin- 
guished mark  of  his  regard  and  confidence;  there  were 
reasons  why  he  could  not  invite  him  to  a  place  in  the 
cabinet,  personally  agreeable  to  him  as  this  would  be. 
He  wanted  now  to  appoint  him  minister  to  France,  but 
was  told  by  Mr.  Reid's  friends  that  he  would  not  accept 
the  place  but  that  he  would  probably  accept  the  mission 
to  England.  He  went  on  at  great  length  to  enumerate 
the  objections  which  lay,  in  his  opinion,  against  this. 
Briefly  they  were  as  follows:  The  Tribune  had  taken  up 
from  the  first  and  sustained  with  great  energy  and  ability 
the  cause  of  Home  Rule  in  Ireland.  It  had  thrown  its 
whole  influence  in  favor  of  Mr.  Gladstone  and  against 
Lord  Salisbury,  the  prime  minister.  This  fact  would  of 
itself  render  Mr.  Reid's  relations  with  the  British  Gov- 
ernment less  easy  and  cordial  than  would  be  desirable. 
Hay  replied  that  it  was  not  customary  among  European 
governments  to  take  umbrage  at  the  political  sentiments 
of  envoys,  whereupon  the  President  rejoined  that  if  Mr. 
Reid's  relations  with  the  British  Government  were  friendly 
and  agreeable,  a  no  less  regrettable  result  would  foflow. 
The  Tribune  would  be  hampered  by  that  very  friendli- 
ness. Every  word  telegraphed  from  London  would  be 
quoted  to  the  disadvantage  of  the  administration  on  one 
side  or  the  other.  The  President  then  went  on  to  com- 
pare the  two  missions,  finding  the  French  in  many  re- 
spects the  more  desirable.  He  finally  said  that  he 
would  regard  Mr.  Reid's  acceptance  of  the  French  mis- 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE  125 

sion  as  a  great  personal  favor  to  himself.  He  had  been 
excessively  annoyed  by  the  newspaper  statements  that 
Mr.  Blaine  was  pressing  Mr.  Reid  for  an  office,  and  that 
he,  the  President,  was  reluctant  to  give  him  one.  The 
question  of  cabinet  harmony,  as  I  have  hinted,  could 
not  be  ignored.  As  a  personal  favor  to  himself,  the 
President  asked  Hay  to  go  at  once  to  New  York  and 
lay  the  whole  matter  before  Reid.  He  did  so,  and  Reid 
gave  due  weight  to  the  consideration  that  if  he  declined 
the  French  mission — as  he  was  inclined  to  do — it  would 
be  seized  upon  by  the  Democratic  opposition  as  a  proof 
of  a  break  between  him  and  the  administration.  He 
placed  his  acceptance  in  the  hands  of  Hay,  who  returned 
to  Washington  and  reported  it  to  the  President.  "He 
seemed  very  much  gratified  and  relieved,"  wrote  Hay  to 
Reid.  ''He  said  he  was  conscious  that  you  were  mak- 
ing a  sacrifice  and  he  appreciated  it."  Some  months 
later,  when  Reid  was  established  in  Paris,  Hay  suggested 
that  he  imitate  his  predecessor,  Benjamin  Frankhn,  by 
writing  his  autobiography,  and  proposed  that  he  incor- 
porate therein  the  facts  which  I  have  summarized.  I 
have  set  them  forth  in  this  place,  believing  that,  in  the 
absence  of  such  a  record,  it  is  doubly  fitting  for  me  to 
show  the  disinterestedness  of  Whitelaw  Reid's  entrance 
into  diplomacy. 

He  made  it  in  the  spring  of  1889,  sailing  with  his 
family  for  France  early  in  May  and  arriving  in  Paris  on 
the  1 2th.  Two  days  later  he  was  received  by  M.  SpuIIer, 
the  minister  of  foreign  affairs  in  the  Tirard  cabinet, 
and  on  the  22d  presented  his  credentials  to  President 
Carnot  at  the  Elysee.  The  time  was  auspicious,  both 
nations  celebrating  in  1889  historical  anniversaries  hav- 
ing unusually  sympathetic  points  of  contact,  and  Reid 
had  a  perfect  cue  for  his  first  official  address.  *'The 
United  States,"  he  said  to  M.  Carnot,  ''have  been  cele- 


^  * 


126        THE, LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

brating  the  centennial  of  their  constitution  and  of  the 
inauguration  of  their  first  President,  George  Washing- 
ton. It  is  my  happy  fortune  to  be  charged  with  the 
duty  of  representing  my  Government  here  at  a  time 
when  France  is  commemorating  a  centennial  not  less 
momentous.  We  never  forget  that  you  gave  the  sup- 
port which  helped  to  make  our  Revolution  successful. 
It  is  a  memory  which  quickens  now  our  sympathetic 
interest  in  the  magnificent  display  of  the  arts  of  peace 
with  which  you  crown  your  anniversary.  I  am  instructed 
that  there  is  not  a  shadow  of' a  question  in  dispute  be- 
tween the  two  great  Republics  to  cloud  the  historic 
friendship  which  has  endured  for  a  century."  The  Pres- 
ident in  reply  cordially  recognized  the  coincidence  estab- 
lishing **one  more  link  between  the  two  peoples,"  and 
concluded:  "Your  task  will  therefore  be  an  easy  one. 
Monsieur  le  Ministre;  and  we  bid  you  welcome."  How 
welcome  he  was  Reid  was  made  to  feel  in  an  especially 
happy  manner  shortly  afterward,  when  his  speech  at  the 
Elysee  was  quoted  in  full  in  the  Chamber  of  Deputies 
as  an  illustration  of  the  extent  to  which  the  French 
Government  had  secured  the  sympathy  and  regard  of 
other  nations.  "That  speech  goes  straight  to  the  point," 
declared  M.  Hebrard,  and  on  every  hand  Reid  met  with 
the  same  warm  appreciation.  "Perhaps  I  ought  to  say," 
he  wrote  to  Blaine,  "that  in  the  judgment  of  the  Lega- 
tion and  of  people  who  have  spoken  to  me  about  it  here, 
my  reception  has  been  unusually  cordial.  Certainly  no 
imaginable  element  of  prompt  and  polite  attention  has 
been  missing.  For  the  first  time  in  the  history  of  the 
Legation  the  Presidents  of  the  Senate  and  Chamber  of 
Deputies  have  made  special  appointments  to  receive  me 
in  person  at  their  residences.  The  President  sent  to 
have  me  brought  to  his  box  in  a  place  of  public  amuse- 
ment before  I  had  been  formally  presented,  and  there 
are  everywhere  the  most  friendly  expressions." 


MINISTER  TO   FRANCE  127 

The  Reids  made  their  home  in  the  old  mansion  at 
35  Avenue  Hoche  of  the  Comtesse  de  Grammont,  whose 
father  had  formerly  been  French  consul-general  to  Egypt. 
The  house  was  full  of  his  collection  of  antiquities, 
mummies  in  their  cases,  cabinets  of  bronzes  and  pot- 
tery, statues  in  black  basalt  of  Isis  and  Osiris.  These 
sombre  objects  were  promptly  placed  in  retirement,  and 
there  was  little  left  visible  of  Egypt  save  a  couple  of 
marble  sphinxes  decorating  the  staircase.  The  whole  in- 
terior took  on  a  Hghter  aspect,  which  came  to  be  widely 
known  in  Paris  as  it  became  the  scene  of  constant  hos- 
pitality. The  offices  of  the  Legation  were  in  the  Rue 
Galilee,  where  Reid  found  invaluable  aid  in  his  first  and 
second  secretaries,  Henry  Vignaud,  whose  name  is  so 
well  estabhshed  in  the  literature  of  Christopher  Colum- 
bus, and  Augustus  Jay.  There  was  a  mass  of  work  await- 
ing the  new  incumbent.  John  Bigelow,  whose  experi- 
ence as  minister  to  France  under  the  Second  Empire 
had  made  him  a  judge  of  the  subject,  had  warned  him 
of  an  arduous  career.  **You  w4II  find  a  little  of  that 
kind  of  business  goes  a  long  way,"  he  said.  ** Going  into 
diplomacy  is  much  like  experiencing  a  shipwreck  or 
going  into  a  battle — a  very  good  thing  when  it  is  safely 
over."  Reid  encountered  nothing  to  justify  quite  the 
disturbing  forecast  implicit  in  these  words,  but  he  ad- 
mitted that  there  was  enough  to  do.  "The  life  here," 
he  wrote  to  Bigelow,  *'is  pleasant  but  busy.  Americans 
have  been  swarming  here  as  if  Paris  were  a  new  Okla- 
homa, and  the  President's  proclamation  had  just  taken 
efi*ect."  To  Walter  Phelps,  who  had  preceded  him 
abroad,  going  to  Berlin  as  commissioner  to  the  Samoan 
Conference,  he  wrote  in  June  in  much  the  same  vein. 
**It  was  all  very  nice,"  he  said,  **  assuming  that  coming 
to  Paris  should  be  considered  in  the  fight  of  a  vacation, 
but  I  have  not  yet  found  out  where  the  vacation  comes 
in."     He   had  taken  the   French   mission   expecting  to 


128        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

remain  in  Paris  only  about  a  year  and  a  half.  He  stayed 
for  three  years,  absorbed  in  treaty  negotiations  and 
other  tasks  that  proved  strenuously  exacting. 

From  the  beginning  he  was  involved  in  a  campaign  to 
persuade  the  French  Government  to  terminate  its  dis- 
crimination against  the  importation  of  American  pork, 
and  the  story  of  his  efforts  in  this  direction  runs  inter- 
mittently through  the  record  of  his  ministry.  Its  criti- 
cal phases  were  slow  in  developing,  however,  and  his 
earlier  correspondence  from  Paris  touches  upon  things 
in  nowise  burdensome.  The  city  was  en  fete  that  sum- 
mer, the  great  exposition  being  the  all-absorbing  topic. 
Apropos,  he  received  highly  interested  inquiries  from 
Americans  concerned  over  the  prospects  of  our  own 
World's  Fair,  projected  for  1893.  ^^  ^'^^'J  t)e  remembered 
that  New  York  was  intensely  desirous  of  securing  the 
fair.  Charles  Stewart  Smith,  president  of  the  Cham- 
ber of  Commerce,  cabled  the  American  minister  for  de- 
tails of  the  French  financial  scheme.  Reid  sent  them, 
but  with  an  expression  of  the  hope  that  if  New  York  was 
successful  in  its  plans  it  would  not  ruin  Central  Park  in 
the  process.  To  Mayor  Grant,  who  also  apphed  for  in- 
formation, he  sent  the  significant  warning  that  Chicago 
already  had  representatives  in  Paris,  ^'husthng"  to  learn 
all  that  Paris  could  teach  them  about  organizing  an 
international  show.  Before  the  matter  was  closed  he 
probably  heard  about  as  much  as  any  one  in  the  world 
concerning  the  opposing  claims  of  Chicago  and  New 
York,  some  of  which  were  calculated  to  make  him  gasp. 
Bigelow  wrote  that  some  members  of  the  population 
were  planning  to  build  a  tower  on  Manhattan  Island 
"to  which  the  Eiff'el  Tower  would  be  only  a  walking 
stick."  His  own  attitude  was  one  of  strict  neutrahty, 
but  when  Chicago  won  he  specially  gratified  that  city 
by  obtaining  from  France  the  first  agreement  made  by 


MINISTER  TO   FRANCE  129 

any  of  the  European  Powers  to  take  part  in  the  Colum- 
bian Exposition. 

To  the  Paris  fair  he  owed  one  of  those  delectable  ab- 
surdities which  fall  to  a  diplomatic  officer  abroad  as  to 
no  other  individual.  A  visitor  turned  up  who  had  heard 
that  at  the  close  of  the  exposition  the  Gobelins  tapestries 
contributed  by  the  French  Government  were  to  be  given 
away  to  various  institutions  and  countries.  Reid  was 
forthwith  called  upon  to  see  to  it  that  a  good  example 
was  secured  for  an  institution  in  northern  New  York. 
Another  of  the  not  infrequent  "Legation  humors"  was 
the  sad  case  of  a  certain  American  who  owned  some  real 
estate  in  Paris.  This  confiding  gentleman  had  the  temer- 
ity to  ask  one  of  his  tenants  for  the  month's  rent,  where- 
upon the  tenant  soundly  flogged  him  for  his  presump- 
tion. But  the  classical  example  of  eccentricity  was  that 
which  Reid  thus  describes  in  a  letter  to  John  Hay:  "He 
wanted  to  know  if  I  could  present  him  to  the  President 
of  the  Republic,  giving  as  his  reason  simply  curiosity  to 
see  him,  and  finally  asked  me  if  I  thought  it  would  do 
for  him  to  go  up  to  the  front  door  at  Fontainebleau, 
where  the  President  was  then  staying,  and  send  in  his 
card.  I  assured  him  there  was  no  law  against  his  try- 
ing, but  he  didn't  seem  to  derive  courage  from  my  talk. 
Subsequently  his  real  object  in  wishing  to  see  the  Presi- 
dent appeared  in  a  London  paper,  where  in  default  of 
the  conference  he  had  hoped  to  get  through  my  agency, 
he  printed  an  open  letter  to  the  President,  advising  him 
that  Napoleon  Bonaparte  is  to  be  materialized  within 
a  few  months  for  the  space  of  an  hour  and  a  half,  dur- 
ing which  time  he  is  to  address  an  audience  of  10,000 
Frenchmen  in  the  Place  Vendome." 

In  this  same  letter  to  Hay,  by  the  way,  there  is  an 
interesting  backward  glance,  recalling  historical  days  at 
Washington.     A  trifling  controversy  had  arisen  between 


130         THE  LIFE  OF  .WHITELAW  REID 

Hay  and  Dana  over  the  question  of  Hay's  presence  at 
the  War  Department  on  the  night  of  Lincoln's  re-elec- 
tion. Reid  had  been  there,  and  in  his  reply  to  Hay  on 
the  subject  gave  him  these  reminiscences: 

I  recollect  distinctly  being  shown  immediately  into  a  private  room 
where  Mr.  Lincoln  and  one  or  two  others  were  sitting  about  the 
fire.  Among  them  was  the  Indiana  Secretary — Usher,  I  thmk — 
who  congratulated  me  on  something  I  had  recently  written  about 
Emerson  Etheridge,  whom  the  Republicans  were  then  first  suspect- 
ing of  an  intention  to  organize  the  House  against  them  through  his 
power  of  making  up  the  roll.*  Usher  told  me  something  more 
about  Etheridge,  and  said  I  might  make  effective  use  of  that  also. 
Lincoln,  turning  to  me,  said:  "No,  Reid,  I  would  not  do  it.  Emer- 
son ain't  worth  more  than  a  squirrel  load  of  powder  anyway."  I 
remember,  also,  being  a  little  crestfallen  in  finding  that  some  dis- 
patch that  I  had  brought  in  with  what  I  supposed  to  be  late  news, 
had  been  anticipated  by  the  War  Department  dispatches. 

Stanton  asked  me  to  come  to  see  him  in  Washington  not  long 
before  his  death,  read  my  sketch  of  Sherman,  from  "Ohio  in  the 
War,"  in  proof,  and  told  me,  to  my  great  surprise,  that  it  was  too 
hard  on  Sherman.  When  I  expressed  wonder  at  his  saying  that,  he 
replied:  "The  longer  I  live,  the  more  I  am  convinced  that  a  great 
secret  in  life  is  the  art  of  learning  to  forget." 

Reid  first  made  the  acquaintance  of  the  American 
colony  in  Paris  within  a  few  wxeks  of  his  arrival,  when 
he  called  a  meeting  at  the  Legation  to  consider  the  suf- 
fering inflicted  by  the  Johnstown  floods,  and  to  raise  a 
fund  toward  its  alleviation.  A  little  later,  on  the  Fourth 
of  July,  he  acted  as  the  spokesman  of  the  Americans 
living  in  Paris  who  had  united  in  giving  to  the  munici- 
pality a  reduced  replica  in  bronze  of  Bartholdi's  **  Liberty 
Enlightening  the  World."  The  statue  was  unveiled  on 
the  He  des  Cygnes,  in  the  middle  of  the  Seine  by  the 
Pont  de  Crenelle.  Reid  delivered  his  speech  in  the 
presence  of  M.  Carnot,  M.  SpuIIer,  and  many  govern- 
mental and  municipal  notabilities.  He  had  still  another 
statue  to  deal  with,  presently.     The  final  acceptance  of 

*See  pages  108-111,  vol.  I. 


MINISTER  TO  FRANCE  131 

the  Lafayette  monument,  commissioned  by  Congress  for 
Washington  from  Falguiere  and  Mercie,  was  left  to  him 
to  negotiate.  He  was  requested  to  seek  expert  advice, 
and  obtained  it  from  the  American  sculptor  Franklin 
Simmons,  who  came  on  from  Rome  for  the  purpose,  and 
from  M.  Taine.  He  obtained  also  the  warm  approval 
of  Senator  Edmond  de  Lafayette  and  of  the  Marquis  de 
Rochambeau,  Lafayette's  grandson,  and  wound  up  the 
affair  at  a  dinner  bringing  them  and  the  sculptors  to- 
gether at  the  Avenue  Hoche,  with  SpuIIer  and  others. 
The  Reids'  relations  with  the  descendants  of  Washing- 
ton's comrade  were  amongst  the  pleasantest  of  their 
stay  in  Paris.  They  saw  a  good  deal  of  his  great-grand- 
son, the  Marquis  de  Lasteyrie.  From  him  there  came 
one  day  a  souvenir  in  the  shape  of  two  gold  studs,  fash- 
ioned from  buttons  that  had  been  worn  by  the  revolu- 
tionary hero.  Another  of  his  descendants.  Count  Octave 
d'Assailly,  sent  through  Reid  to  the  United  States  a 
little  gift  of  which  probably  not  all  students  of  Wash- 
ington relics  are  aware.  This  is  a  pair  of  eyeglasses 
made  for  our  first  President  and  presented  by  him  to 
Lafayette.  Blaine  placed  the  memento  in  the  library  of 
the  State  Department. 

The  episode  of  the  Lafayette  monument  is  typical  of 
the  terms  on  which  Reid  was  established  amongst  the 
artists  of  Paris.  He  became  familiar  with  many  of  the 
leaders  of  the  Salon,  and  was  soon  recognized  as  the 
friend  of  his  fellow  countrymen  in  the  studios.  In  the  re- 
vision of  our  tariff  policy  he  was  unreservedly  com- 
mitted to  free  art,  a  fact  which  positively  endeared  him 
to  both  American  and  French  artists.  The  most  piquant 
of  all  his  artistic  experiences  was  connected,  however, 
with  a  rather  stormy  affair,  the  publication  of  Whistler's 
"Gentle  Art  of  Making  Enemies."  That  inimitable 
anthology,  it  will  be  recalled,  was  first  compiled  by  an 


'^ 


132         THE  LIFE  OF  .WHITELAW  REID 

American  journalist,  Mr.  Sheridan  Ford.  Before  it  could 
be  definitively  launched  Whistler  decided  to  bring  the 
book  out  himself  and  had  a  tremendous  time  doing  it, 
enjoining  Ford  in  the  courts,  checkmating  him  in  Eng- 
land and  America,  then  pouncing  upon  an  edition  that 
had  been  printed  in  Antwerp,  and  finally  stopping  the 
publication  of  another  in  Paris.  As  Smalley  put  it  in 
one  of  his  notes  from  London,  "nowhere  was  there  rest 
for  the  sole  of  Mr.  Ford's  publishing  foot."  In  the 
Parisian  phase  of  the  combat  Whistler  was  substantially 
helped  by  the  American  minister,  who  introduced  him 
to  the  procureur  de  la  republique  and  in  divers  ways 
furthered  his  campaign  of  suppression.  The  incident  is 
commemorated  in  the  inscription  adorning  the  large 
paper  copy  of  "The  Gentle  Art"  which  he  received  when 
the  "true  book"  at  last  appeared — "To  Whitelaw  Reid, 
a  souvenir  of  flattering  courtesies,  and  most  eff'ective  aid 
in  pursuit  of  The  Pirate."  The  signature  is  the  famous 
butterfly.  There  are  other  names  of  artists  sprinkhng 
Reid's  correspondence — Bonnat,  Gerome,  Galland  (from 
whom  he  commissioned  a  series  of  mural  decorations, 
panels  in  the  style  of  Watteau,  for  the  house  in  New 
York),  Cain,  Dubois,  and  others.  But  perhaps  even 
more  characteristic  are  certain  aflusions  which  mark 
some  of  his  earliest  letters  home.  "De  Freycinet  and 
Clemenceau,"  he  says  in  one  of  these,  "are  men  with 
whom  I  am  on  the  best  of  terms.  The  one  is  probably 
the  most  experienced  and  able  man  in  the  Cabinet;  the 
other  came  within  a  vote  of  being  the  third  man  in  rank 
in  the  Repubhc."  His  time  was  chiefly  occupied,  in  the 
nature  of  things,  in  the  observation  of  French  public 
men  and  affairs. 

He  had  come  to  France  at  a  time  when  the  country 
was  nominafly  in  a  state  of  profound  quietude,  but  when 
political  unrest  was  stifl  perceptible.     Only  two  years 


MINISTER  TO   FRANCE  133 

previously  M.  Grevy  had  left  the  presidency  pursued  by 
the  scandal  of  his  son-in-law,  M.  Wilson's,  traffic  in  the 
Legion  d'Honneur  and  other  decorations.  Sadi-Carnot 
had  been  put  in  his  place,  not  by  any  means  under  the 
pressure  of  a  strong  public  demand,  but  through  the 
good  offices  of  poHticians  who  thought  him,  as  a  respect- 
able "outsider,"  the  most  judicious  stop-gap  they  could 
find.  His  very  respectability  was,  in  some  quarters,  a 
matter  for  contempt.  Rochefort  scornfully  said:  *'The 
fact  that  a  man,  if  you  ask  him  to  dinner,  will  not  put 
your  spoons  into  his  pocket,  is  not  a  sufficient  reason 
for  making  him  President  of  a  repubhc."  The  famous 
editor  of  **LTntransigeant"  has  cynically  told  in  **Les 
Aventures  de  Ma  Vie,"  a  rather  "yellow"  but  neverthe- 
less significant  epitome  of  pohtical  wire-pulhng  under 
the  Third  Repubhc,  how  on  the  fall  of  Grevy  he  was 
summoned  to  the  offices  of  "La  Justice"  to  hear  the 
conclusions  of  Clemenceau,  the  oracle.  Carnot,  said  the 
terror  of  administrations,  was  not  a  strong  man,  but  he 
bore  a  RepubHcan  name.  He  was  perfectly  insignificant, 
but  he  was  the  grandson  of  the  "Organizer  of  Victory." 
There  was  nobody  better  able  to  balk  the  return  of 
Ferry,  "le  Tonkinois,"  whose  expansionist  tendencies 
were  the  bugbear  of  the  Radicals.  So  Carnot  was  duly 
placed  in  the  presidential  chair.  He  proved,  in  the 
event,  a  more  capable  executive  than  had  been  expected, 
scrupulous  and  businesslike,  uninspiring,  no  doubt,  but 
safe. 

Reid's  acquaintance  with  the  Carnot  regime  was 
made  when  the  Boulangist  movement  was  in  its  closing 
stages  and  the  Panama  affair  was  coming  to  a  head. 
He  understood  the  French  psychology  and  the  pitch  of 
frenzy  to  which  the  country  could  be  raised.  I  remem- 
ber an  expression  of  his  to  me  apropos  of  a  later  crisis — 
"the  mob,  the  lunatics  and  the  army  who  seemed  to 


134         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

comprise  three-fifths  of  the  French  people  during  the 
Dreyfus  excitement."  But  he  witnessed  none  of  those 
extremes  while  he  was  in  Paris.  Boulangism  had  prac- 
tically spent  itself  only  a  few  months  before  his  arrival, 
when  the  vacillating  general  had  marked  time  in  Durand's 
cafe  on  the  night  of  his  election  as  deputy  for  the  De- 
partment of  the  Seine,  instead  of  seizing  the  chance 
which  then  offered  for  a  ride  to  the  dictatorship  on  his 
dark  horse.  By  the  time  Reid  presented  his  credentials 
the  Boulanger  drama,  if  not  quite  played  out,  was  at  all 
events  hmping  to  its  ingloriaus  conclusion.  In  his  let- 
ters to  Mrs.  Reid,  who  returned  to  America  for  a  brief 
visit  in  the  fall,  there  are  some  passages  on  the  elections 
which  gave  the  general  his  quietus: 

September  22nd,  1889. 
This  morning,  after  a  long  romp  with  the  children,  I  took  Mr. 
Ellis  with  me  and  drove  about  the  city  to  see  what  Paris  looked  like 
on  an  election  day.  We  went  to  the  Boulangist  headquarters  in 
our  own  Arrondissement  and  to  various  polling  places.  I  went 
through  the  lines,  took  my  handful  of  tickets  from  the  ticket  dis- 
tributors, went  to  the  "urns"  as  they  call  their  ballot  boxes;  and 
in  fact  did  about  everything  but  corrupt  the  French  elections  by 
smuggling  a  Yankee  ballot  into  the  box.  The  town  seemed  to  me 
almost  as  quiet  as  on  any  ordinary  day. 

September  23rd,  1889. 

Last  night  I  spent  driving  about  Paris  and  trying  to  find  how  it 
compared  with  New  York  on  the  evening  of  an  exciting  election. 
The  scenes  were  very  much  the  same  excepting  that  they  had  less 
disorder  and  more  soldiers.  A  line  of  cavalry  blocked  the  way 
across  the  Boulevard  de  I'Opera,  out  of  the  Place,  and  back  of  the 
cavalry  was  a  strong  line  of  infantry.  I  ran  against  similar  obstruc- 
tions in  two  or  three  similar  places; — in  fact  near  all  the  anti-Govern- 
ment newspaper  offices  of  importance.  But  the  crowds  were  in  the 
main  good-natured  and  very  polite. 

Once  or  twice,  especially  on  Montmartre,  the  red,  white  and  blue 
cockade*  attracted  attention  and  the  crowd  shouted  "ConstansI" 
Even  then  there  was  little  rudeness,  though  they  jeered  the  coach- 
man and  tried  to  find  the  monogram  or  arms  on  the  door. 

*  The  customary  colors  identifying  the  carriage  of  the  American  minister. 


MINISTER  TO   FRANCE  135 

The  result,  as  you  may  have  seen  from  the  papers,  is,  as  yet, 
indecisive.  Constans  himself  failed  of  a  majority  and  is  in  ballotage. 
So,  it  is  believed,  is  Clemenceau;  and,  oddly  enough,  so  is  Boulanger. 
As  it  looks  now  the  Government  seems  likely  to  have  a  majority  of 
the  next  Chamber,  but  a  reduced  one. 

September  24th,  1889. 
The  election  news  will  be  generally  considered  a  triumph  for  the 
Government.     The  Royalists  have  probably  made  shght  gains;  but 
the  Boulangists  have  not,  and  it  looks  as  if  Boulanger  were  used  up. 

September  26th,  1889. 
There  seems  to  be  no  doubt  now  in  the  minds  of  any  that  the 
Government  here  has  a  substantial  victory.  Certainly  the  disap- 
pointment of  the  Monarchists,  ImperiaHsts  and  Boulangists  is  over- 
whelming. The  "Figaro'*  is  busy  explaining  what  the  Republicans 
ought  now  to  do  to  consolidate  their  power  and  better  the  conditions 
of  France. 


CHAPTER  VIII 
POLITICS  IN  FRANCE 

The  American  minister  had  more  than  a  spectator's 
interest  in  the  French  elections.  The  results  they  pro- 
duced had  a  definite  bearing  upon  his  principal  diplo- 
matic problem,  the  French  policy  in  the  matter  of  Ameri- 
can pork.  When  this  commodity  was  excluded  from 
French  ports  in  1881  the  prohibitory  decree  was  based 
on  sanitary  grounds.  Our  pork  was  put  under  the  ban 
— unjustly — as  contributing  to  the  spread  of  trichinosis. 
This  fallacy  persisted  to  some  extent  down  into  the 
period  of  Reid's  dealings  with  the  subject,  but  by  that 
time  the  core  of  the  controversy  had  come  to  be  recog- 
nized for  what  it  was — one  essentially  economic.  Con- 
sidered in  that  hght  the  situation  had  grown  somewhat 
serious.  In  the  year  before  the  passage  of  the  decree 
just  mentioned,  the  exports  of  American  pork  products 
into  France  had  amounted  to  $3,900,000.  In  1889  they 
amounted  to  but  $5,000.  Where  the  rehabilitation  of 
this  trade  hinged  upon  political  conditions  in  France, 
the  trend  of  elections  and  the  composition  of  cabinets, 
was  in  the  mutations  these  things  registered  in  French 
tariff  pohcy.  The  tide  was  against  Reid  when  he  entered 
upon  his  task.  Tirard  was  a  premier  of  free-trade  pre- 
dilections, and  he  had  sympathizers  in  his  cabinet,  but 
more  of  his  colleagues  were  for  a  defensive  pohcy,  and 
the  Chamber  was  thoroughly  permeated  with  protection- 
ist ideas.  The  events  of  September  were  not,  on  the 
whole,  very  encouraging  to  American  interests.  M. 
SpuIIcr  told  Reid  frankly  that  the  question  between 
them  was  generally  considered  one  of  protection,  and 

136 


POLITICS   IN   FRANCE  137 

that  the  new  Chamber  was  more  strongly  protectionist 
than  its  predecessor.  To  that  extent  the  American  min- 
ister had  a  rather  unfavorable  report  to  make  to  Secre- 
tary Blaine  and  President  Harrison.  His  letters  to 
them,  however,  take  a  larger  scope. 

'The  year  1889  was  a  critical  one  for  the  republic.  The 
exposition  was  a  case  of  magnificent  window-dressing, 
obscuring  but  not  concealing  a  governmental  instability 
which  threatened  every  day  to  suffer  complete  disin- 
tegration amid  the  clash  of  parties.  There  were  mal- 
contents who  laughed  it  to  scorn  as  celebrating  the  prin- 
ciples of  1789.  They  appraised  it  rather  as  a  move  in 
the  game  of  opportunist  pohtics.  Doubtless  the  enter- 
prise had  its  ambiguous  aspects,  of  which  Reid  was  not 
unaware.  Writing  to  the  President  of  the  friendly  atti- 
tude on  the  pork  question  of  nearly  every  member  of 
Tirard's  cabinet,  he  adds:  "They  all  have  a  kindly  feel- 
ing also  because  of  our  attitude  towards  their  exposition 
while  Europe  was  boycotting  it; — and  on  their  success 
with  the  exposition  their  official  lives  depend."  Decid- 
edly the  fair  was  a  political  expedient  as  well  as  an  index 
to  the  national  prosperity  which  Reid's  observations 
everywhere  confirmed.  But  as  a  good  Republican  him- 
self he  rejoiced  to  mark  in  the  September  elections  the 
triumph  over  party  subversiveness  which  the  exposition, 
when  all  was  said,  really  symbolized.  That  the  monar- 
chical interests  stayed  away  did,  in  fact,  no  harm.  The 
principles  of  1789  were,  veritably,  in  the  saddle.  In  a 
long  letter  to  Mr.  Harrison,  which  I  append  in  condensed 
form,  Reid  sketched  the  leading  tendencies  in  a  notable 
moment  of  modern  French  history: 

Paris, 

\jt  \/t      T^  January  24th,  1890. 

My  dear  Mr.  President: 

The  only  really  important  piece  of  news  I  had  to  communicate 

was  intrusted  personally  to  Mr.  Russell  Harrison.     That  was  the 


138         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

message  from  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  given  some  months 
before  the  elections,  to  the  effect  that  the  Government  was  abso- 
lutely secure,  and  that  the  elections  would  show  the  utter  collapse 
of  Boulangism.  Events,  as  we  have  seen,  showed  how  thoroughly 
the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  knew  what  he  was  talking  about.  At 
the  same  time  a  candid  onlooker  must  confess  that  he  found  also 
distinct  signs  that  the  Government  knew  how  to  use,  and  did  use, 
its  tremendous  power  in  every  quarter  of  France  to  secure  its  vic- 
tory. 

Its  strength,  of  course,  lay  in  the  irreconcilable  interests  of  the 
mongrel  coalition  formed  against  it.  Imperialists,  Monarchists,  and 
the  more  reckless  Radicals,  who  formed  the  bulk  of  the  Boulangist 
party,  could,  of  course,  have  no  ideas  in  common  as  to  the  proper 
use  of  their  victory,  in  case  they '  should  win  one.  An  insidious 
effort  was  made  to  set  up  an  issue.  Instead  of  fighting  the  Repub- 
lic, which,  it  would  seem,  was  what  they  really  meant,  they  insisted 
that  their  immediate  aim  was  a  revision  of  the  constitution,  with  a 
view  of  securing  greater  stability  and  preventing  the  instant  over- 
throw of  the  Cabinet  at  every  fresh  gust  in  the  Chamber.  No  doubt 
many  of  the  Government  believe  that  such  a  revision  is  desirable; 
but  now  they  hesitate  to  take  any  steps  not  compelled  by  the  imme- 
diate necessities  of  the  hour.  Their  policy  now,  as  much  as  at  any 
previous  period,  is  best  described  by  their  own  word,  "Opportunist." 

In  a  word,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  the  Tirard  Cabinet,  which  is  already 
noted  as  unusually  long  lived,  has  a  fair  show  to  live  a  good  deal 
longer.  The  President  has  steadily  grown  in  popularity  and  strength 
since  last  May.  Even  some  of  the  Reactionary  Monarchists  now 
speak  well  of  him  as  a  respectable  man,  and  express  their  satisfaction 
that  France  no  longer  needs  to  be  ashamed  of  the  Elysee. 

The  Foreign  Minister  yesterday  confirmed  what  I  have  before 
reported  to  the  State  Department,  that  in  his  judgment  there  is 
very  little  hope  of  any  speedy  removal  of  the  present  prohibition  on 
American  pork,  on  account  of  the  strong  protection  feeling  in  the 
Chamber.  He  is  himself  warmly  in  favor  of  the  removal.  So  far 
as  I  can  make  out  there  is  little,  if  any,  positive  unfriendliness  to  the 
removal  in  the  Cabinet.  But  they  removed  it  once  only  to  have 
the  Chamber  immediately  restore  it.  Naturally  they  do  not  wish 
another  slip  of  that  kind  at  present,  and  as  far  as  any  of  them  have 
been  willing  to  express  an  opinion,  it  was  to  the  effect  that  they 
have  less  chance  with  this  Chamber  than  they  had  with  the  last. 

If  M.  Spuller  is  correct  in  his  opinion  as  to  the  probable  course  of 
the  Chamber,  then  at  present  negotiation  is  not  likely  to  do  much 
good.  They  have  heretofore,  however,  been  a  good  deal  afraid  of 
retaliation.     If  there  should  be  a  strong  movement  in  our  Congress 


POLITICS   IN   FRANCE  139 

towards  increasing  the  duty  on  wines,  and  if  some  of  the  speeches 
should  advocate  that  on  the  same  ground  on  which  they  base  their 
exclusion  of  American  pork,  viz:  the  unhealthfulness  of  the  product, 
it  might  have  a  good  effect.  Adulteration  of  French  wines  is,  of 
course,  notorious.  Some  documents  already  furnished  Congress  by 
the  State  Department  contain  a  good  deal  of  interesting  evidence 
about  it.  Possibly  a  higher  duty  on  silk  might  be  judiciously  pro- 
posed at  the  same  time.  The  moment  the  French  Chamber  became 
convinced  that  there  is  a  real  probabiHty  of  such  legislation  they 
would  be  deluged  with  protests  and  complaints  from  their  constitu- 
ents. If  we  could  then  approach  the  Government  with  a  suggestion 
that  the  best  way  to  avoid  the  threatened  action  of  Congress  would 
be  to  show  a  rational  spirit  on  the  subject  of  pork,  and  if  we  could 
add  that  prompt  and  friendly  action  on  this  subject  might  lead  to 
a  law  admitting  French  pictures  free,  there  might  be  a  better  chance 
for  reaching  a  satisfactory  result  than  at  present. 

The  French  commercial  treaties  with  Germany  and  other  countries 
expire  by  hmitation  in  about  two  years.  There  is  obviously  a  set- 
tled purpose  not  to  renew  these  treaties  but  to  adopt  instead  a 
strong,  general,  protective  tariff. 

Faithfully  yours,  .,,  „ 

^  ^  Whitelaw  Reid. 


There  was  nothing  to  be  done  in  Paris  as  regarded  the 
tariff  situation  that  winter  save  to  wait  with  patience 
for  a  favorable  opening,  so  it  was  in  December  that  the 
Reids  went  south  for  a  holiday  on  the  Riviera  and  below. 
They  drove  in  an  open  landau  along  the  Corniche  from 
Nice  to  Genoa,  and  then  went  straight  on  to  Naples  for 
a  week  of  warm  weather.  They  returned  by  way  of 
Rome  and  Turin,  getting  back  to  Paris  for  the  New 
Year's  reception  at  the  Elysee  and  a  crowded  season. 
Reid  was  planning  then  for  a  leave  of  absence  of  some 
weeks  to  be  spent  at  home  in  the  early  spring.  The 
Tribune  was  to  celebrate  its  fiftieth  anniversary  on  the 
loth  of  April,  and  J.  Q.  A.  Ward  expected  to  finish  in 
time  for  it  the  bronze  statue  of  Horace  Greeley  which 
he  had  been  commissioned  to  execute  for  a  site  under 
one  of  the  arches  of  the  paper's  building.  A  letter  of 
Reid's  to  Walter  Phelps  at  Berlin  contains  some  striking 


140         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

reflections  on  the  speech  he  was  meditating  for  the  occa- 
sion. ''I  have  long  thought,"  he  said,  **of  taking  this, 
or  some  other  suitable  occasion,  for  a  word  on  the  real 
relations  of  -Greeley,  Chase  and  Seward  to  the  anti- 
slavery  movement,  as  compared  with  the  status  of  the 
Boston  sentimentalists.  Garrison  and  Phillips.  The  lat- 
ter confined  themselves  to  denunciation,  and  to  the 
work  which  was  easiest,  since  all  for  which  they  could 
seem  really  to  claim  authorship  was  the  arraying  of  the 
churches  and  of  both  political  parties  for  a  long  time 
against  their  anti-slavery  movement.  The  others  con- 
fined themselves  to  practical  work,  and  to  political  agen- 
cies. To  the  practical  men  who  did  the  work,  should 
go,  in  my  opinion,  the  great  honor.  The  brilliant  talkers 
have  already  had  more  than  they  deserve,  and  will  be 
less  and  less  esteemed,  while  the  fame  of  the  workers 
will  grow.  To  say  this  as  tersely  and  bluntly  as  I  would 
like  would  arouse  a  storm  of  dissent.  Is  it  true  in  the 
broadest  and  justest  sense,  and,  if  true,  is  it  wise  to  say 
it  now?"  He  wanted  to  analyze  Greeley's  life  as  hav- 
ing been  essentially  summed  up  in  a  struggle  for  two 
classes,  the  poor  negroes  and  the  poor  whites.  For  the 
latter  Greeley  had  championed  a  homestead  law,  had 
urged  railroads  and  all  other  means  of  developing  the 
West,  and  by  all  the  means  in  his  power  he  had  en- 
couraged emigration  to  that  region,  "Go  West,  young 
man,"  being  the  slogan  for  a  deeply  constructive  cam- 
paign. He  had  done  his  best,  also,  to  assure  living 
wages  to  these  people  by  a  lifelong  advocacy  of  the 
protective  tarifi*,  and  he  had  sought  to  insure  safety  and 
happiness  for  their  families  by  popularizing  temperance 
and  education.  Reid  was  sure,  as  he  said,  that  the  lib- 
eration of  his  *'  practical  "  ideas  would  create  a  storm, 
but  he  felt  equally  sure  that  the  protestants  would  be 
chiefly  Mugwumps  or  Democrats,  **and  it  would  be  a 


POLITICS   IN   FRANCE  141 

solid  satisfaction  to  show  that  class  that  the  claims  to 
consideration  of  the  ancestors  of  some  of  them  were  as 
flimsy  as  their  own.  It  would  also  be  a  satisfaction  to 
pursue  the  thought  and  show  the  diff*erence  between 
practical  politicians  now,  who  do  things,  and  the  Mug- 
wumps who  merely  denounce  things."  It  was  Ward's 
fault  that  the  storm  did  not  break.  The  statue  was  not 
finished  in  time.  The  provocative  speech  was  not  even 
drawn  up.  What  Reid  contemplated  saying  in  it  is  of 
interest  as  illustrating  the  point  of  view  of  a  man  who 
had  grown  up  during  the  anti-slavery  movement  and  had 
witnessed  the  Civil  War  at  first-hand. 

It  was  one  of  the  great  pleasures  of  this  European 
period  of  his  that  he  could  have  a  frequent  exchange  of 
thoughts  with  Walter  Phelps,  on  the  anti-slavery  move- 
ment and  innumerable  other  topics.  Phelps  was  now  in 
Berlin  as  minister,  his  letters  suggesting  that  a  winter 
in  the  German  capital  was  "almost  a  cause  of  suicide," 
but  giving  along  with  this  impression  much  piquant 
comment  on  people  and  things.  He  was  ever  a  devoted 
'* Tribune  man,"  and  matters  journalistic  as  well  as  diplo- 
matic engaged  his  attention.  *'I  have  got  intimate  with 
Bismarck  and  these  tough  old  dignitaries,"  he  said, 
"and  discovered  how  even  they  are  recognizing  the  in- 
significance of  any  individual,  less  than  an  Emperor, 
against  the  power  of  the  press."  In  another  glimpse  of 
the  Iron  Chancellor  he  adds  a  rather  unexpected  char- 
acterization of  him:  "The  Prince  was  simple  and  gentle 
and  kind."  This  was  in  February,  1890,  when  the 
Samoan  treaty  was  ratified  in  the  United  States  Senate, 
and  Bismarck  had  invited  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Phelps  to  a 
dinner  to  celebrate  the  event.  A  month  later,  when  he 
broke  with  the  Emperor  and  resigned  his  office,  it  is  pos- 
sible that  his  demeanor  was  less  gentle  and  bland.  Reid 
had   many   opportunities   to   talk   German   politics   and 


142         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

affairs  with  one  of  the  most  intimate  of  his  colleagues  in 
the  diplomatic  corps  in  Paris,  the  German  ambassador, 
Count  Munster.  Also  they  talked  sport,  having  in 
common  an  enthusiasm  for  the  horse.  Munster  was 
one  of  the  great  horse-breeders  of  Hanover,  and  a  devoted 
rider.  Long  afterward  Reid  recited  with  feeling  the 
picturesque  experience  he  owed  to  this  noted  fancier. 
He  had  ridden  horses  all  his  life,  he  said,  nearly  every- 
thing, in  fact,  that  goes  on  four  legs,  not  forgetting  a 
bucking  Arizona  bronco,  but  the  animal  that  gave  him 
something  to  do  was  a  Hanoverian  steed  that  he  almost 
but  not  quite  bought  from  Munster.  He  took  the  horse 
out  to  try  it  in  Paris  one  morning,  and  after  leaving  the 
Arc  de  Triomphe  it  bolted  three  several  times.  Reid 
got  the  beast  into  the  Bois  finally,  and  rode  for  an  hour 
or  so,  but  then  it  bolted  again,  and  this  time  went  hke 
a  shot  from  the  Bois  to  the  Arc,  straight  through  the 
crowd  of  fashionable  equestrians  who  were  out  at  eleven 
o'clock  in  the  morning.  The  American  minister  had  for 
a  moment  the  hair-raising  prospect  of  being  held  re- 
sponsible for  several  deaths,  including  his  own.  He  con- 
cluded that  the  Hanoverian  horse  had  a  mouth. 

Riding  was,  on  the  whole,  his  sole  open-air  relaxation 
in  Paris,  but  he  had  an  amusing  day's  shooting  in  the 
presidential  preserves  at  Rambouillet,  in  the  description 
of  which  he  gives  a  full  picture  of  a  characteristic  French 
function : 

Paris, 
My  dear  Mr.  Mills:  January  31st,  1890. 

Perhaps  it  would  amuse  you  to  have  a  little  account  of  my  first 
experience  in  shooting.  Arrayed  in  knickerbockers  and  leggings, 
but  pretty  well  concealed  in  my  big  astrakhan  coat,  I  presented  my- 
self at  the  Montparnasse  station,  and  was  cordially  welcomed  by 
Colonel  Lichtenstein,  of  the  military  household  of  the  Elysee,  and 
by  young  Carnot,  the  President's  eldest  son.  These  two  came  to 
represent  the  President,  who  has  not  yet  quite  recovered  his  strength 
after  his  attack  of  the  grippe.     The  party  consisted  of  Count  Mun- 


POLITICS   IN  FRANCE  143 

ster,  the  German  Ambassador;  Count  Moltke-Hatzfeldt,  the  Danish 
Minister;  Ramon  Fernandez,  the  Mexican  Minister;  Baron  de 
Tucher,  the  Bavarian;  Count  Foucher  de  Careil,  formerly  ambassa- 
dor in  Italy,  I  think,  and  now  senator,  and  a  French  deputy  whose 
name  escapes  me. 

It  took  an  hour  to  run  out  to  Rambouillet.  Carriages  met  us 
there,  and  after  a  rapid  drive  through  the  town  we  entered  the 
grounds  of  an  old  castle  which  dates  from  the  fifteenth  century  and 
is  still  in  a  fine  state  of  preservation.  Instead  of  stopping  at  this 
as  I  expected,  we  drove  on  for  about  half  a  mile  through  the  grounds 
until  we  reached  what  seemed  to  be  barracks  for  the  soldiers  in 
charge  of  the  national  property,  and  a  house  which  seemed  to  be 
the  head-quarters  of  the  commandant,  and  possibly,  also,  of  the 
chief  game-keeper.  A  young  officer  of  Hussars  in  their  exceedingly 
neat  black-braided  uniform,  bordered  with  astrakhan  fur,  saluted 
us  as  we  alighted,  and  the  servants  immediately  grasped  our  over- 
coats and  conducted  us  to  our  rooms.  We  were  hardly  given  time 
to  wash  the  dust  from  our  faces  when  breakfast  was  announced. 
This  was  arranged  as  ceremoniously  as  if  it  was  a  dinner  at  the 
Elysee.  Within  a  few  minutes  after  breakfast  the  officer  had  us  in 
our  carriages  again,  driving  rapidly  toward  the  forest,  followed  by 
a  big  omnibus  carrying  the  servants  with  the  guns  and  ammunition. 

Presently  we  were  stopped  at  a  point  where  the  road  ran  for  per- 
haps a  hundred  yards  along  the  side  of  a  thick  wood;  the  wood, 
however,  was  only  about  a  hundred  yards  deep.  Beyond  it  were 
open  fields  with  a  quite  thick  growth  of  underbrush.  Forty  or  fifty 
beaters,  in  long  white  blouses,  each  wearing  his  number  on  his  cap 
and  carrying  a  stout  stick  in  his  hand,  were  stationed  on  the  further 
side  of  this  open  field.  The  officer  stationed  each  of  us  at  a  particu- 
lar point  along  the  road  facing  the  wood.  When  arranged  we  were 
in  a  line  covering  the  whole  of  the  front  of  the  wood,  and  no  one 
more  than  from  ten  to  fifteen  yards  distant  from  his  neighbor. 
Finally  a  bugle  on  our  side  sounded.  A  moment  later  an  answering 
bugle  was  heard  from  the  line  of  beaters,  and  then  as  far  as  we  could 
see  or  hear,  everything  was  silent  for  a  few  moments.  Then  through 
the  openings  in  the  woods  we  could  see  the  pheasants  beginning  to 
run  back  and  forth: — the  line  of  beaters  had  begun  to  advance 
toward  us.  They  came  very  slowly,  using  their  sticks  to  make  a 
noise  in  the  bushes  and  occasionally  to  poke  into  the  thick  clumps. 
Within,  say,  four  or  five  minutes  after  the  first  note  of  the  bugle 
the  first  pheasants  flew  over  us.  In  a  moment  or  two  there  must 
have  been  half  a  dozen.  The  most  went  to  my  right  down  the  line. 
Several  were  brought  down  immediately  by  Count  Munstcr  and 
Count  Moltke.     Presently  one  came  my  way,  within  rather  long 


'> 


144        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

range.  I  thought  the  chance  was  against  me,  fired,  and  as  luck 
would  have  it  brought  down  my  bird. 

After  the  woods  had  been  thoroughly  beaten,  we  faced  about  and 
went  over  another  common  with  the  line  of  beaters  behind  us,  keep- 
ing in  the  same  nespective  positions  in  nearly  all  cases.  The  officer 
of  Hussars  accompanied  us  and  put  each  man  in  his  place.  Then 
we  took  carriages  again  and  drove  for  a  mile  or  more,  stopping  at 
last  in  the  midst  of  a  thick  forest,  where  the  road  seemed  to  cut  it 
in  two.  At  either  end  of  the  wood  in  the  open  fields  beyond  were 
men  with  bright  colored  flags.  The  officer  stationed  us  along  the 
road,  but  at  much  greater  distance  apart.  The  beaters  also  seemed 
to  be  a  third  of  a  mile  away,  or  possibly  more.  We  could  scarcely 
hear  their  bugle  in  answer  to  ours.  After  waiting  five  or  ten  min- 
utes, however,  we  could  sight  a  deer  steafing  through  the  edge  of 
the  wood,  and  when  startled  by  the  bright  flags  there,  turning  and 
coming  toward  us  with  long  high  jumps.  He  brought  a  shot  from 
the  extreme  end  of  the  line  but  escaped  into  the  woods  behind.  Two 
or  three  more  came  presently  and  before  the  beaters  had  reached 
us,  something  fike  twenty  or  thirty  deer  must  have  made  the  attempt 
to  break  past  our  fine  into  the  woods  behind  us.  Two  came  within 
my  range.  I  succeeded  in  getting  one  but  had  to  empty  both  bar- 
rels for  him.  When  he  fell  I  found  that  I  had  struck  him  on  the 
foreleg  and  in  the  chest.  He  was  a  young  buck,  and  looked  quite 
well,  in  my  eyes  at  least,  when  he  was  brought  out  of  the  woods 
and  laid  at  my  stand.  The  German  Ambassador  got  two  deer  dur- 
ing the  same  run,  the  Danish  Minister  also  got  two,  and  one  or  two 
others  one  apiece. 

The  German  and  Danish  representatives  shot  about  two  to  my 
one,  the  Bavarian  a  little  more  than  myself,  and  some  of  the  rest 
considerably  less.  Count  Munster,  who  had  stood  near  me  at  most 
of  the  stands  and  had  been  polite  enough  several  times  to  express 
his  approval  of  my  shooting,  confided  to  me  on  his  way  back  that 
it  had  behooved  me  to  make  a  fair  record  since  the  other  representa- 
tive of  my  continent  had  not.  "In  fact,"  said  he  in  a  good  humored 
burst,  "  I  don't  believe  the  Mexican  shot  anything  all  day,  except  a 

Affectionately  yours,  ^  ^ 

The  next  note  of  interest  in  Reid's  correspondence  is, 
again,  the  political  one.  It  was  in  this  winter  that  there 
occurred  a  cabinet  crisis  of  great  importance  to  his 
negotiations.  M.  Tirard,  who  was  slated  to  go  out,  was 
certain  to  take  with  him  considerable  free-trade  influence, 


POLITICS   IN   FRANCE  145 

and  on  his  exit  the  protectionist  leanings  of  the  Chamber 
would  inevitably  be  strengthened.  The  situation  prom- 
ised greater  difficulties  in  the  solution  of  Reid's  tariff 
problem.  He  was  not  to  learn  of  the  definitive  phase  of 
the  crisis,  as  it  happened,  until  he  reached  New  York  on 
a  brief  leave  of  absence — it  developed  three  days  after  he 
had  sailed  from  France — but  he  witnessed  some  of  the 
preliminary  developments.  His  account  of  them  reflects 
the  color  and  movement  of  life  in  the  Chamber  and  dis- 
closes the  typical  political  fluidity  with  which  he  had 
to  reckon: 

Paris, 

,,  ,,      ,,  '  March  7th,  1800. 

My  dear  Mr.  Mills:  ^ 

For  a  week  or  two  the  air  has  been  filled  with'  stories  of  dissen- 
sions in  the  Cabinet,  controversies  between  M.  Tirard  and  M.  Con- 
stans,  hostility  to  M.  SpuIIer,  a  general  tendency  inside  the  Cabinet  to 
explode,  and  a  general  determination  outside  to  break  it  down.  Things 
came  to  a  head  inside  in  a  controversy  about  the  appointment  of  a 
judge  to  one  of  the  highest  courts.  M.  Tirard  favored  the  appoint- 
ment of  a  former  Minister  of  Justice.  M.  Constans  surprised  some 
of  his  critics  by  insisting  on  the  most  rigorous  Civil  Service  theory  of 
promotion  from  among  the  highest  officers  already  on  the  Bench. 
Some  sort  of  a  scene  occurred,  in  the  midst  of  which  M.  Constans 
tendered  his  resignation,  rose,  offered  his  hand  to  the  President, 
and  left  the  room,  in  spite  of  entreaties  that  he  would  remain.  M. 
Tirard  then  tendered  his  resignation,  which  was  refused.  The  Cabi- 
net acted  with  promptness  and  as  it  would  now  appear  with  wisdom 
in  selecting  as  successor  M.  Bourgeois,  a  strong  Radical,  whose 
appearance  as  Minister  of  the  Interior  somewhat  consoled  the  ultra 
radicals  for  the  disappearance  of  Constans. 

From  the  outside  came  the  inevitable  interpellation  in  the  Cham- 
ber. I  went  early  but  found  the  Diplomatic  Gallery  well  filled, 
Count  Munster,  Count  Hoyos  and  M.  Leon  y  Castillo  in  the  Am- 
bassadors' seats  and  a  number  of  Ministers  in  the  others,  besides  a 
crowd  of  attaches.  The  speeches  made  on  the  interpellation  were 
comparatively  quiet.  When  M.  Tirard  took  the  tribune  to  reply 
he  was  received  at  first  with  solemn  silence;  when  he  said  that  the 
resignation  of  M.  Constans  was  purely  a  personal  course  and  that 
he  himself  regretted  it,  the  Chamber  burst  into  a  storm  of  con- 
temptuous laughter;  and  from  that  time  on,  every  sentence  M. 
Tirard   uttered   was   greeted   with   shouts   of  derision    and   jeering 


146         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

replies,  not  only  from  the  Royalists  but  from  the  very  heart  of  the 
Radical  camp.  The  scene  was  actually  pitiable.  When  he  left  the 
tribune  he  did  not  seem  to  have  a  friend  in  the  Chamber. 

The  new  man  to  be  in  Constans'  place,  M.  Bourgeois,  then  took 
the  tribune.  The  contrast  between  his  reception  and  that  given 
to  Tirard  must  Rave  been  galling  to  the  last  degree.  Bourgeois 
spoke  well  and  with  absolute  independence,  apparently,  of  the  rest 
of  the  Cabinet — announced  his  programme  as  if  he  had  been  a  Min- 
ister for  years  instead  of  for  hours,  and  played  directly  into  the 
hands  of  the  Extreme  Radicals  to  whom  he  belongs.  They  received 
his  speech  with  tumultuous  applause  and  as  he  left  the  tribune  he 
fairly  had  an  ovation.  The  debate  was  continued  chiefly  by  Re- 
pubHcans  of  various  shades,  all  of  whom  united  in  attacking  the 
Ministry,  denouncing  it  for  lack  of  policy,  lack  of  courage,  lack  of 
leadership,  and  for  allowing  itself  to  be  "decapitated**  by  the  dis- 
appearance of  its  ablest  member.  M.  Ribot  and  M.  Clemenceau 
both  made  strong  speeches  which,  though  not  quite  so  violent  as 
some  of  the  others,  were  distinctly  and  almost  savagely  hostile. 

The  cHmax  was  reached  when  M.  Paul  de  Cassagnac,  the  fiery 
Bonapartist  and  hero  of  so  many  duels,  took  the  tribune.  He  de- 
nounced the  Ministry  as  the  most  worthless  and  impotent  with 
which  France  had  ever  been  cursed;  sneered  at  M.  Tirard  as  having 
already  abdicated  his  position  and  yielded  the  real  authority  to 
speak  for  the  Government  to  his  colleague  of  twenty-four  hours* 
standing,  M.  Bourgeois;  declared  that  the  new  man  was  the  real 
President  of  the  Council,  or  rather  that  there  were  two  Presidents 
of  the  Council,  one  of  whom  clung  to  the  name,  while  the  other  one 
already  enjoyed  the  power,  asserted  the  authority  and  was  recog- 
nized by  the  Chamber.  He  described  the  Ministry  as  having  lost 
its  head  when  Constans  went  out.  The  whole  speech  bristled  with 
the  most  exasperating  sneers  of  this  sort,  and  strangely  enough  it 
was  received  with  howls  of  dehght. 

At  last  came  the  vote,  and  then  we  had  one  of  those  bewildering 
surprises  which  make  French  poHtics  such  a  fascinating  uncertainty 
even  to  the  close  student  of  them.  Count  Munster  had  said  to  me 
half  a  dozen  times  during  the  debate,  "the  Cabinet  will  surely  fall,** 
"this  will  surely  bring  it  down,'*  "it  must  be  defeated  on  this  vote,** 
etc.,  etc.  Every  experienced  diplomat  around  me  seemed  to  have 
the  same  view.  Only  just  at  the  close  we  began  to  notice  a  change 
and  it  was  whispered  that  perhaps  the  Radicals  were  going  to  save 
the  Government  after  all  for  the  sake  of  protecting  their  new  man, 
M.  Bourgeois.  Sure  enough,  when  the  vote  was  counted,  it  was 
seen  that  the  Extreme  Radicals  had  not  voted  at  all.  The  right 
had  of  course  voted  against  the  Government,  and  the  Moderate 


POLITICS   IN   FRANCE  147 

Republicans  had  voted  for  it.  The  Government  thus  had  a  majority 
of  49,  and  poor  M.  Tirard,  after  having  been  flouted  and  insulted  by 
his  own  party  in  a  way  that  would  seem  impossible  in  any  other 
Government  in  the  world,  was  actually  kept  in  office  by  these  same 

Affectionately  yours,  ^^  P 


The  majority  vote,  though  consoling  to  M.  Tirard, 
was  generally  regarded  as  only  postponing  the  crisis, 
and  Reid  went  to  the  next  meeting  of  the  Chamber  with 
expectations  of  tension  which  were  not  disappointed. 
M.  SpuIIer,  the  foreign  minister,  was  this  time  looked 
upon  as  the  probable  victim.  With  Count  Munster  he 
had  been  discussing  the  proposals  of  the  French  Govern- 
ment as  to  the  forthcoming  labor  conference  at  BerHn, 
and  he  faced  an  interpellation  concerning  the  sending 
of  delegates.  The  Boulangist  who  opened  the  debate 
drew  down  upon  himself  the  wrath  of  even  his  own  allies 
by  allusions  having  an  interest  to  this  day.  He  exposed 
the  weakness  of  France  in  her  supply  of  coal,  the  same 
w^eakness  of  which  we  heard  so  much  in  the  late  war. 
Germany  was  aware  of  it  in  1890,  as  she  was  quarter  of 
a  century  later.  When  the  speaker  explained  that  if 
the  hours  of  labor  were  shortened  in  France  the  country 
could  not  get  coal  enough,  Count  Munster  turned  to  the 
American  minister  and  whispered:  **That  is  true,  and 
that  is  what  makes  them  so  mad  at  him  for  telling  it." 
In  the  upshot  SpuIIer  won.  He  made  a  speech  which 
swiftly  obtained  the  respectful  attention  of  the  whole 
Chamber  and  wound  up  amid  cheers.  They  were  cheers 
for  the  solidarity  of  all  parties  in  a  matter  being  debated 
across  the  frontier.  The  irrepressible  Paul  de  Cassagnac 
interrupted  the  calls  for  the  cloture  by  rushing  into  the 
tribune  and  declaring  that  on  an  occasion  involving  a 
question  of  foreign  policy  they  were  all  Frenchmen,  and 
that  the   man  did   not  comprehend  the  situation  who 


148         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

imagined  that  in  the  face  of  the  issue  presented  by 
M.  SpuIIer  there  was  any  majority  or  any  minority. 
Again  the  government  was  nominally  secure.  The  Rad- 
icals, who  were  bent  on  overturning  the  ministry,  saw 
that  it  wouIcT  not  do  to  attempt  it  on  a  question  of 
foreign  pohcy. 

While  Reid  regarded  the  vote  as  strengthening  SpuIIer, 
personally,  he  continued  to  look  for  the  early  overthrow 
of  the  government.  His  comments  on  the  situation 
sketch  the  prospect,  and  his  own  concern  in  it.  **  No- 
body believes,"  he  wrote  to  Mr.  Mills,  **that  the  Minis- 
try can  last  very  long;  and  unless  a  great  change  comes, 
the  next  one  will  be  overwhelmingly  Protectionist.  It 
will  be  friendly  enough  to  us,  no  doubt,  but  will  do  little 
if  anything  for  us,  about  pork,— will  be  less  likely  to 
than  the  present  Cabinet.  There  were  one  or  two  curi- 
ous things  to  note  on  the  floor  of  the  Chamber  during 
the  uproar.  Poor  Tirard  sat  on  the  front  bench,  beside 
SpuIIer,  and  witnessed  every  phase  of  his  colleague's 
triumph  on  the  very  spot  where  he  had  been  himself 
flouted  and  morally  broken  down.  De  Freycinet  had 
been  too  ill — and  people  smile  when  they  tell  it — to 
attend  the  Cabinet  meeting  when  Constans  and  Tirard 
quarrelled,  or  to  appear  in  the  Chamber  when  the  mat- 
ter was  discussed.  But  he  found  his  way  to  the  Cham- 
ber today  just  after  SpuHer's  speech,  and  sat  down  be- 
side the  man  they  credit  him  with  the  desire  of  sup- 
planting. He  does  look  feeble.  Clemenceau  watched 
everything  like  a  hawk,  but  did  not  once  rise  or  open  his 
mouth.  He  had  shared  most  actively  in  the  demonstra- 
tion against  Tirard,  and  he  has  predicted  the  downfall 
of  SpuIIer.'*  The  predictions  of  M.  Clemenceau,  touch- 
ing the  comings  and  goings  of  cabinets,  were  always 
weighty.  In  the  middle  of  March  the  premiership  passed 
from  M.  Tirard  to  M.  de  Freycinet,  M.  Constans  formed 
part  of  the  new  ministry,  and  M.  SpuIIer,  as  specifically 


POLITICS   IN   FRANCE  149 

forecast  by  ''the  Tiger,"  ceased  to  be  foreign  minister. 
He  gave  way  to  M.  Ribot.  The  latter  ranked  as  a  mod- 
erate protectionist.  Married  to  an  American  wife,  and 
in  warm  sympathy  with  our  people  and  institutions,  he 
proved  a  by  no  means  complaisant  but  still  very  friendly 
minister  with  whom  to  deal  in  what  he  was  wont  to  call 
r affaire  des  petits  cochons. 

The  ramifications  of  that  affair  were  numerous  in  the 
extreme  and  led  through  statistical  and  legislative  tracts 
which  would  hardly  repay  exploration  now.  I  may  sum- 
marize briefly  the  campaign  through  which  the  Ameri- 
can minister  brought  M.  Ribot  to  his  way  of  thinking. 
It  was  somewhat  complicated,  as  he  found  on  a  flying 
visit  home  in  the  spring  of  1890,  by  provisions  in  the 
McKinley  administrative  bill  then  pending,  which  wxre 
scarcely  calculated  to  please  the  French.  Reid  took  ad- 
vantage of  the  opportunity  to  discuss  the  matter  with 
his  own  people  at  close  range,  primed  Blaine,  and  sought 
the  good  offices  of  John  Sherman  in  the  Senate.  Re- 
turned to  Paris,  he  had  frequent  conferences  with  M. 
Ribot  in  which  the  relation  of  French  wines  and  of 
French  works  of  art  to  the  American  tariff*  were  not 
neglected.  The  going  was  not  easy.  "They  are  now  all 
scolding  about  the  McKinley  bifls,"  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Mills  that  summer,  ''and  threatening  retaliation."  He 
brought  up  the  question  of  retaliation  himself,  from  the 
American  point  of  view,  making  it  serve  as  a  delicate 
hint  in  a  long  letter  to  M.  Ribot  which  was  published 
shortly  afterward  through  action  of  the  United  States 
Senate  in  calling  for  the  correspondence  on  the  subject. 
Satisfactory  results  from  these  negotiations  began  to 
take  shape  in  the  fall,  when  the  struggle  with  the  gov- 
ernment was  virtually  over.  By  the  summer  of  1891 
the  cabinet  was  well  committed  to  a  tariff  measure  in- 
volving the  prompt  withdrawal  of  the  prohibitory  decree, 
and   a    favorable  vote  was  obtained    in   the   Chamber. 


150        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Action  in  the  Senate  was  subject  to  some  little  delay, 
and  in  the  interim  an  interesting  effect  ensued.  Ger- 
many took  the  hint  given  by  the  demonstration  in  the 
lower  house.^  All  along  she  had  been  sending  to  the 
American  minister  and  to  others  to  find  out  what  France 
was  going  to  do,  and  when  it  would  be  done.  She  acted 
with  alacrity  on  the  vote  in  the  Chamber,  rushing  in 
to  get  the  credit  of  being  the  first  to  let  down  the  bars 
against  American  pork.  Reid  seized  the  point  to  clinch 
matters  with  M.  Ribot.  "I  have  dwelt  on  the  desira- 
bility of  doing  the  thing  handsomely,"  he  wrote  to  Presi- 
dent Harrison,  "when  they  have  made  up  their  minds 
to  do  it;  and  I  once  told  M.  Ribot  that  their  course  was 
not  French  at  all;  that  France  was  not  accustomed  to 
let  Germany  lead  it,  and  that  when  the  French  did  a 
thing  it  was  a  national  characteristic  to  do  it  gracefully. 
I  could  see  that  this  went  home."  His  diplomacy  went 
home  not  only  with  Ribot  but  with  other  members  of 
the  government  and  with  numerous  deputies.  He  made 
friends  for  the  measure  of  Constans,  Rouvier,  Meline, 
Jules  Ferry,  Felix  Faure,  and  scores  of  their  colleagues. 
Jules  Siegfried  was  especially  helpful  to  him.  Reid  won 
over  the  opposition  till  an  unusual  friendliness  prevailed. 
On  December  5th,  1891,  the  lifting  of  the  prohibitory 
decree  marked  a  truly  cordial  reopening  of  the  ports  of 
France  to  an  important  American  commodity.  This 
success  had,  too,  a  more  than  local  implication.  The 
decisive  vote  in  the  Chamber,  as  I  have  noted,  had  accel- 
erated German  action,  and  it  was  not  without  influence 
upon  similar  legislation  in  Denmark  and  Italy.  The 
secretary  of  state  wrote  thus : 

Stanwood 
Bar  Harbor 
My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  August  4th,  1891. 

Accept  my  congratulations  upon  the  successful  conclusion  of  the 
pork  question.     It  has  been  one  of  the  most  vexatious  subjects  that 


POLITICS   IN   FRANCE  151 

any  minister  has  had  to  deal  with  and  you  have  conducted  it  wisely 
from  the  beginning.  You  have  shown  patience,  perseverance  and 
great  tact  at  every  stage  of  the  negotiation. 

Very  sincerely  yours,       J^mes  G.  Bl\ine. 

Along  with  his  negotiations  over  the  pork  question  in 
their  later  stages  Reid  also  secured  the  adhesion  of  the 
French  Government  to  a  convention  of  commercial  reci- 
procity Involving  certain  other  staples.  In  recognition 
of  our  giving  free  admission  to  tvvo  or  three  products  of 
French  or  French-Colonial  origin,  a  number  of  our  own 
commodities  were  listed  for  admission  into  France  under 
the  minimum  duties  of  a  rather  portentous  tariff  system. 
Reid  was  never  inclined  to  overestimate  the  importance 
of  this  little  treaty,  to  which  he  obtained  M.  Carnot's 
signature  just  before  he  returned  to  America  in  the 
spring  of  1892,  but  neither  did  he  regard  as  easy  the 
long  discussions  through  which  he  was  able  to  further  its 
interests  with  M.  Jules  Roche,  the  minister  of  commerce. 
When  the  French  went  in  for  protection  they  did  so  with 
a  whole-heartedness  staggering  even  to  the  advocate  of 
a  kindred  principle  in  American  policy.  The  definitive 
bill  toward  which  the  Chamber  of  Deputies  was  moving 
all  through  the  American  minister's  term  in  Paris,  and 
passed  in  his  last  year  there,  advanced  the  duties  on 
some  commodities  as  much  as  400  per  cent.  With  a 
spirit  like  that  abroad  in  French  tariff  legislation,  such 
a  degree  of  reciprocity  as  he  achieved  required  a  dispro- 
portionate amount  of  hard  work. 

The  other  treaty  with  which  he  was  concerned,  that 
on  extradition,  was  even  more  difficult  to  arrange.  It 
was  projected  as  early  as  May,  1890.  In  the  preceding 
March  President  Harrison  had  proclaimed  the  new  ex- 
tradition convention  between  the  United  States  and 
Great  Britain  supplementing  the  old  Ashburton-Webster 
treaty   of    1842.     Our   extradition   treaty   with    France, 


152         THE  LIFE  OF'  WHITELAW  REID 

dating  from  a  year  later,  had  twice  been  supplemented, 
in  1845  and  in  1858,  but  the  three  documents  contained 
altogether  only  ten  specifications  of  crime,  far  fewer  than 
existed  in  thg  treaties  with  Great  Britain,  Spain,  Bel- 
gium, Japan,  and  other  countries.  President  Harrison 
and  Secretary  Blaine  desired  to  bring  all  the  extradition 
treaties  of  the  United  States  up  to  date,  and  as  a  contri- 
bution to  this  end  a  draft  of  a  new  treaty  with  France 
was  sent  to  Reid,  with  instructions  to  forward  its  accep- 
tance as  quickly  as  possible.  It  took  him  nearly  two 
years  to  put  the  matter  thrpugh  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay. 
Not  until  December,  1891,  did  he  begin  to  see  light 
there.  "The  treaty  negotiation  has  been  kept  back,"  he 
then  wrote  to  Blaine,  *' because  Ribot,  years  ago,  pre- 
pared a  bill  covering  extradition  questions,  which  got 
through  one  house.  He  has  now  given  up  hope  of  its 
getting  through  the  other,  and  so  is  willing  to  negotiate." 
WilHngness  aided,  but  was  long  in  clarifying  the  task  of 
arriving  at  a  mutual  understanding.  Reid  found  that 
the  French  civil  code  and  our  American  criminal  law, 
based  on  the  old  English  law,  were  very  different  insti- 
tutions, and  that  with  varying  definitions  of  crime  in  the 
two  it  was  a  heavy  task  to  harmonize  them.  Mere 
nomenclature  made  a  formidable  stumbling-block.  The 
Legation's  counsel  had  his  hands  full  clearing  out  a  dense 
thicket  of  technical  terms.  In  Reid's  various  reports  on 
the  negotiations  there  is  nowhere  a  more  concisely  ex- 
pressive passage  than  this  one — "The  discussion  for  fix- 
ing the  exact  text  of  the  instrument  in  both  languages 
was  elaborate  and  protracted."     Protracted,  indeed. 


CHAPTER  IX 
SULTAN,  KHEDIVE,  AND  EMPRESS 

In  a  world  subject  to  the  gusty  fluctuations  of  French 
politics  the  burdens  of  treaty-making  were  relieved  by 
occasional  absences  from  Paris.  I  have  mentioned  an 
excursion  along  the  Riviera  and  into  Italy,  and  a  short 
visit  home.  In  the  winter  of  1890  the  Reids  went  to 
Constantinople  and  spent  about  two  months  in  Turkey 
and  Egypt.  Dana  had  been  at  the  Avenue  Hoche  not 
long  before,  and  with  him  they  had  discussed  their 
probable  itinerary'.  To  him,  when  the  journey  was  over, 
Mr.  Reid  sent  this  account  of  it: 

Paris, 

Dear  Mr.  Dana:  ^^"^^"^  '^'^'  '^'- 

We  followed  verj'  largely  the  route  you  recommended  when  you 
were  here.  We  missed  Broussa,  because  the  Sultan  did  me  the 
honor  to  invite  me  to  dinner  at  the  palace,  on  a  day  which  so  exactly 
bisected  the  time  we  had  left,  that  we  could  neither  go  to  Broussa 
before  the  dinner,  nor  after  it,  without  losing  a  week  to  catch  the 
next  steamer  touching  at  the  points  we  required  on  the  coast  of 
Asia  Minor.  The  dinner  at  the  palace  was  singularly  interesting. 
The  Sultan  himself  impressed  me  as  an  able,  kindly  man,  much 
to  be  pitied  in  one  way,  because  of  the  traditions  of  the  place,  and 
the  constant  suspicion  of  plots  and  intrigues  all  about  him.  He 
was  most  kind  and  courteous  and  his  talk  covered  a  wide  range  of 
subjects.  It  was  a  large  dinner.  The  Grand  Vizier,  the  Minister 
of  Foreign  Affairs,  General  Osman  of  Plevna,  the  Chief  Admiral, 
and  a  lot  of  other  Turkish  officials  of  high  rank  were  present.  The 
palace  was  chiefly  in  the  French  style,  although  there  were  some 
rooms  with  a  distinctively  Oriental  character. 

From  Constantinople  we  went  to  Smyrna,  where  we  had  a  very 
pleasant  day;  and  thence,  with  various  stops  at  Rhodes  and  other 
islands,  to  Beyrout.  Here  the  Governor  of  the  Lebanon  and  others 
gave  me  all  the  attention  I  could  dream  of,  and,  in  fact,  rather  more 

153 


154         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

than  I  had  time  for.  Thence  we  went  on  to  Cyprus,  Xaifa,  and 
finally  to  Jaffa.  We  had  a  week  in  Palestine,  with  good  weather, 
excepting  when  we  were  at  the  Dead  Sea,  where  it  rained  as  it  must 
have  done  in  the  original  storm  that  overwhelmed  the  cities  of  the 
plain. 

In  going  to  Cairo  we  went  through  the  Suez  Canal,  which  is  an 
extremely  interesting  thing  to  do — once.  Cairo  was  attractive,  and 
there  were  more  dinners  and  breakfasts  than  I  found  time  for.  The 
most  charming  portion  of  the  trip  in  Egypt  came  afterwards,  when 
I  took  a  boat,  and  Mrs.  Reid  and  myself  started  up  to  the  First 
Cataract  with  our  two  servants,  a  Syrian  dragoman,  a  French  cook, 
and  an  Arab  boat  crew.  It  was  assuredly  one  of  the  most  satisfac- 
tory fortnights  of  sightseeing  we  have  ever  spent  anywhere.  We 
saw  far  more  than  the  tourist  ordinarily  does,  and  did  it  in  far  less 
time.  We  immediately  preceded  the  Khedive,  and  so  had  the  ad- 
vantage of  the  tremendous  mending  of  roads,  bridging  of  ditches, 
and  whitewashing  of  Egyptian  villages  which  had  been  done  in  his 
behalf.  We  went  on  to  the  island  of  Philae  from  the  First  Cataract, 
and  the  depth  of  the  impression  it  all  made  is  perhaps  best  conveyed 
by  my  telling  you  that  when,  afterwards,  we  reached  Athens,  and 
I  had  driven  the  first  afternoon  up  to  the  Acropolis,  I  could  not 
help  saying:  "Why,  after  all,  the  Parthenon  is  modern,  it  is  twenty 
five  hundred  years  younger  than  the  temples  I  was  looking  at  last 
week,  and  not  half  so  well  preserved."  We  had  only  a  week  in 
Athens,  and  the  weather  had  been  so  bad  that  we  were  advised  not 
to  attempt  Olympia,  but  we  saw  Athens  thoroughly.  The  hardest 
part  of  the  whole  trip  was  coming  from  Patras  by  way  of  Brindisi  to 

Very  truly  yours.  Wh.telaw  Reid. 


There  were  notable  personalities  all  the  way — the  Sul- 
tan, the  Khedive,  and,  in  Athens,  the  King.  There  was 
the  incomparable  spectacle  of  the  Greek  monuments. 
Reid  was  deeply  moved  by  the  panorama  of  antiquity. 
"The  part  which  will  last  longest,'*  he  wrote  afterward 
to  Walter  Phelps,  "is  not  the  little  glimpse  of  royalty  in 
different  countries,  but  the  month  in  Palestine  and 
Egypt."  Nevertheless,  it  is  a  "little  glimpse  of  royalty" 
which  I  would  cite  from  his  correspondence,  an  impres- 
sion of  Turkish  court  ceremonial  which  he  set  down  to 
while  away  the  time  while  storm-bound  on  the  way  to 


SULTAN,   KHEDIVE,  AND  EMPRESS      155 

Jaffa  in  his  tour  of  the  Holy  Land.  It  amplifies  with 
photographic  accuracy  of  detail  the  passing  note  given 
in  his  letter  to  Dana,  describing  Abdul  Hamid: 

Haifa,  Syria, 

xjt  \r      \/r  December  13th,  1800. 

My  dear  Mr.  Mills:  ^  ^ 

A  day  or  two  after  we  arrived  at  Constantinople  I  was  told  that 
the  Sultan  had  expressed  a  willingness  to  our  Minister  to  receive  me 
immediately  after  his  formal  attendance  at  prayers  at  his  private 
Mosque  on  the  Turkish  Sunday  (Friday)  which  Lizzie  and  I  were  to 
attend.  We  were  taken  up  in  great  state  by  the  Minister,  with  a 
fine  old  Turk  with  curved  scimitar  at  his  side,  pistols  in  his  belt  and 
a  red  fez  on  his  head  mounted  as  footman  on  the  box.  Our  car- 
riage halted  exactly  opposite  the  Mosque,  where  many  troops  were 
already  drawn  up,  and,  preceded  by  our  Cavasse,  we  entered  a  house 
where,  in  the  second  story,  two  rooms  with  windows  looking  on  the 
road  and  on  the  Mosque  are  set  apart  for  the  diplomatic  corps.  We 
waited  nearly  an  hour.  At  last  came  carts,  sprinkling  sand  over 
the  road  from  the  palace,  and  in  a  few  moments  came  the  first  offi- 
cers of  the  Sultan's  suite,  marching  down  the  road  and  taking  posi- 
tions on  either  side  the  entrance  to  the  Mosque.  It  was  half  past 
twelve  by  Infidel  and  Christian  watches;  but  the  Sultan  regulates 
the  time  like  everything  else;  and  it  was  not  till  a  little  later  still 
that  the  voice  of  the  Muezzin  from  the  balcony  of  the  Minaret 
summoned  the  Faithful  at  high  noon  to  prayer. 

His  summons  began  the  moment  the  Sultan  had  passed  the  palace 
gates.  It  was  a  phenomenal,  an  amazing  voice,  and  could  be  dis- 
tinctly heard  above  the  half  score  of  military  bands  that  were  now 
playing  their  loudest,  as  the  carriage  of  the  Sultan  passed  slowly 
down  under  our  eyes,  between  the  files  of  his  troops.  The  soldiers 
presented  arms,  and  the  high  officers  of  state  who  hned  the  entrance 
stooped  till  their  hands  seemed  to  touch  the  ground,  then  touched 
rapidly  their  knees,  their  lips  and  their  foreheads,  with  a  quick  and 
graceful  motion  still  upwards.  The  Sultan  saluted,  right  and  left 
in  reply,  touching  his  lips  and  forehead.  He  sat  alone,  on  the  back 
seat  of  the  landau,  in  military  uniform,  sword  at  side,  fez  on  his 
head,  and  the  uniform  nearly  concealed  by  an  overcoat  not  unlike 
an  ulster.  Opposite  him  sat  a  great  Turkish  General,  the  hero  of 
Plevna,  in  full  uniform.  As  they  passed  under  the  diplomatic  win- 
dows the  Sultan  looked  up  and  saluted;  a  moment  later  his  carriage 
had  passed  into  the  enclosure  around  the  Mosque,  had  passed  the 
carriages  of  the  Harem  where  all  the  women  sat,  veiled,  waiting  to 
see  their  Lord  and  Master  go  by;  and  he  had  walked  up  the  scarlet- 


156        THE'  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

carpeted  steps  into  the  Mosque.  As  he  passed,  going  and  coming, 
he  impressed  me  as  prematurely  aged,  and  rather  anxious-looking. 
But  his  bearing  was  one  of  great  dignity,  and  his  manner  was  very 
graceful.  The  people  seemed  almost  to  regard  him  as  a  god,  and 
the  troops  evidently  Hked  him. 

On  Monday  evening  we  drove  up  the  same  road,  passed  the 
Mosque,  and  stopped  at  the  palace  gate.  Here  our  old  Turk  dis- 
mounted from  the  box,  red  fez,  curved  sword,  pistols  and  all,  and 
an  officer  of  the  Sultan's  guard  mounted  to  the  box  in  his  place. 
When  we  entered  the  grounds  I  could  only  see  in  the  darkness  that 
they  were  extensive,  and  that  we  could  look  down  on  the  Bosphorus 
and  some  vessels  of  the  Turkish  fleet.  At  last  we  stopped  in  a 
glare  of  light,  officers  saluted,  servants  took  our  wraps,  and  as  we 
went  upstairs  soldiers  presented  arms.  I  was  presented  at  once  to 
the  Grand  Vizier.  Next  I  was  presented  to  the  Minister  of  Foreign 
Affairs,  a  portly,  fine  looking  and  almost  jolly  official.  He  spoke 
French  fluently,  as  nearly  all  of  them  do,  and  so  I  got  on.  I  had 
some  talk  with  Woods  Pacha,  the  Englishman  whom  they  have 
made  Admiral;  with  General  Osman  Digna,  who  told  me  he  knew 
General  Gallifet,  whose  son  I  have  been  helping  to  get  married  to 
Miss  Stevens,  and  with  one  or  two  others. 

At  last  a  splendid  looking  fellow,  over  six  feet  high,  Musurus  Bey, 
Grand  Master  of  Ceremonies,  came  in,  greeted  me  cordiaHy,  and 
led  me  off  to  be  presented  to  the  Sultan.  The  Grand  Vizier,  the 
Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  and  our  American  Minister,  with  his 
Secretary  and  Chief  Dragoman,  also  came.  We  went  through  three 
or  four  rooms.  Then  Musurus  Bey  left  us,  and  entered  an  adjoin- 
ing room.  Presently  he  reappeared,  walking  backwards,  and  bow- 
ing to  the  ground  and  saluting  at  every  step.  A  pace  or  two  behind 
him  came  the  Sultan.  He  advanced  at  once  to  Mr.  Hirsch,  bowed 
slightly,  said  a  few  words  in  Turkish  and  offered  his  hand.  Then  he 
asked  after  the  health  of  Mr.  Harrison,  and  the  Dragoman  translated 
Mr.  Hirsch's  reply.  Then  he  addressed  me  in  Turkish  and  held  out 
his  hand.  I  replied  to  his  inquiries  after  my  health.  He  bowed 
pleasantly,  saluted  his  own  Minister,  and  started  for  the  dining 
room,  preceded  by  the  Grand  Master  of  Ceremonies,  who  still 
walked  backwards  before  him  and  bowed  to  the  earth  at  every  step. 

The  band  played  as  the  Sultan  entered  and  took  his  seat  at  the 
head  of  the  long  table,  nearest  the  door.  Mr.  Hirsch  and  I  fol- 
lowed, he  taking  the  Sultan's  right  and  I  his  left.  The  two  highest 
Turkish  officers  sat  next,  but  near  me  was  placed  our  Chief  Drago- 
man, a  man  with  the  same  rank  as  our  first  Secretaries,  and  highly 
accomplished.  He  was  to  interpret  the  Sultan's  conversation. 
Part  of  the  time,  however,  the  Sultan  cafled  in  the  Grand  Master 
of  Ceremonies,  who  stood  at  the  corner  of  the  table  throughout  the 


SULTAN,   KHEDIVE,  AND   EMPRESS      157 

dinner.  He  translated  the  Sultan's  Turkish  into  French  for  me, 
and  I  replied,  as  best  I  could.  They  say  the  Sultan  really  under- 
stands French  quite  well,  but  he  refuses  to  speak  it,  or  to  have,  any 
conversation  save  in  Turkish.  The  Sultan  of  course  led  the  conver- 
sation. In  fact  nobody  spoke  excepting  the  Americans,  and,  occa- 
sionally, a  Turk,  when  the  Sultan  addressed  some  remark  to  him. 
The  rest  of  the  time  they  ate  in  silence  and  seemed  to  be  furtively 
watching  his  every  movement  out  of  the  corners  of  their  eyes.  Never 
before  have  I  seen  educated  and  intelligent  men  give  such  plain  evi- 
dence of  the  effect  the  unlimited  power  of  an  arbitrary  monarch 
over  them  may  have  upon  their  bearing  and  even  their  thoughts. 

The  Sultan  spoke  frequently  and  easily  to  Mr.  Hirsch  and  myself 
— after  the  manner  of  a  man  of  the  world,  not  introducing  many 
serious  topics,  and  touching  everything  briefly.  He  seemed  much 
pleased  at  the  admiration  I  frankly  expressed  for  the  military  display 
of  Friday;  and  he  assured  me  that  the  men  were  as  soldierly  as  they 
looked,  and  that  they  were  through  and  through  devoted  to  their 
country  and  their  Government.  He  spoke  of  the  cholera  in  Syria, 
where  he  heard  I  was  going,  and  said  he  could  assure  me  it  was  de- 
creasing rapidly  and  might  even  now  be  said  to  be  almost  at  an  end. 
He  asked  me  about  Lew  Wallace;  said  he  preserved  a  most  agreeable 
recollection  of  him,  and  that  he  would  like  to  have  such  men  in  his 
own  service.  He  alluded  to  the  electric  light,  with  which  the  din- 
ing room  was  illuminated,  as  being  the  invention  of  a  countryman 
of  mine,  and  said  he  had  also  procured  his  phonograph,  and  wished 
to  assure  me  that  it  worked  very  well.  The  talk  ran  on  in  this  way, 
with  intervals  of  silence,  during  the  hour  or  hour  and  a  quarter  that 
the  dinner  lasted. 

The  company  left  the  dining  room  as  it  had  entered,  the  Grand 
Master  walking  backward  before  the  Sultan  and  bowing  to  the 
ground  at  every  step;  Mr.  Hirsch  and  I  following  the  Sultan;  and 
the  Grand  Vizier  and  the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs  coming  next. 
We  passed  immediately  into  the  smoking  room,  only  the  three 
Turks  named  and  our  party  accompanying  the  Sultan.  Here  the 
little  company  stood  for  two  or  three  minutes  in  general  conversa- 
tion. Then  the  Sultan  handed  me  a  cigarette.  He  now  took  a 
seat  behind  a  little  table  on  which  stood  cigarettes  and  matches; 
and  motioned  the  rest  of  us  to  seats  about  him.  The  talk  here  was 
light  and  general.  Coffee  was  served  and  I  was  engaged  in  quietly 
looking  at  the  curious  furniture,  all  the  legs  and  framework  of  which 
were  made  of  gun  stocks,  gun  barrels,  lances  and  other  kinds  of 
arms,  when  the  Foreign  Minister  advised  me  that  the  Sultan  had 
just  ordered  that  the  highest  decoration  of  his  Government,  for 
women,  be  sent  to  Mrs.  Reid. 

Affectionately  yours,         Whitelaw  Reid. 


158        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

The  allusion  to  Lew  Wallace  in  the  foregoing  letter  is 
enhanced  in  interest  by  remarks  made  elsewhere  in 
Reid's  correspondence.  It  would  appear  that  the  Sul- 
tan's apprecia;tive  remembrance  of  the  American  minis- 
ter at  his  court  during  Arthur's  administration  was  not 
altogether  approved  in  his  entourage.  He  wanted  Wal- 
lace attached  in  a  position  of  suitable  dignity  to  his  own 
person,  because  he  felt  that  he  could  trust  his  honesty 
and  friendship,  as  well  as  his  judgment,  but  in  asking 
Reid  to  convey  this  message  he  added:  "I  want  to  get  an 
answer  from  him,  and  to  get  it  through  a  safe  channel." 
He  gave  careful  explanations  as  to  how  the  answer 
should  be  communicated.  When  it  was  procured  Reid 
embodied  it  in  a  letter  to  the  chief  dragoman  of  the 
American  Legation  at  Constantinople,  who  in  turn  de- 
livered it  to  the  Sultan,  sealed,  through  the  hands  of  a 
court  chamberlain  specially  delegated  to  look  after  the 
incident.  Prior  to  this  Wallace  had  received  more  than 
one  message  from  the  Sultan  and  had  always  replied,  but 
his  own  letters  had  regularly  failed  to  get  into  the  hands 
of  his  imperial  correspondent,  probably  because  of  the 
intervention  of  some  palace  politician.  If  Reid  had  any 
doubts  as  to  the  existence  of  that  traditional  type  in 
Eastern  court  life  they  were  dispelled  when  he  reached 
Cairo,  and  by  a  person  who  was  surely  qualified  to  speak 
with  authority. 

When  he  was  presented  to  the  Khedive,  that  potentate, 
speaking  English  with  ease,  made  much  light,  pleasant 
conversation  on  harmless  topics,  like  the  little  book  in 
which  the  programme  for  his  forthcoming  voyage  up 
the  Nile  was  set  forth  day  by  day.  He  lingered  with 
innocent  pride  over  the  beautiful  map  drawn  for  every 
stage  of  the  journey.  Then  he  suddenly  asked  his  guest 
what  he  thought  of  Constantinople.  Remembering  that 
his  interlocutor's  father,  the  ex-Khedive  Ismail,  was  held 


SULTAN,   KHEDIVE,   AND   EMPRESS      159 

practically  a  prisoner  there,  though  living  at  great  ease 
in  a  magnificent  palace,  Reid  was  a  little  in  doubt  as  to 
how  much  to  say  about  Turkey.  The  Khedive  promptly 
relieved  his  anxiety  by  saying:  "You  will  find  Cairo  very 
different.  There  is  no  such  net  work  of  intrigues  here 
as  surrounds  the  Sultan.  Things  here  are  plain  and 
above-board." 

Sir  Evelyn  Baring,  the  future  Lord  Cromer,  then  in 
the  earlier  phase  of  his  remarkable  work  for  Egypt, 
struck  his  American  visitor  as  already  perhaps  even 
more  important  than  the  Khedive  himself.  The  Reids 
breakfasted  with  the  Barings,  and  in  one  of  his  home  let- 
ters there  is  a  passage  on  the  British  agent's  views.  **He 
gave  me  the  impression  that  the  present  Khedive  is  a 
great  improvement  on  his  Father,  who  had  plunged  the 
affairs  of  Egypt  into  dreadful  confusion.  He  complains 
of  the  French  and  also  of  Turkish  influences,  but  said  the 
root  of  the  difficulties  lay  in  the  religion,  or  rather  in 
that  phase  of  it  affecting  family  life." 

At  Constantinople  Reid  had  heard  of  the  author  of 
''Ben  Hur."  In  the  Holy  Land  he  came  upon  the  trail 
of  John  Hay.  Returning  from  a  rainy  visit  to  the  Dead 
Sea  they  rested  in  the  hotel  at  Jericho,  and  there,  hunt- 
ing around  for  something  to  beguile  a  quiet  day,  Mrs. 
Reid  found  Just  one  book  in  the  place,  an  English  edi- 
tion of  **The  Bread  Winners."  Hay  heard  of  this  in  due 
course,  and  when  in  the  following  summer  he  visited  at 
the  Avenue  Hoche  he  added  these  hnes  to  the  souvenirs 
of  his  friends'  recent  travels : 

"Through  Jericho,  through  Jericho, 
Brave  Whitelaw  and  his  bride  did  go, 
Of  hterature  they  were  in  need. 
For  there  was  nothing  there  to  Reid. 

In  Jericho,  in  Jericho 

They  sought  good  reading  high  and  low. 


i6o         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

But — here  is  where  the  joke  occurs — 
Found  nothing  but  the  Breadwinners. 

In  Jericho,  in  Jericho 
From  morning  till  the  sun  was  low, 
The  Lady  read,  till  dews  'gan  fall, 
The  Breadwinners  —  by  Mendenhall." 

On  their  return  the  Reids  were  in  time  to  witness  a 
curious  upheaval  of  French  sentiment,  provoked  that 
winter  by  an  unexpected  visit  paid  to  Paris  by  the  Em- 
press Frederick  of  Germany.  She  had  left  Berlin  pre- 
sumably to  go  straight  to  Lx)ndon,  but  she  broke  her 
journey  at  Paris,  having  business  there  in  connection 
with  the  bequest  of  two  milhons  left  to  her  by  the  Du- 
chesse  Galliera.  Her  proceedings  in  the  city  were  surely 
innocuous  enough  and  even  favorable  to  French  interests, 
for  much  of  her  time  was  spent  in  the  purchase  of  furni- 
ture and  decorations  for  her  castle  of  Konigstein,  near 
Hamburg.  Otherwise  she  went  to  an  exhibition  of  pic- 
tures at  the  Epatant,  visited  Bonnat,  talked  about  the 
forthcoming  international  exhibition  of  the  fine  arts  at 
Berhn,  to  which  the  leading  painters  of  France  had 
decided  to  contribute,  and  altogether  dispensed  olive- 
branches.  Unhappily,  these  did  not  please  the  Boulan- 
gists,  and  though  there  were  friendly  hands  to  applaud 
Wagner  and  Mozart  at  the  Lamoureux  concert  which 
was  one  of  the  episodes  of  her  visit,  there  were  fire- 
brands, M.  Deroulede  and  others,  who  tried  their  best 
by  appeals  to  current  chauvinism  to  revive  the  anti- 
German  emotions  of  1870.  When  the  Empress  chose 
this  unlucky  moment  to  look  in  upon  Versailles,  of  all 
places  in  the  world,  something  Hke  a  storm  of  pubhc 
feehng  arose.  It  subsided,  however,  with  no  worse  eff'ects 
than  the  withdrawal  of  the  French  artists  aforemen- 
tioned from  the  enterprise  at  Berlin.  The  Reids,  who 
took  luncheon  with  the  Empress  at  the  Bavarian  Lega- 


SULTAN,   KHEDIVE,   ANE)  EMPRESS      i6i 

tion  the  day  before  she  made  her  unpopular  pilgrimage, 
and  saw  her  on  other  occasions  in  Paris,  had  from  her 
own  lips  the  explanation  of  her  innocent  misstep.  Writ- 
ing to  Dana  about  it,  Reid  said: 

We  have  had  a  rather  interesting  time  in  Paris  lately.  The  visit 
of  the  Empress  was  a  case  of  skating  on  extremely  thin  ice,  and  for 
several  days  Paris  was  perilously  near  an  ugly  explosion.  The  Em- 
press, herself,  was  serenely  unconscious  of  the  situation  most  of  the 
time,  and  when  she  realized  it,  she  met  it  with  a  courage  and  dignity 
worthy  of  her  husband.  She  is  altogether  a  remarkable  woman; — 
I  think  you  would  call  her  almost  as  interesting  as  the  Suhan.  There 
seems  to  be  no  subject  of  "contemporaneous  human  interest,"  as 
Daly  says,  on  which  she  has  not  inforr^ation,  as  well  as  opinions, 
and  these  last  are  apt  to  be  pretty  positive.  Her  devotion  to  the 
memory  of  her  husband  is  really  touching,  and  it  was  a  curious  fact, 
which  she  mentioned  to  Mrs.  Reid,  that  the  famous  visit  to  Ver- 
sailles, which  so  excited  Paris,  was  really  due  to  her  earnest  craving 
to  see  again  the  spot  where  her  husband  had  spent  so  many  months, 
and  from  which  he  had  written  her  so  many  scores,  and  even  hun- 
dreds, of  letters,  which  she  still  religiously  preserves.  Odd,  isn't  it, 
how  often  we  find  a  bit  of  sentiment  shaping  the  gravest  interna- 
tional complications ! 

Dana's  name  frequently  recurs  in  Reid's  correspon- 
dence at  this  time.  All  the  ancient  irritabilities  had 
fallen  away  and  given  place  to  a  delightful  friendship. 
In  April,  1891,  when  The  Tribune  celebrated  its  fiftieth 
anniversary  with  a  great  meeting  in  the  Metropolitan 
Opera  House,  at  which  McKinley,  George  William  Cur- 
tis, and  Chauncey  M.  Depew  made  speeches  and  Ed- 
mund Clarence  Stedman  read  a  poem,  the  editor  of  the 
"Sun"  spoke  on  the  traits  of  Horace  Greeley.  "The 
world  has  changed,''  he  said,  among  other  things,  as  he 
glanced  at  the  old  quarrelsome  days  in  which  he  had 
first  known  The  Tribune.  "It  is  entirely  changed  now. 
It  is  wonderful  how  little  personal  controversy  there  is 
in  our  great  newspapers."  Whereat  a  ripple  of  laughter 
ran  through  the  vast  auditorium,  for  his  hearers  appre- 


i62         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

ciated  the  private  application  of  this  public  statement. 
He  was  more  than  once  Reid's  guest  in  Paris.  It  was 
to  Dana  that  the  American  minister  gave  a  dinner,  just 
prior  to  the  Eastern  journey  I  have  described,  which  in 
the  list  of  those  bidden  to  it  reads  truly  like  a  dinner  of 
all  the  talents.  It  embraced,  of  the  principal  guest's 
own  profession,  Clemenceau,  Joseph  Reinach,  M.  Mag- 
nard,  and  the  inimitable  De  Blowitz.  The  painters 
Bonnat,  Gerome,  Carolus-Duran,  and  Madrazo  were 
balanced  by  the  sculptors  Dubois  and  Cain,  and  the 
composer  Massenet. 

These  figures  of  the  Parisian  world  are  characteristic 
of  the  old  records  in  which  I  have  found  their  traces. 
It  was  natural  that  Whitelaw  Reid  should  come  to  know 
in  Clemenceau,  for  example,  not  only  the  statesman  but 
the  writer.  At  the  balls,  dinners,  and  receptions  which 
made  the  hotel  in  the  Avenue  Hoche  brilliant  during 
the  season,  letters  and  the  arts  exchanged  salutations 
with  the  haul  monde.  It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to 
revive  in  this  place  the  personalia  of  those  scenes — the 
latter  are  too  crowded — but  it  is  interesting  to  recall  a 
few  of  the  high  lights  in  the  picture — Dumas  filsy  the 
Due  de  Broglie,  the  Marechal  Canrobert,  Lord  Lytton, 
from  the  British  Embassy,  Senor  Leon  y  Castillo,  from 
the  Spanish,  whom  Reid  was  to  meet  again  over  the 
Peace  Treaty  of  1898,  Essad  Pacha,  the  Turkish  ambas- 
sador, Jules  Simon  and  Ernest  Renan,  John  Sargent,  and 
all  the  leading  figures  in  French  politics,  Floquet,  Tirard, 
Meline,  Constans,  SpuIIer,  and  so  on.  Amongst  the 
Americans  always  present  there  were  often  old  friends, 
men  like  Evarts  and  Hay,  Speaker  Reed,  Wayne  Mac- 
Veagh,  W.  E.  Chandler,  James  Gordon  Bennett,  and 
Thomas  Bailey  Aldrich.  Edison,  who  went  over  with  his 
wife  for  the  exhibition,  came  to  know  the  hospitality  of 
the  Avenue  Hoche,  and  in  a  farewell  letter  he  touches  on 


SULTAN,   KHEDIVE,  AND   EMPRESS      163 

the  secret  of  the  welcome  given  by  the  American  minis- 
ter to  his  countrymen.  He  might  be  incapable  of  mak- 
ing a  speech,  says  the  great  inventor  of  himself,  and  be 
obliged  at  times  to  seek  protection  beneath  the  official 
wing  of  the  American  eagle,  but  he  was  not  incapable, 
he  insisted,  of  anchoring  his  thoughts  upon  a  sheet  of 
paper.  He  thanked  Reid  **for  having  made  me  feel  so 
much  at  home  in  a  foreign  country.'*  At  the  Legation 
offices  in  the  Rue  Galilee  and  at  his  own  house  Reid  re- 
ceived travelling  Americans  in  an  atmosphere  which 
made  the  general  verdict  very  like  Edison's. 

I  may  mention  here,  amongst  his  lighter  occupations, 
a  piece  of  Hterary  work  in  which  he  took  a  strong  inter- 
est. His  friend  the  Due  de  Broglie  was  editing  for 
publication  the  long-suppressed  memoirs  of  Talleyrand, 
and  **in  a  moment  of  thoughtless  confidence"  Reid 
promised  M.  de  Beaufort,  who  was  making  the  transla- 
tion for  England  and  America,  that  he  would  write  a 
brief  introduction  for  the  editions  in  those  countries. 
**This,"  he  WTote  to  Smalley,  "was  like  letting  one's 
little  finger  get  caught  in  the  cog  wheels  of  running  ma- 
chinery; it  presently  drew  the  rest  of  me  in."  The  brief 
introduction  became  a  full-dress  essay.  Besides,  he  was 
soon  obligated  to  make  selections  from  the  memoirs  for 
three  numbers  of  the  "Century"  in  the  winter  of  1891, 
and  as  he  had  to  struggle  for  the  first  French  proofs  off 
the  press  in  order  to  get  on  with  his  own  task,  there  were 
times  when  he  wondered  why  in  the  world  he  had  taken 
up  the  pen  again.  The  resultant  analysis  of  the  famous 
statesman  will  be  found  prefixed  to  the  memoirs,  and 
in  Reid's  "American  and  English  Studies."  It  is  the 
most  anecdotic  and  picturesque  paper  he  ever  wrote,  a 
vivid,  richly  colored  excursion  into  revolutionary  his- 
tory. As  a  portrait  it  is  accurate,  and,  as  an  estimate, 
suavely  pitiless.     Talleyrand's  prodigious  ability  is  rec- 


^  * 


i64         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

ognized  and  due  weight  is  given  to  the  strangely  patriotic 
elements  underlying  his  tortuous  career.  **The  evil  Tal- 
leyrand did  was  chiefly  to  individuals.  The  good  he  did 
was  to  Franc-e."  But  the  broad  conclusion  is  shaded  by 
no  diplomatic  amenity.  "The  memoirs/'  he  said,  "will 
not  change  the  world's  verdict  on  the  profligate  Abbe  of 
Perigord  and  Bishop  of  Autun.  They  wifl  not  lighten 
the  censure  of  the  Foreign  Minister  who  made  mer- 
chandise of  his  treaties,  and  became  a  millionaire  on 
bribes.  They  will  not  make  the  world  think  it  honor- 
able in  him  to  have  deceived  or  betrayed  in  turn  almost 
every  man  under  whom  he  held  office." 

When  Reid  accepted  the  French  mission  his  retirement 
from  The  Tribune  for  the  period  of  his  absence  abroad 
was  decisive,  as  explicitly  announced  on  the  editorial 
page.  But  he  would  have  been  more  than  human  not 
to  have  been  an  intensely  interested  spectator  of  Tribune 
affairs.  I  have  glanced  at  his  notes  for  a  speech  to  be 
made  at  the  unveiling  of  the  Greeley  statue.  It  was  a 
disappointment  to  him  that  the  sculptor's  work  was 
delayed,  and  he  was  sorry  again  that  he  could  not  be 
in  New  York  when  the  bronze  was  unveiled  on  Septem- 
ber 20th,  1890.  Hay  presided  over  the  ceremonies,  in 
which  Bishop  Potter  and  Mr.  Depew  also  took  part. 
The  jubilee  I  have  mentioned  was  another  event  which 
it  was  hard  for  him  to  miss.  "It  is  a  solemn  thought," 
Hay  wrote  to  him,  "that  out  of  The  Tribune's  fifty 
years,  nearly  half  of  them  are  yours,  and  that  you  are 
still  a  young  man.  Before  you  pass  over  to  the  majority 
the  history,  as  well  as  the  prosperity,  of  that  great  organ 
will  be  principally  your  own."  From  Hay  and  from 
others  he  had  much  news  on  political  developments. 
Elkins,  writing  after  the  fall  elections  in  1890,  was  per- 
turbed over  the  shadow  they  threw  upon  the  prospects 
of  the  party.     Hay,   in  the   following  spring,   reported 


SULTAN,   KHEDIVE,   AND  EMPRESS      165 

comforting  signs — the  party,  it  was  plain,  had  not  lost  its 
fighting  qualities — but  he  thought  the  Republicans  had 
come  upon  evil  days,  politically,  and  he  was  especially 
worried  about  breaks  in  the  senatorial  hne.  Ratting  was 
in  alarming  vogue.  There  were  about  a  dozen  Republi- 
can senators  who  could  not  be  relied  upon  for  any  dis- 
tinctive party  measure.  He  mentioned,  also,  indications 
of  trouble  in  the  cabinet;  there  were  ugly  rumors  afloat 
about  the  relations  of  Blaine  and  Harrison.  Hay  ex- 
pected to  take  ship  before  the  end  of  April  for  a  run 
over  to  London  and  Paris,  and  he  would  surely  see  Reid, 
but  the  measure  of  his  distress  ,  over  the  situation  is 
given  in  his  inabihty  to  wait  till  he  got  abroad  to  disclose 
its  bad  aspects. 

There  was  no  end  to  the  appeals  to  Reid  to  come  back 
and  take  a  hand  in  the  fight.  The  fact  was  that  his 
plans  for  retiring  were  made  before  any  of  these  impor- 
tunities reached  him.  This  may  be  seen  from  the  fol- 
lowing letter: 

Paris, 
My  dear  Mr.  President:  December  ist,  1891. 

As  you  are  aware,  I  was  not  able  to  accept  the  high  mission  with 
which  you  honored  me  on  any  understanding  that  it  would  be  pos- 
sible to  absent  myself  from  New  York  long  enough  to  serve  the  full 
term.  My  private  affairs  have  long  required  my  attention  and  I 
should  have  been  glad  to  retire  months  ago  if  I  could  properly  have 
done  so.  But  the  negotiations  for  the  admission  of  American  pork 
and  for  an  extradition  treaty  were  still  delayed  and  I  did  not  feel 
that  it  would  be  just  to  the  Government  to  leave  my  post  in  the 
midst  of  this  unfinished  business. 

The  pork  question  has  now  been  fought  through  all  its  stages — at 
the  Foreign  Office,  with  the  Cabinet,  in  the  Chamber,  in  the  Senate, 
and  back  again  in  the  Chamber.  So  far  as  the  Government  was 
concerned,  we  had  it  settled  over  a  year  ago,  and  in  the  controlling 
branch  of  the  French  Parliament  it  was  settled  in  principle  last 
July,  though  the  later  contests  in  the  Senate  and  Chamber  have 
been  sharp  and  difficult.  Nothing  now  remains  but  the  Executive 
decree,  which  is  promised  as  soon  as  the  Administrative  details  can 
be  arranged. 


i66        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

For  nearly  two  years  I  could  get  no  satisfaction  about  the  Extra- 
dition question.  At  last  they  have  committed  themselves  to  imme- 
diate negotiations  which  I  have  some  reason  to  hope  may  be  con- 
cluded within  the  next  month  or  two.  I  deem  it  my  duty  therefore 
to  advise  you  new  that  I  hope  to  be  able  to  tender  my  resignation  at 
any  time  after  the  close  of  January  next  that  may  best  suit  your 
convenience — to  take  effect  either  on  my  leaving  my  post  or  after 
my  report,  with  the  treaty,  at  Washington,  as  may  be  thought  best 
for  the  interests  of  the  service. 

Hoping  that  these  plans,  as  well  as  my  work  here,  may  meet  your 

approval,  I  am,  with  the  highest  respect, 

Faithfully  yours,  ,,,  t^ 

^  ^  Whitelaw  Reid. 

The  President  felt  the  force  of  this  letter,  and  he,  too, 
like  the  others  I  have  cited,  was  well  aware  of  the  fact 
that  the  American  minister's  return  would  have  its  influ- 
ence upon  public  affairs.     He  sent  this  reply: 

Executive  Mansion, 

Washington, 

, ,  A/r      r.  December  14th,  1801. 

My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  ^    *      ^ 

Your  note  of  December  ist  has  been  received.  What  you  said  to 
Mrs.  McKee  while  she  was  at  your  house  in  Paris,  prepared  me  for 
what  you  now  say  as  to  your  desire  to  surrender  your  place.  I 
assure  you  that,  from  a  pubHc  standpoint,  it  is  a  matter  of  regret  to 
me  that  you  cannot  finish  your  term  at  the  French  capital.  The  only 
mitigating  circumstance  is  that  you  will  be  at  home  where  your 
counsel  and  help  may  be  needed  by  our  party  in  a  contest  which  is 
to  determine  whether  the  progressive  and  healthful  American  influ- 
ences, which  Repubhcan  administration  gives,  are  to  be  perpetuated. 
You  know  I  am  not  at  all  given  to  the  use  of  indiscriminate  praise; 
but  I  would  not  be  just  to  you  or  myself  if  I  did  not  say  that  your 
term  at  the  Court  of  France  has  been  very  conspicuous  and  most 
eminently  satisfactory.  You  have  made  the  selection  of  a  successor 
a  work  of  very  great  difficulty.  What  a  pity  it  is  that  diplomacy  is 
not  more  a  career  with  us !  However,  it  is  very  complimentary  to 
America  and  American  society  that  our  foreign  representatives, 
even  at  the  most  attractive  courts  of  Europe,  get  enough  of  foreign 
life  inside  of  a  four  years'  term. 

With  very  kind  regards  to  Mrs.  Reid,  I  am. 

Very  sincerely  your  friend, 

Benj.  Harrison. 


SULTAN,   KHEDIVE,   AND   EMPRESS      167 

From  the  moment  this  letter  was  received  the  date 
to  be  fixed  for  the  departure  of  the  Reids  from  Paris 
was  only  a  question  of  the  extradition  treaty.  The  nego- 
tiations for  this  were  moving  auspiciously,  and,  as  we 
have  seen,  when  Reid  wrote  to  the  President  in  Decem- 
ber he  expected  only  a  month  or  two  of  further  delay. 
He  had  established  the  best  of  relations  with  the  gov- 
ernment of  Premier  de  Freycinet,  and  could  count  upon 
a  confidence  there  which  promised  the  speediest  results. 
Then,  in  about  the  middle  of  February,  the  ministry 
fell,  being  defeated  in  the  Chamber  in  a  crisis  developed 
between  the  Clericals  and  Radicals  over  the  matter  of 
the  religious  associations  in  France.  With  his  state- 
rooms on  the  Bourgogne  already  engaged,  Reid  had  to 
swallow  the  fact  that  there  existed  in  Paris  no  ministry 
to  see  his  extradition  treaty  through.  There  was  noth- 
ing to  do  but  "reverse  the  engines."  There  was,  how- 
ever, comparatively  httle  delay  in  setting  them  going 
again  in  the  right  direction.  Ten  days  later  the  feverish 
efforts  made  by  Rouvier,  Constans,  Ribot,  and  Bourgeois 
to  form  a  new  ministry  seemed  to  have  brought  a  dead- 
lock; but  just  when  the  sky  looked  darkest  there  was  a 
rift  in  the  clouds,  and  M.  Loubet  proved  successful.  In 
his  cabinet,  fortunately  for  the  American  minister,  M. 
Ribot,  with  whom  he  was  accustomed  to  deal  on  sym- 
pathetic terms,  took  over  the  portfoho  of  foreign  afi'airs. 
Carnot's  signature  to  the  treaty  was  thus  secured,  and 
Reid  was  able  to  make  all  his  arrangements  to  sail  with 
his  family  on  March  25th.  On  the  advice  of  a  cable  sent 
to  him  by  Blaine  he  kept  his  resignation  in  his  pocket, 
handing  it  to  the  President  when  he  arrived  in  Wash- 
ington. 

Ribot,  Tirard,  and  SpuIIer  were  among  the  speakers  at 
the  great  banquet  given  the  departing  minister  by  the 
Americans  resident  in  Paris.     M.  Ribot  testified  both  to 


^  J 


i68         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  popularity  of  Reid's  mission  and  to  its  solid  practical 
achievements.  *'Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid  has  won  our  friend- 
ship and  our  affection,"  he  said.  **He  has  paid  us  a 
compliment  in  so  quickly  learning  to  speak  the  French 
language  fluently — and  he  has  used  this  rapidly  acquired 
knowledge,  gentlemen,  to  become  a  most  persuasive  and 
most  successful  business  orator!"  He  pointed  out  that 
Reid  had  made  every  one  of  his  negotiations  a  success. 
Though  the  extradition  treaty  was  destined  to  run 
against  some  snags  in  our  Senate,  Reid  terminated  his 
mission  with  the  clear  knowledge  that  it  had  won  ap- 
proval both  at  home  and  abroad. 

As  Mr.  John  Harjes,  the  chairman  at  the  banquet 
aforesaid,  had  hinted,  this  mission  had  not  been  a  sine- 
cure. Reid  sketched  the  interests  which  had  occupied 
him.  "With  the  Paris  exposition  at  the  beginning,"  he 
said,  "and  the  Chicago  exposition  at  the  end;  with  the 
McKinley  bill  and  the  new  French  tariff*;  with  copyright 
and  the  duty  on  works  of  art;  with  pork,  reciprocity,  and 
extradition,  there  has  not  been  much  leisure."  He  ani- 
madverted with  a  smile  upon  the  idea  that  the  President 
and  Mr.  Blaine  had  had  in  proposing  his  going  to  Paris 
— the  idea  that  it  would  be  good  for  him  to  take  it  as  a 
vacation.  For  a  vacation,  indeed,  he  was  returning  to 
New  York.  But  he  did  not  find  it  there,  either.  On  the 
contrary,  he  went  back  to  the  liveliest  of  political  activi- 
ties. The  small  chance  that  there  was  of  his  obtaining 
rest  at  home  is  thus  suggested : 

Washington, 

,,  o  February  nth,  1892. 

My  dear  Reid:  ^  ^ 

I  am  glad  to  hear  that  you  are  definitely  coming  home;  for  al- 
though you  and  Mrs.  Reid  are  representing  us  more  splendidly  than 
has  ever  been  done  before,  or  will  be  for  many  a  long  year  to  come, 
the  place  has  done  for  you  all  it  can  do.  If  you  stayed  a  year  or 
two  more  you  could  do  no  more  than  repeat  the  successes  of  the 
past  three  years  and  that  is  clearly  not  worth  your  while.     Over  here. 


SULTAN,   KHEDIVE,   AND  EMPRESS       169 

a  great  fight  is  beginning.  You  can  come  home  with  a  very  large 
addition  of  prestige,  and  can  throw  a  greater  personal  influence  into 
the  scale  than  you  have  ever  done  before.  The  Tribune  has  been 
admirable  in  your  absence  and  especially  during  the  last  few  months. 
I  fancy  Bromley  is  back.  But  the  imagination  plays  a  considerable 
part,  and  the  moment  you  appear  on  the  ground  and  are  seen  in 
Printing  House  Square  people  will  discover  a  new  energy  and  force 
in  everything  the  paper  says. 

Blaine  tells  me  he  has  cabled  you  today  not  to  hurry  but  to  wait 
and  bring  your  treaties  over  and  resign  after  you  get  home.  Blaine, 
after  breaking  all  our  hearts  with  his  final  letter  of  declination* — 
(for  this,  of  course,  is  final,  he  will  never  more  be  a  candidate)  seems 
as  gay  as  a  boy.  He  looked  positively  well  today,  at  a  small  con- 
cert at  his  house.  His  face  had  a  good  color,  and  the  whole  aspect 
of  him  was  cheerful  and  serene.  "The  Great  Renunciation"  seems 
to  agree  with  him,  as  with  Prince  Gautama.  His  position  is  hence- 
forth unique  in  our  history.  The  only  man  who  ever  refused  two 
nominations  for  the  Presidency,  one  of  which  at  least  was  equivalent 
to  an  election.  It  makes  me  boil  with  impotent  rage  to  see  our 
Mugwumps  blackguard  this  magnanimous  statesman  as  the  worst 
and  vilest  of  politicians. 

I  think  Harrison  is  sure  of  the  nomination  now  and  there  is  a 
fighting  chance  to  elect  him.  It  is  going  to  be  terribly  hard  work 
as  the  Democrats  have  the  dice  loaded  almost  everywhere.  But  I 
hope  a  great  deal  from  the  bitter  animosity  between  Cleveland  and 
Hill  in  New  York — and  the  chapter  of  accidents.  With  the  utter 
lack  of  conduct  and  leadership  in  their  vast  majority  in  the  House, 
we  ought  to  make  a  good  deal  of  capital  by  June. 

Mrs.  Hay  sends  her  love  to  Mrs.  Reid  and  I  am  always 

Faithfully  yours.  j^^^  ^^^ 

*  Written  on  February  6th,  1892,  to  Hon.  J.  S.  Clarkson,  chairman  of  the 
Republican  National  Committee,  saying  that  he  was  not  a  candidate  for  the 
presidency,  and  that  his  name  would  not  go  before  the  convention  for  the 
nomination. 


"'  CHAPTER  X 

THE  CAMPAIGN  OF  1892 

For  three  years  Whitelaw  Reid  had  been  out  of  Ameri- 
can politics,  observing  them  at  a  distance  with  the  deep- 
est interest,  but  scrupulously  '* keeping  his  hands  off." 
Years  afterward,  in  a  public  speech,  he  affirmed  in 
some  detail  the  principle  by  which  he  had  been  governed 
in  all  diplomatic  matters  from  the  moment  that  he  went 
to  Paris — "No  ambassador  has  the  right  to  carry  his 
politics  on  the  outward  voyage  beyond  Sandy  Hook." 
FideHty  to  this  axiom  had  undoubtedly  contributed  to 
the  success  of  the  French  mission,  and  tact  had  added  to 
the  effect  of  his  discretion.  M.  de  Blowitz,  paying  trib- 
ute in  the  London  ** Times"  to  that  success,  cited  one 
apt  judgment:  '*He  has  added  to  the  cleverness  of  the 
Americans  the  urbanity  of  the  French."  At  home  as 
well  as  abroad  his  record  as  minister  was  enveloped  in 
an  atmosphere  of  friendliness,  and  on  his  return  he  re- 
ceived a  peculiarly  cordial  welcome.  There  were  ban- 
quets given  him  by  the  Ohio  Society,  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  and  the  Lotos  Club.  The  press  was  appre- 
ciative and  generous,  as  it  had  been,  indeed,  throughout 
the  period  of  his  stay  in  France.  At  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce  dinner  he  specially  thanked  his  colleagues  in 
the  profession  for  the  support  they  had  given  him  *' with- 
out distinction  of  parties  and  without  exception."  When 
it  came  Dana's  turn  to  speak,  he,  too,  glanced  at  the 
point.  '*The  honors  which  you  are  paying  to  our  dis- 
tinguished fellow-citizen,  Mr.  Reid,"  he  said,  "are  not 
only  well  deserved,  but,  as  has  been  remarked,  they  are 

170 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  171 

paid  in  substance  by  all  parties  in  this  country.  When 
you  can  get  not  merely  a  Republican  like  my  friend  Mr. 
Charles  Stewart  Smith,  and  a  celebrated  Mugwump  like 
my  friend  Mr.  Coudert,  and  modest  and  unpretentious 
Democrats  like  Senator  Brice  and  myself,  to  come  here 
and  join  in  the  honor;  and  when  General  Schurz,  the 
worst  Mugwump  of  them  all,  comes,  and  when  they  all 
combine  in  paying  this  well  deserved  tribute  to  a  dis- 
tinguished and  successful  public  servant,  we  may  be 
sure  that  the  honor  is  perfectly  deserved;  and  that  greater 
services  hereafter  may  be  expected  from  the  gentleman 
who  has  rendered  them." 

Dana's  remarks  were  doubly  to  the  point,  for  while 
they  expressed  the  non-partisan  character  of  the  ap- 
proval bestowed  upon  the  French  mission  they  also  in- 
dicated a  fact  familiar  to  all  those  present,  namely,  that 
in  partisan  quarters  there  was  every  intention  of  calling 
upon  Reid  for  "greater  services."  More  than  a  year 
before  this  time  he  had  been  talked  of  at  home  for  an 
elective  office.  He  had  been  suggested  for  the  vice- 
presidency  and  for  the  senatorship  from  New  York. 
Through  all  this  period  of  political  gossip  and  newspaper 
speculation  he  preserved  an  attitude  of  detachment.  He 
was  not  a  candidate  for  any  office  and  was,  indeed,  far 
more  interested  in  the  fortunes  of  the  extradition  treaty 
in  the  Senate.  There  were  some  minor  matters  from 
Paris  that  continued  to  occupy  his  correspondence  down 
to  the  formal  acceptance  of  his  resignation  on  April  26th, 
and  the  mere  process  of  settling  down  in  New  York  after 
so  long  an  absence  was  engrossing  enough.  Yet  the  bat- 
tics  of  the  party  had  always  to  be  fought  and  he  was 
drawn  into  them  with  the  least  possible  delay. 

The  need  of  the  hour  was  Republican  harmony  in 
New  York.  The  Democrats  had  held  the  governorship 
for  a  comfortable  period.     After  Cleveland's  election  to 


172         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  presidency  they  kept  D.  B.  Hill,  his  lieutenant- 
governor,  in  the  chair  at  Albany  to  which  he  had  auto- 
matically succeeded,  and  then,  on  the  translation  of  that 
adroit  politician  to  the  United  States  Senate,  they  elected 
Roswell  P.  Flower  in  his  place.  In  the  ten  years  through 
which  their  own  prestige  had  thus  been  blanketed,  the 
Republicans  had  so  sapped  their  party  sohdarity  that 
factional  restlessness  within  the  State  threatened  a  wider 
harmfulness  in  1892.  The  **Big  Four"  responsible  for 
management  in  this  crisis — Chauncey  Depew,  T.  C. 
Piatt,  Warner  Miller,  and  Frank  Hiscock — were  unable 
to  fuse  the  warring  elements  in  the  organization.  Piatt 
was  himself  a  particularly  incalculable  factor.  His  re- 
tirement from  the  Senate  with  Conkling  had  not,  after 
all,  terminated  his  influence.  Whatever  ground  he  had 
lost  had  been  regained  and  he  was  now  a  leader  with 
whom  it  was  necessary  to  reckon.  Harrison  didn't  like 
reckoning  with  him,  and  the  less  he  did  so  the  more 
chance  there  was  of  Piatt's  failing  to  co-operate  in  the 
national  campaign.  Almost  immediately  upon  his  return 
Reid  found  that  he  was  expected  to  do  what  he  could  to 
pour  oil  upon  the  troubled  waters,  and  bring  all  the  ton- 
nage of  the  party  into  one  orderly  fleet.  The  very  ab- 
stention from  political  entanglements  to  which  I  have 
referred  marked  him  for  the  task.  It  was  as  a  leader 
allied  with  no  faction  at  all  that  he  was  made  perma- 
nent chairman  of  the  Republican  State  convention,  held 
at  Albany  on  April  28th. 

The  business  of  this  assemblage  was  to  elect  delegates- 
at-Iarge  to  the  national  convention  and  to  provide  New 
York  with  a  sound  Republican  platform  on  which  to 
make  its  stand  at  Minneapolis  in  June.  The  occasion 
was  also  one  to  blend  with  the  enunciation  of  broad  doc- 
trine a  little  admonition  to  the  local  leaders.  This  was 
Reid's  function,  and  in  view  of  the  fact  that  he  was  later 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  173 

to  bear  a  hea\y  share  in  the  presidential  campaign  I  may 
cite  some  parts  of  his  speech,  those  exposing  the  flaws 
in  the  Democratic  record  and  those  appealing  for  Repub- 
lican unity  against  the  foe.     He  said: 

Having  resigned  office  abroad,  I  hold  it  a  privilege  to  resume  at 
once  the  duties  of  citizenship  at  home.  Thirty-six  years  ago,  a  boy 
fresh  from  college  and  not  yet  able  to  vote,  I  made  my  first  political 
speech,  for  Fremont  and  Dayton.  From  that  day  to  this  I  have 
never  seen  a  time  when  the  duty  of  Republican  success  seemed 
clearer  or  its  possibility  more  evident  than  now. 

We  are  often  reminded  by  our  friends  who  generally  agree  with 
us  in  principle  more  nearly  than  with  any  other  party,  but  who  as 
generally  vote  against  us  in  practice,  in  order  to  chasten  us  for  our 
good,  that  a  past  record  is  no  title  to  present  confidence.  Perhaps 
not;  certainly  not,  if  the  record  is  all  there  is.  But  if  the  record  of 
the  Republican  part}'  through  the  whole  thirty-six  years  of  its  glori- 
ous history-  is  not  a  sufficient  reason  for  trust  in  it  now,  it  is  at  least 
no  controlling  reason  for  distrust.  Can  any  one  say  as  much  for  the 
other  party?  Let  us  not  be  unkind  enough  to  go  back  too  far.  Let 
me  merely  ask  if  its  record  last  winter,  either  in  Albany'  or  in  Wash- 
ington, is  a  satisfactory  guarantee  for  the  future.  Are  the  farmers 
of  New  York,  even  the  Democratic  farmers,  anxious  that  another 
legislature  like  this  should  have  another  chance  at  their  tax  Ie\'y? 
Are  even  the  Democratic  business  men  of  New  ^'ork  anxious  that 
this  Congress  should  have  its  way  unopposed,  about  either  free  silver 
or  the  tariff?  Is  there  one  of  them  who  did  not  secretly  give  thanks, 
last  winter,  that  they  had  been  beaten  four  years  ago,  and  that  there 
now  sits  on  watch  in  the  White  House  the  safe,  honest,  sturdy,  great 
big  "man  under  his  grandfather's  hat"?  Is  there  one  who  would 
not  rejoice  if  this  State  of  New  York  were  fortunate  enough  to  have 
some  one  like  him  now  in  our  Governor's  residence  in  Albany? 

Our  opp>onents  may  plan  the  capture  of  the  next  Legislature,  as 
they  organized  the  theft  of  this  one.  They  may  renew  and  multiply 
their  devices  for  binding  hand  and  foot  the  majority  of  the  lawful 
voters  of  this  State;  but  it  is  still  the  majority  and  it  cannot  be  j>er- 
manently  bound.  The  spring  elections  have  given  but  the  first 
whisper  of  the  coming  storm.  Nobody  who  knows  our  political  his- 
tory doubts  that,  on  critical  occasions  and  with  a  fair  count,  New 
York  is  now,  as  it  has  been  from  the  beginning,  essentially  a  Repub- 
lican state.  At  the  ver^'  outset  it  gave  Fremont  a  plurality  of  80,000 
votes  over  James  Buchanan.  In  the  nine  Presidential  elections  held 
since  the  organization  of  the  Republican  party.  New  York  has  never 


^  * 


174         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

been  carried  by  the  Democrats  excepting  when  their  party  had  com- 
posed its  internal  dissensions  and  was  absolutely  united  behind  an 
exceptionally  strong  and  popular  New  York  candidate;  just  three 
times  in  thirty-six  years. 

Well,  gentlemen,  the  stars  in  their  courses  have  fought  for  us. 
We  ask  now  but  one  thing,  a  right  the  denial  of  which  means  revolu- 
tion; we  demand  a  fair,  non-partisan  count.  This  secured,  we  can 
carry  New  York  if  we  choose;  and,  with  New  York,  we  can  carry  the 
Nation.  I  do  not  say  that  we  cannot  do  it  without  New  York;  but 
I  do  say  that  no  prudent  politician  would  make  that  sort  of  a  calcu- 
lation, or  dream  for  an  instant  of  taking  that  sort  of  risk.  Well, 
shall  we  carry  New  York?  Only  one  thing  is  needed  to  do  it;  simple, 
natural,  and,  as  I  believe  at  this  time,  very  easy.  We  must  "get 
together."  As  has  so  often  been  said,  there  are  enough  Repubhcans 
in  the  State  of  New  York  for  one  successful  RepubKcan  party;  but 
there  are  not  enough  for  two.  You  cannot  have  one  to  win  the  vic- 
tory this  year,  and  count  that  the  other  can  take  the  victory  next 
year.  One  year  the  city  would  pull  and  the  country  wouldn't; 
another  year  the  country  would  pull  and  the  city  wouldn't;  and  so  it 
has  sometimes  happened  that  splendid  popular  leaders  like  Fassett 
have  fallen  by  the  wayside  when  they  ought  to  ha^'C  been  elected. 
Whenever  we  both  pulled  the  load  was  moved;  and  if  ever,  in  the 
thirty-six  years  of  our  history  we  had  an  incentive  to  pull  all  together 
we  certainly  have  one  now.  This  then  seems  to  me  the  short  and 
simple  road  to  victory — Get  together ! 


It  will  be  observed  that  while  this  is  an  administration 
speech  it  is  not  Harrisonian,  in  the  sense  of  the  speaker's 
tending  to  commit  himself  or  the  convention  to  the  re- 
nomination  of  the  President.  The  platform  adopted  dis- 
closed the  same  reserve.  It  congratulated  Harrison, 
gave  him  a  vote  of  confidence,  but  that  was  all.  Demo- 
cratic comment  was  quick  to  interpret  this  as  a  case  of 
giving  the  President  less  than  his  due,  and  waxed  scorn- 
ful of  a  convention  that  had  neglected  to  "instruct"  for 
him.  The  truth  is  that  open-mindedness  on  the  part  of 
the  people  at  Albany  as  to  the  choice  to  be  made  at 
Minneapolis  was  dictated  by  a  common-sense  view  of 
the  facts  and  was  perfectly  sincere,  implying  no  under- 
valuation of  Harrison.     The  all-important  point  was  to 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  175 

pick  the  candidate  who  was  most  likely  to  win,  and  at 
that  moment  the  problem  was  frankly  insoluble.  Blaine, 
in  spite  of  himself,  was  an  important  source  of  dubiety. 
He  had  said  that  he  wouldn't  run,  but  his  large  following 
was  still  hopeful  that  he  might  be  persuaded  to  do  so. 
While  Reid  strove  for  the  harmony  in  New  York  State 
essential  to  the  effective  support  of  a  Republican  can- 
didate, whoever  he  might  be,  he  was  entirely  willing  to 
wait  until  June  to  see  what  June  would  bring  forth.  The 
completeness  of  his  severance  from  the  direction  of  The 
Tribune  during  his  diplomatic  service  freed  him  from 
any  embarrassment  in  the  matter. ,  For  the  readers  who 
had  any  doubt  on  the  subject  an  editorial  published  as 
he  was  returning  from  Paris  contained  these  unequiv- 
ocal words:  "Just  at  this  time  it  may  with  propriety  be 
said  that  The  Tribune  has  criticized  the  administration 
of  President  Harrison  without  hesitation  where  it  has 
seemed  to  be  in  error.  .  .  .  The  Tribune  has  never  in 
any  way  urged  the  re-nomination  of  President  Harrison, 
cordially  as  it  admires  the  man  and  approves  his  course, 
for  it  has  believed  that  the  people  were  abundantly  able 
to  judge  his  Administration  fairly,  and  that  the  Repub- 
lican party  had  wisdom  enough  when  the  time  should 
come  to  select  the  right  candidate  for  the  contest  of 
1892."  Thenceforth,  until  the  decision  was  made  by  the 
convention,  the  paper  was  only  strengthened  in  its  course 
of  dispassionate  neutrality  by  current  talk  of  Reid's  pos- 
sible status  as  a  running  mate  with  Harrison. 

The  outstanding  feature  in  the  preliminary  stages  of 
the  campaign  of  1892  was  the  uncertainty  with  which 
Harrison's  name  was  canvassed  for  a  renomination,  and 
nowhere  was  this  uncertainty  more  diversely  explained 
than  in  the  inner  circles  of  the  Republican  camp.  Elkins, 
for  example,  now  in  the  cabinet  as  secretary  of  war, 
was  wont  to  attribute  all  opposition  to  machine  politics. 


^  * 


176         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

"The  opposition  to  Harrison,"  he  wrote  to  Reid,  '*is 
based  on  no  principle  or  sufficient  ground — it  is  based  on 
disappointment  of  a  few  leaders.  He  is  strong  with  the 
people."  Speaker  Reed,  on  the  other  hand,  thought  the 
people  were  indifferent,  that  all  the  difficulty  resided  in 
arousing  popular  enthusiasm  for  Harrison.  This  ques- 
tion of  personal  magnetism  was,  indeed,  impossible  to 
ignore.  It  was  out  of  the  question,  bluntly  quoth  the 
Speaker,  to  ask  the  Republican  party  to  '*Iive  four  years 
more  in  a  dripping  cave."  He  thought  well  of  the  idea 
of  nominating  Whitelaw  Reid  for  the  vice-presidency, 
averring  that  it  would  add  immensely  to  the  strength 
of  the  ticket,  if  the  first  place  went  to  a  Western  man, 
but,  he  snorted,  '*Reid  couldn't  save  Harrison."  Blaine 
unquestionably  had  a  monopoly  of  the  warmth  calcu- 
lated to  win  multitudes  of  voters.  If  he  remained  proof 
against  the  blandishments  of  the  convention  it  seemed 
to  some  observers  as  if  the  only  thing  to  do  would  be  to 
trot  out  a  dark  horse.  All  sorts  of  stories  on  this  theme 
were  rife,  among  them  one  which  I  detach  from  the 
rest  because  of  its  naive  gorgeousness.  It  ran  to  the 
effect  that  New  York  and  Pennsylvania  were  to  start 
the  fun.  Piatt  and  Quay  were  to  get  the  delegations  of 
those  States  to  nominate  Blaine  with  a  whoop  and  a 
hurrah.  Blaine  was  expected — on  the  beautiful  hypoth- 
esis that  he  would  consent  to  be  thus  "used" — to  tele- 
graph a  peremptory  refusal  to  accept.  Then  the  Presi- 
dent was  expected,  in  view  of  his  aversion  to  being  "served 
with  warmed  over  victuals,"  as  one  of  his  closest  advisers 
put  it,  to  forbid  the  use  of  his  name,  and  forthwith  there 
would  be  a  free-for-all  scramble.  Fearful  and  wonder- 
ful are  some  pre-convention  plans,  when  the  quid  nuncs 
foregather ! 

Of  course   there   were   other   aspirants    in   the    field. 
Reed   would   have   liked   the   nomination.     He   thought 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  177 

that  his  course  on  the  tariff  bill  and  on  appropriations 
had  been  vindicated,  that  the  bitterly  opposed  Czaristic 
"Reed  rules"  had  been  justified,  and  that  if  his  name 
went  to  the  polls  he  would  win.  There  were  still  others, 
like  Alger,  Allison,  and  Sherman.  But  the  dark  horse 
never  conclusively  materialized.  Blaine  was  Harrison's 
only  possible  rival,  and  he,  as  I  have  said  before,  could 
not  be  shaken  from  his  resolve  to  stay  out  of  the  race. 
Less  than  a  fortnight  prior  to  the  convention  Piatt  tried 
to  move  him  to  reconsider,  pleading  with  him  to  **Iet  the 
thing  take  its  course."  He  went  over  every  point  in  the 
situation,  every  chance  that  was .  likely  to  be  encoun- 
tered down  to  the  final  election,  fought  against  Blaine's 
doubt  that  his  health  could  stand  the  summer  months 
in  Washington  during  the  long  term  of  each  Congress, 
and  harped  on  what  the  unwilling  statesman  owed  to 
his  friends.  So  ardent  was  this  onslaught  upon  Blaine 
that  in  the  heat  of  it  Piatt  must  have  felt  that  success 
was  possible.  At  all  events,  when,  at  the  climax  of  his 
urging,  Blaine  silently  looked  at  him,  Piatt  thought  he 
recognized  "a  significant  and  promising  glance."  On 
June  4th  the  secretary  of  state  resigned  from  the  cabi- 
net. Never  was  there,  as  his  advocates  looked  at  it,  a 
more  welcome  bombshell.  They  blessed  the  explosion. 
It  lifted  them  to  empyrean  heights.  Then  they  came 
to  earth  with  the  proverbial  dull  and  sickening  thud. 
There  was  no  relation  to  be  established  between  the 
resignation  and  the  nomination.  The  true  word  was 
thus  spoken  in  The  Tribune: 

Mr.  Blaine,  though  often  credited  with  mysterious  plans  and 
adroit  wire  pulling,  is,  in  fact,  one  of  the  sincerest  and  most  straight- 
forward of  men.  He  said  four  years  ago  that  he  was  not  a  candidate 
for  the  Presidency,  and  could  not  take  the  nomination  a  struggle 
might  bring  him.  At  that  moment  he  was  absolutely  sure  of  the 
nomination,  and,  as  we  think,  of  the  election.  But  he  meant  exactly 
what  he  said;  he  stuck  to  it,  and  even  sent  an  appeal  by  cable  to  his 


178         THE  LIFE  OF   WHITELAW  REID 

friends  in  the  midst  of  the  convention,  to  stop  the  successful  struggle 
for  him  on  which  they  had  already  entered.  This  time  he  has  said 
exactly  the  same  thing.  To  many  friends  within  the  past  fortnight 
he  has  repeated  that  he  does  not  wish  the  nomination  and  could  not 
be  a  candidate  -for  it.  We  see  no  warrant  for  the  offensive  assump- 
tion that  he  has  not  meant  what  he  said  now,  just  as  he  was  proved 
to  mean  what  he  said  in  his  withdrawal  in  1888,  which  the  whole 
world  now  recognizes  as  the  greatest  and  most  extraordinary  act  of 
magnanimous  self-renunciation  ever  displayed  by  an  American  states- 
man. 


The  news  columns  of  The  Tribune  that  morning  re- 
ported as  cheerful  the  Harrison  men  assembling  at  Min- 
neapolis. The  next  day  they  were  confident,  and  with 
the  formal  opening  of  the  convention  progress  toward  a 
renomination  of  the  President  was  speedily  indicated. 
There  was  only  one  dramatic  moment  in  the  proceedings. 
That  was  when  the  anti-Harrison  influences  drifting  in 
the  direction  of  the  chairman  of  the  convention,  Gov- 
ernor McKinley,  of  Ohio,  caused  the  delegation  from 
that  State  to  flare  up.  Forty-four  of  its  forty-six  votes 
were  polled  for  McKinley,  the  dissenting  ballots  being 
cast  for  Harrison  by  the  chairman,  and,  at  his  request, 
his  alternate  in  the  delegation.  This  rousing  challenge 
got  everybody  on  tiptoe.  It  proved,  in  eff'ect,  hardly 
more  than  a  flash  in  the  pan,  for  while  the  opposition  to 
the  President,  as  it  turned  out,  was  almost  equally 
divided  between  McKinley  and  Blaine,  the  renomination 
of  Harrison  was  never  seriously  imperifled.  There  was 
only  one  ballot,  and  on  that  he  obtained  535K  votes. 
The  ticket  went  through  with  a  rush.  Whitelaw  Reid's 
name  was  presented  for  the  vice-presidency,  first  by  State 
Senator  O'Connor,  and  then,  in  a  longer  speech,  by  Gen- 
eral Horace  Porter,  both  orators  describing  him  as  the 
unanimous  choice  of  the  New  York  delegation.  Speaker 
Reed's  name  was  then  off*ered  but  only  to  be  withdrawn. 
Reid  was  then  nominated  by  acclamation. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  179 

When  a  number  of  citizens  of  White  Plains  and  other 
friends  in  Westchester  County  came  over  to  Ophir  the 
following  evening  to  congratulate  him,  Reid  said  to 
them:  "The  speechmaker  for  this  ticket  is  at  the 
head  of  it."  He  hoped,  and  thought,  that  this  would 
be  the  case.  On  being  drafted  to  open  the  campaign  in 
Illinois  he  thus  acknowledged  the  congratulations  of 
Major  Halford,  Harrison's  private  secretary,  who  had 
written  to  him  at  the  President's  suggestion  about  mak- 
ing the  trip  West:  "As  you  say,  you  were  pretty  largely 
responsible  for  it.  The  truth  is  I  went  out  against  my 
own  judgment — my  personal  belief  being  the  old-fash- 
ioned one,  that  candidates  on  a  national  ticket  ought 
not  to  be  too  prominent  in  a  campaign."  He  did  not  in 
the  least  desire  to  go  on  the  stump.  Nevertheless,  a  good 
deal  of  the  most  arduous  work  of  the  campaign  fell  upon 
his  shoulders.  After  the  official  notification  brought  to 
him  at  Ophir  in  June  he  made  several  informal  speeches 
in  Westchester  County.  Then,  in  August,  came  the  im- 
portant statement  of  party  principles  at  Springfield, 
Illinois,  just  noted,  with  brief  addresses  to  his  old  neigh- 
bors at  Cedarville  and  Xenia,  and  a  big  Ohio  rally  at 
Woodside  Island  Park  early  in  September.  In  that 
month  he  spoke  at  Buffalo,  Brooklyn,  and  Tarrytown, 
and  took  part  in  a  huge  mass-meeting  at  Cooper  Union. 
October  took  him  to  Boston  and  to  Indianapolis.  In  the 
week  before  election  he  went  with  Depew  for  a  pohtical 
swing  through  the  southern  tier  of  counties  in  his  own 
State,  speaking  at  Ithaca,  HorncIIsville,  and  Jamestown. 
His  last  speech  of  the  campaign  was  delivered  on  No- 
vember 5th  before  a  large  meeting  of  working  men  at 
Albany.     It  was  a  busy  summer. 

He  was  encouraged  in  it  by  constant  letters  from  a 
host  of  friends.  Bigelow  led  them,  the  day  the  nomina- 
tion was  announced: 


'> 


i8o         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Highland  Falls,  N.  Y. 

,  ,  r>  June  nth,  1892. 

My  dear  Reid:  ^ 

I  hope  you  are  not  so  fanatical  a  friend  of  Mr.  BIaine*s  as  to  reject 
the  cordial  congratulations  of  this  household  upon  the  nominations 
made  last  evening  at  Minneapolis.  What  a  pity  though  that  Presi- 
dent Harrison — a  staunch  birth-right  Presbyterian  like  ourselves — 
should  have  so  early  in  his  pubhc  career  made  himself  famous  for 
his  Vices.  I  am  sorry  that  you  and  Morton  should  be  so  much  like 
two  buckets  in  a  well,  one  of  which  goes  down  empty  when  the  other 
comes  up  full.  Why  the  Republican  party  did  not  revive  the  fashion 
of  promoting  Ex-Ministers  to  France  to  the  Vice-Presidency  earlier, 
would  be  a  good  question  for  college  debating  societies. 

My  sympathies  will  be  with  you,^  all  the  same,  when  you  take  the 
V.  P.  seat  as  in  an  Aurist's  chair,  to  have  your  ears  bored  by  Senators. 
There  is  still  one  chance  for  you,  however.  The  Convention  which 
is  to  meet  in  a  few  days  at  Chicago  may  be  wise  and  patriotic  enough 
to  say  that  the  press  of  the  country  can  no  longer  spare  you.  Do 
not  however  count  too  much  upon  this.  The  Democratic  party  in 
one  respect  resembles  Apollo.  It  does  not  keep  its  bow  always  bent 
and  hke  Jupiter  is  occasionally  a  Tom  Noddie. 

If  Mrs.  Reid  is  pleased  with  the  prospect  of  a  residence  in  Wash- 
ington and  being  "the  Second  Lady  in  the  land"  I  wish  you  would 
offer  to  her  also  our  cordial  congratulations.  Please  say  to  her  also 
that  in  becoming  the  successor  of  Jefferson  as  a  graduate  from  the 
French  mission  into  the  Vice  Presidency,  I  hope  you  will  be  led  to 
think  better  of  his  principles,  that  you  may  share  his  subsequent 
political  fortunes.  To  be  the  wife  of  a  P.  or  a  V.  P.  is  a  distinction 
which  Mrs.  Reid  did  not  need  but  if  offered  the  opportunity  she  is 
sure  to  add  to  the  value  of  both. 

Always  faithfully  yours.  j^^^  g^^^^^^_ 

Evarts  was  as  cordial,  and  as  confident.  **You  and 
your  friends,"  he  wrote,  *'may  well  feel  that  you  were 
able  to  take  this  Republican  tide  at  the  flood,  but  it  is 
quite  as  fortunate  for  the  Party  that  it  could  find  you 
at  its  service."  Hay  came  to  Ophir  fast  on  the  heels  of 
the  nomination — he  was  there  the  next  day — and  through 
the  campaign  was  ever  ready  with  words  of  good  cheer. 
He  wrote  from  Cleveland,  as  soon  as  he  had  got  back 
from  his  visit  with  the  Reids:  "I  found  Lodge  and  Roose- 
velt already  quite  energetic  Harrison  men — rather  more 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF    1892  i8i 

so  than  myself.  Every  one  I  meet  speaks  well  of  the 
ticket,  even  those  who  are  in  favor  of  another.  It  is  the 
general  judgment  that  Harrison  is  a  good,  safe  candi- 
date, and  you  are  universally  regarded  as  giving  the 
ticket  a  great  reinforcement.  The  Blaine  feeling  is  very 
strong  here,  but  everybody  will  turn  in  and  work  for  the 
ticket.  The  battle  ground  is  New  York.  I  think  the 
Republican  states  are  all  safe  enough."  A  few  days 
later,  when  the  Democrats  held  their  convention,  put- 
ting up  Cleveland  and  Stevenson,  Hay  found  only  good 
auguries  in  the  event.  "I  think  Chicago  did  the  best 
it  could  for  you,"  he  said.  "The  free  trade  plank  is 
worth  thousands  of  votes  to  us,  and  the  nomination  of 
Stevenson  is  'butter  on  your  sassige.'  These  two  acts 
of  Tammany  are  unexplainable  except  on  the  theory 
that  they  want  Cleveland  beaten.  The  tariff  straddle  in 
the  original  platform  was  just  dull  and  cumbrous  and 
wordy  enough  to  have  been  written  by  Cleveland  him- 
self and  its  upsetting  by  Watterson  and  Tammany  was 
a  delicious  piece  of  monkey  mischief.  Hurrah  for  Har- 
rison and  Reid! — I  mean  Harrison  and  REID!" 

Reid's  own  optimism  was  tempered  both  by  his  habit- 
ual fear  of  overconfidence  in  a  political  campaign  and  by 
his  clear  sense  of  the  stubborn  difficulties  in  the  Repub- 
lican path.  These  were  ominously  increased  when  the 
troubles  in  the  Carnegie  works  at  Homestead,  Pennsyl- 
vania, began  early  in  July.  The  strike  there  fostered 
disorders  which  were  destined  to  have  a  profound  effect 
upon  the  labor  vote  in  November.  Besides  this  un- 
toward development,  there  persisted  the  fret  and  worry 
of  factional  disaffection  in  New  York.  It  came  at  the 
critical  moment,  too,  when  the  attitude  of  the  Hill  De- 
mocracy made  it  extremely  important  for  the  Republi- 
cans to  maintain  a  united  front.  The  Hill  people  really 
wanted  to  defeat  Cleveland.     But  they  wanted  to  feel 


i82         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

sure  that  the  Republicans  were  solidly  together  and  in  a 
position  to  carry  the  State — for  the  obvious  reason  that 
they  did  not  wish  to  begin  steps  looking  to  revenge 
without  a  reasonable  certainty  of  success.  There  was  a 
quaint  element  in  the  discontent  jeopardizing  the  chance 
of  the  Republicans  to  take  advantage  of  this  posture  of 
affairs.  One  reason  why  Piatt  was  disposed  to  sulk  in 
this  campaign  was  that  the  few  letters  he  had  addressed 
to  the  President  had  never  been  answered  save  through 
the  formal  medium  of  a  secretary !  There  is  printed  in 
his  "Autobiography"  the  letter  w^hich,  being  signed  in 
the  President's  own  hand,  assuaged  this  grievance.  In 
that  communication  Harrison  asked  him  to  make  one  of 
the  company  of  politicians  to  be  assembled  to  meet  him 
at  the  house  of  whichever  one  of  two  or  three  friends  he 
found  it  convenient  to  visit  in  the  course  of  his  summer 
travels.  He  paused  briefly  at  Ophir,  and  when  Piatt 
was  there  afforded  an  opportunity  to  *'bIow  off  steam," 
the  oracles  promptly  began  to  vociferate.  Piatt  wanted 
to  dominate  Harrison,  they  darkly  hinted,  and  the  Presi- 
dent was  wxakly  willing  to  yield;  Whitelaw  Reid  w^as 
the  Machiavellian  manipulator  of  the  two,  impelled  by 
solicitude  for  his  own  place  on  the  ticket.  The  best 
comment  on  this  moonshine  is  Reid's  comment  to  John 
Hay:  '* There  were  absolutely  no  promises,  direct  or  im- 
plied, and  there  is  no  dust  on  anybody's  knees." 

It  is  an  historical  fact,  long  since  recognized,  that  the 
Republicans  had  been  committed  to  a  defensive  cam- 
paign in  1892  by  conditions  traceable  to  the  operations 
of  the  McKinley  bill,  a  measure  whose  merits  did  not 
make  it  as  a  whole  impeccable.  Not  all  the  criticisms 
that  could  be  levelled  against  it,  however,  were  sufficient 
to  reduce  its  value  as  a  bulwark  against  the  changes  pre- 
figured in  the  Democratic  platform.  In  Reid's  opinion 
the  dangers  flowing  from  some  of  the  McKinley  schedules 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  183 

were  as  naught  compared  with  these  inherent  in  free 
trade.  On  the  tarifT,  which  was  the  issue  of  the  cam- 
paign, the  Democrats  were  unquestionably  vulnerable, 
and  his  cue  throughout  was  to  force  the  fighting  on  that 
point.  In  all  his  public  utterances  it  was  as*  a  combative 
exponent  of  protection  that  he  made  his  chief  appeal. 
The  first  exhaustive  address  which  he  made  on  this  sub- 
ject— that  delivered  at  Springfield,  Illinois,  to  sound  the 
Republican  key-note  in  the  West — thus  illustrates  his 
quality  as  a  campaigner: 

We  may  well  thank  them  for  the  clearness  and  candor  with  which 
they  have  for  once  stated  their  precise  position  on  the  tariff.  They 
are  opposed  to  the  McKinley  bill  and  demand  its  unconditional  and 
immediate  repeal.  Ask  the  business  world,  which  has  adjusted  itself 
to  the  McKinley  bill  and  is  getting  on  admirabl}^  under  it,  whether 
it  wants  that.  They  are  opposed  to  any  protective  tariff.  Ask  the 
country,  which  has  seen  its  greatest  prosperity  under  protective 
tariffs,  whether  it  wants  such  an  absolute  severance  of  National 
policy  as  that. 

They  demand  a  tariff  for  revenue  only,  declare  any  other  uncon- 
stitutional, and  proclaim  this  "the  fundamental  principle  of  the 
Democratic  party."  We  are  bound  to  take  them  at  their  word;  but 
how  that  party  has  changed  I  They  cite  what  they  call  "the  long 
and  illustrious  line  of  Democratic  leaders,  from  Madison  to  Cleve- 
land." Well,  Madison  reported  and  George  Washington  signed  the 
first  Protective  Tariff  bill  in  our  history,  and  it  stated  specifically  in 
its  title  that  it  was  "for  the  encouragement  and  protection  of  manu- 
factures." But  then  the  Democratic  party  of  today  knows  that 
Washington  and  Madison  didn*t  understand  the  Constitution  they 
had  just  made!  Andrew  Jackson  elaborately  argued  the  constitu- 
tional right  and  dut}'  to  make  a  protective  tariff,  and  cited  his  prede- 
cessors, Washington,  Jefferson,  Madison  and  Monroe,  as  his  authori- 
ties. But  the  Democratic  party  of  today  knows  that  Andrew  Jack- 
son didn't  understand  the  Constitution.  Down  to  this  day  indeed 
there  has  been  but  one  great  representative  body  which  did  under- 
stand the  Constitution,  and  in  the  long  line  of  leaders  the  Democratic 
platform  proudly  refers  to,  "from  Madison  to  Cleveland,"  there  has 
heretofore  been  but  one  statesman  vested  with  the  power  to  enforce 
the  present  Democratic  interpretation  of  it.  The  representative 
body  was  the  Constitutional  Convention  of  the  Confederate  States, 
and  the  authorized  statesman  was  the  Confederate  President,  Jeffer- 


1 84         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

son  Davis.  They  embodied  in  their  constitution  and  enforced  in 
their  practice  the  doctrine  that  no  tariff  should  be  levied,  save  for 
revenue  only.  Today  the  Democratic  party,  to  use  the  current  politi- 
cal slang,  "turns  down"  Thomas  Jefferson,  Andrew  Jackson  and  all 
its  old  leaders,  jepudiates  alike  their  constitutional  interpretation, 
their  political  belief  and  their  acts,  announces  instead  identically  the 
same  doctrine  with  Jefferson  Davis  and  the  Confederate  States,  and 
proposes  that  Grover  Cleveland  in  your  name  shall  execute  it.  Ask 
the  people  if  they  want  that. 

Citing  official  figures  in  support  of  his  argument,  the 
speaker  traversed  not  only  the  tariff  issue  at  large  but 
brought  out  the  claims  of  the  reciprocity  policy  which 
he  had  himself  helped  to  advance  in  his  recent  French 
experience,  and  passed  thence  to  a  warning  against  the 
Democratic  plans  for  meddling  with  the  currency.  He 
concluded : 

Our  enemies  have  made  our  campaign  for  us.  Hold  them  to  their 
deliberately  avowed  principles.  We  go  to  the  people  claiming  that 
the  Republicans  have  given  the  country  a  clean,  honorable,  business- 
like and  highly  successful  Administration,  that  a  change  without 
cause  is  a  business  injury  to  every  citizen,  and  that  there  is  no  occa- 
sion for  a  change.  The  Democrats  want  this  country  to  have  an 
immediate  and  absolute  change.  They  want  to  repeal  the  McKinley 
tariff  at  once.  They  denounce  a  protective  tariff  of  any  sort  or  de- 
scription, refuse  to  let  tariff  legislation  have  the  slightest  reference 
to  the  defence  of  workingmen's  wages,  declare  that  Washington  and 
Madison  and  even  Andrew  Jackson  didn't  understand  the  Constitu- 
tion, and  that  nobody  but  themselves  and  Jefferson  Davis  ever  did; 
denounce  everj-thing  but  a  pure  tariff  for  revenue  only  as  unconsti- 
tutional, want  to  get  rid  of  our  Reciprocity,  and  demand  a  return  to 
wildcat  banking.     Hold  them  to  their  doctrine. 

I  have  before  this  touched  upon  Whitelaw  Reid's  dis- 
taste for  personalities  in  political  controversy.  He 
brought  none  of  them  into  the  present  campaign.  But 
on  one  occasion,  speaking  in  Boston  shortly  after  Cleve- 
land's letter  of  acceptance  had  been  published,  he  thus 
paid  his  compliments  to  the  Democratic  candidate: 

The  letter  of  acceptance  discloses  a  figure  which  our  aboriginal 
friends  of  the  far  West  would  describe  as  "  Big-Man-Afraid-of-His- 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  185 

Platform";  and  the  party  gazes  in  perplexity  and  alarm  on  a  candi- 
date who  accepts  the  nomination,  but  has  not  j-et  shown  either  the 
candor  to  accept  or  the  courage  to  repudiate  its  principles.  I  mean 
to  speak  of  Mr.  Cleveland  with  that  respect  which  all  right  thinking 
American  people  wish  to  show  for  one  who  has  passed  our  supreme 
ordeal,  and  been  once  declared  by  a  majority  of  American  votes 
worthy  to  be  the  Chief  Magistrate  of  this  Nation.  But  it  cannot  be 
disrespectful,  and  it  is  obviously  truthful,  to  say  that  Mr.  Qeveland 
now  acts  toward  the  platform  of  his  party  as  if  he  were  afraid  that 
if  he  should  venture  to  step  on  it  he  would  break  through. 

There  was  nothing  in  the  least  nebulous  or  evasive 
about  Reid's  own  letter  of  acceptance,  which  appeared  a 
fortnight  after  his  demand  in  Boston  for  courage  in  such 
communications.  He  had  been  aggressive  in  his  speeches 
and  in  the  letter  he  was  equally  direct.  In  it  he  trav- 
ersed in  detail  the  issues  which  have  already  been 
pointed  out,  and  as  he  analyzed  them  with  the  touch  of 
a  disputant  who,  after  all,  preferred  the  pen  to  oratory, 
he  framed  a  trenchant  statement  of  Republican  doc- 
trine. Its  plea  for  the  protective  system  and  a  sound 
administration  of  the  currency  is  too  long  to  be  quoted 
here  intact,  and  too  closely  knit  to  be  profitably  illus- 
trated by  fragments.  Better  than  the  latter  is  this 
message  of  Hay's:  "I  suppose  you  are  overwhelmed  with 
congratulations,  but  I  must  gratify  my  own  feelings  by 
adding  mine,  whether  you  have  time  to  read  them  or 
not.  Your  letter  of  acceptance  is  remarkabh^  fine  and 
strong.  It  could  not  be  improved  in  substance  or  in  man- 
ner. It  gives  a  perceptible  lift  to  the  campaign.  How 
can  any  honest  or  rational  man  be  against  us  this  year?" 

The  answer  to  Hay's  question  as  it  was  given  in  the 
November  vote  referred  him  and  all  other  inquirers  to 
but  one  explanation — the  tariff.  The  Republicans  had 
made  out  a  seemingly  convincing  case  for  the  McKinley 
bill.  I  have  noted  Whitelaw  Reid's  ceaseless  hammering 
upon  the  preponderant  merits  of  the  measure.     It  was 


i86         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  confident  belief  of  all  the  spokesmen  of  the  party 
that  they  had  a  winning  argument  in  the  latest  legis- 
lative affirmation  of  the  protective  system.  One  of  the 
most  interesting  episodes  of  the  campaign  was  Blaine's 
visit  to  Ophir  in  October,  when  he  made  his  sole  speech 
in  support  of  the  ticket.  He  in  his  turn  challenged  the 
Democratic  statement  that  the  tariff  was  a  promoter  of 
plutocratic  government,  and  a  handicap  to  the  poor 
man.  The  poor  man,  feeling  the  pressure  of  an  enhanced 
price  on  a  single  article  of  consumption,  hadn't  the  in- 
clination or  the  means  to  find  out  whether  he  was  being 
victimized  by  "  McKinleyism "  or  by  the  private  profit- 
eering which  ingeniously  turned  to  advantage  his  con- 
fusion of  mind  on  the  subject.  In  the  upshot  he 
swallowed  whole  the  exaggerations  employed  in  the 
Democratic  attack.  What  was  radical  in  the  bill  was 
exploited  with  telling  shrewdness  by  Cleveland's  man- 
agers. Writing  to  George  Ticknor  Curtis  just  after  the 
election,  Reid  said:  **The  people  have  evidently  made 
up  their  minds  that  the  McKinley  bill  went  too  far." 
He  was  persuaded  that  in  addition  to  their  reaction 
against  the  bill  the  working  classes  had  developed  the 
belief  that  it  was  their  own  unions  and  not  the  tariff 
that  secured  high  wages.  Besides,  to  the  prevaiHng 
vague  feeling  of  discontent  there  was  to  be  added  the 
dislocating  shock  of  the  Homestead  strikes.  The  influ- 
ence of  these,  as  I  have  previously  remarked,  counted 
heavily  at  the  polls.  The  element  of  personal  popularity 
may  have  figured  to  some  extent  before  the  Repubhcan 
convention.  The  anti-Harrison  feehng  of  such  an  out- 
spoken extremist  as  T.  B.  Reed,  for  example,  has  been 
noted.  He  was  convinced  that  the  President  was  not 
going  to  be  a  vote-getter.  But  as  things  turned  out  it 
wasn't  a  question  of  anybody's  personal  popularity.  It 
was  a  question  of  tariff  schedules. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  187 

This  fact  undoubtedly  deepened  the  calm  with  which 
both  the  Republican  candidates  received  the  result. 
"Personally  I  have  little  to  regret  in  the  outcome  of  the 
election,"  Reid  wrote  to  Stedman.  *'I  never  believed  in 
the  effort  to  nominate  me,  and  while  saying  that  I  should 
be  a  fool  not  to  be  gratified  if  it  came,  still  advised  against 
it."  He  had  the  satisfaction  of  knowing  that  he  had 
made  a  stanch  fight  in  the  service  of  the  party.  There 
is  no  repining  in  the  letter  which  he  wrote  to  Harrison: 

Ophir  Farm, 

T^         xr      r^  November  28th,  1802. 

Dear  Mr.  President: 

I  haven't  written  sooner,  since  the  defeat,  for  the  reason  that  in 
this,  as  in  some  other  trials  in  life,  there  seemed  to  be  at  the  instant 
no  useful  thing  to  say.  Our  opponents  were  as  much  surprised  at 
their  victory  as  we  were;  that,  at  least,  is  one  point  which  the  inter- 
vening period  has  made  clear.  Nothing  that  we  did  or  left  undone 
during  the  campaign  caused  it;  that  is  another.  Beyond  getting  the 
offices,  they  don't  know  what  to  do  with  their  victory;  that  is  another 
clear  point.  A  success  won  by  such  incongruous  allies  cannot  be 
maintained,  and  the  Republicans  must  come  in  again. 

I  know  you  are  at  present  naturally  indifferent  to  the  personal 
considerations  that  suggest;  but  your  position  will  nevertheless, 
whether  you  like  it  or  not,  devolve  an  immense  importance  upon 
your  every  movement.  You,  will  be  the  first  American  private  citi- 
zen; and  will  have  a  degree  of  esteem  among  the  people  of  all  parties 
such  as  no  man,  similarly  placed,  has  enjoyed  in  our  time. 

I  am  most  anxious  that  the  closing  months  of  the  Administration 
should  be  fully  up  to  the  bold,  conservative  and  yet  initiative  stand- 
ard of  the  previous  years.  The  Panama  and  kindred  questions 
bring  difficulties,  but  they  may  also  bring  opportunities.  I  hope  the 
Behring  Sea  arbitration  is  in  good  shape;  and  that  you  may  have 
your  several  agents  and  counsel  for  it  so  firmly  placed  that  there  is 
no  danger  of  disturbance,  when  the  new  Administration  comes  in. 

Faithfully  yours.        y,^„^^^  r^,„_ 

President  Harrison  was  in  as  serene  a  mood  and  his 
comment  on  the  cause  of  the  rout,  though  sharp,  had  a 
humorous  flavor.     He  replied  as  follows: 


1 88        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Executive  Mansion, 

Washington,  D.  C. 

,,  A/r      r»  December  5th,  1802. 

My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  ^    '      ^ 

I  have  just  let  go  of  my  message,  which  has  for  some  days  absorbed 
my  attention.  *^ou  will  see  it,  before  this  reaches  you,  and  will  I 
hope  judge  it  with  a  due  regard  to  the  distractions  that  have  sur- 
rounded its  preparation. 

You  take  a  just  and  philosophical  view  of  the  election  result.  If 
there  were  any  faults  of  management  I  do  not  care  to  know  of  them. 
They  cannot  account  for  the  result,  which  had  more  general  causes. 
The  workingman  declined  to  walk  under  the  protective  umbrella  be- 
cause it  sheltered  his  employer  also.  He  has  smashed  it  for  the  fun 
of  seeing  the  silk  stockings  take  the  rain.  If  he  finds  that  the  em- 
ployer has  a  waterproof  coat,  whne  he  is  undefended,  he  may  help 
to  rig  up  the  umbrella. 

I  shall  feel  a  great  sense  of  relief  when  public  affairs  have  for  me 

only  an  interest  and  no  responsibihty.     But  there  will  be  no  letting 

down  while  I  am  here.     With  very  kind  regards  for  Mrs.  Reid  and 

Mr.  Mills,  c-         T 

bmcerely  yours,  „  ^t 

'^  -^  Benj.  Harrison. 

Hay  was  off  shooting  ducks  in  an  Ohio  marsh  when 
news  of  the  election  reached  him.  He  was  grieved  and 
disgusted.  But  he  wrote  as  he  always  did,  with  an  in- 
spiriting emotion:  "At  present  my  chief  sorrow  is  that 
you  and  Mrs.  Reid  are  not  to  be  our  neighbors  in  Wash- 
ington for  the  next  few  years.  Here,  so  far  as  you  are 
concerned,  my  sorrow  ends.  It  was  a  great  honor  to 
be  nominated  for  the  Vice  Presidency.  You  have  made 
a  splendid  canvass  and  grown  constantly  in  standing 
and  prestige  before  the  country  every  hour  since  the 
nomination.  You  have  got  all  the  good,  and  most  of 
the  fun  out  of  it,  that  was  in  it.  The  post  would  rather 
have  wearied  you — now  you  are  your  own  man  again, 
and  are  very  much  more  of  a  political  quantity  than 
ever  before.'* 

A  week  after  the  election,  at  the  annual  banquet  of 
the  Chamber  of  Commerce,  where  Cleveland  was  this 
year  the  principal  guest,  Reid  was  called  upon  to  speak. 


THE  CAMPAIGN  OF   1892  189 

He  had  no  grievances  to  air  as  a  defeated  candidate, 
and  alluded  to  his  feelings  in  that  role  as  akin  to  those 
of  a  gentleman  of  the  African  persuasion  whose  emotions 
on  burying  his  fourth  wife  were  tenderly  inquired  into 
by  his  sympathetic  pastor.  **AII  I  can  say,"  ran  the 
resigned  reply,  "is  that  I  am  in  the  hands  of  an  all-wise 
but  perfectly  unscrupulous  Providence."  He  touched 
the  subject  lightly,  in  a  sporting  humor.  The  sole  echo 
of  the  recent  combat  upon  which  he  ventured  was  very 
warmly  received.  It  came  when  he  answered  a  query 
which  Congressman  Breckinridge,  of  Kentucky,  had  put 
as  to  the  wishes  of  the  business  people  of  New  York. 
"I  venture  to  tell  him  one  thing,"  said  Reid.  "There 
is  nothing  so  injurious  to  business  as  uncertainty.  He 
has  told  us  that  it  is  his  purpose,  and  that  of  his  party, 
to  set  their  faces  resolutely  and  conscientiously  in  directly 
the  opposite  course  from  that  which  the  people  of  this 
country,  through  their  Government,  have  been  pursuing 
for  thirty  years  past.  I  accept  that  statement  with  the 
frankness  and  candor  with  which  it  has  been  made,  and 
I  venture  now  to  say  to  him  as  a  business  man  that 
what  the  business  men  of  New  York  and  what  the  busi- 
ness men  of  the  country  desire  is  that  whatever  is  to  be 
done  shall  be  done  without  unnecessary  and  harassing 
delays."  The  applause  with  which  this  passage  was  fol- 
lowed was  evidence  of  the  directness  with  which  he  had 
gone  to  the  heart  of  the  problem  left  for  solution  by  the 
campaign  of  1892.  It  was  the  wide-spread  uncertainty 
as  to  just  what  was  to  flow  from  the  Democratic  pro- 
gramme which  more  than  anything  else  engendered  the 
panic  of  1893. 

But  the  anecdote  with  which  Reid  closed  had  no  con- 
troversial implications.  It  described  an  incident  which 
he  had  witnessed  in  the  French  Chamber  of  Deputies, 
when  Paul  de  Cassagnac,  as  has  been   recounted  in  a 


190         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

preceding  chapter,  had  proudly  asserted  the  political 
unity  of  himself  and  his  colleagues  on  any  question  of 
foreign  politics.  "I  think  we  may  say,"  Reid  went  on, 
"it  has  not  always  been  said  in  the  past,  but  I  think  I 
may  speak  for  my  associates  in  saying  to  the  gentlemen 
who  soon  take  the  control — that  whatever  they  may  do 
to  sustain  the  honor  of  the  flag  and  promote  the  pros- 
perity of  the  country  will  find  no  warmer  applause  than 
it  finds  from  the  opposition,  and  that  on  any  question 
aff'ecting  the  honor  of  the  flag  on  foreign  soil  they  wiH 
find  in  the  United  States  no  Republicans  and  no  Demo- 
crats, but  that  we  are  Americans  all!" 


CHAPTER  XI 
IN  EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA 

The  second  administration  of  Grover  Cleveland  was 
well  calculated  to  develop  in  him  the  traits  which  have 
marked  him  as  one  of  the  strong  men  in  the  succession 
of  American  Presidents.  It  embraced  events  calling  not 
only  for  brains  but  for  courage.  Without  force  of  char- 
acter the  panic  of  1893,  "^he  railway  strike  at  Chicago  in 

1894,  the  much-discussed  bond  contract  with  Morgan  in 

1895,  niight  all  have  been  mishandled.  The  Cleveland 
legend  is  rooted  as  much  in  his  manhood  as  in  his  mea- 
sures, perhaps  even  more.  It  is  a  point  underhned  in 
the  story  of  Whitelaw  Reid's  relation  to  these  years  of 
pohtics.  His  place  was  amongst  the  leaders  of  the  oppo- 
sition, and  he  filled  it  with  his  usual  fidelity  to  Republi- 
can doctrine;  but  it  is  appropriate  to  note  here  again  the 
independence  which  has  been  indicated  as  tincturing  the 
partisanship  of  The  Tribune.  On  the  homeward  voyage 
from  France  his  hard-hitting  Republicanism  had  cer- 
tainly suff*ered  no  sea  change,  yet  experience  abroad  had, 
if  anything,  deepened  his  habit  of  detached  thinking  on 
public  affairs.  He  formed  a  cool  judgment  on  the  great 
Democratic  figure  whose  policies  he  had  so  often  to  com- 
bat. He  thought  the  truth  about  Cleveland  lay  some- 
where between  the  myth  created  by  those  zealots  who 
exhausted  the  language  in  praise  of  his  wisdom,  and  the 
patently  grotesque  portrait  drawn  by  irreconcilable  crit- 
ics. Naturally  he  could  never  see  eye  to  eye  with  Cleve- 
land on  the  tarifi*,  but  he  backed  the  President  on  the 
repeal  of  the  silver  coinage  law,  applauded  his  progress — 

191 


192         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

so  far  as  it  went — in  Civil  Service  matters,  and  watched 
with  increasing  warmth  of  admiration  the  masterful  set- 
tling of  the  railway  strike.  He  read  the  challenging 
Venezuelan  message  with  mixed  feelings,  of  course,  but 
then  so  did  numbers  of  Cleveland's  best  friends.  In  all 
these  affairs  Reid  was  appreciative  of  the  President's 
personal  significance.  "He  has  borne  himself,"  he  said 
editorially,  when  the  end  of  the  four  years  had  come, 
"with  a  self-assertion  and  robust  egotism  that  might 
almost  be  called  magnificent."  Shortly  after  the  four 
years  had  begun  Hay  wrote  to  him:  "You  have  been 
very  mild  and  gentle  on  this  administration  so  far." 
There  were  plenty  of  occasions  on  which  he  was  neither 
gentle  nor  mild;  but  whatever  there  was  at  all  "mag- 
nificent" about  Cleveland  was  freely  recognized  in  The 
Tribune. 

Reid  was  a  fairly  constant  participant  in  the  political 
conflict  under  Democratic  rule,  but  for  various  reasons 
I  shall  have  to  say  as  much  in  this  chapter  on  his  aff'airs 
as  on  the  aff'airs  of  the  republic.  An  echo  of  his  service 
abroad  belongs  to  this  period.  A  gift  from  the  French 
Government  reached  him  in  the  shape  of  a  piece  of  Sevres, 
a  large  classic  vase.  The  ministry  had  tactfully  post- 
poned sending  it  until,  under  our  Constitution,  his  retire- 
ment from  office  had  made  it  possible  for  him  to  accept 
it,  and  until  the  campaign  of  1892  had  been  closed.  It 
was  transmitted  with  the  following  letter  from  the  min- 
ister of  foreign  aff'airs: 

Mr.  Minister: 

At  the  moment  when  circumstances  led  to  your  voluntary  resigna- 
tion of  the  high  diplomatic  functions  which  you  exercised  for  some 
three  years  at  Paris,  the  President  of  the  Republic  was  specially 
desirous  of  sending  to  you,  in  the  name  of  the  French  Government, 
a  souvenir  of  the  mission  which  you  have  so  worthily  filled,  and  the 
premature  close  of  which  excites  in  us  very  sincere  regrets. 

Coming  to  Paris  ^t  the  beginning  of  the  year  1889,  one  of  your  first 


IN  EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  193 

acts  was  to  associate  the  Republic  of  the  United  States  of  America 
with  the  celebration  of  our  grand  centenary,  and  since  then  you 
have  never  failed,  while  defending  the  interests  of  your  country,  to 
think  constantly  of  the  friendship  of  over  a  century  which  unites  it 
to  France — a  friendship  which  finds  today,  in  the  similarity  of  their 
pK)hticaI  institutions,  a  reason  for  continuance  and  gro^^'th. 

In  accepting  the  object  of  art  which  I  now  have  the  pleasure  of 
offering  you  in  the  name  of  the  French  Republic,  you  will  please 
find  in  this  testimonial  a  proof  of  the  sentiments  generally  expressed 
on  your  account,  and  of  the  agreeable  souvenirs  of  you  which  we 
cherish. 

Accept,  Mr.  Minister,  the  assurance  of  my  very  high  consideration 
and  of  my  most  sympathetic  regards.  Ribot. 

Meanwhile,  as  it  happened,  the  French  Government 
and  our  own  were  still  considering  Reid's  extradition 
treaty.  The  affair  moved  slowly,  owing  to  modifications 
proposed  in  the  American  Senate.  \\^hen  the  treaty 
had  first  been  laid  before  the  latter  body  no  minimum 
amount  had  been  fixed  for  the  embezzlement  of  which  a 
criminal  might  be  extradited.  An  amendment  having 
been  framed,  and  some  slight  verbal  changes  having  been 
made.  Minister  Coohdge  in  Paris  patiently  sought  the 
attention  of  a  government  distracted  by  the  Panama 
scandals.  Acquiescence  was  finally  secured  and  the 
document  was  ratified  by  the  American  Senate  on  Feb- 
ruary 2d,  1893.  ^^'  ^he  modifications  were  departures 
from  the  instructions  originally  given  to  Reid.  At  the 
most  they  were  unimportant  and  the  treaty  remained  in 
essence  his  work,  an  appreciable  contribution  to  the 
working  out  of  a  problem  ultimately  carried  to  a  com- 
plete solution  in  the  Taft  administration.  Elkins,  con- 
gratulating Reid  on  his  success,  noted  the  especially 
gratifying  vote  by  which  it  was  secured.  It  stood  forty 
to  sixteen,  eight  more  than  the  two-thirds  majority 
required. 

It  was  in  the  first  month  of  this  year  that  Reid  lost 
two   old   friends  in  his  political  circle.     Hayes  died  on 


194         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

January  17th,  at  his  home  in  Ohio.  They  had  never 
been  intimate,  but  neither  had  the  stress  of  debate 
affected  their  cordial  relations.  Reid  liked  to  recall  their 
last  meeting.  It  was  in  John  Sherman's  room  at  the 
old  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  during  the  campaign  of  1892. 
The  ex-President  was  just  going  out  as  Reid  came  in. 
He  replied  cheerfully  to  inquiries  about  his  health,  and 
then  said,  with  a  hearty  hand-shake:  "But  whether  well 
or  ill,  I  want  you  to  understand  that  I  shall  be  able  to 
go  to  the  polls  on  election  day  to  vote  for  you,  even  if  I 
have  to  walk  ten  miles  to  do  it."  Blaine's  death  followed 
on  January  27th,  terminating  a  friendship  more  deeply 
rooted.  I  have  already  exhibited  the  closeness  of  their 
collaboration  in  politics  and  the  mutual  regard  which 
went  with  it.  Blaine  had  a  way  of  engaging  men's  hearts 
as  well  as  their  heads.  Walter  Phelps  was  appointed 
that  winter  a  judge  of  the  New  Jersey  Court  of  Errors 
and  Appeals,  and  in  a  letter  of  his  from  that  sanctuary, 
months  after  Blaine  had  been  laid  in  his  grave,  he  ex- 
presses the  profound  sentiment  which  the  New  England 
statesman  had  inspired  in  his  comrades.  "I  like  it. 
Yes.  Out  of  politics.  I  find  poor  Blaine  and  his  for- 
tunes were  all  those  twenty-one  years  the  mainspring  of 
my  love  for  them."  The  characterization  of  him  in 
The  Tribune  as  a  statesman  who  w^as  followed  because 
he  was  loved  and  trusted,  points  to  the  affection  which 
was  one  element  in  Reid's  steadfast  support  of  him.  For 
Reid,  however,  the  political  life  was  bound  in  the  nature 
of  things  to  go  on. 

The  Democratic  party  was  there  to  be  admonished, 
and  there  were  always  new  issues  in  the  air.  In  July, 
McKinley,  who  was  campaigning  for  re-election  as  gov- 
ernor of  Ohio,  sent  on  an  emissary  to  try  to  persuade 
Reid  to  come  out  and  take  the  stump  in  his  behalf. 
Hay,  travelling  abroad,  picked  up  from  a  friend  in  a 


IN   EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  195 

London  hotel  the  piquant  information  that  Reid  himself 
might  presently  be  advocated  as  the  Republican  candi- 
date for  governor  in  New  York.  This  speculation, 
though,  was  unusually  w4de  of  the  mark.  In  the  midst 
of  the  political  talk  that  was  ahvays  going  on  Reid  paid 
heed  to  the  signs  that  speechmaking  in  the  recent  cam- 
paign had  confirmed  him  in  an  asthmatic  tendency,  and 
with  prompt  resolution  to  fight  this  from  the  start  he 
made  his  plans  to  turn  his  back  on  politics  and  spend  the 
winter  on  the  Nile.  He  had  another  grief  to  suff'er  be- 
fore he  sailed.  Walter  Phelps  died  in  the  summer  of 
1894,  on  June  i8th.  It  was  the  hardest  wrench  of  all 
in  the  breaking  up  of  an  old  group.  Politics  had  made 
only  an  incident  in  their  friendship,  which  had  united 
them  in  some  of  Reid's  earlier  and  more  strenuous  years 
in  the  editorship  of  The  Tribune,  and  all  the  innumerable 
ties  formed  by  sympathies  held  in  common  had  *  been 
cemented  in  the  atmosphere  of  home  life.  Their  intel- 
lectual alHance  was  complete,  they  swam  and  rode  to- 
gether, they  loved  the  same  books  and  laughed  over  the 
same  things.     Phelps's  death  made  an  unfillable  gap. 

The  Reids  went  abroad  in  the  fall  of  1894.  Hay  bade 
them  Godspeed  with  no  doubt  at  all  that  the  trip  to 
northern  Africa  would  send  Reid  back  in  perfect  fettle 
for  every  political  eventuality,  and,  above  all,  for  the 
**big  fight  of  1896."  It  was  a  pity,  he  thought,  that  the 
Republicans  couldn't  take  advantage  of  the  existing 
situation  to  elect  their  candidate  at  once.  He  was  sure 
to  go  in,  whether  he  was  Roman  or  Scythian,  bond  or 
free.  A  Chinaman  could  be  elected  against  Cleveland  in 
1894.  There  was  sure  to  be  a  prodigious  scramble  when 
the  fight  for  the  presidential  nomination  was  actually 
begun.  Harrison  would  in  all  probability  be  in  the 
field,  McKinley  would  be  there,  too,  as  well  as  Tom  Reed 
and    Levi   P.    Morton,   with   Cameron   of  Pennsylvania 


196         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

making  all  manner  of  futile  combinations  in  the  back- 
ground. Reid  was  to  return  well  and  strong,  and  ready 
to  read  the  riot  act  to  them  all. 

His  idea,,  while  the  holiday  lasted,  was  to  live  in  an 
absolutely  dry  atmosphere,  which  would  give  his  bron- 
chial passages  an  opportunity  to  heal  up  and  get  over 
their  irritability.  In  looking  for  the  ideal  climate  he 
visited  Morocco,  Algiers  and  Tunis,  Malta  and  Egypt. 
He  went  up  to  the  edge  of  the  Mahdi's  dominions  in  the 
Soudan.  He  traversed  the  length  and  breadth  of  Arabia 
Petrsea,  and  in  Palestine  travelled  not  merely  from  Dan 
to  Beersheba,  but  from  Gaza  to  Damascus.  Often  he 
rested  in  hotels  and  khans,  but  much  of  the  time  he 
camped  out,  especially  by  the  oases  of  the  Sahara.  It 
was  after  a  month  on  the  Nile,  during  which  he  had  a 
multitude  of  donkey  rides  and  plenty  of  exercise  wander- 
ing over  old  temples  and  ruins,  that  he  started  into  the 
desert.  The  little  caravan  consisted  of  twenty  camels, 
with  as  many  Bedouins  to  look  after  them,  a  Syrian 
dragoman  and  several  other  servants.  Half  a  dozen  tents 
were  necessary.  The  objective  when  they  left  Cairo 
was  Mount  Sinai.  Thence  their  plan  was  to  go  back  by 
way  of  Hebron  to  Jerusalem  and  Beirut,  in  time  to  go 
straight  to  Paris  and  London  in  the  spring.  A  frag- 
mental  diary  shows  that  this  itinerary  was  smoothly  fol- 
lowed, though  they  learned  the  discomforts  of  a  sand- 
storm, and  came  across  more  than  one  sign  of  native 
unrest.  In  the  Holy  Land  one  quiet  Sunday  a  French 
soldier.  Count  Henri  des  Moustiers-Merinville,  arrived 
at  the  Reid  camp  exhausted,  from  Jericho,  where  he  had 
been  robbed.  Reid's  own  worst  mishap  befell  him  on  a 
ride  up  the  hill  above  Nazareth,  where  the  mount  of  one 
of  his  companions  backed  suddenly,  and,  lashing  out, 
kicked  him  in  the  leg.  It  meant  crutches  for  a  httle 
while,  but  that  annoyance  passed  before  they  were  on 


IN   EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  197 

their  way  home.  In  Paris  they  found  old  friends  in 
the  Elysee,  and  at  the  head  of  the  government,  and 
Reid  noted  the  popularity  of  Felix  Faure.  In  London, 
where  he  received  a  cordial  greeting  from  Rosebery, 
that  statesman  was  just  on  the  verge  of  a  crisis  in  his 
political  career.  The  Reids  got  there  as  May  was  draw- 
ing to  a  close.  In  the  following  month  the  Rosebery 
ministry,  which  had  succeeded  Gladstone's  in  March, 
1894,  was  out.  But  all  thought  of  politics  was  driven 
from  Reid's  mind  when  he  landed  in  New  York.  The 
first  news  he  had  came  to  him  in  a  telegram  stating  that 
his  mother  had  died  the  day  before.  He  and  Mrs.  Reid 
went  almost  directly  from  the  ship  to  the  homestead  at 
Cedarville. 

In  a  letter  to  Hay,  Reid  summed  up  the  results  of  his 
travels  for  the  establishment  of  his  health.  '*I  gained 
greatly  in  Northern  Africa,''  he  said,  **  especially  in  the 
Sahara;  lost  a  little  in  Egypt;  gained  again  in  the  deserts 
of  Mount  Sinai  and  the  wanderings;  lost  from  an  infernal 
sandstorm,  several  rainstorms  and  the  vicious  kick  of  a 
horse  bestrode  by  the  good  missionary.  Dr.  Post,  of 
Beirut;  gained  again  on  the  Mediterranean  and  was 
strong  enough  to  enjoy  a  fortnight's  dining  and  lunching 
and  all  manner  of  gossip  and  other  hard  work  in  Paris; 
lost  a  little  in  the  abominable  air  of  London;  braced  up 
again  on  the  voyage,  and  arrived  in  New  York  as  strong 
and  well  as  I  have  been  for  a  long  time,  barring  the  slight 
continuing  bronchitis  and  the  consequent  consciousness 
that  the  wild  beast  asthma,  which  had  been  peremptorily 
kicked  out,  was  nevertheless  waiting  around  the  corner 
for  me.  He  has  only  got  in  once,  since,  in  spite  of  a 
good  deal  to  depress  me;  but  then  he  gave  me  an  uncom- 
monly bad  quarter  of  a  day.  The  doctors  pronounce 
me  very  much  better,  but  insist  on  another  winter's  ab- 
sence, and  this  time  propose  Tucson,  Arizona.     Mean- 


198         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

time  I  have  been  doing  more  work  on  the  paper  than 
for  a  year  or  two  past,  and  have  been  enjoying  it." 
This  was  written  in  the  summer.  As  autumn  approached 
he  carefully --canvassed  the  Arizona  proposal,  and  ulti- 
mately decided  to  go  to  Phoenix.  In  two  winters  there, 
with  an  open-air  regimen  he  followed  in  the  other  seasons 
spent  in  California,  at  home,  or  in  the  Adirondacks,  his 
refusal  to  drift  into  anything  like  invalidism  was  more 
than  rewarded.  The  wild  beast  asthma  was  conclu- 
sively expelled.  Moreover,  even  while  subduing  the 
bronchial  tendency,  he  kept  -up  his  general  health  so  well 
that  he  had  a  full  measure  of  strength  for  all  his  inter- 
ests. There  is  confident  talk  in  his  correspondence  with 
Hay  over  the  matter  of  editing  a  newspaper  from  across 
a  continent.  "The  Tribune  has  been  our  only  comfort 
throughout  the  winter,"  wrote  Hay  from  Paris.  **I  pre- 
sume you  made  a  long  arm  from  Arizona  and  kept  it  on 
the  right  track."  Reid's  reply  intimates  that  he  had 
made  a  long  arm  indeed.  **In  six  years,"  he  says,  **I 
have  not  done  as  much  regular  work  on  The  Tribune. 
In  emergencies  I  telegraphed  editorials  from  Phoenix  or 
from  Millbrae,  and  my  typewriter  has  become  so  steeped 
in  the  politics  she  had  to  write  that  I  am  afraid  she  will 
be  setting  up  presently  as  a  strong-minded  personage. 
Everything  has  worked  the  right  way,  and  apparently 
the  tide  for  protection  and  good  money  was  taken  at  the 
flood.  Since  I  came  back,  in  spite  of  my  resolute  eff'orts 
to  keep  out  of  the  whirlpool,  I  have  been  as  busy  as 
possible;  but  it  is  amazing  how  much  work  a  man  who 
is  well  again  can  stand  under  the  stimulus  of  success." 
The  success,  of  course,  was  the  nomination  of  WilHam 
McKinley  at  St.  Louis  in  1896.  A  great  deal  of  the 
work  Reid  did  for  it  was  done  in  Arizona. 

In  this  matter  of  the  nomination  Reid  moved  merely 
as  an  inquiring,  observer  for  a  considerable  time.     As 


IN   EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  199 

far  back  as  November,  1893,  when  McKinley's  re-elec- 
tion as  governor  was  leading  his  friends  to  talk  about 
the  presidency,  Reid  added  to  his  congratulations  a  word 
of  caution  against  the  premature  development  of  ambi- 
tious plans.  **A  boom  for  '96  which  starts  in  '93,"  he 
wrote,  ''is  in  danger  of  w^ithering  before  harvest  time," 
and  McKinley  took  the  reminder  in  good  part.  The 
interesting  thing  about  Reid's  interchanges  with  his 
political  friends  at  this  juncture  is  his  judgmatic  consid- 
eration of  various  booms,  his  endeavor  to  influence  the 
party  toward  a  really  discreet  handhng  of  its  unmistak- 
able opportunity.  The  chances  for  any  good  Republi- 
can candidate  were  propitious.  We  have  seen  how  con- 
fident Hay  was.  The  President  was  at  odds  with  his 
party.  Far  away  in  Egypt,  Reid  heard  from  another 
commentator  on  the  scene  that  the  feehng  amongst  the 
Democrats  in  Congress  against  Cleveland  was  bitter  in 
the  last  degree.  They  blamed  one  another,  but  they 
all  blamed  him.  On  the  rock  of  his  personality  his  party 
seemed  certain  to  go  to  smash.  The  problem  of  the 
Republicans  was  chiefly  that  of  picking  the  right  man 
to  displace  him.  Reid's  policy  was  to  try  out  on  pubhc 
opinion  every  serious  possibility,  and  there  is  a  good 
specimen  of  it,  showing  "how  the  wheels  go  round,"  in 
his  method  of  testing  the  eligibility  of  Senator  Allison. 
A  letter  that  he  wrote  to  that  statesman  flings  a  reveal- 
ing ray  of  light  on  the  gentle  art  of  President-making. 
It  seemed  to  Reid  that  some  of  Allison's  friends,  or  at 
any  rate  some  of  them  in  the  East  who  had  been  talked 
of  as  his  friends,  were  unduly  modest,  if  not  actually  de- 
preciatory, in  the  things  they  were  saying  about  him  as 
a  presidential  factor.  Uncharitable  people  thought  that 
perhaps  this  tone  was  being  taken  on  intentionally,  so  as 
to  belittle  the  senator's  chances.  Reid  thought  that  it 
was  about  time  for  some  candid  representation  of  the 


200         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

views  of  Allison's  supporters  to  reach  the  Eastern  pub- 
lic. The  Tribune  had  rather  discouraged  presidential 
discussions,  but  it  had  in  hand  some  important  letters 
from  prominent  people,  to  which  it  could  not  refuse  pub- 
lication, temperately  setting  forth  and  discussing  the  fit- 
ness, claims,  and  chances  of  McKinley,  Robert  Lincoln, 
Reed,  and  others.  Therefore,  on  public  grounds  as  well 
as  out  of  a  personal  regard  which  had  been  developed 
through  nearly  a  third  of  a  century's  acquaintance,  Reid 
did  not  wish  to  see  his  friend's  unquestioned  position 
either  ignored  or  belittled.  , Hence  he  wrote:  '*Is  there 
not  some  capable  friend  of  yours,  now  at  home,  sincerely 
devoted  to  your  interests,  and  free  from  comphcations 
with  our  eastern  managers,  who  would  send  to  me  (pref- 
erably though  not  necessarily  over  his  own  signature)  a 
moderate,  cautious  and  comprehensive  statement  of  the 
attitude  of  Iowa  Republicans  with  regard  to  yourself; 
their  declared  determination  to  present  you  as  a  candi- 
date, their  reasons  for  doing  so,  and  their  behef  as  to  the 
prospect?  It  could  be  written  so  as  to  involve  no  awk- 
ward committals  and  so  as  to  relieve  you  from  all  respon- 
sibility; and  it  could  emphasize  the  fact  that  you  have 
thus  far  remained  absolutely  quiet  and  refused  to  par- 
ticipate in  any  way  in  the  struggle.  But  it  would  have 
the  effect  of  counteracting  impressions  that  the  move- 
ment for  you,  in  Iowa,  is  merely  formal.  It  seems  to 
me  it  would  be  a  good  thing  therefore  for  you,  and  I  am 
sure  it  would  be  a  good  thing  for  the  party  in  broaden- 
ing the  personal  discussions  now  in  progress." 

Thus  is  the  way  sometimes  prepared  for  what  is  known 
as  the  crystallization  of  public  sentiment.  A  thousand 
influences  latent  in  the  character  and  career  of  a  pubhc 
man  lead  up  to  the  decisive  moment;  but  on  the  power 
of  the  press  the  exposition  of  them  at  the  proper  time 
largely  depends.     A  lot  of  this  preliminary  and  essen- 


IN   EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  201 

tially  disinterested  work  went  on  in  The  Tribune  as  the 
convention  drew  nearer.  It  helped  to  clarify  the  situ- 
ation. As  the  winter  advanced  Reid  received  in  Phoenix 
divers  interesting  sidelights  on  the  subject.  Depew, 
after  a  long  talk  with  Morton,  then  governor,  related 
that  that  gentleman  was  in  a  curious  state  of  anxiety 
and  doubt  about  his  own  prospects.  There  was  a  gen- 
eral belief  abroad,  in  the  State  and  out  of  it,  that  his 
candidacy  was  to  be  used  by  the  machine  simply  to  keep 
the  New  York  delegation  together,  so  that  it  might 
have  the  strategic  advantage  of  ''creating  the  victor." 
But  whether  the  laurel  should  be  placed  upon  his  brow 
was  another  question.  He  had,  of  course,  received 
more  than  one  assurance  of  loyalty  from  men  who  would 
be  in  the  convention,  and  yet,  ruefully,  he  had  to  admit 
the  Hkehhood  of  their  pleading,  at  a  pinch,  with  Doc- 
tor Johnson's  lapidary,  that  they  were  "not  upon  oath." 
He  recalled  an  episode  in  the  career  of  a  former  leader 
famous  for  millions  of  broken  pledges.  This  potentate 
was  once  hauled  over  the  coals  by  an  irate,  buncoed  con- 
stituent. Thoughtfully  and  with  emphasis  he  said: 
'*Now  that  is  a  promise  which  I  came  damned  near 
keeping."  Morton  never  had  anything  much  more 
comforting  than  this  to  go  upon  in  the  campaign.  From 
first  to  last  he  was  but  a  pawn  in  the  game. 

Depew,  describing  the  situation  for  his  friend  in  Ari- 
zona, also  gave  a  humorous  account  of  what  happened 
in  New  York  financial  circles  when  Cleveland  threw  into 
them  the  bombshell  of  his  Venezuelan  message.  **I  see 
Mr.  Mills  nearly  every  day,"  he  said.  **He  is  about  the 
only  man  not  swept  off  his  feet  by  the  war  scare.  I 
dined  on  Saturday  night  with  a  lot  of  financiers,  among 
them  Morgan,  Lanier  and  Sturgis,  President  of  the 
Stock  Exchange,  and  they  all  believed  on  Monday  that 
the  frightened  English  investor  and  European  holders  of 


202         THE  LIFE  OP  WHITELAW  REID 

our  securities  would  be  tumbling  them  across  the  Atlan- 
tic at  a  rate  which  would  take  out  all  the  gold  from  the 
Treasury  to  pay  for  them;  that  they  would  find  no  mar- 
ket here  capable  of  buying  them,  and  so  they  would 
sell  for  nothing;  that  they  would  cramp  the  banks;  that 
the  loans  would  all  be  called  in  and  no  new  ones  made; 
that  everybody  owing  money  would  fail  in  business, 
and  that  we  were  on  the  eve  of  a  financial  cataclysm  the 
like  of  which  had  never  been  witnessed."  It  took  some 
hours  for  this  awful  mood  to  spend  itself.  Reid  had  not 
anticipated  any  such  eff*ects,  jeven  momentarily,  from  the 
President's  bellicosity;  but  he  expected  some  trouble,  for 
he  felt  that  Cleveland  had  "played  to  the  pit."  Writing 
instructions  to  the  office  he  said: 

The  proposition  to  take  the  question  of  determining  the  boundary 
into  our  own  hands,  fix  it  by  a  Commission  of  our  own  appointing, 
and  then  declare  that  if  Great  Britain  didn't  accept  it  we  would 
fight,  struck  me  as  presented  in  the  brief  abstract  in  the  Phoenix 
papers  as  needlessly  offensive.  It  seemed  to  be  driving  a  very  strong 
antagonist  into  a  corner  and  then  slapping  his  face.  We  disagree 
with  them  because  they  won't  accept  arbitration,  which  is  right;  but 
go  further,  and  say  that  now  we  will  arbitrate  it  ourselves  and  enforce 
our  decision,  which  seems  strong  practice.  A  man  who  merely 
wanted  to  maintain  the  Monroe  Doctrine,  and  the  honor  of  the 
country,  not  also  to  further  personal  or  political  interests,  and  who 
also  had  the  sincere  desire  every  statesman  ought  to  have  for  peace, 
if  it  can  be  had  with  honor,  might,  it  strikes  me,  have  found  a  less 
offensive  way  of  convincing  Great  Britain  that  there  was  a  point 
beyond  which  she  could  not  go  without  breaking  with  us.  And  to 
convince  her  of  that,  it  seems  to  me,  was  all  that  was  really  necessary. 
I  presume  the  fact  is  that  Chamberlain,  who  has  never  recovered 
from  his  chagrin  at  the  rejection  of  his  own  treaty  with  us,  was  asked 
by  Lord  Salisbury  to  deal  with  this  question;  and,  so  far  as  one  may 
judge  of  it  from  the  abstract,  he  dealt  with  it  with  a  club. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  in  the  course  of  his 
private  correspondence  Reid  had  conclusive  news  on  a 
topic  with  which  political  circles  were  buzzing  in  vain, 
the  question  as  to  what  Benjamin  Harrison  meant  to  do. 


IN   EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  203 

Writing  in  January  the  ex-President  said:  "As  to  further 
public  honor,  you  know  as  do  all  of  my  friends,  that 
there  has  never  been  an  hour  since  I  left  the  White 
House  that  I  had  any  desire  for  further  public  service  of 
any  kind.  With  the  majority  in  the  Senate  as  it  is  now 
and  as  it  is  likely  to  be  for  some  years,  I  do  not  see  how 
anyone  can  make  a  successful  administration  and  I  do 
not  feel  that  I  could  stand  the  worry  of  another  term." 
Early  in  the  following  month  he  wrote  to  the  chairman 
of  the  State  Committee  in  Indiana  formally  announcing 
that  his  name  was  not  to  be  used  at  St.  Louis.  All 
the  leaders,  and  Reid  among  them,  recognized  in  Har- 
rison's withdrawal  a  distinct  contribution  to  McKinley's 
strength;  but  neither  this  circumstance,  nor  the  current 
estimation  of  Morton's  candidacy  as  a  mere  trading  fac- 
tor, altogether  made  the  future  plain.  On  the  contrary, 
there  ensued  a  tremendous  visitation  of  "favorite  sons," 
through  which  managers  inimical  to  McKinley  sought 
to  create  a  big  enough  field  against  him  to  insure  some 
chance  of  his  defeat.  Even  while  his  boom  showed 
increasing  vitality,  the  ultimate  development  of  the 
campaign  remained  more  than  ever  a  puzzle. 

Hay  was  completely  mystified.  He  had  seen  some 
queer  streaks  of  politics  in  his  time,  but  nothing  that 
could  hold  a  candle  to  this  welter  of  cross-purposes.  He 
did  not  believe  that  anybody  but  Piatt  and  the  devil 
knew  what  he  really  wanted.  Everybody  watched  with 
breathless  interest  to  see  if  the  spurt  McKinley  made  in 
February  could  be  kept  up.  Whitelaw  Reid,  who  had 
been  keeping  The  Tribune  in  an  attitude  of  benevolent 
neutrahty,  tended  toward  the  judgment  that  the  Ohio 
man  would  prove  the  strongest  available.  Though  he 
still  maintained  a  free  hand,  that  he  presently  allowed 
this  view  to  be  reflected  in  his  paper  is  shown  by  the  fol- 
lowing note: 


204         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Canton,  Ohio. 
My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  March  21st,  1896. 

I  want  to  express  my  very  great  appreciation  of  the  work  of  The 
Tribune.  All  my  friends  are  delighted.  It  is  helping  the  cause  to 
a  degree  that  yeu  may  not  reahze  at  your  distance.  I  thank  you 
over  and  over  again.  Chairman  Gowdy  of  Indiana  reports  that  the 
26  delegates  from  that  state  are  solid  for  me. 
With  best  wishes,     ^        r  •     j 

Yourfnend.      ^m.  McKinlev. 

This  is  a  personal  souvenir  of  what  was,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  an  impersonal  campaign.  The  business  of  labor- 
ing over  presidential  possibilities  is  always  fraught  with 
personalities,  and  considering  all  the  factors — the  play  of 
friendship,  the  intrigues  of  group  leaders,  the  pervasive- 
ness of  machine  politics — it  is  no  surprise  that  the  lay- 
man sometimes  thinks  of  the  editor  as  nothing  if  not  a 
cynical  opportunist.  Reid  had  occasion  to  make  a  con- 
cise exposition  of  his  role  when  Elkins  interpreted  the 
methods  of  The  Tribune  as  a  sign  that  the  paper  was 
definitively  committed  to  McKinley.  "The  explanation 
is,"  Reid  told  him,  "that  The  Tribune  is  fully  recogniz- 
ing the  facts,  instead  of  trying  to  belittle  them.  A  news- 
paper, to  amount  to  anything,  must  keep  its  news  col- 
umns honest  and  up  to  the  times,  and  the  paper  which 
didn't  tell  its  readers  nowadays  that  McKinley  was  in 
the  lead  would  be  foolish  as  well  as  false.  But  in  addi- 
tion to  this,  there  is  certainly  no  concealment  of  The 
Tribune's  intense  hostility  to  any  attempt,  through  a 
conspiracy  of  bosses,  to  control  the  nomination.  You 
and  I  have  co-operated  in  resistance  to  such  conspiracies 
in  the  past,  and  during  the  quarter  of  a  century  through 
which  you  have  watched  the  course  of  The  Tribune 
you  have  never  seen  it  acting  otherwise.  It  would  belie 
its  whole  history  if  it  did."  An  appropriate  foot-note 
to  this  is  supplied  in  a  page  of  instructions  sent  to  the 
office : 


IN  EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  205 

I  will  not  permit  The  Tribune  to  be  put  in  the  position  of  commit- 
ting itself  to  the  support  of  Mr.  Morton.  There  is  nothing  whatever 
in  his  candidacy  excepting  a  trick  of  the  bosses  to  hold  the  seventy- 
two  votes  of  New  York  together  until  they  make  a  satisfactory  bar- 
gain with  the  outside  candidate,  to  whom,  at  the  critical  moment, 
they  intend  to  deliver  them.  They  haven't  the  remotest  intention 
of  nominating  Morton;  and  if  they  have  given  the  promise  he  is 
said  to  have  required,  to  vote  for  him  steadily  up  to  and  including 
the  last  ballot,  and  this  even  if  they  should  stand  alone  in  so  doing, 
they  will  break  the  promise  when  the  time  comes;  and  justify  it  by 
saying  that  they  couldn't  control  circumstances,  and  were  not  war- 
ranted in  destroying  the  political  influence  of  New  York  with  the 
next  Administration.  I  have  only  the  kindest  feelings  for  Mr.  Mor- 
ton personally,  but  I  do  not  intend  to  be  used,  or  permit  The  Tribune 
to  be  used  to  further  this  trading  and  treacherous  game. 


The  "long  arm"  stretched  from  Arizona  in  1896  knew 
perfectly  well  what  it  was  about.  Personal  considera- 
tions were  irrelevant.  There  sprang  up,  for  example, 
rumors  of  his  own  eligibility  for  the  second  place  on  the 
ticket.  Hay  was  delighted  with  the  idea,  and  tried  to 
find  out  if  there  was  anything  in  the  wind  to  prevent  it. 
He  could  find  nothing.  But  Reid  never  took  it  seri- 
ously. He  was  inclined,  instead,  to  encourage  the  no- 
tion of  nominating  Thomas  B.  Reed  for  the  vice-presi- 
dency. 

As  the  pre-convention  campaign  continued,  the  most 
interesting  phase  of  his  work  for  McKinley  bore  upon 
the  currency.  That  subject  was  every  day  forcing  the 
tarifi*  into  the  background.  By  the  middle  of  May  it 
was  so  far  to  the  front  that  Reid  telegraphed  to  The 
Tribune  a  leader  on  McKinley's  record  in  the  cause  of 
sound  money.  On  his  return  to  New  York  he  stopped 
off  at  Canton  to  have  a  talk  with  the  governor.  By  this 
time  hopes  in  that  camp  were  confident  and  they  plunged 
into  discussion  of  the  platform.  He  concentrated  on  the 
financial  plank,  and  McKinley  placed  in  his  hands  a 
memorandum  for  it  to  take  home  and  turn  over  in  his 


2o6        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

mind,  with  a  view  to  suggesting  any  modifications  that 
seemed  to  him  advisable.  The  prospective  nominee  was 
even  at  that  late  hour  strongly  incHned  to  make  his  race 
as  a  protectiojaist.  Reid  helped  to  bring  him  to  a  sharper 
sense  of  the  intense  feeling  that  existed  in  the  East  on 
the  currency.  From  New  York  he  apprised  McKinley 
of  the  prevailing  sentiment.  "The  anxiety  here,"  he 
wrote  on  June  13th,  "on  the  whole  subject  of  the  money 
plank  to  be  adopted  next  week,  can  hardly  be  exagger- 
ated. There  seems  no  doubt  that  the  most  conservative 
bankers  are  extremely  apprehensive  that  any  hesitation 
on  our  part  to  take  the  squarest  sound  money  ground 
would  bring  on  a  great  and  probably  sudden  depression 
in  values.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  no  doubt  that 
the  enclosed  plank — which  practically  says  nothing  we 
were  not  fully  agreed  upon  at  Canton — will  be  followed 
by  an  appreciation  in  values." 

There  is  a  rich  suggestion  in  that  phrase,  "the  enclosed 
plank."  An  immense  amount  of  discussion  has  been 
held,  some  of  it  acrimonious  enough,  on  the  question  as 
to  who  might  claim  the  honor  of  having  procured  the 
explicit  affirmation  of  the  gold  standard  in  the  plank  of 
1896,  and  there  have  been  plenty  of  claimants.  The 
exact  truth,  if  it  could  ever  be  determined,  would  prob- 
ably assign  the  settlement  of  the  policy  to  a  discussion 
involving  several  men  at  different  times  and  places,  and 
the  adoption  of  a  form  of  words  to  similarly  multiple 
action.  The  writing  of  the  plank  was,  so  to  say,  a  cumu- 
lative achievement.  Really  of  equal  if  not  greater  im- 
portance was  the  process  of  bringing  McKinley  to  a 
proper  sense  of  where  the  potency  of  the  tariff  as  an 
issue  left  off  and  that  of  a  great  financial  principle  began. 
In  this  earlier  constructive  part  of  the  debate  Reid 
played  an  effective  part.  When  he  read  the  governor's 
plank  at  Canton  and  worked  over  it  in  New  York  his 


IN   EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  207 

interlineations  and  pencilled  drafts  show  with  what  solici- 
tude he  endeavored  to  safeguard  the  currency.  The 
financiers  he  consulted  differed  as  to  the  importance  of 
the  phrase  "gold  standard."  One  of  them  was  frankly 
impatient  with  the  many  people  he  met  who  wanted  it 
repeated  over  and  over  again  in  every  conceivable  form. 
Pierpont  Morgan  was  keen  about  it.  He  wrote  a  plank 
himself,  embodying  the  phrase  "the  existing  gold  stand- 
ard," which  Reid  sent  on  with  his  own  amended  form  of 
the  memorandum  he  had  received  from  McKinley.  The 
allusion  in  that  paper  to  "our  present  standard"  he  left 
unchanged,  in  obedience  to  a  point  of  view  thus  editori- 
ally expressed  in  The  Tribune  on  the  eve  of  the  con- 
vention : 

There  is  no  occasion  to  maintain  that  the  words  "gold  standard" 
must  of  necessity  be  used,  because  the  present  standard  is  that,  and 
everybody  knows  it.  There  is  not  the  least  occasion  to  insist  in 
form  of  words  that  silver  monometallism  would  debase  the  cur- 
rency, because  everybody  knows  that  also.  But  the  Republican 
party  ought  to  declare  that  the  money  in  which  wages  of  labor  are 
paid  shall  not  in  any  way  be  debased  or  lowered  in  purchasing  power; 
that  the  pledges  to  pay  money  as  good  as  the  best  that  is  known  to 
the  commercial  world  shall  be  sacredly  observed,  and  that  the  Re- 
publican party  is  not  going  to  run  any  risk  of  demonetizing  gold, 
and  therefore  will  not  consent  to  the  free  coinage  of  silver,  unless 
there  can  first  be  secured  such  international  agreement  as  will  fix 
the  ratio  between  silver  and  gold,  beyond  risk  of  failure,  in  all  the 
great  commercial  countries. 

Reid  sent  a  first  revision  of  the  money  plank  to 
McKinley  on  June  loth,  with  voluminous  comment  and 
the  promise  of  further  light  on  Eastern  ideas.  McKinley 
telegraphed  for  more  counsel,  and  on  Saturday  Reid 
mailed  a  second  revision,  also  sending,  at  the  candidate's 
request,  a  copy  to  Hanna  at  St.  Louis.  It  was  just  in 
time  for  the  opening  of  the  convention  on  the  following 
Tuesday.  He  was  not  present  at  the  deliberations  there 
and  his  papers  throw   no  light — beyond   '*the  existing 


2o8        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

gold  standard,"  the  identical  phrase  in  the  platform 
adopted,  in  Morgan's  plank — on  the  thorny  question  as 
to  who  wielded  the  thunderbolt  in  the  committee-room. 
Hanna  alone^  probably,  could  have  solved  that  riddle, 
and  he  left  no  decisive  dictum  on  the  subject.  At  the 
moment,  in  fact,  nobody  thought  of  grooming  himself 
for  the  honors  of  the  deus  ex  machina.  The  rush  for 
those  only  set  in  when  Bryan's  speech  at  the  Democratic 
convention  in  July,  and  his  dramatic  declaration,  "You 
shall  not  crucify  mankind  on  a  cross  of  gold,"  sank  into 
men's  minds  and  the  gravity  of  the  currency  issue  was 
made  doubly  impressive.  Then  it  was  inevitable  that 
the  claimants  should  in  the  fulness  of  time  arise.  I 
would  not  presume  to  traverse  their  various  pleas,  yet  it 
is,  perhaps,  permissible  to  remark  that  the  excitement  of 
this  problem  has  been  rather  out  of  proportion  to  the 
intrinsic  merits  of  the  case.  Is  it  not  common  sense  to 
aver  that  the  crux  of  the  matter  resides  in  the  general 
urgency  of  a  large  number  of  men  for  what  Reid  called 
**the  squarest  sound-money  ground"?  He  was  well 
content  to  have  taken  and  maintained  that  ground.  In 
his  editorial  comment  on  the  plank  as  adopted  he  said: 
"It  is  known  to  have  been  prepared  by  the  immediate 
friends  of  Major  McKinley,  and,  while  he  is  in  no  sense 
responsible  for  it,  it  undoubtedly  expresses  his  precise 
personal  wishes."  As  one  of  the  "immediate  friends" 
he  not  only  knew  what  those  wishes  were  but  had 
exerted  an  influence  upon  their  formation. 

In  supporting  the  nomination  made  at  St.  Louis  and 
entering  the  campaign,  Reid  figured  as  a  known  and 
powerful  advocate  of  an  honest  currency.  When  Sen- 
ator Teller  and  his  fellow  Silver  Republicans  bolted  the 
convention,  and  a  single  ballot  gave  McKinley  the  prize, 
Reid's  telegram  of  congratulation  touched  upon  the  can- 
didate's favorite  issue  but  remembered  also  the  other. 


IN   EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  209 

"It  is  the  greatest  personal  tribute  our  party  has  ex- 
tended for  a  quarter  of  a  century,"  he  said.  "And  there 
has  never  been  so  good  a  chance  for  a  square  fight  and 
a  splendid  victory  for  protection  and  honest  money." 
McKinley  replied: 

Canton,  Ohio. 

x/t  T^yr  D  JU^^  24th,    1896. 

My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  ^  ^ 

In  making  acknowledgment  of  your  kind  telegram,  I  wish  also  to 
thank  you  for  all  you  have  done,  both  personally  and  through  the 
powerful  influence  of  The  Tribune.  I  also  want  you  to  feel  per- 
fectly free  to  communicate  to  me  any  suggestions  that  may  occur  to 
you  as  to  the  management  of  the  campaign. 

Very  sincerely.  ^^    McKinlev. 

Hanna  warned  him  that  he  would  probably  tax  his 
friendship  and  aid  to  the  fullest  extent  and  he  kept  his 
word.  They  were  often  in  consultation.  The  candidate 
asked  him  for  suggestions  as  to  his  letter  of  acceptance, 
and  in  responding  Reid  urged  him  to  make  his  argument 
against  free  silver  specially  strong  and  kicid,  placing  it 
before  his  discussion  of  the  tariff.  The  Tribune  was  a 
leading  force  in  the  campaign,  and  though  Reid  made 
no  speeches,  he  gave  one  effective  contribution  to  the 
cause  over  his  own  signature.  This  was  in  the  shape  of 
a  long  letter  to  the  Republican  Editorial  Association  of 
Ohio,  assembled  at  Canton  on  September  8th.  McKin- 
ley's  speech  to  the  members  from  his  porch  was  followed 
by  this  communication,  in  which  Reid  elaborated  with 
fervor  his  financial  faith.  It  made  there  and  elsewhere 
a  useful  impression.  Hay,  reading  it  in  New  Hamp- 
shire, characterized  the  letter  as  ''the  condensed  milk  of 
the  word,  with  the  stuff  in  it  of  a  two  hours'  speech." 

The  canvass  that  summer  and  fall  is  well  remembered 
for  its  heat  and  the  emotions  of  suspense  it  engendered. 
Conservative  observers  saw  in  the  swift  multiplication 
of  the  Silverites  a  deadly  threat  to  the  economic  stability 


210        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

of  the  United  States.  Bryan's  candidacy  was  an  ex- 
traordinary one,  extraordinary  in  the  ardent  and  wide- 
spread support  it  received.  He  gained  electoral  votes 
only  in  the  West  and  South,  but  even  in  States  else- 
where, supposedly  well  buttressed  against  financial  heresy, 
he  made  an  amazingly  respectable  showing  at  the  polls. 
Hay  was  outraged  by  the  spectacle.  In  the  multitude 
clamorous  for  Bryan  he  saw  only  the  revolt  of  CaHban, 
an  impulse  of  the  unteachable  horde.  Reid  called  it 
"the  awful  fact  of  the  election."  It  seemed  to  him  that 
one  whole  section  of  our  country  voted  for  Bryan  almost 
as  solidly  as  it  voted  for  disunion.  As  he  said  to  Hay, 
"the  strain  of  universal  suffrage  on  the  virtue  of  the 
country  is  tremendous."  On  the  other  hand,  he  never 
had  any  doubt  of  McKinley's  success,  once  he  had 
digested  the  results  of  the  different  State  conventions, 
counted  the  delegates,  and  observed  events  following 
immediately  upon  the  convention  at  St.  Louis.  And  in 
contrast  to  the  seemingly  full-blown  fruits  of  Bryan's 
far-flung  oratory,  he  had  an  abiding  confidence  in 
the  more  lasting  effects  of  the  Republican  candidate's 
famous  "front  porch  campaign."  McKinley  lost  noth- 
ing through  his  quiet,  dignified  course  at  Canton.  Over 
and  over  again  he  addressed  his  countrymen  as  from 
beneath  a  great  sounding-board,  when  he  talked  to  men 
gathered  under  the  shadow  of  his  home,  and  Reid 
thought  the  speeches  he  made  there  the  best  he  had 
ever  known  to  come  from  a  presidential  candidate. 
They  were  apposite,  they  were  fresh,  they  were  skilful 
in  condensed  and  epigrammatic  statement,  and  they 
were  exactly  right  in  touch.  Neither  Harrison,  Blaine, 
nor  Greeley  had  in  their  respective  campaigns  materially 
influenced  the  situation  as  early  as  he  had.  When  the 
victory  Reid  expected  came  in  November,  and,  his  own 
work  done,  he  was  preparing  to  go  out  for  another  win- 


IN   EGYPT  AND  ARIZONA  211 

ter  in  Arizona,  he  wrote  to  McKinley:  "I  think  you 
have  the  greatest  opportunity  since  Lincoln — as  you 
have  made  the  greatest  campaign  since  his.  and  have 
had  the  greatest  popular  triumph." 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN 

On  his  way  West  Reid  paused  at  Canton  and  had  a 
long  conference  with  the  President-elect.  It  bore  upon 
the  political  outlook  and  the  formation  of  the  cabinet, 
both  questions  always  dovetailing.  In  McKinley's  med- 
itations the  great  problem  was  how  to  adjust  his  adminis- 
tration aides  to  complete  party  harmony,  and  this  was  not 
by  any  means  the  simplest  thing  in  the  world  to  do.  The 
New  York  machine  was  certain  to  prove  a  mischievous 
element.  From  the  moment  of  the  election  it  had 
planned  to  carry  things  with  a  rush,  intimidating  the 
major.  Reid  was  against  the  smallest  concession  to 
such  tactics.  "  They  will  make  a  mistake,"  he  wrote 
to  Hay,  "if  they  imagine  that  friendly  independence  can 
be  attained  in  this  State  by  beginning  with  concihation. 
That  was  Garfield's  mistake.  Conciliation  at  the  outset 
will  confirm  these  people  in  their  estimate  of  the  nerve 
and  staying  qualities  of  the  man  they  have  to  deal  with; 
and  nothing  thereafter  but  absolute  surrender  on  every 
point  will  satisfy  them."  The  reader  will  recall  how 
candidly  Reid  preached  this  doctrine  to  Garfield.  He 
renewed  it  at  Canton,  where  he  found  that  "everything 
was  still  fluid,"  and  enforced  the  obvious  truth  that  the 
only  way  to  get  on  with  Piatt  was  to  be  independent 
at  the  outset,  particularly  when  threatened.  The  major 
pondered  these  things  in  his  heart.  On  one  point  he  was 
exphcit.  He  said  that  he  shouldn't  think  of  anybody 
from  New  York  disagreeable  to  Reid,  and  as  they  parted 
at  the  train  he  added  that  he  wanted  to  hear  from  him 
often,  to  get  all  his  suggestions. 

212 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  213 

I  will  not  revive  here  all  the  personalities  that  entered 
into  the  establishment  of  McKinley's  administration. 
At  this  point  I  may  cite  instead  that  part  of  a  voluminous 
letter  in  which  Reid  approaches  the  major's  problem 
from  the  standpoint  of  large  pubhc  policy: 

Phoenix,  Arizona. 
Dear  Mr.  McKinley:  December  5th,  1896. 

The  choice  of  a  cabinet  is  absolutely  your  own  personal  affair — 
almost  as  much  as  the  choice  of  a  wife.  It  is  the  formation  of  your 
official  family;  its  members  are  to  bear  to  you  a  family  relation. 
They  should  be  peculiarly  your  personal  selection;  certainly  not 
that  of  your  enemies,  nor  even  of  friendly  pohticians,  anxious  to 
make  the  most  out  of  you  for  themselves  or  for  their  respective 
states.  Its  members  may  properly  be  chosen  by  you,  solely  with  ref- 
erence to  these  questions: 

1.  Are  they  known  to  be  absolutely  competent? 

2.  Do  you  think  them,  in  themselves,  and  with  reference  to  their 
friends  and  backers,  absolutely  worthy  of  your  unreserved  confi- 
dence? 

3.  Have  they  staying  power?  Will  they  be  absolutely  in  your 
interest  two,  three,  or  four  years  hence,  not  in  that  of  the  pohticians 
who  urge  them?  Will  they  be  useful  in  storm  as  well  as  in  fair 
weather?  Would  they  have  the  means  of  bringing  strength  to  an 
administration  when  it  needs  the  powerful  support  of  public  opinion? 

4.  And  finally,  since  you  must  judge  of  the  future  by  the  past; 
were  they  most  in  evidence  when  you  needed  their  friendship,  or 
only  when  they  thought  they  could  profit  by  yours  7 

I  utterly  reject  the  theory  that  Cabinet  appointments  can  be 
wisely  used  for  placating  enemies  or  conciliating  factions.  Patronage 
may  perhaps  be  so  used,  but  a  homogeneous  and  efficient  administra- 
tion, devoted  solely  to  you  and  your  purposes,  is  impossible  if  Cabinet 
places  are  not  held  above  that  level. 

Another  theory  deserves  more  respect:  that  on  which  a  President 
chooses  his  rivals  in  party  leadership  for  his  assistants  in  administra- 
tion, as  Lincoln  did,  or  the  elder  Harrison;  and  then  seeks  to  demon- 
strate his  superiority  as  leader  by  leading  and  using  them.  Mr. 
Lincoln's  experiences  with  Mr.  Cameron,  Mr.  Chase,  Mr.  Seward 
and  others  were  not  altogether  in  favor  of  this  theory;  but  at  any 
rate  it  is  doubtful  if  any  one  would  now  think  it  desirable,  to  attempt 
making  up  a  working  Cabinet  of  Gen.  Harrison,  Mr.  Reed,  Mr. 
Morton,  Mr.  Allison,  Mr.  Quay  and  the  rest. 

One  more  theory  is  apt  to  be  presented  by  those  who  do  not  look 


214        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

below  the  surface — that  a  Cabinet  ought  to  be  so  selected  and  dis- 
tributed as  to  secure  the  widest  and  most  varied  applause  from  the 
politicians  and  the  newspapers  at  the  outset.  But  it  is  not  the 
impression  of  the  moment  that  concerns  you;  it  is  the  capacity  for 
four  years*  wear^  and  the  impression  then  to  be  produced. 

You  will  be  much  beset  in  the  next  few  months.  The  best  sugges- 
tion I  can  give  is  that  you  formulate  in  your  own  mind  the  principles 
on  which  you  mean  to  begin  your  work,  and  then,  in  spite  of  inter- 
ested pulling  and  hauling,  stick  to  them;  make  up  your  mind  as  to 
what  you  want,  and  then  have  it. 

Faithfully  yours.  Whitelaw  Reid. 

McKinley  had  thought,  \yhen  Reid  was  at  Canton, 
that  Cleveland  wsls  likely  to  dump  the  Cuban  question 
on  the  incoming  administration.  The  outgivings  had 
all  looked  that  way  at  the  time.  Reid,  on  the  other 
hand,  had  for  some  time  entertained  the  suspicion  that 
Cleveland  was  ruminating  upon  some  sort  of  foreign 
coup,  to  recover  lost  prestige.  Meanwhile  the  materials 
for  forming  a  definite  opinion  on  Cuba  were  locked  up 
in  the  State  Department.  Pending  their  revelation  Reid 
had  certain  well-settled  ideas  which  prefigured  the  atti- 
tude he  was  to  take  in  the  greatest  achievement  of  his 
diplomatic  career.  "Some  day  we  will  have  Cuba,  as 
well  as  the  Sandwich  Islands,"  he  wrote  to  McKinley. 
"To  that  extent  I  believe  in  Manifest  Destiny."  A 
crisis,  under  existing  conditions,  was  always  imminent. 
If  one  supervened,  and  could  be  tided  over  for  four 
months  after  the  Republican  President's  inauguration, 
the  next  sickly  season,  suspending  Spanish  operations 
again,  might  bring  them  so  near  exhaustion  as  to  pro- 
mote a  willingness  to  consider  parting  with  the  "un- 
grateful island"  in  payment  of  our  claims  or  otherwise. 
He  thought  that  a  great  source  of  alarm  among  many 
good  people  would  be  removed  if  it  could  be  understood 
that,  when  either  the  Sandwich  Islands  or  Cuba  came 
into  our  possession,  McKinley's  plan  would  be  to  give 


THE  WAR  WITH   SPAIN  215 

them  a  suitable  measure  of  local  self-government,  but  to 
hold  them  as  territories  like  Alaska — not  threatening  us 
with  so  large  a  half-breed  citizenship,  and  with  a  further 
deluge  of  new  States  and  senators. 

Thenceforth  events  flowing  from  the  unrest  in  Cuba 
rapidly  develop  an  important  series  of  documents  in 
Reid's  correspondence,  culminating  in  those  which  recall 
his  work  as  a  member  of  the  Spanish-American  Peace 
Commission.  The  sequence  is  interrupted,  however,  by 
a  brief  diplomatic  interlude  which  took  him  to  London 
in  the  summer  of  1897.  Queen  Victoria  then  celebrated 
the  sixtieth  anniversary  of  her  accession  to  the  throne. 
The  subject  had  been  brought  to  the  attention  of  our 
State  Department  by  the  British  ambassador  at  Wash- 
ington shortly  after  McKinley's  inauguration,  and  in 
May  he  asked  Reid  to  accept  a  special  mission  to  England 
for  the  jubilee.  The  Reids  sailed  on  June  2d  and 
remained  abroad  until  late  in  July,  taking  part  early 
in  this  period  in  an  extraordinary  programme  of  public 
observances.  These  began  on  a  picturesque  military 
note  in  the  great  quadrangle  of  Windsor  Castle,  where, 
with  a  massing  of  bands  numbering  more  than  two  hun- 
dred instruments,  a  tremendous  tattoo  was  beaten,  as 
though  to  bring  to  the  salute  all  the  forces  of  an  immense 
empire.  On  the  following  day,  which  was  Sunday, 
June  20th,  came  the  solemn  commemorative  service  in 
St.  Paul's,  giving  thanks  for  the  fruitful  reign  begun  in 
1837.  Monday  the  Queen  made  her  formal  progress 
from  Windsor  to  Buckingham  Palace,  and  the  next  day 
she  rode  in  state  through  seven  miles  of  London  streets, 
packed  with  vociferous  humanity,  the  central  figure  in 
probably  the  most  imposing  pageant  that  even  London 
has  ever  seen.  At  the  end  of  the  week  the  naval  might 
most  expressive  of  her  sway  was  demonstrated  in  the 
historic  review  of  the  fleet  ofl"  Spithead,  fit  climax  to 


2i6         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

crown  a  unique  celebration.  During  the  short  period 
of  the  official  ceremonies  and  for  some  weeks  thereafter 
London  was  full  of  notabilities  come  from  the  ends  of 
the  earth,  all  jnarshalled  in  a  social  activity  linked  with 
one  motive  of  national  rejoicing. 

On  their  arrival  in  London  the  Reids  were  welcomed 
by  one  of  their  closest  intimates.  John  Hay  had  been 
established  there  as  American  ambassador  since  the  pre- 
ceding April.  In  their  own  house,  leased  from  Lord 
Lonsdale  in  Carlton  House  Terrace,  they  renewed  scores 
of  old  friendships,  dined  the  Prince  of  Wales  and  a  host 
of  British  and  Continental  figures,  and  were  swept,  in 
short,  once  more  into  the  stream  of  European  contacts 
they  had  known  only  a  few  years  before  in  the  Avenue 
Hoche.  Beneath  its  surface  ran  now,  as  then,  a  current 
making  for  international  good-will,  and  in  communicat- 
ing with  the  President,  Reid  noted  the  appreciation  with 
which  the  American  mission  was  received.  Lord  Salis- 
bury was  pecufiarly  cordial  w^hen  Reid  brought  to  the 
Foreign  Office  the  President's  letter  to  the  Queen.  She, 
herself,  at  Buckingham  Palace,  expressed  the  livefiest 
gratification  over  our  participation  in  the  jubilee.  Reid 
rode  with  the  other  foreign  envoys  in  the  great  proces- 
sion of  the  lid.  The  thing  that  most  impressed  him 
was  "the  tremendous  depth  of  the  devotion  shown  to  the 
Queen,"  but  after  that  the  striking  phenomenon  was 
"the  obvious  and  continuous  cordiality  towards  Amer- 
ica." The  American  mission  was  cheered  at  the  begin- 
ning, and  the  same  hearty  friendhness  was  manifested  at 
frequent  intervals  all  the  way  along  Constitution  Hill, 
down  Piccadilly,  and  almost  to  the  Abbey.  The  Ameri- 
can flags  waved  he  assumed  to  be  in  the  hands  of  coun- 
trymen, but  there  was  no  mistaking  the  fact  that  the 
majority  of  the  cheers  for  America  came  from  English 
throats  in  English  accents.     Twice  Reid  spoke  in  pubhc 


THE  WAR  WITH   SPAIN  217 

on  the  prevailing  theme — at  the  American  Independence 
Day  dinner  and  at  the  Cordwainers'  dinner  on  July  8th. 
The  speeches  were  applauded  for  their  fusion  of  a  candid 
Americanism  with  sympathy  for  an  essentially  British 
occasion.  How  far  they  and  the  whole  mission  suc- 
ceeded in  the  furtherance  of  a  good  Anglo-American 
understanding  is  suggested  in  what  Sir  Francis  KnoIIys, 
equerry  to  the  Prince  of  Wales,  wrote  to  Hay.  "His 
Royal  Highness  directs  me  to  assure  you,"  he  said, 
"that  it  would  have  been  very  difficult  for  the  President 
to  have  sent  to  London,  for  the  celebration  of  the  Dia- 
mond Jubilee,  a  more  acceptable  representative  of  the 
United  States  than  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid,  who  has  im- 
pressed the  Prince  of  Wales,  as  well  as  all  those  who 
have  been  brought  into  contact  with  him,  by  the  charm 
of  his  manner  and  by  his  agreeable  qualities." 

In  Reid's  letters  from  London  there  are  a  few  scattered 
glimpses  of  the  great  Queen.  She  had  a  winning  smile. 
Her  defective  eyesight  caused  her  to  need  a  little  prompt- 
ing in  the  course  of  presentation  ceremonies,  and  at 
Windsor,  when  she  entered,  she  leaned  heavily  on  the 
arm  of  one  of  her  Indian  attendants,  while  she  steadied 
herself  on  the  other  side  with  a  stout  cane.  Age  exacted 
its  toll.  But  she  carried  herself,  as  she  had  for  sixty 
years  and  more,  with  an  incomparable  queenliness,  mov- 
ing "with  dignity  and  a  certain  grace  in  spite  of  the 
difficulty  of  walking."  Her  conversation  with  Reid  he 
thus  describes: 

She  began  asking  questions  at  once  about  my  enjoyment  of  the 
Jubilee,  and  spoke  of  the  great  pressure  of  the  successive  "  functions." 
She  spoke  very  warmly  of  what  she  knew  to  be  the  cordial  feeling 
entertained  personally  towards  herself  in  the  United  States,  and  of 
the  great  kindness  that  had  been  shown  to  her  from  all  quarters. 
She  asked  about  the  American  Bishops  who  were  here — mentioned 
one  or  two  of  them  by  name,  and  inquired  as  to  the  objects  of  the 
Lambeth  Conference.     Of  course  I  took  my  opportunity  in  the  vari- 


2i8        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

ous  turns  of  the  conversation  to  say  some  of  the  things  personally  to 
her  which  I  had  been  saying  in  my  Fourth  of  July  speech  and  else- 
where, about  the  friendly  interest  of  America,  and  our  great  pride  in 
the  achievements  of  her  reign.  Her  face  lit  up  constantly  with 
smiles,  and  onge  or  twice  she  laughed  with  great  heartiness  over 
something  which  I  mentioned.  She  had  referred  to  Bishop  Whipple, 
whose  interest  in  the  Indians  she  seemed  in  some  way  familiar  with, 
and  she  was  greatly  amused  and  showed  cordial  interest  when  I  told 
her  of  his  recent  marriage  and  presence  here  now  with  his  bride. 
She  also  spoke  of  the  late  Phillips  Brooks  with  admiration.  At  the 
end  of  the  talk  she  said  quite  earnestly  that  she  hoped  I  would  ex- 
press to  the  President  and  to  the  people  of  my  country  her  high 
appreciation  of  the  good-will  they  had  always  shown  her,  and  had 
especially  been  showing  now,  and  her  desire  for  perpetual  peace  and 
friendship.  Altogether  it  was  a  conversation  that  showed  thorough 
intellectual  familiarity  with  what  was  going  on,  and  exquisite 
courtesy,  coupled  with  the  greatest  possible  dignity.  In  the  mingled 
dignity  and  simplicity  of  her  bearing,  she  reminded  me  greatly  of 
her  daughter,  the  Empress  Frederick. 

This  matter  of  simplicity  Reld  observed  as  a  constant 
element  even  in  some  of  the  most  splendid  phases  of 
British  ceremonial.  "They  struck  me,"  he  said,  "as 
somewhat  more  free  and  informal  than  I  had  seen  such 
things  in  France.  This,  people  generally  tell  me,  is 
after  all  the  characteristic  of  the  English  court  circles. 
Outside  they  are  hedged  with  tremendous  forms;  inside 
the  characteristic  English  desire  for  simplicity  and  direct- 
ness asserts  itself." 

Soon  after  his  return  from  London  Reid  was  immersed 
in  a  powerful  though  unsuccessful  movement  to  purify 
local  politics.  The  Citizens'  Union  was  formed  to  put  a 
good  man  in  the  mayor's  office,  if  possible,  and  thereby 
not  only  smash  Tammany  but  dethrone  the  bosses  of 
the  Republican  machine.  The  latter  were  too  firmly 
fixed,  and,  thanks  to  their  selfish  policy,  Seth  Low,  the 
reform  candidate,  was  defeated,  and  the  upshot  of  the 
three-cornered  fight  was  simply  to  put  a  Tammany  man, 
Van  Wyck,  in  power  for  four  years.     Tracy,  the  machine 


THE  WAR  WITH   SPAIN  219 

candidate,  came  in  last.  Piatt's  *' leadership"  was  a 
costly  handicap  to  the  Republican  party.  The  Tribune's 
opposition  to  it  is  noted  here  as  an  instance  of  the  inde- 
pendence which  we  have  seen  Reid  commending  to  Mc- 
Kinley.  He  certainly  followed  precept  by  example  in 
this  now  well-nigh  forgotten  but  then  momentous  cam- 
paign, and  his  arguments  in  the  critical  party  councils 
which  ensued  were  all  along  the  same  robust  lines.  They 
were  needed.  The  political  situation  in  the  State  was 
filling  the  national  leaders  with  anxiety.  But  it  yielded 
presently  to  a  more  engrossing  topic.  The  Cuban  ques- 
tion became  paramount.  Matters  in  the  island  had 
been  going  from  bad  to  worse,  and  the  publication  of  the 
famous  Dupuy  de  Lome  letter  on  February  9th,  1898, 
brought  public  emotion  to  a  pitch  at  which  almost  any- 
thing was  to  be  expected.  Anything  save  the  tragedy 
of  February  15th,  when  the  United  States  battleship 
Maine  was  blown  up  in  Havana  Harbor. 

It  is  not  my  purpose  to  review  the  history  of  the  war 
with  Spain.  I  wish  instead  simply  to  exhibit  Whitelaw 
Reid's  relation  to  the  subject  and  the  growth  in  his 
mind  of  the  policy  which  later  had  its  influence  upon 
the  treaty  of  peace.  McKinley  had  intimate  discus- 
sions with  him  early  in  the  development  of  these  mat- 
ters. At  the  time  he  sent  Reid  to  the  jubilee  he  was 
anticipating  trouble  over  Cuba,  and  was  wondering  if 
we  could  avoid  it  by  the  purchase  of  the  island.  He 
proposed  to  appoint  Reid  ambassador  to  Madrid,  with 
the  idea  that  he  should  assume  the  post  on  the  close  of 
his  duties  in  England,  and  carry  on  negotiations  with  a 
financial  settlement  held  clearly  in  view.  In  London, 
however,  Reid  discovered  that  this  would  be  impossible. 
He  met  there  the  members  of  the  Spanish  special  mis- 
sion, one  of  them  the  Due  de  Sotomayor,  whom  he  had 
known  in  Paris  at  the  time  of  his  ministry.     He  sounded 


220         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

them  on  the  delicate  point  involved  and  received  an 
unequivocal  reply.  "Spain  would  never  sell  the  bright- 
est jewel  in  her  crown" — that  was  the  substance  of 
what  the  Spjaniards  had  to  say,  and  so  Reid  reported  to 
the  President  on  his  return,  abandoning  the  project  of 
his  going  to  Madrid,  which  he  saw  would  be  useless. 
Throughout  the  swift  evolution  of  the  unavoidable  crisis 
he  was  one  of  McKinley's  counsellors,  and  his  letters 
contain  characteristic  judgments.  The  day  of  the  loss 
of  the  Maine  he  was  in  the  midst  of  preparations  for  a 
trip  to  California  to  escape  the  rigors  of  March  in  New 
York.  He  talked  over  Cuban  affairs  at  the  White  House 
before  leaving  on  this  holiday,  and  out  on  the  coast  he 
wrote  as  follows; 

Millbrae, 

, ,  iv/r      r»  March  8th,  1808. 

My  dear  Mr.  President:  ^ 

I  have  been  giving  a  great  deal  of  thought  during  the  journey  to 
this  coast  over  various  phases  of  the  subject  on  which  you  did  me 
the  honor  to  ask  my  opinion  at  our  last  interview.  It  looks  now  a 
little  more  as  if  there  were  a  possibility  of  Spain's  forcing  our  hand. 
This  would  give  still  greater  importance  to  your  suggestion  as  to 
the  immediate  recognition  of  Cuban  independence.  Such  a  recogni- 
tion would  certainly  be  far  better  than  the  mischief-breeding  recogni- 
tion of  belligerent  rights.  It  ought,  however,  to  be  accomplished,  if 
possible,  by  some  signal  Cuban  success,  of  a  kind  different  from 
anything  which  they  have  heretofore  been  claiming — for  instance  the 
opening  of  a  port.  Undoubtedly  we  could  help  them  to  this  end 
even  before  making  an  attack  on  Havana.  Our  Navy  Department 
has  details  as  to  the  nature  of  the  defences  to  be  encountered  at  the 
different  ports;  but,  other  things  being  equal,  the  most  desirable 
port  for  that  purpose  would  be  some  one  on  the  Northern  coast, 
comparatively  accessible  from  Key  West,  without  running  too  close 
to  Havana — possibly  Sagua  la  Grande,  or  even  Cardenas. 

Our  recognition  of  the  independence  of  Cuba  would  seem  weightier 
if  it  should  be  accompanied  or  immediately  followed  by  similar  action 
on  the  part  of  as  many  as  possible  of  the  South  American  Republics, 
and  our  Ministers  ought  to  be  able  to  help  greatly  to  this  end.  Brazil 
and  Venezuela  I  should  hope  we  might  count  on  among  the  earliest. 

The  impression  I  got  on  crossing  the  Continent  was  that  the  more 
intelligent  classes  are  not  greatly  affected  by  the  sensational  press; 


THE  WAR  WITH   SPAIN  221 

but  that,  on  a  conviction  that  the  Maine  was  blown  up  by  Spanish 
agency,  with  or  without  the  active  connivance  of  the  present  Spanish 
authorities,  there  would  be  no  restraining  them.  Meantime  I  have 
never  seen  a  more  profound  or  touching  readiness  to  trust  the  Presi- 
dent, and  await  his  word.  They  really  seem  to  feel,  as  every  patriot 
must,  in  this  crisis,  a  readiness  to  hold  themselves  subject  to  call 
when  and  where  the  country  needs.  Conservative  public  sentiment 
will  sustain  purchases  of  ammunition  and  even  of  war  ships. 

Very  sincerely  yours,         ,,,  „ 

•^  J  J        »         Whitelaw  Reid. 

A  week  later  he  sent  an  interesting  bit  of  new^s  to 
Washington,  received  from  a  friend  in  Paris  who  had 
access  to  a  person  of  authority  in  the  Foreign  Office.  It 
was  to  the  effect  that  the  French  Embassy  in  Madrid 
reported  an  inclination  on  the  part  of  the  Spanish  Gov- 
ernment to  do  everything  in  its  power  to  maintain  peace. 
If  the  Maine  disaster  should  be  shown  to  be  an  act  of 
treachery,  the  Spanish  Government  would  denounce  the 
crime  in  such  terms  and  offer  such  prompt  reparation 
that,  in  the  judgment  of  the  French  Foreign  Office,  war 
would  be  out  of  the  question.  Reid  pointed  out  that  of 
course  the  French  Foreign  Office  and  the  French  people, 
for  financial  and  other  reasons,  were  more  in  sympathy 
with  Spain  than  was  any  other  European  nation.  His 
own  opinion  at  this  time  was  that  war  could  not  be 
avoided  and  he  had  some  definite  ideas  on  the  course 
to  be  adopted  when  it  befell.  The  day  that  Congress 
adopted  the  resolutions  on  Cuban  independence,  direct- 
ing the  President  to  inaugurate  American  intervention 
in  its  behalf,  he  wrote  to  McKinley: 

New  York, 

Dear  Mr.  President:  pr^     9    .      9  • 

I  have  such  a  horror  of  "bothering  the  man  at  the  wheel,**  to  use 
Mr.  Harrison*s  apt  figure,  that  even  after  your  flattering  invitations 
to  write,  I  thought  it  best  not  to  interrupt  you  for  an  instant  while 
the  craft  was  in  the  rapids.  Even  now  I  venture  only  the  barest 
outline  of  three  or  four  suggestions — which  in  all  probability  have 
already  occurred  to  you  anyway. 


222         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Privateering  is  essentially  the  resort  of  the  weaker  power.  As  it 
has  been  abolished  practically  by  the  civilized  world,  with  the  excep- 
tion only  of  the  United  States,  Spain  and  Mexico,  we  should  certainly 
gain  a  moral  advantage  by  announcing  at  the  outset  that  we  did  not 
intend  to  resort  to  it.  There  may  (possibly — not  probably)  be  some- 
thing in  our  situation  or  plans  that  would  make  this  inexpedient;  but 
it  ought. to  be  carefully  and  immediately  considered.  With  your 
commerce  destroyers  and  fast  cruisers,  I  doubt  if  privateers  could 
be  of  much  use  to  us  now  anyway. 

Our  position  about  capture  of  private  goods  at  sea  ought  also  to 
be  made  clear  at  the  outset.  Historically,  we  are  committed  for 
almost  a  century  to  the  principle  of  "free  ships,  free  goods";  and, 
when  we  refused  to  assent  to  the  abolition  of  privateering,  we  took 
the  strongest  ground  in  favor  of  a  general  agreement  for  the  exemp- 
tion of  all  private  goods  at  sea  from  seizure, — there  being  no  excep- 
tion even  from  the  extreme  case  of  enemy's  goods  on  an  enemy's 
ship.  To  the  freedom  of  neutral  goods  on  an  enemy's  ship  Spain, 
herself,  was  committed  by  her  assent  to  that  part  of  the  Declaration 
of  Paris.  Is  not  the  way  clear  then  for  the  distinct  declaration 
that  we  shall  recognize  both  (i)  free  ships  as  making  free  goods,  and 
(2)  enemy's  goods  on  neutral  ships  as  free,  excepting,  of  course,  in 
either  case,  contraband  of  war? 

It  seems  to  me  these  two  declarations  ought  greatly  to  help  us 
before  the  world. 

I  am  sorry  to  see  that  the  Spaniards  have  seriously  begun  fortify- 
ing the  Canary  Islands.  Before  this  war  is  ended  we  may  desperately 
need  a  coahng  station  there. 

It  is  perhaps  not  a  subject  for  much  public  discussion  now;  but,  if 
volunteering  should  be  slow,  ought  we  not  to  determine  at  the  outset 
that  our  policy  is  to  be  to  call  authoritatively  on  citizens  to  do  their 
duty,  not  try  to  persuade  them  to  it  by  bribing  them  with  huge 
bounties?  Volunteering,  stimulated  by  the  bounty  system,  was  the 
colossal  financial  mistake  of  our  Civil  War.  Nothing  is  so  fair  as  a 
draft — or  so  economical. 

Out  next  biggest  financial  mistake  was  in  not  trying  to  pay  our 
way  from  the  outset.  Such  a  war-revenue  as  the  papers  have  been 
talking  about  (beer,  tea,  coffee,  stamp  tax,  etc.,)  if  passed  within  a 
week,  would  be  highly  popular. 

I  deeply  regret  the  fourth  paragraph  in  the  resolutions  as  passed.* 
We  are  making  ourselves  morally  responsible  for  decent  government 
in  Cuba,  and  we  can't  wash  our  hands  of  it  after  turning  Spain  out, 
by  merely  telling  them  to  set  up  for  themselves.     I  hope  they  may 

*  "That  the  United  States  hereby  disclaims  any  disposition  or  intention  to  ex- 
ercise sovereignty,  jurisdiction  or  control  over  said  island,  except  for  the  pacifica- 
tion thereof,  and  asserts  its  determination  when  that  is  accomplished  to  leave  the 
government  and  control  of  the  island  to  its  people." 


THE  WAR  WITH   SPAIN  223 

prove  more  orderly  and  less  likely  to  plunge  into  civil  strife  and  brig- 
andage than  has  been  expected.  But  if  the  result  of  our  efforts  is 
merely  to  establish  a  second  Haj^i  nearer  our  own  coast,  it  will  be 
so  pitiful  an  outcome  from  a  great  opportunity  as  to  make  Mr. 
Gladstone's  pledge  to  "scuttle  out  of  Egypt"  respectable  in  com- 
parison. 

IVe  been  very  proud — as  have  been  all  your  old  friends — over 
your  splendid  management  during  this  whole  trying  period.  It  has 
been  a  brilliant  success  in  everything  excepting  in  what  was  impossi- 
ble— getting  peace  in  Cuba  without  fighting  for  it.  With  all  good 
wishes,  ,r         .         T 

Very  sincerely  yours,  ^hitelaw  Re.d. 

He  wrote  also  in  the  same  sense  to  Senator  Elkins, 
who  telegraphed  his  adhesion,  promising  to  call  at  the 
White  House,  and  then  wrote:  *^*I  saw  the  President, 
and  there  is  a  disposition  to  follow  the  lines  you  have 
suggested."  In  the  afternoon  of  the  day  on  which 
McKinley  received  Reid's  letter,  the  State  Department 
made  a  semi-official  statement  as  to  the  policy  the  gov- 
ernment would  pursue  in  regard  to  the  question  of  pri- 
vateering, and  it  thoroughly  coincided  with  the  views 
Reid  had  expressed.  Elkins  was  impressed  by  his 
friend's  usefulness.  "Why  not  you  in  the  State  Depart- 
ment?" he  asked,  with  one  eye  on  John  Sherman's  im- 
pending retirement.  Wherever  he  was,  whether  in  or 
out  of  the  cabinet,  it  was  bound  to  be  a  helpful  charac- 
teristic of  Reid's  advice  that  it  would  go  straight  to  the 
point.  All  through  the  Cuban  affair  he  knew  precisely 
where  he  stood  on  details  of  policy,  and  drove  unequivo- 
cally at  what  was  to  prove,  indeed,  the  ultimate  settle- 
ment. In  June  an  interview  with  him,  published  in 
"Le  Matin,"  gave  to  his  old  diplomatic  friends  in  Paris 
a  frank  disclosure  of  his  attitude.  Sketching  the  inevita- 
bility of  the  war,  our  desire  to  avoid  it  but  our  unmis- 
takable duty  once  it  was  forced  upon  us,  he  said:  *'We 
have  interfered  to  give  Cuba  a  better  government,  and 
we  therefore  stand  morally  responsible  to  the  civilized 
world  for  the  character  of  its  government.     The  present 


224         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

insurgents  may  be  able  to  establish  one  that  we  can 
afford  to  be  responsible  for;  but,  if  not,  our  responsibility 
continues.  Meantime,  since  war  is  serious  business  and 
not  a  mere^  dress-parade,  we  must  strike  and  cripple 
Spain  wherever  we  can.  We  have  already  struck  her 
in  the  Philippines,  and  what  we  seize  we  shall  certainly 
hold,  so  long  as  it  serves  our  purpose,  and  so  far  as  the 
responsibility  in  destroying  the  existing  government  may 
carry  us.  We  have  also  struck  her  in  Porto  Rico,  and 
the  war  will  not  end  till  we  complete  that  conquest.  If 
all  this  threatens  other  interests  or  disturbs  our  Euro- 
pean friends,  the  only  possible  answer  is  that  we  regret 
it  as  deeply  as  anybody  can,  but  that  we  did  not  seek 
the  war,  and  it  is  not  to  us  that  appeals  should  now  be 
addressed  to  stop  it.  The  only  rational  interference  for 
European  nations  is  an  interference  with  their  feeble 
neighbor  in  its  blind  fight  against  Fate.  The  sooner 
Spain  is  stopped  the  less  she  will  be  damaged." 

He  was  the  more  inclined  to  take  an  uncompromising 
tone  in  this  interview  because  he  knew  the  hostility  of 
the  French  press  toward  the  United  States  in  the  war. 
As  Ambassador  Porter  wrote  him,  the  government  was 
behaving  very  well,  but  the  Parisian  journals  wxre  con- 
stantly printing  articles  inimical  to  our  course.  If  these 
publications  chose  to  call  Reid  an  "Imperialist"  they 
were  welcome  to  do  so  and  to  make  the  most  of  it.  At 
home  he  went  on  as  cheerfully  in  the  same  path,  indif- 
ferent to  the  plaints  of  the  Mugwump.  He  advocated 
in  The  Tribune  the  same  poHcy  as  that  stated  in  the 
interview  in  *'Le  Matin,"  and  set  forth  his  views  over 
his  own  signature  in  a  paper  on  **The  Territory  with 
Which  We  Are  Threatened."  *  Writing  to  Hay,  in  Lon- 
don, on  August  nth,  he  says: 

*  See  "Problems  Flowing  from  the  Spanish  War,"  in  "American  and  English 
Studies,"  pp.  107-124^  vol.  I. 


THE  WAR  WITH  SPAIN  225 

Our  truly  good  theorists  have  nearly  all  been  "little  Americans." 
In  the  "Century"  for  September  Carl  Schurz  has  a  most  pessimistic 
article  deploring  everything  we  have  done,  and  everything  we  are 
likely  to  do  as  leading  straight  to  the  bottomless  pit.  I  fancy  Gilder 
must  have  hesitated  about  letting  the  magazine  for  that  month 
appear  with  only  that  view;  for  he  took  the  occasion  of  some  frank 
expressions  of  mine  at  a  committee  meeting  to  ask  me  for  an  article 
on  the  subject,  followed  it  up  by  telephone  and  letter,  and  finally 
came  up  to  Ophir  and  sat  up  with  me  on  the  subject  until  in  self- 
defence  I  consented  to  write  the  article.  As  the  magazine  was  going 
to  press  there  were  barely  two  days  for  it;  but  I  ground  him  out  four 
or  five  thousand  words  which  will  be  fatal  forevermore  to  me  among 
the  people  who  are  afraid  that  we  may  become  too  great.  I  haven't 
in  the  least  undertaken  to  shut  people's  eyes  to  the  difficulties  and 
dangers  of  the  Philippine  business;  but  I  don't  see  how  we  can  hon- 
orably give  them  back  to  Spain,  or  do  anything  with  them  but  try 
to  make  the  best  of  what  Dewey  flung  into  our  arms. 

The  little  inside  news  I  get  on  that  subject  is  no  doubt  confirmed 
by  your  fuller  information  to  the  effect  that  the  President's  present 
idea  is  to  get  on  with  only  holding  Manila  and  perhaps  the  island  of 
Luzon.  Even  so,  I  don't  quite  see  how  we  can  let  Spain  undertake 
to  get  control  of  the  other  islands  again  without  giving  them,  in 
some  way,  a  sort  of  right  to  appeal  to  us.  It  will  be  a  big  thing  for 
the  Pacific  Coast,  and  not  altogether  bad  for  the  country.  But,  if 
we  don't  insist  strenuously  that  the  territorial  government  is  for  all 
time,  we  shall  be  in  worse  danger  than  ever  in  our  whole  history  from 
the  demagogue  who  will  want  to  make  new  states. 

In  strict  confidence,  the  President  did  me  the  honor  to  send  Charlie 
Smith  over  to  talk  this  matter  over  before  the  Cabinet  reached  its 
decision,  and  I  gave  my  views  pretty  much  as  you  might  infer  from 
what  I  have  written. 

The  conversation  with  Postmaster-General  Smith,  on 
July  28th,  dealt  with  the  Issues  raised  two  days  before, 
when,  through  M.  Cambon,  the  French  minister  at 
Washington,  Spain  had  asked  for  the  American  terms  of 
peace.  McKinley  stated  these,  through  the  same  inter- 
mediary, on  July  30th,  they  were  accepted  on  August 
9th,  and  on  August  12th  the  peace  protocol  was  signed, 
suspending  hostilities  and  providing  for  an  early  start 
upon  final  negotiations.  The  crucial  articles  in  the  doc- 
ument ran  thus: 


226        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

1 .  Spain  will  relinquish  all  claims  of  sovereignty  over  and  title  to 
Cuba. 

2.  Spain  will  cede  to  the  United  States  the  island  of  Porto  Rico 
and  other  islands  now  under  Spanish  sovereignty  in  the  West  Indies, 
and  also  an  island  in  the  Ladrones,  to  be  selected  by  the  United 
States. 

3.  The  United  States  will  occupy  and  hold  the  city,  bay  and  har- 
bor of  Manila,  pending  the  conclusion  of  a  treaty  of  peace  which 
shall  determine  the  control,  disposition  and  government  of  the  Philip- 
pines. 

It  was  also  provided  that  the  United  States  and  Spain 
should  each  appoint  not  mgre  than  five  commissioners 
to  treat  of  peace,  and  that  they  should  meet  at  Paris 
not  later  than  October  ist,  1898.  The  correspondence 
between  Reid's  ideas,  as  he  had  all  along  made  them 
known  to  McKinley,  and  those  embodied  in  the  peace 
protocol,  had  already  foreshadowed  the  Hkehhood  of  his 
being  appointed  on  the  American  side  by  a  natural  proc- 
ess of  selection.  On  August  25th  the  President  tele- 
graphed, asking  him  to  be  a  member  of  the  commission, 
and  he  accepted  on  the  same  date.  John  Sherman  had 
retired  from  the  State  Department  toward  the  close  of 
April,  and  Judge  William  R.  Day,  of  Ohio,  who  had 
largely  administered  the  office  for  some  months,  had 
then  taken  his  place.  In  August  McKinley  invited  John 
Hay  to  come  back  from  London  and  serve  in  his  cabinet 
as  secretary  of  state.  Day  was  appointed  to  the  Peace 
Commission.  He  and  Reid  had  for  their  colleagues 
Senator  Cushman  K.  Davis,  of  Minnesota,  Senator  Wil- 
liam P.  Frye,  of  Maine,  and  Senator  George  Gray,  of 
Delaware.  McKinley,  obviously,  did  not  have  the  dis- 
position, so  unfortunately  illustrated  at  a  later  date  by 
Woodrow  Wilson,  to  neglect  senatorial  aid.  Three  of  his 
five  commissioners  were  members  of  the  Foreign  Rela- 
tions Committee  of  the  Senate,  two  RepubHcans,  and 
one.  Senator  Gray,  a  Cleveland  Democrat.     The  secre- 


THE  WAR  WITH   SPAIN  227 

tary  of  the  commission  was  Mr.  John  Bassett  Moore. 
The  Queen  Regent  of  Spain  sent  to  Paris  Don  Eugenio 
Montero  Rios,  who  headed  her  commission,  Don  Buen- 
aventura Abarzuza,  Don  Jose  de  Garnica,  Don  Wences- 
lao  R.  de  Villa-Urrutia,  and  a  military  man,  General 
Rafael  Cerero. 


'  > 


CHAPTER  XIII 
THE  PEACE  TREATY 

The  choice  of  Paris  as  the  scene  of  the  Peace  Confer- 
ence had  not  at  first  commended  itself  to  Reid.  Envi- 
ronment, in  his  opinion,  was  always  of  importance  in 
any  negotiation,  and  Paris  was  overwhelmingly  Spanish 
in  its  sentiment.  There  were  half  a  dozen  more  eligible 
places,  notably  Berne  or  The  Hague.  But  the  Parisian 
environment  turned  out  reasonably  innocuous,  despite 
the  acerbities  of  the  press,  and  so  far  as  Reid  personally 
was  concerned  it  proved  exceptionally  favorable.  He 
knew  and  he  was  known.  His  footing  in  government 
and  diplomatic  circles  only  gained  from  his  former  rela- 
tions with  both  as  American  minister,  and  his  possession 
of  the  language  gave  him  another  strong  advantage. 
More  than  once  during  the  negotiations  his  acquaintance- 
ships and  his  knowledge  of  the  ropes  eased  the  labors  of 
the  commission.  Besides  experience  and  a  command  of 
French  he  had  certain  clearly  marked  diplomatic  traits 
which  proved  conspicuously  useful.  Frequently  I  have 
touched  upon  Whitelaw  Reid's  independence,  his  firm- 
ness in  pursuing  a  given  course.  There  was  great  tenac- 
ity in  him,  strong  will-power  reinforced  by  persistence. 
At  the  same  time  he  hked  to  look  around  a  subject,  he 
was  open-minded,  and  his  repute  in  Paris  was  that  of  a 
negotiator  who  drove  with  courtesy  at  the  just  and 
equitable  solution  of  a  problem. 

He  was  scrupulously  fair,  even  in  disagreement.  I 
may  cite  a  pertinent  episode  from  the  summer  of  1898. 
Abram  S.  Hewitt  celebrated   his  seventy-sixth  birthday 

228 


THE   PEACE  TREATY  229 

in  that  year,  and,  thanking  Reid  for  his  congratulations, 
he  said:  "It  has  been  one  of  the  consolations  of  my  life, 
as  well  as  one  of  its  chief  pleasures,  that  I  have  enjoyed 
your  friendship,  and  that  even  when  you  had  occasion 
to  censure  any  act  of  mine  the  criticism  was  always 
couched  in  language  so  kindly  as  not  to  afford  ammu- 
nition to  my  opponents.  Allow  me  to  reciprocate  the 
congratulations  which  you  tender.  Your  own  career  is 
one  not  merely  honorable  to  yourself,  but  most  profitable 
to  your  country."  That,  from  one  of  the  stanchest 
Democrats  of  his  time,  with  whom  Reid  had  often  ener- 
getically contended,  is  a  fairly  conclusive  tribute  to  his 
polished  skill  in  debate.  It  was  profitable  to  his  coun- 
try at  Paris. 

By  a  curious  turn  of  fate,  one  of  the  officials  there 
most  sympathetic  in  appreciation  of  Reid's  diplomatic 
characteristics  was  the  Spanish  ambassador.  It  had  so 
happened  that  on  the  occasion  of  his  previous  stay  he 
had  been  rather  more  intimate  with  Senor  Leon  y  Cas- 
tillo than  with  most  of  his  other  colleagues.  At  the  time 
of  the  signing  of  the  peace  protocol  a  mutual  friend  in 
Paris  had  seen  the  ambassador  and  transmitted  cordial 
messages  from  him  to  Reid,  adding:  "He  would  highly 
prize  any  condensed  statement  of  the  real  views  and 
wishes  of  our  people  in  regard  to  the  Phifippines,  Cuba 
and  the  Cuban  debt.  He  expressed  great  confidence  in 
your  judgment,  and  anything  you  say  would  have  weight 
with  him  and  also  with  the  Queen.'*  There  was,  of 
course,  nothing  that  Reid  could  say  to  him  at  that  junc- 
ture; but  the  note  struck  by  Castillo  is  significant  of  the 
atmosphere  in  which  Reid  could  meet  his  old  Spanish 
acquaintance  when  he  arrived  in  Paris.  It  was  a  very 
human  atmosphere.  That,  indeed,  is  what  I  would  em- 
phasize in  treating  of  the  Peace  Conference.  Every  one 
knows  the  conditions  established  in  the  treaty.     Not  so 


'  * 


230         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW   REID 

familiar  are  the  spirit  and  movement  of  the  meetings  at 
the  French  Foreign  Office.  Before  he  left  America  Reid 
had  been  told  by  John  Bigelow  that  we  had  a  wolf  by 
the  ears,  which  we  could  not  let  go  of  with  dignity,  and 
that  it  would  take  a  long  time  to  bring  the  taming 
process  to  an  end.  The  American  commissioners  sailed 
with  a  feehng  of  respect  for  the  ability  of  the  Spaniards 
they  were  to  face,  and  every  expectation  of  difficulty  in 
making  satisfactory  negotiations.  They  were  not  dis- 
appointed. 

They  reached  Paris  on  September  26th,  and  estab- 
lished themselves  at  the  Hotel  Continental,  where  all 
the  private  meetings  of  the  commission  were  held.  Their 
immediate  problem  was  as  to  the  language  in  which  the 
proceedings  should  be  conducted  in  the  salle  assigned  to 
the  conference  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay.  None  of  the  Ameri- 
can commissioners  spoke  Spanish,  only  two  or  three  of 
the  Spanish  commissioners  were  said  to  speak  English, 
and  only  a  minority  of  the  commissioners  on  each  side 
were  known  to  speak  French.  Under  the  circumstances 
it  seemed  best  that  the  proceedings  should  be  conducted 
in  English,  having  our  interpreter  present  to  repeat  what- 
ever might  be  necessary  in  Spanish,  and  leaving  the 
Spanish  commissioners  to  adopt  their  own  course.  The 
success  of  this  plan  owed  much  to  the  abilities  and  to  the 
sympathetic  address  of  the  interpreter  attached  to  the 
American  commission,  Mr.  Arthur  Ferguson.  His  com- 
mand of  Spanish  was  complete,  extending  to  the  subtlest 
nuances  of  the  language,  and  his  alert  skill  had  a  clarify- 
ing and  most  helpful  effect  at  important  moments. 
There  was  no  formal  organization  of  our  side,  though 
Judge  Day  was  naturally  accepted  as  its  president. 
M.  Delcasse,  the  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  formally 
received  the  American  commissioners  on  the  28th,  tak- 
ing the  opportunity  to  explain  the  disinterested  position 


THE   PEACE  TREATY  231 

of  his  government,  and  on  the  following  day  he  gave  a 
luncheon  at  which  the  two  groups  met,  AI.  Brisson,  the 
premier,  taking  part  in  the  occasion.  Castillo  was 
among  the  guests,  and  after  the  usual  friendly  greetings 
to  Reid,  plunged  at  once  into  business.  He  had  been 
pleased  to  hear  of  Reid's  appointment,  because  he  was 
sure  he  would  appreciate  the  situation  of  the  Spaniards. 
They  were  poor  and  defeated.  It  became  a  great  nation 
like  ours,  in  the  moment  of  its  first  great  victory  over  a 
foreign  power,  to  show  itself  as  magnanimous  as  it  had 
been  successful.  After  the  luncheon  was  over  Castillo 
returned  to  the  subject.  Among  the  points  he  adjured 
Reid  not  to  forget  was  the  fact  that,  after  all,  it  was 
Spain  that  had  discovered  America.  This  appeal  to 
sentiment  was  succeeded  by  a  very  different  mode  of 
procedure  in  the  meetings  that  presently  ensued. 

The  Spaniards  and  Americans  came  together  on  Octo- 
ber 1st  with  great  courtesy,  which  soon  thawed  into 
almost  an  appearance  of  cordiality.  It  looked,  however, 
as  though  they  were  to  begin  with  endless  arguments 
over  unimportant  details.  Montero  Rios  was  an  hero- 
ically voluble  disputant.  He  started  off  by  expatiating 
at  prodigious  length  over  the  question  of  the  record  to 
be  kept  of  each  day's  proceedings.  Reid  cut  the  knot  by 
jotting  down  a  memorandum  which  he  initialled  and 
passed  along  to  his  colleagues,  who  all  signed  the  docu- 
ment in  the  same  way.  '*It  is  the  sense  of  the  Ameri- 
can Commissioners,"  this  paper  read,  "that  the  record 
should  embrace  only  propositions  presented  in  writing 
and  action  or  failure  to  act  thereon."  This  was  adopted 
and  the  meeting  went  on,  presumably  with  all  decks 
cleared  and  with  no  likelihood  of  friction  on  the  first  and 
chiefly  ceremonial  day  of  the  conference.  But  before 
adjournment  Montero  Rios  justified  the  prediction  Reid 
had  made  that  the  Spaniards  would  open  the  ball  with 


232         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

something  like  a  challenge,  probably  raising  the  ques- 
tion of  the  capture  of  Manila  after  the  peace  protocol 
had  been  signed.  Precisely  this  thing  was  done.  Mon- 
tero  Rios  presented  a  paper  asserting  the  Spanish  claim 
that  in  view  of  the  date,  Manila  had  been  wrongfully 
taken,  and  that  we  were  consequently  bound  to  restore 
the  status  quo.  The  demand  was  made  in  a  fairly  per- 
emptory fashion,  and  as  though  it  were  intended  to  inter- 
pose an  obstacle  to  any  other  negotiations  until  the  point 
had  been  settled.  When  adjournment  finally  came  the 
American  commissioners  knew  beyond  peradventure  that 
the  Spaniards  meant  to  play  a  delaying  game.  Their 
reply  was  to  propose  that  the  order  of  business  followed 
should  be  determined  by  the  protocol,  and  to  offer  arti- 
cles, accordingly,  as  to  the  surrender  of  sovereignty  in 
Cuba  and  the  cession  of  Porto  Rico,  other  Spanish  islands 
in  the  western  hemisphere,  and  Guam  in  the  Ladrones. 

The  scene,  when  the  American  rejoinder  was  read 
at  the  next  meeting,  was  picturesque  and  in  the  highest 
degree  dramatic.  "Montero  Rios,"  says  Reid,  in  a  note 
on  the  incident,  "looked  as  if  he  was  losing  his  last  friend 
on  earth,  and  the  others  obviously  experienced  consid- 
erable emotion  also  at  being  thus  brought  face  to  face 
with  the  results  of  the  war.'*  Later  the  Americans  defi- 
nitely refused  to  consider  a  demand  for  the  restoration 
of  the  status  quo,  and  then  the  conference  proceeded  to 
grapple  with  the  Cuban  problem.  The  Spanish  idea 
assumed  that  the  cession  of  the  sovereignty  of  Cuba  was 
made  only  in  order  that  after  a  suitable  time  we  should 
turn  the  island  over  to  its  people,  and  that  the  United 
States  was  to  take  over  responsibility  for  the  entire 
Cuban  debt,  including  pensions  and  all  sorts  of  Spanish 
obligations  for  running  the  government,  even  down  to 
the  very  moment  at  which  the  proposed  treaty  should 
be  signed.     On  this  proposition  the  battle  of  wits  was 


THE  PEACE  TREATY  233 

joined  in  deadly  earnest.  Rejoinder  followed  fast  upon 
rejoinder,  and,  as  the  chances  of  agreement  receded,  the 
tension  threatened  to  reach  the  snapping  point.  The 
emotional,  purely  human  aspects  of  the  situation  come 
out  more  and  more  in  Reid's  souvenirs.  Something  of 
the  electricity  charging  the  air  at  the  conference  crept 
into  the  social  atmosphere.  Dining  with  the  Munsters 
at  the  German  Embassy,  Reid  found  the  Countess  Marie 
rather  quiet  at  table,  but  she  made  an  opportunity  to 
say  that  she  had  not  sympathized  with  us  during  the 
war,  and  that  she  was  in  favor  of  the  little  dog.  To  the 
suggestion  that  the  little  dog  ought  not  to  have  crowded 
the  big  dog  into  fighting,  she  replied:  **WeII,  I  wish  he 
had  taken  a  bite  out  of  you  anyway."  The  manage- 
ment of  *'Le  Figaro"  got  up  a  **Five  o'CIock"  for  both 
sides.  The  Coquelins  took  part,  Renaud  sang,  there 
were  Spanish  songs  and  dances,  and  finally  Miss  Loie 
Fuller  supplemented  her  share  in  the  programme  with  an 
amazing  stump  speech  in  which  she  appealed  for  the 
sending  of  the  questions  before  the  conference  to  arbi- 
tration !  Spanish  sympathies  in  Paris  were  hugely  tickled 
by  this  fantastic  intrusion.  And  to  the  pin  pricks  accu- 
mulating day  by  day  there  succeeded  the  makings  of  a 
crisis.  At  the  meeting  of  October  14th,  in  a  roomful  of 
taut  nerves,  Montero  Rios  fought  over  the  Cuban  quan- 
dary with  a  heat  and  a  pertinacity  suggesting  that  he 
was  riding  for  a  fall.  Reid  wrote  to  Hay  on  the  i6th: 
"We  may  be  on  the  eve  of  a  Spanish  coup.  All  of  us 
thought,  when  we  parted  at  the  Aff'aires  Etrangeres  long 
after  dark,  last  Friday  evening,  after  much  the  longest 
and  most  earnest  session  we  have  yet  had,  that  the  Span- 
iards were  looking  for  an  opportunity  to  break  up  the 
Conference,  presumably  with  a  view  to  an  effort  for 
European  arbitration  of  some  sort.  We  are  now  plan- 
ning to  let  the  break  come,  if  it  must,  on  a  point  that 


234         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

can  readily  be  grasped  by  the  general  public,  like  the 
question  of  the  Cuban  debt,  rather  than  on  the  more 
abstract  question  of  whether  or  not  we  must  accept  the 
sovereignty  jwhich  Spain  relinquishes."  Montero  Rios 
admitted  that  the  matter  of  the  interpretation  of  the 
article  on  Cuban  sovereignty  was  in  some  degree  at  least 
academical,  but  he  and  his  colleagues  hammered  on  this 
"abstract  question,"  hoping  against  hope  that  they 
might  thereby  intertwine  with  it  an  admission  on  our 
part  of  responsibility  for  the  debt.  A  few  days  after 
the  hottest  of  the  meetings, on  this  subject  Ambassador 
Porter  gave  a  dinner  to  all  the  commissioners.  Montero 
Rios  talked  with  Reid  about  everything  under  the  sun, 
including  Velasquez,  but  he  couldn't  keep  away  from  the 
condition  of  Spain,  the  necessity  for  peace,  and,  above 
all,  the  necessity  for  means  of  internal  development. 
The  whole  tone  of  his  talk  indicated  a  readiness  to  be 
rid  of  the  colonies,  but  a  feeling  that  they  ought  to  get 
money  enough  for  them  to  be  able  to  prosecute  improve- 
ments at  home.  Castillo  in  his  turn  renewed  his  argu- 
ment on  the  call  for  magnanimity  to  a  fallen  nation, 
pointing  out  that  such  magnanimity  should  take  the 
form  of  recognition  of  the  Cuban  debt.  He  declared  that 
a  large  part  of  this  debt  had  been  incurred  for  purposes 
of  internal  development  in  Cuba,  railroads  and  the  like, 
and  repeated  several  times  that,  speaking  unofficially, 
and  as  one  old  friend  to  another,  on  his  word  of  honor, 
if  he  were  in  the  place  of  the  United  States  he  would 
gladly  take  the  Cuban  debt — otherwise  we  should  surely 
have  trouble  with  the  Cubans;  on  the  other  hand,  if  we 
assumed  the  debt,  we  had  absolute  control  of  Cuba  in 
the  eyes  of  the  world.  Reid  told  him  there  was  not  the 
remotest  possibility  of  our  doing  it. 

These  personal  encounters  make  an  intensely  interest- 
ing phase  of  the  story  of  Reid's  experience  at  this  time 


THE   PEACE  TREATY  235 

in  Paris.  Castillo,  especially  in  his  own  house,  addressed 
him  with  the  frankness  of  an  old  friend.  "You  are  in 
danger  of  an  impasse,''  he  would  exclaim.  "You  are 
the  only  diplomat  there.  It  is  the  duty  of  a  diplomat 
to  find  some  middle  way,  to  avoid  the  absolute  failure 
of  negotiations,  to  accomplish  something."  After  dinner 
he  plied  Reid  with  his  famihar  arguments,  and  brought 
into  the  conversation  the  Marquis  de  Comillas,  president 
of  a  Spanish  bank.  Mightily  he  labored,  hoping,  it 
would  seem,  that  by  impressing  Reid  he  might  in  some 
sort  impress  the  whole  American  commission.  The 
wind-up  of  their  talk  Reid  thus  hirnself  describes : 

At  the  time  I  was  convinced  that  Castillo  had  up  his  sleeve  some 
trump  card,  which  he  wanted  to  play.  Presently  he  led  up  to  it  by 
renewing  his  declaration  that  it  was  the  duty  of  a  diplomat  to  bring 
negotiations  to  a  successful  result,  not  to  lead  them  into  an  impasse  ; 
that  it  was  especially  my  duty  to  seek  some  middle  way  that  gave 
Spain  some  opportunity  and  would  not  be  offensive  to  the  United 
States.  "Were  I  in  your  place,"  he  said  at  last,  "let  me  tell  you 
what  I  would  do.  I  would  agree  upon  a  mixed  commission  of  ex- 
perts with  reference  to  debts  that  might  fairly  be  chargeable  to  the 
island,  Spain  choosing  experts  on  her  side,  and  the  United  States 
choosing  experts  on  hers.  It  should  be  the  duty  of  this  commission 
to  study  the  origin  of  these  debts  and  report  what  portion  of  them 
is  fairly  chargeable  to  Spain,  and  what  portion  chargeable  to  Cuba." 
He  did  not  renew  his  previous  talk  about  their  having  debts  incurred 
for  building  railroads,  but  did  talk  vaguely  about  permanent  im- 
provements and  permanent  betterments  of  the  island.  When  I  told 
him  that  the  plan  of  such  a  commission  would  not  be  entertained  by 
the  United  States,  the  countenances  of  both  the  Ambassador  and 
the  Marquis  de  Comillas  could  not  conceal  their  feeling  of  disappoint- 
ment and  chagrin. 

I  said  there  was  absolutely  no  considerable  body  of  opinion  in  the 
United  States  that  would  sustain  such  a  scheme  and  that  we  would 
scarcely  dare  to  go  home  if  we  accepted  it.  I  explained  the  view  in 
the  United  States  that  these  debts  were  incurred  by  Spain  in  its 
effort  to  hold  the  island  in  subjection,  and  that  it  would  be  mon- 
strous after  the  island  were  freed  to  load  it  down  with  debts  incurred 
for  its  enslavement.  But,  exclaimed  Comillas,  "The  bonds  pledge 
the  revenues  of  the  island;  what  arc  the  bondholders  to  do?"     I 


236         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

replied  that  the  bondholders  must  reflect  on  the  old  common  law 
maxim,  caveat  emptor.  They  knew  perfectly  what  the  object  of  the 
loan  was.  They  knew  that  if  that  object  were  defeated,  the  so- 
called  security  was  gone,  and  that  Spain  had  no  longer  the  power  to 
pledge  it.  TJiey  gambled  on  Spain's  success,  and  must  pay  the 
penalty  of  having  gambled  on  the  wrong  side.  Comillas  looked  as  if 
he  were  being  robbed  of  his  last  penny,  while  I  made  these  explana- 
tions. 

The  conversation  had  by  this  time  become  almost  dramatic  in  its 
intensity.  All  three  of  us  were  standing;  Castillo  was  frequently 
touching  my  shoulder,  or  grasping  my  coat  lapel  in  the  earnestness 
of  his  gesticulations.  Once  or  twice,  when  I  hesitated  for  the  French 
words,  Comillas  said,  "Speak  Enghsh,  I  can  understand  it,  although 
I  do  not  venture  to  speak  it,"  and  after  I  had  spoken  in  English  he 
rapidly  translated  in  Spanish  what  I  said  to  Castillo.  In  answer  to 
Castillo's  urgent  appeals  to  do  something,  I  finally  assured  him  of 
my  earnest  desire  to  do  everything  for  him  personally  that  could  be 
done;  but  assured  him  that,  in  this  case,  what  he  asked  was  quite 
impossible,  and  then  warned  him  that  at  any  rate  the  Cuban  debt 
was  not  the  chief  difficulty.  This  seemed  to  surprise  him  still  more. 
He  said  "You  don't  refer  to  the  Philippines?"  I  replied  "Yes,  that, 
I  fancy,  will  be  a  much  more  difficult  question  for  you  than  the 
Cuban  debt."  He  still  insisted  that  he  thought  the  big  question 
was  the  Cuban  debt. 


The  "trump  card"  that  Castillo  sought  to  play  is  a 
matter  requiring  comment  by  itself.  It  illustrated  the 
Spanish  hankering  after  arbitration  as  a  recourse  which 
might  somehov^  extricate  them  from  some,  at  least,  of 
the  consequences  of  the  w^ar.  Reid  found  it  perhaps  the 
hardest  contention  of  all  to  discuss  with  patience.  The 
question  of  the  Cuban  debt  was  a  thing  which  he  couldn't 
consent  to  arbitrate  under  any  circumstances,  any  more 
than  he  could  consent  to  arbitrate  a  question  whether 
we  should  or  should  not  obey  the  moral  law.  To  him 
the  question  of  paying,  or  compelling  the  Cubans  to 
pay  the  cost  of  the  long,  bloody,  and  finally  unsuccessful 
efforts  to  enslave  them,  was  primarily  a  question  of 
morals,  and  he  would  not  agree  to  say  that  such  a  ques- 
tion was  a  fit  subject  to  be  arbitrated  or  agree  to  be 


THE  PEACE  TREATY  237 

bound  by  an  adverse  decision  on  such  a  point  if  un- 
friendly arbitrators  should  find  one.  Also  it  was  allied, 
for  him,  with  a  larger  issue.  There  was  arbitration  and 
arbitration,  desirable  and  indefensible.  It  was  impor- 
tant in  the  conference,  he  felt,  to  keep  the  distinction 
beyond  the  shadow  of  a  doubt,  and  a  memorandum  of 
his,  written  at  the  height  of  the  debt  wrangle,  shows 
the  clearly  defined  philosophy  which  he  advocated 
throughout: 

The  proposal  to  refer  this  to  arbitration  seems  to  overlook  some 
fundamental  considerations.  When  nations  find  it  impossible  to 
adjust  their  difficulties  by  negotiations,  there  are  two  remedies. 
They  can  resort  to  arbitration  or  to  war.  '  In  many  cases  arbitration 
is  much  to  be  preferred.  The  tendencies  of  advancing  civilization 
favor  it,  and  the  United  States  have  employed  it.  But  in  the  present 
case  there  was  no  suggestion  or  thought  of  arbitration.  Spain  chose 
war,  and  the  w^ar  was  continued  up  to  the  point  when  Spain  asked 
for  terms  of  peace,  and  agreed  to  and  signed  a  protocol  embodying 
the  terms  on  which  alone  the  United  States  were  willing  to  suspend 
the  war. 

At  this  stage  arbitration  has  no  place.  Having  failed  with  one 
remedy,  the  unsuccessful  nation  cannot  then  turn  around  and  claim 
a  resort  to  the  other.  Arbitration  comes  before  war,  to  avert  its 
evils;  not  after  war,  to  escape  its  results.  The  so-called  Cuban  debt 
lay  at  the  very  heart  of  the  war,  now  suspended;  was  one  of  the  chief 
causes  of  the  insurrection.  After  the  war  has  settled  them,  to  put 
them  again  at  issue  in  an  arbitration  would  seem  to  us  unreasonable 
and  unprecedented.  Furthermore  the  United  States  has  consistently 
declared  for  three  quarters  of  a  century  that  this  is  and  must  remain 
a  question  between  the  United  States  and  Spain  alone.  It  is  one  in 
which  now  we  can  neither  invite  nor  permit  the  arbitration,  media- 
tion or  interference  of  any  other  power.  It  was  begun  by  and  with 
Spain,  and  with  Spain  it  must  be  settled. 

Exphcitly,  on  occasion,  and  even  more  often  between 
the  lines  of  their  discussions,  it  was  a  prime  function  of 
the  American  commissioners  to  sustain  the  point  of  view 
which  Reid,  for  himself,  thus  stated. 

That  was  a  period  of  perpetual  strain  in  Paris.  The 
American  commissioners  confronted  an  opposition  of  ex- 


238        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

traordinary  resisting  power.  And  all  about  them  at  the 
moment  was  the  ferment  of  two  French  crises,  those 
promoted  by  the  Dreyfus  case  and  Fashoda.  The  lat- 
ter subject  ^was  not  necessarily  inflammable.  Some 
Frenchmen  found  traces  of  humor  in  it.  The  Dreyfus 
case  had  some  of  the  characteristics  of  dynamite.  The 
Reids  found  that  in  any  considerable  company  it  had 
to  be  handled  with  the  most  meticulous  care,  and  gen- 
erally couldn't  be  touched  upon  at  all.  Even  famihes 
were  divided  on  this  topic.  Occasionally,  however,  cir- 
cumstances permitted  candid  talk.  That  which  they 
heard  was  apt  to  be  anti-government.  One  leading 
Frenchman  roundly  asserted  that  "no  good  person  out 
of  the  army  could  doubt  that  Dreyfus  was  horribly  per- 
secuted, and  that  the  attitude  of  the  government  and 
the  army  was  disgraceful."  This  was  the  period  of  a 
growing  assertiveness  of  anarchistic  ideas  in  French  poli- 
tics, and  Reid  had  from  Count  Montsaulnin  some  light, 
not  wholly  unamusing,  on  their  true  nature.  The  most 
notorious  of  the  anarchists  and  communists  in  the 
count's  departement  had  come  to  him  scores  of  times  in 
the  Chamber  to  borrow  twenty  francs  to  get  dinner  for 
himself  or  a  friend  or  two,  and  had  not  scrupled  to  give 
receipts  for  such  petty  loans,  of  which  Montsaulnin  said 
he  had  numbers  laid  away  in  his  safe.  He  had  even 
ofl'ered  to  get  an  anarchist  opponent  in  a  campaign 
"removed"  so  as  to  give  the  count  a  clear  electoral 
field — asking  but  five  thousand  francs  for  the  job.  Once 
Montsaulnin  had  given  this  fellow  five  hundred  francs, 
and  had  required  him  to  preside  at  one  of  his  own  meet- 
ings, which  the  anarchist  had  done  with  fairly  good 
grace.  There  is  a  touch  of  comic  opera  in  one  scene 
which  the  count  laughingly  described.  When  crowds 
were  howling  in  the  streets  "A  inort  Montsaulnin,"  the 
anarchist  boss,  at  the  head  of  the  worst  of  the  rioters, 


THE   PEACE  TREATY  239 

angrily  shouted:  ** There  is  the  Citizen  Montsaulnin.  I 
have  a  few  words  to  say  to  him."  He  approached  and 
said  them — asking  if  there  was  anything  he  could  do  to 
help !  Then  he  at  once  reassumed  his  defiant  tone, 
crying:  "Now,  Citizen  Montsaulnin,  I  hope  you  under- 
stand me  once  and  for  all,  and  know  what  you  have  to 
expect  at  the  hands  of  myself  and  my  friends."  Never- 
theless, the  party  of  violence  ultimately  succeeded  in 
defeating  the  count  for  the  Chamber  of  Deputies. 

Reid's  colleagues  listened  with  interest  and  approval 
to  his  report  of  the  talk  he  had  had  with  the  Spanish 
ambassador,  and  they  agreed  that  if  negotiations  were 
to  be  broken  off  it  would  have  to  be  on  Castillo's  **big 
question."  For  the  despatch  to  the  State  Department 
summarizing  the  situation  Reid  wrote  a  passage  tersely 
stating  the  policy  desired.  **Our  probable  line  of  pro- 
cedure, if  you  do  not  disapprove  and  if  we  think  emer- 
gency has  arisen,  will  be  to  repeat  that  our  position  on 
Cuban  debt  is  final,  and  that,  if  now  again  rejected, 
nothing  is  left  to  us  excepting  to  give  notice  of  only  one 
more  meeting,  to  close  the  protocol."  The  reply  was 
favorable,  and  the  ensuing  discussion  at  the  Foreign 
Office,  protracted  and  almost  impassioned,  brought  the 
turning-point  in  the  negotiations.  When  the  meeting  of 
the  24th  broke  up  it  was  felt  on  the  American  side  that 
the  Spaniards  would  yield.  Before  they  did  so  they 
made  one  more  appeal  to  Reid.  A  letter  from  the 
Spanish  Embassy,  marked  Tres  Urgente,  proposed  a  call 
from  Castillo  that  evening.  He  made  it,  with  results 
which  are  best  given  in  his  host's  own  words: 

The  conversation  left  me  somewhat  puzzled  as  to  whether  it  was 
to  be  considered  as  an  adroit  and  painstaking  piece  of  Spanish  diplo- 
macy, or  as  an  honest  and  sincere  effort  to  avert  a  rupture.  He 
began  by  telling  me  that  he  greatly  dreaded  the  next  meeting  of  the 
Joint  Commission;  that  he  feared  a  rupture;  that  Montero  Rios 


240         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

considered  it  inevitable;  that  he  had  spent  a  good  part  of  the  day 
talking  with  him  and  remonstrating  against  his  views;  that  Montero 
Rios  seemed  ready  to  go  back  to  Madrid  at  once;  but  that  finally,  in 
response  to  his  (Castillo's)  appeals  to  try  to  do  something,  he  had 
said,  "Very  w^I,  go  and  see  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid,  and  see  whether  it  is 
possible  to  arrange  anything  to  avoid  a  rupture."  Castillo  insisted 
that  there  ought  to  be  some  concession  with  regard  to  the  debt  in 
order  to  make  it  possible  to  continue  negotiations.  On  this  point  I 
took  very  positive  ground  in  reply,  assuring  him  that  there  was  abso- 
lutely no  possibility  of  any  concession;  that  the  Commissioners  were 
unanimous  on  the  subject,  and  that  the  sentiment  of  the  American 
people  was  equally  unanimous,  absolutely  without  distinction  of 
party.  I  tried  to  explain  to  him  our  point  of  view, — that  the  debt 
was  purely  and  simply  a  debt  created  by  Spain  for  the  purpose  of 
maintaining  a  rule  in  Cuba  which  we  found  so  bad  and  tyrannical 
that  we  had  been  at  last  compelled  to  intervene  to  upset  it; — that  it 
was  not  a  Cuban  debt  at  all  since  the  Cubans  had  had  no  voice  in 
the  creation  of  it,  and  had  derived  no  benefit  from  it.  That  now 
they  had  been  freed  from  the  rule  this  debt  was  created  to  maintain 
and  perpetuate,  it  would  be  monstrous  to  saddle  the  debt  upon  them. 
He  insisted  in  return  that  the  sovereignty  was  passing  either  to  us 
or  to  Cuba,  and  that  according  to  all  rules  of  international  law  in 
cases  of  transfer  of  territory  the  power  receiving  the  transfer  assumed 
either  the  whole  debts  of  the  territory  transferred  or  a  portion  of 
them,  and  he  made  some  reference  to  the  case  of  Great  Britain  in  our 
Revolutionary  War,  and  of  Texas  after  the  Mexican  war.  I  pointed 
out  to  him  how  completely  he  was  mistaken  in  both  cases;  that  in 
the  case  of  our  Revolutionary  War  we  never  paid  anything  to  Great 
Britain,  and  were  never  asked  to,  while  in  the  case  of  Texas  what 
we  had  paid  was  not  a  claim  of  Mexico,  but  a  debt  contracted  by 
Texas  in  fighting  against  Mexico  in  the  war  in  which  she  gained  her 
independence.  I  pointed  out  also  that  not  long  before  our  Revo- 
lutionary War,  France  had  been  compelled  to  cede  her  enormous 
possessions  in  North  America  to  England — colonies  for  which  she 
had  incurred  large  expenses  in  public  works,  public  defence,  mainte- 
nance of  order,  etc.,  and  that  in  the  transfer  there  had  been  no  talk 
of  transferring  debts.  He  insisted  that  in  that  case  there  had  been 
no  debts  to  transfer.  I  asked  him  what  then  had  become  of  the 
enormous  national  debt  of  France  incurred  in  part  in  these  colonial 
enterprises  beginning  with  Louis  XIV  and  continuing  on  down  to 
this.  He  had  no  reply  excepting  to  say  that  some  errors  had  possi- 
bly been  made  in  their  statement;  and  then  suggested  that  it  might 
be  wise,  at  any  rate,  to  leave  this  whole  question  of  a  public  debt  in 
order  to  see  whether  they  could  not  get  concessions  in  the  Philip- 


THE  PEACE  TREATY  241 

pines,  which  would  justify  them  in  abandoning  it,  otherwise,  he  said, 
it  would  be  practically  impossible  for  them  to  make  a  treaty  and  go 
home.  Montero  Rios  would  be  hooted  in  the  streets  of  Madrid  if 
he  secured  no  abatement  whatever  of  our  terms.  To  this  I  told  him 
that  we  were  in  the  same  difficulty.  We  would  hardly  dare  to  show 
ourselves  at  home  if  we  had  made  the  slightest  concession,  on  a  point 
on  which  the  American  people  were  united,  in  favor  of  a  demand 
which  they  considered  not  only  unjust  but  monstrous. 

Again  and  again  he  returned  to  the  consideration  that  this  left 
them  powerless,  that  they  must  break  off;  that  it  was  the  ruin  of 
Spain.  I  regretfully  admitted  that  this  might  be  so  in  part,  but 
insisted  that  the  consequence  ought  to  have  been  considered  before 
they  forced  us  into  war,  and  then  told  him  I  hardly  thought  he  real- 
ized the  American  point  of  view  with  reference  to  the  war.  In  try- 
ing to  explain  this  I  referred  to  the  case  of  the  Maine.  He  at  once 
insisted  that  he  had  sought  for  full  information  on  that  subject,  and 
was  absolutely  convinced  that  the  Maine  had  not  been  blown  up  by 
any  Spanish  agency  or  connivance.  I  replied  that  our  experts  and 
whole  people  were  morally  convinced  that  it  had  been  blown  up  by 
Government  torpedo,  not  necessarily  exploded  by  an  officer  of  the 
Spanish  Government,  but  in  all  probability  by  some  one  who  had 
been  under  the  command  of  Weyler;  and  tried  to  impress  upon  him 
the  nature  of  the  feeling  such  a  barbarous  crime  had  aroused  in  the 
United  States,  and  the  impossibility  of  pleading  conditions  growing 
out  of  their  loss  of  Cuba  as  a  means  of  softening  the  American  de- 
mands, that  they  should  absolutely  leave  the  Western  Hemisphere 
unburdened  either  with  their  government  or  their  debts.  All  this  I 
tried  to  put  with  civility  but  with  extreme  distinctness,  and  it  evi- 
dently distressed  him.  In  further  justification  of  our  attitude  I 
said  that  he  knew  if  there  were  debts  incurred  for  public  works  as 
yet  unpaid  for,  we  were  perfectly  ready  to  assume  these,  and  that 
all  private  debts,  municipal  obligations  and  the  like  would  be  safe. 
To  this,  however,  I  added  that  in  my  belief  there  were  no  public 
works  of  that  character;  at  least  none  to  speak  of,  and  suggested 
that  if  there  had  been,  they  would  have  named  them  the  other  day 
when  the  subject  was  mentioned.  In  answer  to  his  further  incidents 
on  the  law  of  nations,  and  the  sense  of  justice  calling  for  a  transfer  of 
debts,  I  asked  him  to  consider  what  such  a  doctrine  led  to — what 
there  was  to  prevent  a  tyrannical  government  from  piling  debts  on 
a  discontented  colony  until  it  could  never  get  its  independence,  or 
get  any  other  nation  to  accept  it. 

Castillo  kept  returning  to  the  point  that  we  must  find  some  way 
to  avoid  a  rupture;  that  it  was  the  duty  of  a  diplomat;  that  it  was 
absurd  to  have  negotiations  which  merefy  consisted  in  laying  down 


242         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

an  unprecedented  requirement;  and  said  he  thought  never  before  had 
a  vanquished  nation  been  treated  so  cruelly.  At  last  I  said  to  him 
it  seemed  to  me  the  best  pohcy  for  Spain  would  be  to  accept  the 
inevitable  in  the  case  of  Cuba,  in  the  hope  that  possibly  there  might 
be  something  to  negotiate  about  in  the  greater  question  that  was 
coming.  He  repeated  what  he  had  said  to  me  at  his  own  house, 
that  he  thought  Cuba  was  the  great  question,  and  I  repeated  to  him 
what  I  said  there,  that  it  seemed  to  me  the  PhiHppines  prevented 
greater  difficulties.  At  last  I  held  out  a  vague  hope  to  him  that  it 
was  possible — repeating  carefully  "I  say  possible,  not  probable" — 
that  there  might  be  some  concession  there  from  the  present  American 
attitude  either  as  to  territory  or  as  to  debt.  I  explained  that  cer- 
tainly the  American  people  had  not  desired  the  Philippines,  but  that 
it  was  conceded  on  all  hands  that  they  must  retain  what  they  now 
occupy,  and  that  now  during  the  past  few  months  there  had  been  a 
rapid  growth  of  a  desire  to  hold  the  whole  archipelago.  At  the  same 
time  I  said,  unlike  the  Cuban  question,  there  is  on  this  question  of 
the  Philippines  a  decided  difference  of  opinion,  there  is  a  respectable 
and  important  minority  holding  different  views.  They  are  not  suffi- 
cient to  control  the  policy  of  the  Government,  but  it  might  be  that 
here  would  be  Spain's  best  chance  to  negotiate.  He  repeated  that 
he  thought  this  doubtful,  and  that  he  feared  the  negotiations  would 
have  to  be  broken  off.  By  this  time  he  had  reached  the  door,  and 
was  obviously  greatly  depressed.  He  said  in  saying  good  bye,  "My 
dear  friend,  it  is  cruel,  most  cruel;  pray  God  that  you  may  never  be 
likewise  vanquished.'*  In  return  I  expressed  the  most  earnest  con- 
viction that  it  would  only  be  adding  to  their  misfortunes  to  break 
off  the  negotiations;  assured  him  that  he  could  hardly  conceive  what 
an  unhappiness  they  would  be  bringing  down  upon  Spain,  if  they 
should  persist  in  so  unwise  a  course.  Shaking  hands  again  at  the 
door,  for  perhaps  a  second  or  third  time,  I  closed  with  the  words — 
"Do  not  break  off";  and  with  every  expression  of  cordiality  but 
obviously  with  great  sadness  the  Ambassador  disappeared  in  the 
corridors  of  the  hotel. 


The  next  day  the  Spaniards  brought  to  the  Foreign 
Office  their  latest  contribution  to  the  debate.  Imme- 
diately it  was  plain  that  the  danger  of  a  rupture  had 
been  passed,  and  as  the  interpreter  went  on  with  his 
reading  of  the  document,  Senator  Gray  leaned  over  and 
pressed  Reid's  arm,  whispering:  ** There  is  the  result  of 
your  conversation  with  the  Spanish  Ambassador.''     The 


THE   PEACE  TREATY  243 

proposals  of  the  American  commissioners  as  to  Cuba 
and  Porto  Rico  were  accepted,  and  while  this  acceptance 
was  made  ''subject  to  the  final  decision  on  the  whole 
treaty/'  the  Spaniards  must  have  reahzed  that  there 
was  no  longer  the  faintest  chance  of  saddhng  the  United 
States  with  the  Cuban  debt. 

Considering  the  vast  scope  of  Prussian  ambition  as  it 
was  definitive^  revealed  in  the  World  War,  and  con- 
sidering especiall}'  the  policy  which  culminated  in  the 
invasion  of  Belgium,  a  certain  interest  attaches  to  the 
question  of  Count  Munster's  attitude  during  the  Peace 
Conference.  The  German  ambassador  was  very  much 
at  home  in  Paris,  in  touch  with  all  the  currents  and 
many  of  the  undercurrents  in  diplomatic  circles.  In 
1898  he  had  been  there  thirteen  years,  entertaining  rela- 
tions with  nineteen  governments.  The  tone  of  his 
household  where  our  war  with  Spain  was  concerned  may 
be  inferred  from  the  wish  of  his  daughter  which  I  have 
cited — that  the  little  dog  might  have  taken  a  bite  out 
of  the  big  one.  It  was  rumored  during  the  progress  of 
negotiations  at  the  Foreign  Ofiice  that  German  holdings 
of  Cuban  securities  had  for  weeks  been  steadily  increas- 
ing. Whatever  its  source,  German  interest  in  the  settle- 
ment was  lively,  and  the  Kaiser  was  desirous  of  being 
kept  constantly  informed  as  to  the  progress  of  negotia- 
tions. No  unofficial  news  was  to  be  gleaned  from  any 
member  of  the  American  commission,  but  he  wished  his 
representative  to  keep  in  touch  with  it,  and  telegraphed 
Munster  to  make  a  point  of  seeing  Reid  every  day.  The 
pleasantest  of  relations  had  existed  between  these  t\vo 
since  the  beginning  of  their  ofiicial  intercourse  in  1889, 
and  when  their  friendship  was  renewed  they  had  frequent 
opportunities  for  talk.  There  was  disclosed,  on  the  old 
count's  part,  a  point  of  view  discreetly  neutral,  of 
course,  tinged  with  an  alert  curiosity.     He  was  always 


244         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

interested  in  details  of  the  conference,  wanted  to  know 
how  discussions  were  conducted,  how  the  remarks  of  the 
participants  were  translated,  and  so  on,  and  from  these 
harmless  topics  was  wont  to  proceed  to  more  specific 
questions.  At  the  time  of  the  crisis  over  the  Cuban 
debt  he  was  equally  sure  that  the  Spaniards  wanted  us 
to  pay  it,  and  that  we  wouldn't  do  it.  He  surmised  that 
we  wanted  the  Philippines,  but  all  that  he  drew  from 
Reid  on  that  head  was  that  when  we  had  taken  the 
capital,  sunk  the  Spanish  fleet,  and  captured  the  Span- 
ish army,  we  had  practically  -taken  the  Philippines.  He 
asked  many  questions  about  the  misconduct  of  the  friars 
and  other  features  of  Spanish  rule.  The  general  impres- 
sion he  left  was  that  while  Germany  was  eagerly  watch- 
ful she  had  no  thought  of  interfering  with  us.  Repeat- 
edly when  he  and  Reid  met  he  confirmed  this  idea,  some- 
times being  quite  pointed  on  the  question  of  the  islands. 
On  one  occasion  he  said:  '*We  certainly  don't  want 
them;  at  least  I  don't  want  them  and  I  hope  my  Gov- 
ernment does  not." 

His  government  was  to  be  heard  from  later,  and  to 
show,  ever  so  faintly,  the  cloven  foot  of  Kaiserism  as  we 
have  since  come  to  understand  it,  when  the  Americans 
were  negotiating  for  Kusaie,  in  the  CaroHnes,  as  a  cable 
station.  Berlin  got  wind  of  it  and  interposed  objections, 
hoping  that  nothing  would  be  done  in  contravention  of 
German  rights  and  interests,  on  which  the  Colonial  Office 
had  more  or  less  clearly  formed  convictions.  Munster 
called  on  Reid  more  than  once  to  talk  about  it,  evidently 
not  altogether  in  sympathy  with  his  home  authorities. 
Without  taking  the  fidgetiness  of  the  latter  too  seriously, 
and  having  no  idea  that  the  young  Emperor  wanted  any 
trouble,  Reid  nevertheless  believed  that  if  there  was  the 
slightest  chance  to  grab  an  island  or  a  port  anywhere, 
in  a  quasi-peaceful  way,  Germany  didn't  mean  to  miss 


THE   PEACE  TREATY  245 

it.  To  that  extent  at  least  he  sensed  in  1898  the  pro- 
clivities which  were  unblushingly  disclosed  in  19 14.  He 
knew  that  all  through  the  war  it  only  needed  the  appear- 
ance of  a  fleet  of  ours  in  European  waters  to  start  the 
Kaiser  upon  a  meddlesome  policy,  and  if  the  CaroHne 
episode  did  not  precisely  sound  a  danger-signal  it  was, 
on  the  other  hand,  one  calling  for  a  certain  good-natured 
wariness.  Reid  was  quite  ready  for  the  German  ambas- 
sador, and  with  the  necessary  documents  at  his  hand 
amiably  showed  him  how  insubstantial  were  the  "ancient 
rights*'  that  the  Germans  were  disposed  to  press.  He 
suspected  that  they  were  really  avid  of  all  the  Carolines, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  single  member  of  the  group,  and 
remarked  to  Munster  that  he  couldn't  see  why  they 
wanted  them.  "My  dear  Reid,"  impetuously  burst  out 
the  count,  "no  more  can  I.  I  agree  with  you  precisely; 
and  I  tell  you  these  Colonial  Department  people  are  all 
ahke — all  savages,  who  can't  eat  without  gorging — not 
civiHzed  sufficiently  to  know  when  they  have  had  enough, 
and  unable  to  resist  the  sight  of  raw  meat !  They  are 
tiresome,  these  colonials!"  Count  Munster  understood 
the  psychology  of  his  people  even  better  than  he  knew. 
The  transition  of  arguments  in  the  Peace  Conference 
from  the  Cuban  to  the  Philippine  question  was  made  in 
an  atmosphere  so  charged  with  feehng  that  toward  the 
close  of  October  the  outlook  for  a  treaty  was  distinctly 
overclouded.  Despite  the  secrecy  of  proceedings  at  the 
Foreign  Office  the  question  of  our  policy  was  everywhere 
in  the  air,  and  Reid's  old  view  of  what  "environment'* 
meant  was  amply  confirmed.  He  had  suggested  earlier 
the  possibility  of  an  adjournment  to  Nice,  and  the 
American  commissioners,  amongst  themselves,  revived 
the  idea.  The  French  press  continued  unfeignedly  hostile. 
In  "Le  Gaulois,"  in  "Le  Figaro,"  in  "Le  Matin,"  and 
in  other  powerful  journals  it  was  generally  predicted  that 


246         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  Spaniards  would  refuse  to  sign  a  treaty  surrendering 
the  Philippines.  That,  none  the  less,  remained  the 
American  position.  Since  my  purpose  in  these  pages  is 
confined  chiefty  to  a  statement  of  Reid's  personal  relation 
to  the  subject  I  may  here  underline  his  views.  He  had 
stated  them  in  Washington  when  he  and  his  colleagues 
went  into  conference  with  the  President.  He  spoke  then 
of  the  difficulty,  morally,  of  taking  one  part  of  the  Philip- 
pines and  abandoning  the  rest  to  Spain,  and  of  the  politi- 
cal difficulties  flowing  from  the  same  policy,  which  would 
be  merely  organizing  in  a  worse  shape  exactly  the  trouble 
we  had  been  suff'ering  from  in  the  West  Indies  for  three- 
quarters  of  a  century.  The  islands  which,  on  the  hy- 
pothesis of  making  two  bites  of  the  cherry,  would  be 
abandoned  to  Spain,  were  much  nearer  to  Luzon  than 
Cuba  or  Porto  Rico  were  to  Key  West,  the  necessities 
of  constant  intercourse  were  much  greater,  and  it  was 
obvious  that  the  friction  would  be  constant  and  the 
provocations  to  war  far  greater.  The  Philippines  were 
ours  by  right  of  conquest,  and  gave  us  a  commercial  ad- 
vantage in  the  Pacific  which  we  had  no  right  to  throw 
away.  He  was  not  much  concerned  about  the  immedi- 
ate nature  of  popular  feeling  in  America  on  the  subject, 
for  of  the  ultimate  popular  tendency  he  had  no  doubt 
at  all.  Nor  was  he  disturbed  over  the  difficulty  of  our 
administering  these  distant  possessions.  What  Great 
Britain  had  done  successfully  a  kindred  people  did  not 
need  to  be  less  skilful  and  successful  in.  He  was  for  the 
retention  of  the  Philippines  en  bloc. 

In  October,  while  the  conference  was  still  wrestling 
with  the  Cuban  matter,  he  wrote  to  Hay  adjuring  him 
not  to  encourage  the  theory  of  dividing  the  Philippines. 
"All  the  expert  testimony  is  against  it,"  he  said,  **both 
because  it  tends  to  destroy  the  value  of  what  we  do 
take  and  because  it  is  the  sure  way  to  organize  further 


THE   PEACE  TREATY  247 

troubles  first  for  ourselves  and  then  for  all  the  world 
beside.  Have  you  considered  that  there  is  hardly  one  of 
these  islands  from  which  you  cannot  shoot  across  to 
another!  The  mihtary  and  naval  testimony  here  is 
clear  and  precise,  to  the  effect  that  we  can  govern  and 
defend  the  whole  as  easily  as,  if  not  more  easily  than,  a 
part."  To  the  theory  of  taking  all  the  Phihppines  his 
arguments  as  a  member  of  the  commission  were  unre- 
mittingly addressed.  That  they  were  needed  and  that 
they  played  a  decisive  part  in  the  formation  of  the  final 
contention  of  the  American  side  are  facts  no  longer 
secret,  so  I  may  give  in  Reid's  own  words  the  gist  of  the 
matter,  making  clear  how  large  was  his  share  of  respon- 
sibility for  the  great  acquisition  we  made  in  the  Pacific. 
Years  afterward,  when  ambassador  in  London,  he  wrote 
to  Smalley  (who  was  then  engaged  upon  his  "Anglo- 
American  Memories,"  in  which  he  desired  to  tell  some- 
thing of  the  inner  history  of  the  Paris  Conference)  the 
following  letter: 

Dorchester  House, 
My  DEAR  Smalley:  _  April  1 8th,  191 1. 

The  fact  is,  I  was  committed  to  the  retention  of  the  territory  we 
had  taken  before  my  appointment,  an  article  on  that  subject  which 
Gilder  fairly  worried  me  into  writing  having  been  printed  before  we 
assembled  in  the  Cabinet  Room  of  the  White  House  for  our  first 
official  meeting  with  the  President  and  ostensibly  to  receive  his  in- 
structions. As  a  matter  of  fact  he  was  not  ready  to  give  instructions 
but  wanted  our  opinions.  Day,  who  was  then  Secretary  of  State 
and  who  became  our  Chairman,  was  strongly  against  the  retention 
of  an^lhing  in  the  Philippines  unless  possibly  a  coahng  station,  and 
on  even  that  he  had  some  doubts.  Gray  was  even  stronger  than 
Day.  Senator  Davis  of  Minnesota,  to  our  surprise,  declared  himself 
in  favor  of  retaining  the  northern  part  of  the  archipelago  and  giving 
away  Mindanao  and  the  whole  southern  part  to  Holland.  FaiHng 
that  he  wanted  to  trade  them  to  some  other  European  power  for 
something  that  would  be  of  more  use  to  us.  Senator  Frye  did  not 
express  himself  very  distinctly  against  this  proposal;  in  fact,  seemed 
to  think  the  northern  part  of  the  archipelago  the  essential  part  and 
was  not  even  sure  such  a  trade  as  Senator  Davis  recommended  might 


248         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

not  be  desirable.  He  dwelt  on  the  fact  that  some  opposition  to  our 
holding  the  islands  had  developed  in  New  England  and  promised  to 
grow.  I  spoke  after  most  of  them  and  reiterated  the  position  I  had 
already  taken  in^the  "Century"  article,  dwelling  particularly  on  my 
declaration  that  having  broken  down  the  power  in  control  of  them, 
we  could  not  honorably  desert  them  and  should  be  extremely  unwise 
to  turn  over  the  task  of  controHing  them  to  any  other  power. 

After  we  had  been  some  time  in  Paris  and  the  Spaniards  had  to 
some  extent  shown  their  hand,  the  President  called  on  us  for  detailed 
expressions  of  our  individual  opinions,  and  Judge  Day,  who,  by  this 
time,  had  been  made  Chairman,  asked  each  of  us  to  reduce  them  to 
writing.  I  sat  down  at  once  and  wrote  my  views.  Day  and  Gray 
had  brought  theirs,  which  they  r^ad  subsequently.  I  read  mine. 
After  a  little  oral  discussion  Davis  came  to  me  and  asked  me  if  I 
would  not  put  mine  in  such  a  shape  that  he  could  sign  it  also,  and 
Frye  repeated  the  request.  I  turned  it  over  accordingly  to  them, 
and  so  it  happens  that  my  despatch*  went  to  the  President  signed 
first  by  Davis,  next  by  Frye  and  last  by  myself.  The  union  thus 
formed  lasted  throughout  the  remainder  of  the  work. 

Even  if  it  had  existed  from  the  beginning  it  might  still  be  said 
that  it  was  my  casting  vote  which  took  the  Philippines;  but,  as  you 
see,  the  circumstances  are  a  Httle  stronger.  I  think  nobody  would 
question  the  facts  substantially  as  stated  above. 

Sincerely  yours,  Whitelaw  Reid. 

The  commission  worked  harder  over  this  problem, 
Reid  thought,  than  anybody  at  a  distance  w^ould  ever 
beheve.  In  one  of  his  letters  to  McKinley  he  says: 
"Every  morning  we  meet  in  one  of  my  rooms,  which 
proves  a  more  convenient  and  private  place  for  consul- 
tations than  the  office  on  the  floor  below.  By  ten 
o'clock  all  five  are  apt  to  be  gathered  there  together  with 
Mr.  Moore;  and  in  a  cloud  of  tobacco  smoke  the  discus- 
sions, preparation  of  despatches,  examination  of  authori- 
ties or  of  witnesses,  etc.,  go  on  till  one — often  to  be 
renewed  again  in  the  afternoon,  on  the  days  when  we 
have  no  meeting  with  our  friends,  the  enemy,  at  the  For- 
eign Office.     There  have  been  days  in  succession  when 

*See  "Foreign  Relations  of  the  United  States"  for  1898,  pp.  932-933,  where 
the  despatch  is  printed  in  full. 


THE   PEACE  TREATY  249 

not  one  of  us  got  a  breath  of  fresh  air,  unless  in  walking 
the  eighth  of  a  mile  from  the  hotel  to  the  Quai  d'Orsay." 
For  these  morning  sessions  Reid  had  an  experienced  hand 
prepare  a  summary  of  the  pertinent  passages  in  the 
French,  English,  and  Spanish  newspapers.  Thus  the 
commissioners  began  their  daily  meetings  with  the  cen- 
sure of  our  critics  for  our  unreasonableness,  unwillingness 
to  concihate,  and  general  brutahty  toward  a  gallant  but 
unfortunate  people,  ringing  in  their  ears. 

The  attitude  of  the  Spaniards  when  the  Americans 
presented  their  proposal  on  the  Philippines,  demanding 
the  cession  of  the  entire  archipelago,  is  described  by  Reid 
as  one  of  ** despairing  resignation."  An  adjournment  of 
a  few  days  was  agreed  upon,  a  period  of  anxious  waiting. 
Ribot,  at  whose  house  the  Reids  were  dining,  expressed 
the  hope  that  America  would  not  alienate  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  world  by  pushing  the  Spaniards  too  far. 
That,  it  seemed,  was  to  be  the  official  tone,  the  tone  of 
the  "environment."  The  next  day,  w^hen  the  Spaniards 
made  their  reply,  it  amounted  to  a  rejection  of  the  Ameri- 
can proposal  and  an  offer  of  other  proposals  in  its  place. 
The  manoeuvre  had  no  serious  weight,  bringing  no  really 
cogent  arguments  to  bear.  The  impression  left  upon 
Reid's  mind  was  that  the  enemy  was  **  sparring  for 
time,"  in  the  hope  that  in  the  November  elections  Mc- 
Kinley's  administration  might  suffer  reverses  weakening 
to  the  American  attitude  in  the  conference.  Republican 
victories  quenched  that  delusion.  A  Httle  passing  flurry 
was  created  at  this  juncture  by  communications  from 
Belgium.  They  conveyed  the  curious  information  that 
the  Spanish  Government  had  offered  to  cede  the  Philip- 
pines to  King  Leopold.  In  the  pauses  of  official  discus- 
sion everything  that  Reid  heard  was  to  the  effect  that 
the  Spanish  commissioners  were  in  an  embittered  state 
of  mind,   rebelling  against  a  treaty  which  would   ruin 


250         THE   LIFE  OF   WHITELAW  REID 

them  at  home.  Munster  assured  him  that  they  were 
resolved  not  to  make  martyrs  of  themselves — and  in  the 
same  breath,  by  the  way,  he  added  that  they  deceived 
themselves  if  they  counted  on  the  shghtest  encourage- 
ment from  his  Emperor.  Reid  himself  remained  undis- 
mayed by  Spanish  obduracy  and  was  only  relieved  when 
by  the  middle  of  November  the  policy  he  had  advocated 
was  so  conclusively  upheld  in  the  despatches  from  Wash- 
ington that  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  present  the 
enemy  with  an  ultimatum.  This,  when  it  was  brought 
forward,  coupled  with  the  maintenance  of  the  original 
American  demand  an  offer  of  twenty  millions. 

Montero  Rios  listened  with  a  funeral  face,  puffing 
cigarette  after  cigarette  in  his  perturbation.  He  per- 
mitted himself  a  single  hot-tempered  outburst,  saying  he 
was  ready  to  answer  at  once,  waiting  only  for  the  trans- 
lation of  the  rest  of  the  American  paper.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  he  had  no  power  to  answer  at  once,  and  indignant 
impulse  gave  way  to  nothing  more  than  a  request  for 
further  delay.  Reid  inclined  to  the  belief  that  with  all 
manner  of  protestations  and  outcries  they  would  in  the 
end  accept.  They  did  so  on  Monday,  November  28th. 
In  a  profound  and  painful  silence  the  Spanish  reply  was 
read,  maintaining  their  conviction  of  the  soundness  of 
their  own  proposals,  declaring  an  unwillingness  to  re- 
open the  war  and  subject  their  country  to  greater  calam- 
ities, and  therefore  submitting  to  the  inevitable.  Dur- 
ing the  reading  the  Spanish  commissioners  sat  in  their 
places  with  an  air  of  mournful  dignity.  When  it  was 
finished,  and  just  as  the  Americans  were  preparing  to 
leave  the  room,  the  clouds  that  had  been  lowering  over 
Paris  all  day  cleared  away  for  a  moment,  and  a  burst  of 
sunlight  illuminated  the  green  table  at  which  Ojeda,  the 
Spanish  secretary,  was  making  his  notes  of  the  protocol. 
Reid  happened  to  be  standing  at  his  side  and  expressed 


THE  PEACE  TREATY  251 

the  hope  that  this  meant  good  fortune  for  both  coun- 
tries.    Ojeda  replied:  "No,  ever^'thing  is  gloom  around 

US. 

There  remained  various  details  to  be  adjusted  at 
future  meetings.  In  the  American  deliberations  Reid 
was  strong  for  an  early  pa^nnent  of  the  twenty  millions, 
and  suggested  the  term  of  three  months,  which  was 
inserted  in  the  treaty.  He  urged  a  similarly  liberal 
policy  in  the  offer  of  a  price  for  Kusaie,  and  in  the  mat- 
ter of  the  repatriation  of  prisoners.  At  the  Foreign 
Office,  too,  when  the  question  of  the  revival  of  old  treaties 
came  up,  he  was  especially  urgent  in  his  pleas  on  extra- 
dition and  copyright,  suggesting  a  modus  vivendi  for  a 
year  or  even  for  sh:  months  if  nothing  better  could  be 
arranged.  The  American  side  was  not  disposed  to  be 
grudging  in  its  discussion  of  the  "open  door"  in  the 
Philippines  and  in  the  treatment  of  this  topic  and  others 
steadily  endeavored  to  expedite  as  much  as  possible  the 
final  negotiations.  These  were  protracted,  however,  by 
the  not  unnatural  desire  of  the  Spaniards  to  grasp  at 
any  advantage  conceivably  remaining  to  them.  They 
were  exacting  upon  the  return  of  certain  pieces  of  their 
artillery  in  the  islands,  and,  understandably  enough, 
sought  once  more  to  secure  the  appointment  of  a  mixed 
commission  to  investigate  the  cause  of  the  explosion  of 
the  Maine,  An  odd  question  arose  in  that  of  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  pensions  to  the  Duke  of  Veragua,  the 
descendant  of  Columbus,  paid  prior  to  the  war  from  the 
treasuries  of  Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and  the  Philippines. 
The  Spanish  article  on  this  subject  was  ultimately  re- 
jected. In  all  these  closing  incidents  Montero  Rios  did 
his  gallant  best  to  thwart  the  contentions  of  the  Ameri- 
can commissioners,  to  involve  his  antagonists  in  endless 
controversy,  and,  in  short,  at  the  eleventh  hour,  to  put 
them  in  a  hole.     When  the  Maine  issue  was  reintro- 


V> 


252         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

duced  he  spoke  with  obviously  suppressed  passion  and 
flashing  eyes.  As  late  as  December  8th  the  old  fear  that 
there  might  be  a  sudden  breaking  off  of  negotiations, 
and  no  treaty,  painfully  recurred.  But  on  that  very 
day  the  Spaniards  surrendered  and  the  conference  ad- 
journed, with  the  understanding  that  the  engrossing  of 
the  treaty  should  go  forward  at  once.  When  on  the 
evening  of  the  9th  Munster  called  on  Reid  with  con- 
gratulations he  said  that  he  knew  directly  from  the 
German  ambassador  in  Madrid  that  the  Queen  Regent 
and  Sagasta  had  sent  instructions  to  Montero  Rios  to 
sign  the  treaty  as  quickly  as  possible  and  get  the  matter 
ended.  Seals  were  affixed  to  the  document  at  the  For- 
eign Office  within  twenty-four  hours,  on  December  loth. 
"Enfin  nous  avons  la  paix,  grace  a  Dieu''  wrote  Reid 
to  Castillo,  and  there  was  good  feeling  in  the  Spanish 
ambassador's  response.  The  closing  scene  at  the  Foreign 
Office  was  marked  by  a  spirit  immensely  reheving  the 
long  strain.  In  the  preparation  of  the  last  American 
paper  the  task  had  been  assigned  to  Reid  of  composing  a 
brief  conciliatory  and  complimentary  termination,  and 
when  the  document  was  presented  it  expressed  the  sense 
of  the  American  commissioners  of  **the  thoroughness, 
learning,  and  devoted  ability,  no  less  than  the  uniform 
courtesy,  with  which  the  Spanish  Commissioners  have 
conducted  the  negotiations."  When  the  two  groups 
were  assembled  to  sign,  Montero  Rios,  in  a  perfect  little 
speech,  explained  how  he  and  his  associates  had  been 
touched  by  these  words.  He  desired  to  express  the  grat- 
itude of  his  side  for  such  appreciation,  their  agreeable 
recollection  of  the  personal  intercourse  which  had  accom- 
panied the  dehberations,  and  the  value  which  they 
should  attach  throughout  their  lives  to  the  tribute  I 
have  just  cited.  Judge  Day  responded  in  the  same  key, 
and  with  bows  and  smiles  the  opposing  commissioners 


THE   PEACE   TREATY  253 

came,  as  Reid  observed,  ''nearer  genuine  cordiality  than 
for  months."  Now  that  the  grave  task  was  ended  it 
seemed  as  if  the  emotional  springs  of  the  conference  had 
been  dried  up.  Reid's  last  colloquy  as  they  gathered 
around  the  table  was  with  Abarzuza,  on  educational  mat- 
ters -in  America  and  Spain.  The  Don  thought  the  ten- 
dency in  his  country  was  as  strong  as  ever  to  depend  on 
a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  classics,  as  the  basis  for 
any  liberal  education,  and  he  was  glad  to  note  a  revival 
of  the  principle  in  the  United  States.  He  referred  to  his 
own  experience  at  an  English  university,  and  talked 
with  great  good  sense  about  the  importance  of  laying  a 
thorough  foundation  in  the  old-fashioned  way  in  the 
classics  and  mathematics,  not  so  much  for  the  sake  of  the 
information  actually  acquired  as  for  the  training  of  the 
memorv'  and  for  the  acquisition  of  what  he  called  edu- 
cational tools.  He  showed  considerable  famiharity  with 
English  and  American  books,  expressing  high  apprecia- 
tion of  Motley,  and  speaking  with  enthusiasm  of  Pres- 
cott.  There  is  piquancy  in  this  episode  of  an  American 
and  a  Spaniard,  met  to  ratify  the  cession  of  Spain's  last 
possessions  in  the  western  hemisphere,  and  comparing 
laudator}-  notes  on  the  historian  of  Ferdinand  and 
Isabella. 

The  signing  of  the  peace  treaty  was  charged  with  a 
significance  greater,  if  anything,  for  us  than  for  Spain. 
Our  territorial  expansion  carried  with  it  responsibilities 
of  a  new  order,  on  a  great  scale.  Reid  was  to  have  much 
to  say  about  them  for  some  time  following  his  return. 
But  on  the  completion  of  the  labors  in  Paris  his  thoughts 
on  what  we  had  gained  and  on  the  duties  we  had  assumed 
were  mbced  with  reflections  on  certain  things  achieved 
which  were  of  moment  to  Europeans  as  well  as  to  Ameri- 
cans. He  stated  them  in  print,  soon  after.  Lady  Ran- 
dolph Churchill  was  then   just  starting  her  new  quar- 


254         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

terly,  '*The  Anglo-Saxon  Review,"  and  for  the  first 
number,  which  appeared  in  the  following  June,  Reid 
wrote  a  paper  on  ''Some  Consequences  of  the  Treaty  of 
Paris,"  in  which  he  traced  to  the  settlement  some  con- 
tributions toward  the  better  regulation  of  international 
understanding.  He  noted  first  that  ''the  distinct  and 
prompt  refusal  by  the  American  Commissioners  to  sub- 
mit questions  at  issue  between  them  and  their  colleagues 
to  arbitration  marks  a  limit  to  the  application  of  that 
principle  in  international  controversy  which  even  its 
friends  will  be  apt  hereafter  'to  welcome."  The  United 
States,  he  willingly  admitted,  was  thoroughly  committed 
to  the  policy  of  international  arbitration,  but,  he  insisted, 
the  upshot  of  the  conference  had  made  it  clear  that  "the 
rational  place  for  arbitration  is  as  a  substitute  for  war, 
not  as  a  second  remedy,  to  which  the  contestant  may 
still  have  a  right  to  resort  after  having  exhausted  the 
first."  Next  the  conference,  in  its  disposition  of  the 
matter  of  the  Cuban  debt,  had  established  the  principle 
that  "a  national  debt  incurred  in  eff*orts  to  subdue  a 
colony,  even  if  called  a  colonial  debt,  or  secured  by  a 
pledge  of  colonial  revenues,  cannot  be  attached  in  the 
nature  of  a  mortgage  to  the  territory  of  that  colony,  so 
that  when  the  colony  gains  its  independence  it  may  still 
be  held  for  the  cost  of  the  unsuccessful  efforts  to  keep  it 
in  subjection."  Furthermore,  he  cited  the  action  of  the 
United  States,  on  the  outbreak  of  the  war  with  Spain, 
in  repudiating  any  intention  of  a  resort  to  privateering. 
The  treaty  contains  no  article  on  this  subject,  but  on 
the  signing  of  the  document  the  status  of  private  war  at 
sea  could  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  left  quite  as  it 
had  been  found.  The  very  fact  that  the  United  States 
had  not  in  1856  given  its  adhesion  to  the  abolition  of 
privateering  in  the  Declaration  of  Paris  increased  the 
weight  of  its  acceptance  of  the  principle  in  1898.     The 


THE  PEACE  TREATY  255 

effect,  as  Reid  saw  it,  was  about  equivalent  to  complet- 
ing that  custom  and  assent  of  the  civilized  world  which 
is  the  main  thing.  "Here  then,"  he  concluded,  "are 
three  great  principles,  important  to  the  advancement  of 
civilization,  which,  if  not  established  in  international  law 
by  the  Peace  of  Paris  and  the  war  it  closed,  have  at  least 
been  so  powerfully  reinforced  that  no  nation  is  likely 
hereafter  lightly  or  safely  to  violate  them."  Montero 
Rios,  of  course,  saw  the  services  of  the  American  com- 
missioners to  civilization  in  a  very  different  light.  The 
last  thing  in  the  world  of  which  he  dreamed  was  that 
they  had  done  anything  to  improye  upon  existing  usage. 
Indeed,  forgetful  of  the  amicable  note  struck  on  the 
moment  of  parting  at  the  <3uai  d'Orsay,  he  sent  after 
them,  as  they  left  for  home,  a  splenetic  parting  shot. 
In  an  interview  given  to  Blowitz  for  the  London  "Times" 
he  called  them  ''vainqueurs  parvenus,'*  and  their  con- 
ception of  international  law  "  absolutely  new."  Reid's 
"Anglo-Saxon"  paper  gave  him  the  answer  which  has 
ever  since  been  confirmed  by  public  opinion  on  the 
Treaty  of  Paris. 


^         CHAPTER  XIV 


PROBLEMS  OF  EXPANSION 


Even  before  his  return  from  Paris  Reid  received  from 
the  closest  of  his  friends  intimations  of  the  increased 
prestige  which  could  be  counted  upon  as  resulting  from 
his  work  on  the  treaty.  They  came  from  John  Hay, 
established  in  the  Department  of  State,  and  therefore  in 
a  position  to  add  to  personal  feeling  an  exhaustive  knowl- 
edge of  the  facts.  *'You  have  evidently  had  a  most 
interesting  experience/*  he  wrote  on  November  13th, 
"and  it  is  evident  that  your  antecedent  advantages  have 
been  of  great  value  to  the  Commission.  You  call  your 
place  the  'tail  end*  but  it  is  clearly  'where  MacGregor 
sits.'  Your  talk  with  the  Spanish  Ambassador  was  to 
my  mind  the  turning  point  of  the  negotiations.  If  you 
make  a  treaty,  there  will  be  credit  enough  to  go  around; 
but  as  it  looks  now,  the  treaty  can  only  be  made  on 
your  lines — and  in  this  the  Administration  and,  by  a 
vast  majority,  the  country,  will  be  with  you."  In  a 
brief  note,  written  a  few  days  later,  he  says:  '*It  is  com- 
fortable to  feel  we  have  a  man  on  deck  who  knows  what 
to  do  and  how  to  do  it.  I  wish  you  were  here — if  you 
could  be  in  two  places  *loike  a  burd.'"  Hay  wanted  him 
home  to  help  combat  the  opposition  to  acquisition  of  the 
Philippines,  an  opposition  which  was  not  by  any  means 
inarticulate.  Vociferous  as  it  was,  and  much  as  Hay 
wanted  his  friend's  assistance  in  stilling  it,  he  neverthe- 
less believed  that  it  would  ultimately  die  down,  and  in 
the  meantime  he  assured  Reid  that  the  members  of  the 
commission  would  return  as  conquering  heroes. 

256 


PROBLEMS  OF   EXPANSION  257 

Reid  resumed  direction  of  the  affairs  of  The  Tribune 
immediately  upon  the  termination  of  those  formalities 
with  which  he  and  his  colleagues  turned  over  their  func- 
tions to  the  President.  For  the  next  two  years  his  edi- 
torial activities  were  carried  on  practically  without  inter- 
ruption, absences  in  the  Adirondacks  or  in  California 
making  no  difference  in  the  close  attention  which  he 
gave  to  the  management  of  the  paper.  It  embraced  as 
always  a  multitude  of  details,  with  those  of  a  political 
nature  well  in  the  foreground.  In  New  York  State  the 
party  had  been  strengthened  by  the  election  of  Theo- 
dore Roosevelt  to  the  governorship  in  November,  1898, 
but  the  Piatt  machine  was  still  powerful,  with  effects 
upon  the  course  of  affairs  providing  abundant  food  for 
comment  by  an  editor  of  Reid's  militant  habit.  It  was 
not  until  Roosevelt  took  the  vice-presidency  in  1900 
and  his  successor,  Odell,  improved  conditions  by  taking 
over  Piatt's  leadership  himself,  that  the  strain  was  re- 
laxed. In  the  national  field  the  task  of  renominating 
and  re-electing  McKinley  was  comparatively  easy.  The 
early  enactment  of  the  Dingley  bill  had  settled,  for  a 
time,  agitation  over  the  tariff,  and  the  establishment  of 
the  gold  standard  had  exerted  a  similarly  quieting  influ- 
ence upon  discussion  of  the  currency.  So  far  as  domestic 
questions  were  concerned  there  was  little  difficulty  in 
preparing  for  the  presidential  campaign  or  in  seeing  it 
through.  The  international  atmosphere  was  another 
matter,  and  it  is  his  preoccupation  with  this  that  gives  a 
special  unity  to  Reid's  labors  at  this  period. 

The  transition  from  the  nineteenth  century  to  the 
twentieth  was  made  under  threatening  auspices.  It  was 
in  1899  that  England  entered  her  long  struggle  in  the 
Transvaal.  This  hardly  touched  us,  but  the  Chinese 
crisis  did,  to  the  point  of  military  participation,  and  in 
purely  peaceful  negotiations  there  were  important  epi- 


258         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW   REID 

sodes  brought  up  for  settlement,  such  as  the  Alaskan 
boundary  and  the  Hay-Pauncefote  Canal  Treaty.  Above 
all  there  was,  for  the  United  States,  the  consolidation  of 
the  fruits  of-' the  war  with  Spain  to  be  secured.  The 
times  were  terribly  out  of  joint,  and  to  some  observers 
almost  anything  seemed  possible.  Reid's  friendship  with 
Senator  Davis  had  been  deepened  by  their  association  in 
Paris,  and  he  was  frequently  in  correspondence  on  these 
topics  with  the  chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations.  Writing  on  August  26th,  1900,  after 
the  relief  of  the  legations  at' Pekin,  Davis  said  to  him: 
"The  first  act  of  the  Chinese  drama  has  been  played, 
and  well  played  on  the  whole.  What  will  the  others 
be,  and  what  the  catastrophe?  I  fear  that  a  general 
war,  an  Armageddon,  is  imminent.  The  only  chance  I 
can  see  of  averting  it  is  by  such  wise  action  by  Ger- 
many holding  aloof  as  will  make  her  feared  by  the  other 
European  powers  in  case  they  engage  in  a  rough  and 
tumble.  The  Kaiser  never  says  a  wise  thing  or  does 
a  foohsh  one — to  reverse  the  lines  of  the  ballad  on 
Charles  II."  It  is  amusing  here  to  glance  at  the  Kaiser's 
attitude  toward  the  Hague  Peace  Conference,  held  in 
the  previous  year.  Reid  received  some  indirect  light  on 
the  subject  in  the  following  letter: 

Paris, 

Dear  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid:  P  '  7  ^»      99- 

I  was  very  much  pleased  to  hear  from  you,  and  thank  you  sincerely 
for  your  kind  letter.  I  agree  completely  with  all  you  said  about  the 
Open  Door,  and  all  that  you  said  about  the  Paris  Conference.  I  was 
disappointed  in  one  sense  in  reading  your  letter.  The  European 
papers  had  said  that  you  were  to  be  one  of  the  American  delegates 
at  the,  falsely  so  called,  disarmament  conference  at  the  Hague.  I 
would  have  been  glad  to  meet  you  there  and  to  work  together  with 
you. 

The  Emperor  has  appointed  me  to  represent  the  German  Empire 
at  that  conference,  and  so  I  am  sorry  to  see  that  I  do  not  find  your 
name.     I  could  not  refuse  and  have  to  obey  orders,  although  I  think 


PROBLEMS  OF  EXPANSION  259 

it  a  most  difficult  and  ungrateful  task.  Beating  empty  straw  is 
always  a  tiresome  job,  which  may  even  be  dangerous  if  it  is,  like  in 
this  case,  Russian  straw,  that  may  conceal  an  apple  of  contention. 
As  to  disarmament,  it  is  out  of  the  question  and  it  is  ridiculous  to 
have  proposed  it  at  this  moment.  The  only  important  question  to 
discuss  would  be  arbitration  and  to  come  to  an  understanding  on 
that  point  is,  I  fear,  rather  hopeless.  We  may  agree  about  some 
points  of  international  law  and  some  new  regulation  of  the  Red 
Cross.  We  can,  in  regard  to  Russia,  not  allow  the  conference  to 
end  with  an  entire  fiasco  and  must  try  to  cover  it  with  a  peaceful- 
looking  cloak. 

I  am  glad  to  see  that  I  know  most  of  the  delegates,  and  am  very 
much  pleased  by  the  choice  of  Staal  for  the  Russian,  and  Sir  Julian 
Pauncefote.  Both  are  very  old  friends  of  mine.  The  French  send 
Bourgeois  as  first  and  d*EstourneIIes  as  second  delegate.  Both  use 
the  conference  as  a  stepping  stone  leading  to  an  embassy,  which  will 
make  them  prudent  and  amiable.  We  assemble  on  the  i8th  of  May. 
I  think  that  the  conference  will  last  six  weeks,  so  that  we  shall  have 
to  pass  all  the  month  of  June  in  Holland.  Nineteen  European  and 
five  foreign  nations  have  been  invited.  It  will  be  a  regular  parlia- 
ment, difficult  to  manage,  I  fear.     Is  there  no  chance  of  your  coming 

to  Europe  this  summer?  ^.  .  , 

Y  ours  very  sincerely,  , , 

-^  ^  MUNSTER. 

Later,  giving  a  friend  an  introduction  to  Reid,  he 
added  an  epilogue,  recurring  to  his  figure  of  the  futile 
flail:  **The  Peace  Conference  kept  me  for  ten  weeks  at 
work.  We  did  not  do  much.  The  thrashing  of  empty 
straw  is  hard  work,  particularly  if  it  is  Russian  straw; 
but  we  thrashed  peacefully  and  did  not  much  good  but 
no  harm.  You  may  have  heard  that  the  Emperor  re- 
warded my  services  in  giving  me  the  higher  rank  of 
Prince."  Reid's  opinion  of  that  famous  conference  was 
that  its  exercises,  though  academically  impressive,  neces- 
sarily lacked  the  weight  of  untrammelled  and  conclusive 
dehberations.  The  enterprise  was  theoretically  attractive 
but  not  much  confidence  was  to  be  placed  in  the  schemes 
that  were  outlined  on  paper  by  the  representatives  of 
the  Powers.  The  afi'air  had  its  pathetic  aspect.  Prep- 
arations for  the  conference  had  been  portentous,  whereas 


26o         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  outcome  was  trifling.  Incidentally,  the  immediate 
march  of  events  under  the  chief  nations  participating 
indicated  absolute  obliviousness  to  the  Hague  proceed- 
ings. Every^one  was  willing  to  listen  with  politeness  to 
academic  counsels  of  perfection.  No  one  was  ready  to 
surrender  the  principle  of  national  independence  of  judg- 
ment— and  action — in  matters  touching  a  national  inter- 
est. Whitelaw  Reid  saw  this  principle  both  as  a  factor 
rooted  in  human  nature  and  as  a  fixed  element  in  the 
political  consciousness  of  his  countrymen.  It  was  one  of 
the  cardinal  points  in  his  campaign  for  a  purely  Ameri- 
can interpretation  of  the  responsibilities  assumed  on  the 
making  of  our  treaty  with  Spain. 

I  refer  to  a  **  campaign,"  for  no  other  word  so  accu- 
rately describes  the  work  which  as  a  writer  and  public 
speaker  he  carried  on  after  his  return  from  Paris.  "  Im- 
perialism," as  an  opprobrious  epithet,  was  on  the  lips  of 
Democrat  and  Mugwump,  even  while  the  peace  nego- 
tiations were  in  progress,  and  ratification  of  the  treaty 
was  far  from  silencing  the  opposition,  since  the  Philip- 
pine insurrection  plunged  us  into  hot  water  which  prom- 
ised to  go  on  boihng  indefinitely.  In  March,  1899, 
McKinley  expressed  the  belief  to  a  visitor  at  the  White 
House  that  ''Aguinaldo  has  had  enough  of  it  by  this 
time."  As  a  matter  of  fact,  he  was  not  captured  until 
two  years  later.  The  long-drawn-out  mihtary  opera- 
tions in  the  archipelago  only  stoked  the  fires  of  criticism 
of  the  administration  at  home.  On  the  first  anniver- 
sary of  the  signing,  Reid  gave  a  dinner  to  his  colleagues 
of  the  commission,  and  asked,  among  others  who  were 
to  meet  them,  Andrew  Carnegie.  They  shared  Scotch 
sympathies,  and  the  old  ironmaster  used  gleefully  to 
disagree  with  his  editorial  friend,  playing  on  **the  wee 
drap  blude  atween  us."  He  couldn't  come  to  the  cele- 
bration.    "Unfortunately   I  shall  be  in   Pittsburg,"   he 


PROBLEMS  OF   EXPANSION  261 

wrote,  "the  evening  of  your  reception  to  the  signers  of 
the  War  Treaty  with  Spain,  not  the  Peace.  It  is  a  mat- 
ter of  congratulation,  however,  that  you  seem  to  have 
about  finished  your  work  of  civilizing  the  Filipinos.  It 
is  thought  that  about  eight  thousand  of  them  have  been 
completely  civilized  and  sent  to  heaven.  I  hope  you 
like  it."  That  was  one  of  the  points  of  view  Reid  set 
himself  to  correct.  The  campaign  of  which  I  speak  was 
one  of  education.  It  was  his  task  to  elucidate  the  treaty, 
to  show  its  harmony  with  our  Constitution,  and  to  dem- 
onstrate the  soundness,  under  that  instrument,  of  the 
pohcy  adopted  in  the  administration  of  our  new  pos- 
sessions. In  the  "Anglo-Saxon"  paper  referred  to  in 
the  preceding  chapter  he  had  emphasized  the  broader 
implications  of  the  treaty.  Now  he  undertook  to  re- 
assure the  short-sighted,  timorous  folk  at  home  who  saw 
only  disaster  ahead,  and  groaned  the  more  piteously 
over  the  prospect  because,  in  their  view,  we  had  started 
with  the  immorality  of  "buying  the  inhabitants  of  the 
Philippines  at  two  dollars  a  head."  He  could  do  much, 
and  did  it,  in  the  columns  of  The  Tribune.  Personally, 
as  one  of  the  authors  of  the  peace,  standing  up  to  be 
counted  and  bearing  testimony  on  a  subject  which  he 
knew  from  top  to  bottom,  he  did  even  more. 

Public  dinners  and  ceremonial  occasions  at  universi- 
ties gave  him  repeated  opportunities  to  deal  with  the 
burning  question.  Were  there  Americans  who  thought 
that  too  good  a  treaty  had  been  made  at  Paris? 
Traversing  the  document  for  their  benefit  he  sought 
to  allay  their  quaint  fears.  What  precisely  was  the  pur- 
port of  the  treaty  ?  He  went  out  to  Chicago  to  give  the 
members  of  the  Marquette  Club  the  light  they  needed. 
The  making  of  the  peace  had  imposed  upon  us  new 
duties.  Reid  undertook  to  explain  what  they  were  and 
how  they  might  be  carried  out.     He  pleaded  at  Prince- 


262         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

ton,  at  Miami,  in  Boston,  in  California,  wherever  he 
went,  for  a  liberal  but  firm  policy  in  our  new  possessions, 
answered  constitutional  criticisms,  advocated  the  appli- 
cation of  a  pure  Civil  Service  administration  in  the  islands 
and  altogether  endeavored  to  clarify  a  problem  which 
was,  indeed,  needlessly  obscured.  His  various  speeches, 
widely  reported  in  the  press,  were  circulated  also  in 
pamphlet  form,  and  presently  had  piled  up  the  material 
for  a  book,  **  Problems  of  Expansion,''  which  the  Century 
Company  brought  out  in  1900.* 

There  was  no  apology  in  any  of  these  utterances. 
Reid  refused  to  admit  that  there  was  anything  in  the 
treaty  that  called  for  defense,  and,  as  I  have  hinted 
before,  the  cry  of  "Imperialism"  carried  no  worrying 
implications  to  his  ears.  The  burden  of  all  his  discourses 
was  simply  the  enforcement  of  what  seemed  to  him 
irrevocable  facts — that  when  the  arbitrament  of  war 
turned  the  fortunes  of  Cuba,  Porto  Rico,  and  the  Philip- 
pines over  to  our  care  we  were  in  honor  bound  to  assume 
responsibility  for  them;  that  there  was  nothing  in  our 
Constitution  to  conflict  with  the  different  measures  for 
their  protection  devised,  adopted,  or  contemplated  by 
the  Republican  administration;  and  that  despite  a  hun- 
dred Aguinaldos  and  a  million  ''Little  Americans,"  we 
could  not,  in  decency,  having  put  our  hand  to  the  plough, 
look  back.  Yet  he  was  no  blind  advocate  of  a  merely 
Republican  policy.  His  arguments  were  not  partisan  at 
all,  but  examined  the  case  in  the  hght  of  a  dispassionate 
Americanism,  fortified  by  historical  precedent  and  the 
sanctions  of  constitutional  and  international  law.  That 
the  administration  was  slow  in  its  preparations  to  restore 
order  in  the  islands  is  an  historical  fact  which  it  would 
be  idle  to  deny.     It  was  a  Republican  member  of  the 

*  Some  of  the  more  important  papers  in  this  collection  are  reproduced  in  his 
"American  and  English, Studies." 


PROBLEMS  OF   EXPANSION  263 

Senate  who  said  in  a  letter  to  Reid:  "If  McKinley  would 
only  take  a  big  trumpet  and  blow  upon  it  a  blast  in 
defense  of  his  own  policy,  he  would  settle  the  entire 
business;  but  he  will  not  do  it,  apparently.  His  horn  is 
a  good  deal  like  that  of  Munchausen,  the  notes  of  which 
were  frozen  inside  of  it  when  blown  in  Arctic  regions, 
and  only  gave  out  their  music  after  the  event."  Reid's 
blasts  were  unimpeded,  and  there  was  one  passage  in 
his  address  at  Miami,  in  fact,  which  was  little  less  than 
startling  to  party  observers  of  the  hidebound  order.  He 
unequivocally  recognized  that  conditions  in  Luzon  were 
sadly  awry,  and  noted  the  dilatory  administration  which 
was,  in  a  measure,  responsible  for  their  growth.  Such 
candor  only  strengthened  the  force  of  what  he  had  to 
say.  The  party  hack  might  squirm,  but  thoughtful 
commentators  were  grateful  for  the  frank  expression  of 
the  truth  at  the  right  moment.  Davis,  for  example, 
laughed  at  the  idea  that  the  point  made  at  Miami  was 
to  be  construed  as  an  attack  upon  the  administration. 
"It  did  not  strike  me  in  that  way,"  he  wrote.  "The 
fact  is  that  sometimes  affairs  get  in  such  a  condition 
that  a  statement  of  facts  is  necessarily  criticism,  and 
sometimes  implies  censure.  When  that  condition  is  pre- 
sented, so  much  the  better  for  the  facts,  and  so  much 
the  worse  for  the  Administration,  which  ought  to  be 
thankful  and  take  warning.  I  thought  your  expressions 
were  as  temperate  as  they  were  true." 

Some  idea  of  what  was  thought  at  Washington  about 
Reid's  campaign  is  shown  in  what  Hay  wrote  to  him  in 
February,  1900,  when  the  Miami  and  Princeton  ad- 
dresses had  both  been  published:  "The  other  day,  in 
Cabinet  meeting,  the  Attorney  General  said  the  con- 
stitutional relations  of  our  new  possessions  had  nowhere 
been  defined  so  clearly  and  ably  as  in  your  speeches  and 
every  man  present  agreed."     His  correspondence  is  full 


264         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

of  appreciative  expressions  from  public  men  of  the  day, 
and  I  may  note  that  some  of  the  most  cordial  of  them 
come  from  the  colleagues  with  whom  he  had  worked 
over  the  treaty.  '*I  am  in  accord  with  you  as  I  was  at 
Paris,"  said  Frye.  And  Davis  wrote  him,  at  the  end  of 
the  first  year  of  proselytizing:  "I  do  say  most  unfeign- 
edly  that  your  papers  ^  upon  the  questions  which  have 
arisen  from  the  cession  of  the  Philippines  have  done  a 
great  work  in  support  of  the  convictions  and  forecasts 
which  impelled  the  Commissioners  to  insist  upon  that 
cession."  An  apposite  letter  for  me  to  quote  here  is 
one  from  Charles  Dudley  Warner,  apposite  because  it 
shows  Reid's  success  in  what  he  had  so  largely  sought 
to  do,  to  persuade  the  thoughtful  unbeliever: 

Hartford, 
My  DEAR  Mr.  Reid:  July  19,  1899. 

I  am  very  much  obliged  to  you  for  your  excellent  address  at 
Miami.  With  a  great  deal  of  reluctance  I  am  compelled  to  agree 
with  most  of  it.  I  hate  war,  and  hated  this  war  and  don't  like  the 
prospect  of  the  burden  it  imposes;  but  I  long  ago  gave  up  the  notion 
that  I  am  the  best  judge  of  what  Providence  ought  to  do;  and  look- 
ing back  over  the  past  I  may  frankly  say  that  I  should  probably  have 
taken  the  wrong  side  of  a  good  many  things  that  seem  now  to  be  a 
part  of  the  inevitable  plan  of  development.  So  my  attitude  is  sim- 
ply expressed  by  the  fact  that  when  I  was  in  Mexico  last  spring,  and 
interviewed,  I  talked  freely  for  peace,  and  when  on  my  return  I 
reached  New  Orleans  and  found  that  war  was  declared,  and  was 
interviewed  again,  I  said  that  I  had  nothing  to  say,  that  war  was 
now  on  and  that  for  an  American  there  was  only  one  side. 

Your  address  is  on  the  whole  the  strongest  and  most  lucid  word 
that  has  been  said  on  that  side,  convincing  in  its  historical  array, 
and  sensible  because  based  on  things  as  they  actually  are  and  not 
as  many  of  us  might  wish  them.  We  went  into  the  war  unprepared 
and  we  have  a  war  department  that  is  still  unprepared  and  daily 
seems  to  me  quite  inadequate  to  conduct  the  mihtary  affairs  of  a 
great  nation.  From  my  point  of  view  the  President's  responsibility 
for  the  war,  before  the  country,  is  second  to  his  responsibility  for 

^    '  Yours  sincerely,         ^  i^  ,,, 

'^  Charles  Dudley  Warner. 


1 


PROBLEMS  OF   EXPANSION  265 

Joseph  Pulitzer,  another  opponent  in  this  field,  was 
harder  to  convince,  and,  indeed,  remained  firm  in  his 
own  position;  yet  he,  too,  when  Reid  sent  him  a  copy 
of  "Problems  of  Expansion,"  showed  that  he  was  not 
altogether  insensitive  to  his  friend's  persuasiveness.  "I 
quite  disagree  with  your  political  philosophy  on  the  sub- 
ject of  the  Philippines,"  he  said,  **but  I  will  confess  to 
you  that  your  speeches  (and  you  know  how  from  boy- 
hood up  I  have  had  a  passionate  admiration  for  oratory 
and  eloquence)  struck  me  very  much  at  the  time  they 
were  delivered.  If  I  were  not  afraid  of  encouraging  you 
to  even  more  radical  violations  of  the  Constitution  I 
might  tell  you  that  it  seemed  to  me  you  first  made  the 
point  at  Chicago  which  the  majority  of  the  Supreme 
Court  accepted."  If  Reid  could  make  only  a  shght  im- 
pression on  this  particular  Democratic  editor  he  had  the 
satisfaction  of  nevertheless  seeing  his  missionary  work 
bear  fruit  over  a  wide  territory.  Privately  and  through 
the  press  he  received  the  evidences  that  he  had  rightly 
gauged  the  drift  of  pubhc  opinion.  Little  by  little,  as 
McKinley's  first  administration  drew  to  a  close,  the 
Anti-Imperialists  were  pressed  to  the  wall.  "I  am  still 
firm  in  the  faith,"  wrote  Davis,  in  the  summer  of  1900, 
''that  we  did  a  great — a  very  great — thing  for  our  coun- 
try in  Paris.  This  will  be  proved  after  the  transient 
people  who  have  never  believed  in  or  understood  the 
'swelhng  act  of  the  imperial  theme'  which  they  are  per- 
forming, have  passed  into  the  obhvion  which,  as  to  such 
impersonations,  is  called  history."  In  so  far  as  the 
vindication  of  a  party  at  the  polls  may  be  taken  as  fore- 
shadowing a  verdict  of  the  sort,  the  re-election  of  McKin- 
ley  later  that  year  gave  Davis  his  proof. 

A  great  deal  of  Reid's  energy,  as  the  foregoing  pages 
have  shown,  was  given  at  this  time  to  the  justification 
of  a  fait  accompli.     Much  went  also  to  the  discussion  of 


266        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

current  issues.  Salient  amongst  these,  and  closely  re- 
lated to  his  whole  philosophy  of  the  war  with  Spain,  was 
that  developed  by  the  question  of  a  Porto  Rican  tariff. 
Reid  fought-^toutly  against  the  adoption  of  measures  in 
which  there  lurked  the  possibility  of  a  clamor  for  state- 
hood. From  the  beginning  of  the  war  he  had  recognized 
the  danger  and  his  opposition  to  it  is  so  characteristic, 
so  bound  up  with  his  entire  conception  of  our  proper 
relation  to  alien  possessions,  that  I  must  give  intact  this 
expression  on  the  subject: 

New  York, 
Hon.  Wm.  E.  Chandler.  January  22,  1900. 

Dear  Mr.  Senator: 

Seeing  your  familiar  frank  this  morning  on  a  copy  of  the  Con- 
gressional Directory,  leads  me  to  inflict  this  letter  upon  you  on  a 
subject  which  seems  to  me  very  important  to  the  Republican  Party 
and  to  the  country.  The  real  danger  in  our  sudden  expansion  lies 
in  the  cowardly  tendency  of  so  many  of  our  public  men  to  do  nothing 
against  admitting  anybody  and  everybody  to  full  partnership  in  the 
American  union.  It  has  been  only  a  little  while  since  one  could  get 
anybody  in  Congress  to  admit  the  possibility  of  dealing  with  the 
Sandwich  Islands  in  any  other  way  than  by  making  them  a  state  in 
the  Union.  Everybody  seemed  to  consider  it  natural,  as  well  as 
certain,  that  Cuba  would  come  in  some  day  as  a  state.  But  if  Cuba 
and  the  Sandwich  Islands,  why  not  Hayti  and  San  Domingo  and  the 
Philippines  and  Porto  Rico?  And  yet  everybody  seems  bent  on 
taking  the  first  step  by  treating  Porto  Rico  exactly  like  a  domestic 
territory  in  training  for  statehood,  and  stretching  our  grotesquely 
inapplicable  Dingley  tariff  bodily  over  it. 

It  is  all  right  to  give  Porto  Rico  a  market  and  nothing  is  easier. 
An  arrangement  such  as  we  had  with  Spain  about  Cuba  would  do  it. 
Enacting  the  Dingley  bill  as  a  separate  tariff  for  Porto  Rico  would 
do  it,  if  we  are  bent  on  that — merely  providing  further,  by  separate 
resolutions,  that  the  manufactures  and  products  of  Porto  Rico  shall 
be  added  to  the  free  list  on  our  own  tariff.  Anything  is  better  than 
a  precedent  which  even  implies  a  sanction  to  the  notion  that  such 
outlying  territory  is  entitled  to  be  treated  as  a  part  of  the  United 
States. 

I  am  well  aware  that  very  few  members  of  Congress,  if  any,  are 
ready  to  agree  with  me  in  this.  I  am  none  the  less  confident  that 
any  other  course  threatens  a  large  part  of  the  danger  which  the 
Anti-Imperialists    are    now    predicting.     Only    the    other    evening, 


PROBLEMS  OF  EXPANSION  267 

Andrew  Carnegie  said  to  me  gloatingly  "You  will  be  driven  off  from 
your  opposition  to  letting  all  these  islands  in  as  states.  You'll  have 
to  swallow  every  last  one  of  them.  Already  you  are  about  making 
Porto  Rico  a  territory."  Again  and  again  during  the  conversation 
he  recurred  to  the  idea  that  the  Republican  Party  was  sure  to  make 
states  out  of  all  our  islands.  Isn't  it  worth  while  to  learn  from  an 
enemy?  If  I  believed  him  I  should  hold  it  a  duty  of  every  patriot 
to  oppose  the  Republican  Party. 

Please  forgive  this  long  screed.     I  know  I  have  the  advantage  in 
part  at  least  of  sharing  these  views  with  you.     With  cordial  regards, 
Very  sincerely  yours,         ^^^^^^^^  r^,^_ 

All  through  the  discussion  of  this  subject  in  Washing- 
ton he  kept  up  a  lively  correspondence  on  it  with  Davis, 
Beveridge,  Foraker,  and  every  other  possible  source  of 
sympathy  in  his  opposition  to  what  he  considered  a 
signal  peril.  To  Hay,  also,  he  uttered  a  word  of  warning 
against  the  plan  of  extending  the  United  States  tariff 
over  Porto  Rico  in  accordance  with  the  contention  that 
these  new  possessions  were  already  an  integral  part  of 
the  United  States  with  all  that  that  might  lead  to.  **  It 
was  not  a  grateful  task  to  oppose  this  proposition,"  he 
said,  "but  I  never  felt  clearer  about  a  duty.'* 

The  problems  of  the  time  come  constantly  to  the  sur- 
face in  his  correspondence  with  Hay.  Sometimes  the 
secretary  of  state  would  ask  his  views  on  a  question 
promoted  by  the  war — the  claims  of  American  citizens 
against  Spain  originating  prior  to  the  outbreak  of  the 
Cuban  insurrection,  the  precise  interpretation  to  be 
given  to  a  phrase  in  the  treaty,  the  claim  of  the  Madrid 
government  to  the  island  of  Sibutu — but  more  often  they 
were  concerned  with  pending  negotiations  or  with  the 
crisis  in  China.  In  the  Alaskan  boundary  matter  Reid's 
support  of  the  administration  was  energetic  but  tem- 
pered by  caution,  and  though  Hay  could  thank  him  for 
a  ** sound  and  generous"  leader  on  the  subject,  he  drew 
from  him  some  shrewd  counsels,  especially  on  the  politi- 


268        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

cal  side  of  the  situation.  '*This  subject  of  our  north- 
western boundary,"  he  reminded  Hay,  "is  one  on  which 
our  people  have  been  touchy  for  more  than  half  a  cen- 
tury," and  -he  deprecated  the  giving  up  of  one  of  our 
Alaskan  ports  to  Great  Britain.  In  the  upshot,  when 
the  Alaskan  Boundary  Commission  rendered  its  decision 
in  favor  of  the  United  States,  in  1903,  his  judgment  was 
confirmed. 

Reid's  backing  throughout  the  painful  Chinese  crisis 
was  very  grateful  to  Hay;  it  was,  he  said,  "so  friendly 
and  so  helpful."  The  secretary's  masterly  handling  of 
the  "open  door"  policy  rejoiced  Reid's  soul.  Physically 
Hay  was  a  little  down  at  the  time,  with  consequent  de- 
pression, and  Reid  wrote  to  him:  "Your  successes  ought 
to  cure  you.  No  man  in  our  diplomatic  history,  so  far 
as  I  have  read  it,  has  had  so  many  of  them  in  so  short  a 
time,  with  so  little  criticism  and  such  an  exemption  from 
back-sets.  You  have  been  especially  happy  in  hitting 
the  bull's  eye  of  the  Chinese  business  and  taking  the 
lead  of  the  civilized  nations  in  marking  at  each  critical 
point  the  path  they  had  to  follow.  Cheer  up,  and  get 
at  it  again  as  soon  as  you  can!"  In  conversation  with 
a  mutual  friend  in  Washington,  Hay  showed  how  much 
he  valued  the  co-operation  of  his  old  comrade,  expressing 
the  wish  that  "we  could  have  a  man  like  Mr.  Reid  on 
the  spot,  to  whom  the  Administration  could  give  full 
authority."  Meditatively,  he  added:  "But  I  suppose 
Mr.  Reid  wouldn't  think  of  such  a  thing."  What  Reid's 
policy  would  have  been  if  he  had  "thought  of  such  a 
thing"  is  indicated  in  a  letter  of  his  to  Senator  Davis. 
"The  moment  we  have  secured,"  he  said,  "the  protection 
of  Americans  in  China  or  withdrawn  them,  it  is  to  our 
interest  to  disentangle  ourselves  from  the  European  com- 
plications which  seem  sure  to  be  coming.  We  must  exert 
our  proper  influence  for  the  open  door,  and  exact  proper 


PROBLEMS  OF   EXPANSION  269 

reparation  for  the  outrages  to  which  our  people  have 
been  subjected;  but  I  fully  agree  with  you  that  we  can 
do  this  best  playing  from  our  own  bat;  i.  e.,  on  our  own 
soil  in  the  Philippines,  with  troops,  ships,  military  sup- 
plies and  everything  ready  for  an  emergency."  In  his 
opinion  there  was  no  conceivable  emergency  which  could 
legitimatize  the  suggestion  then  current  for  the  con- 
quest of  the  Chinese  Empire  and  the  partitioning  of  its 
territory  among  the  allied  forces  of  civilization.  That 
seemed  to  him  ''simply  the  most  gigantic  military  under- 
taking any  madman  has  proposed  in  the  last  half  dozen 
centuries." 

On  the  war  in  South  Africa  Reid  was  an  open-minded 
weigher  of  the  facts.  His  attitude  of  detachment  was 
criticised  in  some  quarters,  notably  those  of  a  Little 
American  and  Irish  Home  Rule  cast  of  thought,  but  the 
general  opinion  is  expressed  by  Captain  Mahan  In  this 
letter: 

New  York, 

T. ,  fs  October  20,  1899. 

My  dear  Sir: 

I  had  delayed,  longer  than  I  like  to  think,  to  thank  you  for  the 
copy  of  your  address,  "Our  New  Duties,'*  before  the  Miami  Univer- 
sity. I  received  it  only  upon  my  return  from  the  Hague,  in  August, 
and  the  pressing  necessity  (as  I  felt)  of  preparing  an  article  for  the 
"North  American,"  prevented  m\'  reading  it  for  some  weeks.  Of 
my  general  accord  with  your  position  it  is  needless  to  speak;  but  I 
am  greatly  in  your  debt  for  enlarging  and  establishing  my  knowledge 
of  the  conformity  of  our  action  in  the  Philippines  with  the  best  inter- 
pretations of  the  Constitution. 

I  feel  also  indebted  to  you — through  The  Tribune — for  keeping 
before  our  public  that  there  is  a  British  as  well  as  a  Boer  side  to  the 
Transvaal  controversy.  This  morning's  leader — by  whomsoever 
written — I  read  with  great  satisfaction.  Let  us  by  all  means  have 
truth,  and  as  a  nation  stand  by  right,  whomsoever  it  may  array  us 
against;  but  let  it  be  truth,  and  all  the  truth,  and  in  measuring  cen- 
sure let  us  weigh  our  words,  and  not  mistake  vituperation  and  preju- 
dice for  argument. 

To  the  very  great  impending  Eastern  question — in  China — I  con- 
ceive that  a  cordial  understanding,  involving  no  alliance  or  pledges. 


270         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

but  mutual  trust,  between  Great  Britain  and  ourselves,  will  be  a 

most  important  factor.     There  will  be  a  strong  assault,  made  by 

those  who  would  breed  discord  between  the  two  nations,  to  use  the 

Transvaal  business  as  an  opening  therefor,  and  I  cannot  but  think 

that  a  temperate  and  full  presentment  of  the  whole  truth  by  a  paper 

of  The  Tribune's  influence  most  desirable.     Abuse — such  as  Bryan's 

and  Bourke  Cockran's,  of  Great  Britain — breaks  no  bones;  but  it 

does  hinder  good  feeling.      .,       c  '^x.c  u 

Very  faithfully  yours,    ^_  ^  ^^^^^_ 

Politics,  American  and  foreign,  seemed  fairly  to  have 
flooded  Reid  in  the  period  I  have  been  traversing,  but 
there  w^ere  other  interests.  On  his  return  from  Paris  the 
staff"  of  The  Tribune  had  commissioned  Eastman  John- 
son to  paint  his  portrait,  to  be  hung  in  the  offices  of  the 
paper,  and  on  the  occasion  of  the  presentation  he  was  a 
little  startled  at  being  saluted  as  **the  dean  of  the  press 
of  New  York."  It  was  in  that  capacity  that  he  made, 
early  in  1901,  two  addresses  at  Yale  on  the  history, 
duties,  and  opportunities  of  the  journalistic  profession. 
The  lectureship  had  been  established  by  the  widow  of 
the  late  Isaac  H.  Bromley,  so  long  one  of  Reid's  most 
valued  colleagues  on  The  Tribune.  Both  Mrs.  Bromley 
and  the  university  committee  having  the  matter  in 
charge  wished  him  to  be  its  first  incumbent.  Amongst 
his  Hterary  activities  there  was  also  the  recasting  for  the 
new  edition  of  the  "Encyclopedia  Britannica"  of  the 
article  on  American  newspapers  which  he  had  contrib- 
uted years  before  to  that  work;  and  in  contrast  to  this 
rather  statistical  task  he  undertook  an  altogether  charm- 
ing commission  for  the  "Bibliophile  Society.''  This  was 
the  annotation  of  one  of  the  odes  of  Horace.  The  idea 
was  that  a  volume  in  the  society's  edition  of  the  poet 
should  be  prepared  by  fifteen  members,  each  selecting 
the  best  English  version  of  an  ode  assigned  to  him,  to 
go  with  the  text,  and  adding,  with  notes,  such  supple- 
mental versions  as  commended  themselves  to  him.    Reid 


PROBLEMS  OF   EXPANSION  271 

edited  the  third  ode,  "Quern  tu,  Melpomene,"  and  chose 
Bishop  Atterbur>''s  version  as  the  best  in  English: 

"He  on  whose  birth  the  Ktic  Queen, 

Of  numbers  smiled,  should  never  grace 
The  Isthmian  gauntlet,  or  be  seen 
First  in  the  famed  Olympic  race." 

'''To  my  amazement,''  he  wrote  to  Hay,  "I  find  that 
a  little  of  my  early  knowledge  of  Horace  still  clings  to 
me;  and  further  that  I  am  really  enjoying  the  work, 
which  is  serious  enough  for  me,  though  it  would  be 
trivial  to  a  Professor/'  He  was,  by  the  way,  much  in 
contact  with  the  world  of  professors.  Intertwined  with 
his  diverse  actrv'ities  there  runs  through  all  these  years 
his  work  as  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Regents.  Still 
another  kind  of  duty  was  added  to  a  busy  life  when 
early  in  1901  he  was  elected  a  trustee  of  the  Metropolitan 
Museum  of  Art.  And  in  a  reminiscence  that  he  set  down 
just  as  the  old  century  was  merging  into  the  new  he 
lingers  over  a  scientific  motive.  It  recalled  to  him  a 
dinner  in  a  London  club,  nearly  thirty  years  before, 
with  Kinglake,  Roseber}',  Huxley,  and  others.  The  frag- 
ment follows: 

The  conversation  happ>ened  to  turn  on  the  amazing  progress  of  the 
civilized  world,  in  all  directions,  during  the  centurv'.  At  a  lull  in  the 
talk  I  turned  to  Prof.  Huxley  and  asked  him  what  he  would  rate  as 
the  greatest  single  scientific  discover}-  of  the  centur\'.  I  exp>ected — 
and  some  of  the  guests  afterwards  told  me  that  they  expected — to 
hear  the  telegraph  mentioned,  or  the  ocean  cable,  or  possibly  ocean 
navigation  by  steam,  or  rapid  printing  machines,  or  some  of  the 
other  practical  inventions,  which  have  so  enormously  widened  civili- 
zation, developed  its  activities  and  increased  capacities  of  human 
Hfe. 

But  without  an  instant's  hesitation.  Prof.  Huxley  replied  that  he 
thought  there  could  be  no  doubt  of  the  proper  answer  to  that  ques- 
tion. He  considered  the  discovery  of  antiseptic  surgery  the  greatest 
and  most  beneficent  scientific  discovery  of  the  century.  He  paid  a 
proper  compliment  to  the  discoverers  of  anesthetics;  but  dwelt  on 


272         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  actual  addition  to  man's  control  over  human  life  and  the  un- 
deniable increase  in  its  average  duration  which  antiseptic  surgery 
secured.  He  spoke  of  the  possibility  of  curing  multitudes  of  cases 
formerly  helpless.  He  specified  the  relief  on  the  battle-field,  or  at 
the  scenes  of  those  great  catastrophes  which  occasionally  spring  from 
modern  machinery  or  transportation,  and  from  the  daring  with  which 
man  more  and  more  turns,  or  defies  the  forces  of  nature;  and  con- 
cluded by  reaffirming  that,  judged  by  any  proper  tests,  antiseptic 
surgery  was  undeniably  the  greatest  single  scientific  achievement  of 
a  century,  marked  by  the  most  numerous  and  most  important 
achievements  of  science  in  any  century  since  history  began.  Whether 
he  convinced  everybody  I  cannot  say.     No  one  disputed  his  view. 

The  lines  which  most  decisively  emphasize  themselves 
in  a  portrait  of  Whitelaw  Reid  are  those  drawn  by  the 
influences  of  pubKc  life.  Yet  that  they  are  not  abso- 
lutely paramount  in  the  make-up  of  the  man  is  shown 
by  another  passage  taken  from  his  correspondence  with 
Hay.  It  is  this  souvenir  of  one  of  his  stays  in  the  Adi- 
rondacks: 

Here  my  boy  sails  jib  and  main-sail  boat  races  against  Archie 
Rogers,  Anson  Stokes,  Henry  Hotchkiss  and  the  rest,  and  occasion- 
ally wins  a  cup,  to  the  dehght  of  the  rather  doting  pair  who  watch 
him  from  the  piazza  of  the  billiard  room.  My  daughter  gets  up 
lawn  tennis  tournaments,  and  under  our  anxious  eyes,  stays  in 
them — as  far  as  the  semi-finals.  The  camp  is  overrun  with  young 
people,  boys  from  Yale  and  Harvard,  and  swarms  of  girls,  very  much 
at  home  in  our  squash  court  or  billiard  room  or  boats.  I  don't  always 
know  their  parents,  though  they  are  apt  to  remind  me  of  somebody 
I  knew  in  New  York  or  Boston  or  Washington,  back  in  the  sixties 
or  seventies,  who  turns  out  to  be  a  Grandfather.  You  see  I  have 
reached  the  age  when  I  am  apt  not  only  to  see  young  hfe  from  that 
venerable  point  of  view  but  even  to  be  amused  by  it. 

I  hear  little  from  the  great  world,  save  by  way  of  the  office,  and 
that  I  have  learned  to  push  off  without  conscience.  They  produce 
an  occasional  modern  novel,  which  they  say  I  must  read,  and  when 
I  do  I  generally  regret  it,  though  "Monsieur  Beaucaire"  was  amus- 
ing for  half  an  hour,  and  "They  That  Took  the  Sword"  piqued  my 
curiosity.  But  I've  fallen  back  on  McMaster  and  John  Fiske,  about 
the  days  before  there  was  any  Constitution  to  follow  the  flag,  on  "The 
Three  Musketeers"  ^nd  Foster's  "Diplomacy." 


PROBLEMS  OF  EXPANSION  273 

He  was  near  to  his  sixty-fourth  birthday  when  he 
wrote  these  Hnes.  Some  of  his  best  years  were  before 
him,  but  there  is  an  understandable  consciousness  of  the 
passage  of  time  in  his  reflective  mood.  Every  year  an 
old  friend  departed.  John  Sherman  died  in  1900. 
Evarts  followed  in  1901,  and,  only  ten  days  later,  ex- 
President  Harrison.  It  was  in  September  of  that  year 
that  the  tragedy  at  Bufi'alo  befell,  and  on  the  death  of 
McKinley  both  Reid  and  Hay  were  disposed  to  dwell 
on  the  shocks  which  made  it  hard  to  "carry  on."  The 
event  placed  heavy  burdens  on  the  shoulders  of  the 
secretary  of  state,  and  they  were  the  heavier  because 
of  the  unceasing  anguish  inflicted  by  the  loss  of  his  son 
Adelbert.  From  his  retreat  in  New  Hampshire,  in 
October,  he  wrote:  "I  shall  be  packing  my  paperasses 
next  week,  to  go  back  to  Washington  after  a  summer 
of  misery  and  disaster  such  as  my  life  has  never  before 
experienced."  Reid,  too,  had  had  to  reckon  with  be- 
reavements and  glanced  at  them  in  writing  to  Hay,  but 
then  sought  to  recall  him  to  fortitude,  saying:  "There  is 
ahvays  a  certain  sad  comfort  when  one  can  feel  that  fate 
has  done  its  worst !  Don't  worry  about  the  aches  and 
pains.  They  come  to  all  men!  I  'haven't  been  old 
before,'  either;  and  I  don't  feel  so,  very  often,  even  now; 
but  I  know  that  the  machinery  is  sure  to  keep  getting 
out  of  order  from  this  time  on,  and  that  every  time  it 
rights  itself  a  little  more  slowly.  That  is  no  reason  why 
it  shouldn't  keep  going  a  long  time  yet,  and  shouldn't 
bring  us  a  great  deal  of  happiness,  too.  I  never  enjoyed 
a  horse-back  ride  more  than  the  one  I  had  this  very 
morning;  and  if  you  will  only  give  yourself  to  it,  it  will 
set  your  blood  to  quick  pulsation  too." 

He  had  great  resilience.  In  the  spring  of  this  year 
he  delivered  in  Cahfornia  an  address  on  "University 
Tendencies  in  America,"  talking  at  large  on  educational 


274         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

ideas,  but  allying  the  humanities  with  the  progress  of 
the  republic  and  pointing  to  the  opportunities  lying  at 
home  and  in  our  new  dependencies  at  the  dawn  of  the 
twentieth  century.  Hay  read  it  "with  a  renewal  of  the 
constant  admiration  and  surprise  which  are  excited  in 
me  by  the  freshness  and  the  zest  which  you  bring  to  the 
discussion  of  these  subjects,  always  new  and  always  old, 
by  the  very  fact  of  their  permanent  importance."  He 
went  on  with  a  comparison  at  once  sorrowful  and  glad. 
"I  sometimes  think,"  he  said,  "I  have  as  much  sense,  in 
a  way,  as  I  ever  had.  But- 1  cannot  blind  my  eyes  to 
the  consciousness  that  I  am  stale,  that  I  cannot  care 
enough  about  things  to  write  entertainingly  about  them. 
You,  on  the  contrary,  hold  the  note  of  your  sensitive  and 
ambitious  youth  as  clear  as  am  ersten  Tag.  The  strain 
of  prophetic  enthusiasm  with  which  this  address  winds 
up,  made  my  heart  beat  quicker  and  'mine  eyes  dazzle.'" 
Hay  underestimated  his  own  elasticity.  Neither  for  him 
nor  for  his  comrade  could  the  weight  of  events,  no  mat- 
ter how  tragic,  persistently  count  in  the  balance  against 
character  and  strength.  "I  do  not  know  how  long  I 
can  pull  at  my  oar,"  he  had  exclaimed,  overborne  by 
public  and  private  grief.  But  his  dubiety  passed.  They 
had  an  inspiring  leader  with  whom  to  work  in  Theodore 
Roosevelt,  and  under  his  administration  both  men  pulled 
at  their  oars,  in  their  finest  form. 


CHAPTER  XV 
RELATIONS  WITH  ROOSEVELT 

In  i860,  when  Whitelaw  Reid  was  a  young  journalist, 
he  threw  himself  into  the  campaign  for  Abraham  Lin- 
coln, and  saw  the  rise  of  Republican  power  under  the 
greatest  of  our  leaders  since  Washington.  Forty  years 
later,  entering  upon  labors  whicL  were  to  close  his  edi- 
torial career  and  commit  him  to  the  diplomatic  service 
in  which  he  died,  he  was  associated  with  the  man  now 
generally  recognized  as  Lincoln's  most  remarkable  suc- 
cessor. In  i860  he  was  an  obscure  worker  in  the  ranks. 
In  1900  he  was  one  of  the  leaders  of  his  party.  He  had 
shared  in  the  development  of  a  great  political  organiza- 
tion, and  was  in  a  position  to  give  aid  and  counsel  to  its 
dominant  figures.  There  is  a  certain  felicity  about  the 
turn  of  events  which  made  him  in  his  youth  a  friend  of 
Lincoln's  and  in  his  prime  a  friend  of  Theodore  Roose- 
velt's, supporting  at  the  beginning  and  at  the  end  of  his 
newspaper  work  the  highest  types  of  political  genius 
that  the  Republican  faith  has  produced. 

His  relations  with  the  younger  man  began  early,  as  is 
disclosed  in  a  letter  written  to  Bishop  Doane  in  Febru- 
ary, 1900.  "I  knew  Roosevelt's  father,  whom  I  con- 
sidered one  of  the  very  best  and  most  public-spirited  citi- 
zens of  New  York  in  that  day,"  he  says,  "and  I  have 
known  the  son  since  he  was  a  college  boy.  His  relations 
are  all  friends,  and  one  of  his  sisters  [Mrs.  Cowles]  and 
my  wife  have  been  peculiarly  associated  and  attached." 
The  reader  will  recall  some  allusions  in  an  earlier  chap- 
ter to  the  sympathy  with  which  Reid  gave  advice  to 

275 


276         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  young  politician  when  he  was  a  Republican  assem- 
blyman in  the  eighties.  The  Tribune  backed  him  in  his 
unsuccessful  candidacy  for  the  mayoralty  in  1886,  and 
was  a  friendly  commentator  on  his  later  work  as  a  United 
States  civil  service  commissioner.  It  helped  him,  too, 
when  he  became  president  of  the  Board  of  Police  Com- 
missioners in  New  York.  My  own  first  impression  of 
him  is  a  vivid  one  of  the  rushing  energy  with  which  he 
plunged  into  the  old  editorial  room,  and,  punctuating  his 
talk  with  incisive  gestures,  explained  his  attitude  toward 
some  crisis  in  the  proceedings  of  that  body.  He  was 
seeking  co-operation  and  he  got  it.  Then  came  his 
brief  term  as  assistant  secretary  of  the  navy,  and  the 
brilliant  months  of  his  service  with  the  Rough  Riders, 
crowned  by  his  election  to  the  governorship.  Through 
all  these  stages  of  his  progress  he  passed  with  plenty  of 
encouragement  from  the  paper,  and,  on  the  whole,  very 
little  criticism.  He  received  that,  on  occasion,  in  gen- 
erous enough  measure.  There  was  bound  to  be  a  rift  in 
the  lute  of  harmony  during  the  period  of  the  governor- 
ship, when  Reid's  antagonism  to  the  machine  inclined 
him  to  look  with  a  dubious  eye  on  Roosevelt's  effort  to 
make  the  best  of  its  unquestionable  influence;  and  for 
a  time,  even  though  they  were  on  the  cordialest  terms  in 
social  meetings  and  in  correspondence,  there  was  next 
to  no  political  consultation  between  them.  It  began, 
however,  in  the  summer  of  1900,  when  Roosevelt  was 
nominated  for  the  vice-presidency  on  the  ticket  with 
McKinley.  He  then  sent  a  message  from  Oyster  Bay, 
saying  that  he  wanted  to  see  Reid  at  the  earliest  oppor- 
tunity, to  have  a  long  talk  with  him,  and  go  over  the 
whole  situation.  Thenceforth  their  contacts  were  fre- 
quent and  their  mutual  understanding  was  perfect. 

There  are  one  or  two  characteristic  indications  in  their 
correspondence  at  this  time  of  Roosevelt's  repugnance  to 


RELATIONS  WITH   ROOSEVELT  277 

the  "shelving"  that  his  candidacy  was  supposed  to  in- 
volve, and  his  resolution,  nevertheless,  to  play  his  part 
as  a  faithful  party  man.  Reid  had  cautioned  him  about 
trouble  with  his  throat  on  the  whirlwind  tour  of  speech- 
making  he  had  undertaken  in  the  West.  "I  want  it 
patched  up,'*  he  replied,  **so  that  it  may  go  through 
until  after  election;  then  the  deluge  may  come,  pro- 
vided we  win.  The  Vice-Presidency  is  nothing,  and  the 
only  point  in  my  nomination  is  the  chance  of  my  help- 
ing the  ticket,  so  I  suppose  I  have  got  to  be  used  as  the 
committee  desires."  Again  he  writes:  "The  very  fact 
that  I  do  not  like  many  features  of  the  situation  makes 
it  all  the  more  necessary  that  I  should  *do  or  die.'"  We 
all  know  how  magnificently  he  put  through  the  cam- 
paign, with  flying  colors,  rousing  tremendous  enthu- 
siasm, especially  in  the  Northwest,  and  bringing  balm 
to  the  hearts  of  the  Republican  managers.  Whatever  he 
thought  of  the  vice-presidency,  Roosevelt  had  made 
himself  an  indispensable  factor  in  the  success  of  the 
national  ticket  in  November.  Within  less  than  a  year 
fate  had  made  him  President. 

At  a  White  House  dinner  he  and  Reid  talked  over  the 
first  message  that  Roosevelt  was  to  send  to  Congress, 
and  later,  from  New  York,  Reid  sent  the  comments  and 
suggestions  he  was  invited  to  contribute,  especially  on 
the  subjects  of  tariff*  and  reciprocity.  He  took  the  op- 
portunity, also,  to  advocate,  in  this  initial  document  of 
the  new  administration's,  the  citation  of  President  Mon- 
roe's exact  words  in  the  pregnant  message  of  December 
2d,  1823:  "The  occasion  has  been  judged  proper  for 
asserting  as  a  principle  in  which  the  rights  and  interests 
of  the  United  States  are  involved,  that  the  American 
continents,  by  the  free  and  independent  condition  which 
they  have  assumed  and  maintained,  are  henceforth  not 
to  be  considered  as  subjects  for  future  colonization  by 


278         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

any  European  power.'*  The  President  inserted  the  pas- 
sage, thinking  it  would  "immensely  strengthen"  what 
he  had  to  say  on  the  subject.  A  mutual  friend  who  was 
at  the  WhitQ,  House  at  this  time  received  a  pleasant  inti- 
mation of  Roosevelt's  feeling  about  his  unofficial  coun- 
sellor. He  broke  out  with  the  declaration  that  of  all 
the  men  he  had  ever  met  Reid  had  the  most  gracious 
manners  and  winning  ways,  that  he  was  an  accomplished 
diplomat,  and  that  his  advice  with  reference  to  certain 
passages  of  the  forthcoming  message  had  been  of  the 
utmost  value.  Their  friendship  from  this  time  on  only 
increased  in  warmth. 

The  principle  on  which  Roosevelt  took  over  the  ad- 
ministration of  his  predecessor  is  well  remembered.  "It 
shall  be  my  aim,"  he  declared,  "to  continue  absolutely 
unbroken  the  policy  of  President  McKinley,  which  has 
given  peace,  prosperity,  and  honor  to  our  beloved  coun- 
try." This  included,  of  course,  the  settlement  of  the 
Cuban  question  according  to  the  terms  of  the  Orville  H. 
Piatt  amendment.  It  was  a  happy  augury  for  the  new 
President  that  he  could  thus  early  in  his  administration 
proclaim  our  withdrawal  from  Cuba  and  the  pacification 
of  the  Philippines.  Equally  gratifying  was  the  ratifica- 
tion of  the  Hay-Pauncefote  Treaty,  which  smoothed  the 
way  for  that  pushing  of  the  isthmian  canal  project  which 
was  to  make  one  of  the  high  achievements  of  Roosevelt's 
career.  His  thorny  problem  in  1902  was  the  famous 
anthracite  coal  strike,  which  began  in  May,  went  rapidly 
through  more  and  more  ominous  phases,  and  threatened 
to  smite  the  East  with  something  like  a  fireless  winter. 
Its  course  was  not  arrested  until  the  President's  direct 
action  and  his  call  of  John  Mitchell,  the  leader  of  the 
miners,  to  the  White  House,  challenged  an  intolerable 
menace.  Reid  recognized  the  benefit  to  the  administra- 
tion of  the  steps  taken  that  fall.     "The  President  and 


RELATIONS   WITH   ROOSEVELT  279 

you,"  he  wrote  to  Secretary  of  Wslt  Root,  '*have  just 
come  out  of  a  difficult  and  dangerous  situation  with  a 
howling  success.  Whatever  Mitchell  may  do — and  un- 
less he  is  bent  on  destruction,  there  is  only  one  thing  he 
can  do — the  situation  is  saved  for  the  seaboard  this 
winter.  It  is  also  saved  for  the  Republican  party." 
But  he  was  always  insistent  upon  the  point  that  the 
determining  factor  in  this  affair  was  Roosevelt's  personal 
initiative.  Two  years  later,  after  the  nomination  for  the 
campaign  of  1904,  when  at  the  President's  request  he 
was  traversing  the  latter's  letter  of  acceptance,  he  touched 
upon  the  paragraph  in  which  the  action  in  the  coal  strike 
and  that  against  the  Northern  Securities  Company  were 
treated  together  as  **acts  of  the  Administration.''  He 
said: 

But  it  is  essential  to  the  successful  defense  of  your  action  in  the 
coal  strike  that  it  should  be  kept  distinctly  on  the  ground  on  which 
you  yourself  originally  placed  it,  as  not  an  act  of  the  Administration, 
not  an  act  of  the  President,  not  an  official  discharge  of  any  duty 
imposed  by  law  or  authorized  by  the  Constitution.  It  was  simply  a 
volunteer  interposition,  unofficially,  by  the  first  citizen  of  the  Repub- 
lic, at  a  time  when  imminent  disaster  was  threatened,  when  no 
other  rehef  was  in  sight,  and  when  his  prestige  was  sufficient  to  in- 
duce the  two  parties  to  consent  to  an  arbitration,  and  meantime 
start  into  activity  again  the  industries  without  which  the  health 
and  the  very  lives  of  many  millions  of  people  were  in  immediate 
peril.  It  will  not  be  at  all  difficult  to  make  the  needful  correction, 
but  the  paragraph  will  probably  have  to  be  rewritten,  and  the  two 
acts  should  be  treated  separately  and  on  different  grounds. 

Reid  based  his  argument  in  this  matter  upon  close 
observation  of  it  at  home,  particularly  during  the  crucial 
period  of  Roosevelt's  intervention.  But  through  two  of 
the  summer  months  which  witnessed  the  first  deadly 
gro\nh  of  the  strike  he  was  out  of  the  country-.  Queen 
Victoria  had  died  on  January  22d,  1901.  The  corona- 
tion of  Edward  VII  was  set  for  the  following  year,  and 


^> 


28o         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  President  appointed  Reid  to  represent  the  United 
States  at  the  ceremony,  writing  to  him  as  follows: 

'  ^  White  House, 

Washington, 

January  i6,  1902. 
My  dear  Mr.  Reid: 

It  is  not  always  easy  in  making  appointments  to  be  sure  one  has 
the  man  best  equipped  to  discharge  the  duties  of  the  particular  place 
sought;  and  hence  it  was  a  very  real  pleasure  to  be  able  to  appoint  to 
this  particular  place  the  man  whom,  after  careful  consideration,  I  felt 
was  preeminently  and  peculiarly  the  very  man  who  by  training  and 
aptitude  was  best  fitted  to  represent  our  people  and  discharge  his 
duties  as  their  Ambassador  on  an  occasion  where  I  had  to  carefully 
consider  how  two  nations  would  be  affected  by  my  choice.  I  am 
delighted  that  you  are  pleased  with  the  other  members  of  the  em- 
bassy. I  think  that  under  the  circumstances  General  Wilson  and 
Captain  Clark  are  the  very  men  to  send;  and  I  was  quite  sure  that 
you  would  be  pleased  with  them  also ! 

Give  my  regards  to  Mrs.  Reid;  and  with  many  good  wishes  for 

yourself,  I  am,  c-.  , 

'^  bmcerely  yours,  rr^  ^ 

Iheodore  Roosevelt. 

The  coronation  was  projected  for  June,  so  there  was 
plenty  of  time  for  Reid's  annual  visit  to  California,  where 
he  tantalized  Hay  by  drawing  a  picture  of  idle  life  in 
perfect  weather,  riding  horseback  in  the  morning,  read- 
ing Dumas  in  the  afternoon,  playing  bezique  or  billiards 
with  Mr.  Mills  in  the  evening — and  editing  a  newspaper 
by  telegraph.  Coming  back  to  the  East  in  the  spring 
his  thoughts  were  occupied  with  a  proposal  from  the 
Houghtons  having  an  unusual  interest  amongst  the  sug- 
gestions often  made  to  him  by  publishers.  They  wanted 
him  to  write  a  biography  of  Blaine.  There  were  many 
reasons  why  he  would  have  delighted  in  the  task,  and  he 
found  it  hard  to  put  it  from  him.  But  the  comparative 
leisure  of  Millbrae  was  brief  enough,  and,  besides,  the 
political  controversies  latent  in  the  subject  were  very 
near  in  point  of  time.     "The  ashes  over  those  heaps  of 


RELATIONS  WITH   ROOSEVELT  281 

national  embers  are  yet  too  thin  for  comfortable  walk- 
ing," he  said.  Enterprises  abandoned  ordinarily  invite 
no  comment,  but  imagination  lingers  over  this  one.  The 
incident  wakes  a  real  regret.  A  memoir  of  James  G. 
Blaine  by  Whitelaw  Reid  would  have  made  prodigiously 
interesting  reading. 

The  mission  to  the  coronation  opened  with  what  seemed 
only  the  fairest  promise.  The  King  had  expressed  him- 
self to  Ambassador  Choate  as  much  pleased  with  the 
President's  appointment.  By  the  leasing  from  Lord 
Tweedmouth  of  Brook  House,  in  Park  Lane,  the  Reids 
were  assured  appropriate  headquarters.  Just  before  sail- 
ing a  letter  received  from  Cambridge  apprised  Reid  of 
the  wish  of  that  university  to  confer  the  degree  of  Doctor 
of  Laws  upon  him  on  June  loth.  He  reached  England 
on  the  7th,  and  on  the  9th  went  with  Lord  Lansdowne  to 
Buckingham  Palace.  The  King  appeared  in  excellent 
health  and  spirits.  When  Reid  went  down  on  the  mor- 
row to  stay  with  the  Master  of  Trinity,  there  was  no 
reason  to  suppose  that  the  impending  ceremonies  in 
London  would  suffer  any  untoward  interruption,  and  on 
his  return,  for  several  days,  he  obser^xd  that  the  plans 
for  the  coronation  were  beginning  to  take  clear  shape. 
How  they  were  arrested  and  the  postponement  occurred, 
leading  to  the  premature  return  of  his  mission,  is  ex- 
plained in  the  official  report  to  the  secretary  of  state, 
which  I  cite  in  the  following  abbreviated  form: 

While  the  arrangements  for  the  coronation  were  thus  completed 
down  to  the  minutest  details,  some  anxiet}'  began  to  be  manifested 
as  to  the  condition  of  the  King's  health.  It  was  said  that  he  had 
over-exerted  himself  in  the  review  at  Aldershot.  The  uneasiness  was 
quieted  for  a  time  by  the  King's  going  from  Aldershot  back  to  Wind- 
sor and  by  newspaper  statements  that  he  was  driving  out  there 
every  day.  On  the  Monday  of  coronation  week  the  King  came  up  to 
London  and  proceeded  at  once  to  Buckingham  Palace  in  an  op>en 
carriage,  accompanied  by  the  Queen.     Some  of  those  who  saw  him 


^> 


282        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

thought  that  he  looked  ill,  though  the  spectators  generally,  as  well  as 
the  newspapers,  seemed  to  unite  in  declaring  that  he  appeared  much 
as  usual. 

The  next  morning  I  received  at  Brook  House  a  telephone  message 
from  Buckingham  Palace  saying  that  the  royal  dinner  for  that  eve- 
ning would  be  postponed  on  account  of  His  Majesty's  health.  A 
little  later,  as  I  was  driving  about  with  the  royal  equerry,  Sir  Fleet- 
wood Edwards,  completing  the  official  calls  upon  the  other  special 
embassies,  we  were  stopped  on  the  street,  near  St.  James's  Palace, 
by  an  officer  of  the  household  under  great  excitement,  who  announced 
that  the  King  was  alarmingly  ill,  and  that  the  coronation  must  be 
indefinitely  postponed.  We  drove  as  soon  as  possible  to  Bucking- 
ham Palace  to  inscribe  and  make  inquiries,  and  there  learned  that 
the  situation  had  been  found  so  graVe  that  an  operation  had  just  been 
performed,  for  appendicitis  the  court  officials  thought,  and  that  the 
King  seemed  to  be  rallying  from  the  shock. 

It  was  soon  ascertained  that  the  disease  for  which  the  operation 
had  been  found  necessary  was  not  appendicitis  at  all,  but  perityphli- 
tis. One  of  the  surgeons  was  credibly  quoted  as  saying  the  next 
week,  as  he  took  a  sheet  of  paper  in  his  hand,  "there  was  not  the 
thickness  of  that  between  his  Majesty  and  death  when  we  operated." 
As  late  as  Monday  evening,  however,  the  night  before  the  operation, 
the  King  had  still  insisted  that  he  would  go  through  the  ceremony 
on  the  following  Thursday  at  whatever  cost,  and  it  was  not  till  the 
peremptory  declaration  of  the  surgeon  of  greatest  authority  among 
those  in  attendance  that  without  a  prompt  operation  he  would  abso- 
lutely refuse  to  assume  further  responsibility  or  attend  in  the  case, 
that  his  Majesty  finally  consented  even  on  Tuesday  morning  to  sub- 
mit to  this  demand.  Then  instead  of  allowing  himself  to  be  carried 
to  the  operating  table  he  walked  there. 

Reid  was  impressed  by  the  admirable  demeanor  of  the 
British  public.  It  v^as  sufficiently  grave.  The  services 
of  intercession  at  St.  Paul's  and  other  churches  were 
attended  by  a  people  plainly  under  the  stress  of  a  great 
emotion.  But  there  was  no  undue  excitement,  as  there 
was  no  mawkish  sentimentality.  The  early  retirement 
of  the  American  mission  was  soon  decided  upon.  The 
Reids  took  leave  of  the  foreign  secretary  at  luncheon 
at  Lansdowne  House,  and  the  next  day  were  received 
by  the  Prince  and  Princess  of  Wales.     The  prince  spoke 


RELATIONS  WITH   ROOSEVELT  283 

with  the  greatest  confidence  as  to  his  father's  splendid 
physical  condition  and  almost  certain  recovery,  entering 
into  many  details  as  to  the  nature  of  the  operation  and 
the  manner  in  which  it  had  been  borne.  The  following 
afternoon  at  Buckingham  Palace  the  Queen  received  Mr. 
and  Mrs.  Reid  in  a  farewell  audience.  She  regarded  the 
worst  as  over.  "She  spoke  warmly,"  says  Reid  in  his 
report,  "of  the  way  in  which  his  Majesty  had  stood  the 
shock  of  the  operation,  and  of  the  keen  interest  he  was 
already  beginning  to  manifest  again  in  public  affairs, 
and  mentioned  particularly  his  pleasure  at  reading, 
himself,  the  cable  dispatch  in  the  newspapers  reporting 
the  President's  sympathetic  remarks  at  Harvard.  She 
was  confident  that  the  coronation  would  take  place  this 
year,  and  probably  sooner  than  had  been  expected." 
After  a  round  of  country-house  visits  the  Reids  returned 
to  New  York,  sailing  late  in  July.  He  made  one  speech 
on  the  eve  of  his  departure,  at  the  centenary  celebration 
of  the  American  Chamber  of  Commerce  in  Liverpool. 
John  Hay,  writing  to  him  about  the  "maimed  rites"  in 
London,  and  congratulating  him  on  his  mission,  which 
"had  attracted  more  notice — altogether  favorable — than 
that  of  any  other  Power,"  was  warm  in  appreciation  of 
this  farewell  episode.  "The  speech  you  made  at  Liver- 
pool," he  said,  "and  your  academic  honors  at  Cam- 
bridge, were  well  worth  crossing  the  Atlantic  for."  The 
President  congratulated  him  upon  "the  admirable  man- 
ner in  which  you  have  handled  the  whole  affair." 

Before  resuming  the  thread  of  Reid's  activities  at 
home  I  must  touch  upon  an  interesting  incident  of  his 
brief  stay  abroad.  At  the  time  when  his  official  calls 
upon  the  various  special  embassies  were  interrupted  by 
news  of  the  operation  on  the  King,  he  had  still  to  meet 
his  Chinese  colleague.  His  Imperial  Highness,  Prince 
Chen,  presently  called  at  Brook  House,  with  cordial  ex- 


284         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

pressions  of  the  particular  friendliness  felt  by  the  Em- 
peror and  his  country  toward  the  United  States  on 
account  of  our  action  in  the  late  disturbances.  When 
Reid  returned  this  visit  the  prince  renewed  the  theme. 
He  expressed  high  appreciation,  for  himself  and  for  his 
government,  of  the  conduct  of  the  United  States  forces 
in  China  in  upholding  order  and  repressing  outrages. 
He  dwelt  particularly  on  their  great  usefulness  in  pre- 
serving the  palace,  and  remembered  also  with  gratitude 
the  behavior  of  our  navy  when  the  forts  were  bom- 
barded. He  said  the  Emperor  had  learned  to  look  upon 
the  United  States  as  the  true  friend  of  himself  and  his 
countrymen.  The  prince  explained  that  while  he  could 
not  enter  upon  questions  of  domestic  politics,  he  desired 
at  any  rate  to  say  that  undoubtedly  his  sovereign  had 
not  always  been  able  to  carry  out  his  own  pohcy  or 
enforce  his  personal  wishes.  The  Emperor  had  earnestly 
forbidden  many  of  the  regrettable  acts  that  had  occurred, 
and  had  once  gone  so  far  as  to  declare  that  if  the  armed 
forces  continued  to  disobey  him  and  fire  on  the  legations, 
he  would  ask  them  rather  to  turn  their  fire  upon  him- 
self. Throughout  this  interview  the  prince  was  clearly 
desirous  of  impressing  his  American  listener  with  the 
special  good-will  of  China.  Reid's  report  of  it  offered 
a  moment  of  pleasant  relief  to  Hay  in  the  usually  vexa- 
tious atmosphere  of  his  long  struggle  for  the  success  of 
his  Chinese  policy. 

The  period  following  this  mission  to  England  was  one 
of  an  increasing  tendency  on  Reid's  part  to  give  himself 
to  interests  lying  outside  the  routine  of  editorial  work. 
He  found  a  little  time  for  literary  diversions.  He  sup- 
plied Mr.  Bodley,  author  of  **The  Coronation  of  Ed- 
ward the  Seventh,"  with  some  amusing  notes  on  Ameri- 
can participation  in  the  coronations  of  Napoleon  and 
Queen  Victoria,  notes  based  on  researches  that  he  caused 


i 


I 


RELATIONS  WITH   ROOSEVELT  285 

to  be  made  in  the  archives  at  Washington.  He  wrote  a 
suggestive  introduction  to  the  posthumous  work  of  his 
old  friend  William  Henry  Smith,  **A  Political  History  of 
Slavery."  Another  of  his  excursions  was  prompted  by 
Mr.  Francis  Curtis,  when  that  gentleman  was  writing 
his  well-known  work  on  the  Republican  party.  Mr. 
Curtis  wanted  to  know  if  that  party  owed  its  name  to 
Horace  Greeley,  as  was  commonly  believed.  Reid  told 
him  that  he  couldn't  recall  Greeley's  ever  sanctioning  the 
claim  that  he  had  done  more  than  give  an  early  approval 
to  the  selection  of  the  name  ** Republican"  and  secure 
its  general  adoption;  but  the  subject  excited  his  interest 
and  he  went  on  with  it,  caHing  in  the  aid  of  a  member 
of  The  Tribune's  editorial  staff,  Mr.  W.  L.  McPherson, 
who  followed  the  trail  as  far  as  it  could  be  traced.  Hay 
was  drawn  into  the  discussion  by  his  campaign  speech 
in  1904  on  "Fifty  Years  of  the  Republican  Party."  He 
believed  in  Greeley's  invention  of  the  name.  When  Cur- 
tis pubhshed  his  book  he  stated  the  conclusion  that 
"the  entire  credit  should  not  be  given  to  one  man.'* 
Reid  accepted  the  decision  as  sound,  but  in  an  editorial 
he  noted  that  an  examination  of  the  conflicting  claims 
developed  some  facts  of  very  general  interest.  For  the 
reader  of  our  political  history  that  interest  has  not  faded 
yet  and  it  is,  besides,  peculiarly  appropriate  that  I  should 
quote  in  this  narrative  the  salient  passages  in  the  sum- 
mary to  which  I  have  referred: 

It  can  be  easily  established  that,  whoever  first  suggested  the  party 
designation,  Mr.  Greeley  through  the  columns  of  The  Tribune  and 
in  private  correspondence,  did  more  than  any  one  else  to  secure  its 
general  acceptance.  The  testimony  on  this  point  is  incontroverti- 
ble. A.  N.  Cole,  of  Wellsville,  Alleghany  County,  recognized  as  the 
"Father  of  the  Republican  Party  in  New  York  State,'*  has  put  on 
record  the  fact  that  in  April,  1854,  when  he  was  engaged  in  organizing 
a  new  anti-slavery  party  in  Western  New  York,  he  wrote  to  Mr. 
Greeley,  asking  him  to  suggest  an  appropriate  party  name.     Mr, 


286         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Greeley's  reply  was  "Call  it  Republican,  no  prefix,  no  suffix,  but 
plain  Republican."  This  letter  was  published  in  Mr.  CoIe*s  news- 
paper, "The  Genesee  Valley  Free  Press."  But  neither  the  original 
letter  nor  a  copy  of  the  newspaper  issue  containing  it  had  been  pre- 
served, both  the  letter  and  the  files  of  the  newspaper  having  been 
destroyed  in  a  fire  which  occurred  in  Mr.  CoIe*s  office  in  1857.  In 
The  Tribune  Mr.  Greeley  did  not  use  the  title  Republican  until  June 
1 6th,  1854,  when  he  published  an  editorial  entitled  "Party  Names 
and  Public  Duty."     In  this  he  said: 

"Accepting  and  upholding  those  ideas  of  public  policy  which  used 
to  characterize  the  Whig  Party  prior  to  1852,  and  agreeing  substan- 
tially with  the  Free  Democratic  party  in  all  it  affirms  with  regard  to 
slavery,  we  could  wish  to  see  a  union  of  all  those  members  of  the 
two  parties  who  believe  resistance' to  the  extension  of  Slave  Territory 
and  Slave  Power  the  most  urgent  public  duty  of  our  day.  We  should 
not  much  care  whether  those  thus  united  were  designated  *Whig,' 
'Free  Democratic,'  or  something  else;  though  we  think  some  simple 
name  like  Republican  would  more  fitly  designate  those  who  have 
united  to  restore  our  union  to  its  true  mission  of  champion  and 
promulgator  of  Liberty,  rather  than  propagandist  of  Slavery." 

This  editorial  appeared  three  weeks  in  advance  of  the  "Under  the 
Oaks"  convention  at  Jackson,  Michigan,  which  incorporated  the 
title  "Republican"  into  its  platform.  It  also  antedated  all  the 
other  anti-Nebraska  or  "Republican"  State  Conventions  of  that 
year.  Mr.  Greeley  had  earlier  written  to  leaders  in  Michigan  urging 
the  use  of  the  new  party  designation. 

Especially  marking  Reid's  life  at  this  time  is  his  deep- 
ening interest  in  educational  matters.  At  Mrs.  Stan- 
ford's request  he  accepted  membership  on  the  board  of 
trustees  of  the  Californian  university  founded  in  mem- 
ory of  her  son.  Joseph  PuHtzer  asked  him  to  serve  on 
the  advisory  board  charged  with  the  framing  of  a  plan 
of  instruction  to  be  embodied  in  the  School  of  Journalism 
which  he  created  at  Columbia  University.  Reid  gave 
unstinted  aid  in  the  organization  of  this  project.  On  the 
Board  of  Regents  his  labors  were  increased  by  his  elec- 
tion as  vice-chancellor  in  December,  1902,  and  then  as 
chancellor  in  the  following  June.  To  be  thus  honored 
gave  him  a  satisfaction  that  nothing  else  could  quite 
touch.     I  would,  I  fear,  have  overburdened  these  pages 


RELATIONS  WITH   R<X)SEVELT  287 

if  I  had  recorded  all  the  matters  which  had  occupied  him 
on  the  board  since  he  was  first  elected  to  it  in  1878.  His 
influence  upon  it  was  both  conservative  and  progressive. 
He  was  an  unflinching  foe  of  the  "simplified  spelHng" 
which  at  one  time  tried  to  creep  under  the  aegis  of  the 
Regents,  and  the  principal  reform  to  which  he  long  gave 
his  eff'orts  was  one  which  time  has  only  confirmed.  It 
was  achieved,  finally,  in  the  year  of  his  coming  to  the 
chancellorship,  and,  indeed,  his  elevation  to  the  office 
might  be  regarded  as  in  some  sort  a  recognition  of  his 
constructive  work  on  the  board  itself  and  with  succes- 
sive governors,  confronted  by  legislative  measures  bear- 
ing on  the  subject.  Calhng  to  order  the  forty-second 
university  convocation  at  Albany,  the  first  as  he  saw 
it,  in  the  whole  history  of  the  Regents'  annual  meetings, 
he  said: 

This  convocation  follows  immediately  upon  the  unification  of  the 
State's  educational  system — the  end  of  strife  between  wrangling  de- 
partments and  a  controversy  over  divided  powers.  It  assembles  on 
the  call  of  the  constitutional  body  under  whose  supervising  care  the 
State  has  now  placed  the  whole  work;  and  signalizes  the  operation 
of  the  State's  decree  for  the  coordination  of  all  efforts,  public  and 
private,  tax  supported  or  not,  primary,  secondary  or  collegiate,  for 
the  prop)er  training  of  the  young  in  the  greatest  community  on  this 
continent,  one  free  commonwealth  of  eight  million  souls. 

He  exulted  in  the  reorganization  in  which  he  had 
shared,  as  an  officer  exults  over  a  successful  battle.  It 
may  be  doubted  if  he  was  any  prouder  of  his  transition 
from  the  editorship  of  the  Xenia  "News'*  to  that  of 
The  Tribune  than  he  was  of  that  from  the  little  school- 
house  at  Charlcstown  to  the  chancellorship  of  a  board 
governing  the  educational  system  of  his  adopted  State. 

On  the  Board  of  Regents  he  did  his  best  to  divorce  the 
educational  system  of  the  State  from  politics.  In  numer- 
ous public  addresses  he  gave  himself  to  a  kindred  task, 


288         THE  LIPE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

to  that  of  clarifying  political  thinking.  That  education 
was  incomplete,  he  incessantly  argued,  which  did  not 
embrace  cool,  dispassionate  reflection  on  politics;  and 
this  reflection,  in  his  opinion,  could  not  begin  too  early. 
He  advocated  it,  for  example,  before  the  students  at 
Vassar,  commending  to  them,  above  all,  the  steadying 
ideals  which  make  for  permanent  results.  President 
Woolsey  wrote  hira  from  New  Haven  with  approval  of 
the  stabilizing  influence  he  was  exerting.  "The  thought," 
he  says,  *'that  in  the  educated  young  woman  one  finds 
a  genuine  champion  of  conservatism,  is  true  and  valu- 
able." It  was  the  truer,  as  Reid  enforced  it,  because  it 
spelled  no  blind  dependence  on  the  lessons  of  the  past, 
but  implied  a  sane,  well-balanced  judgment  on  the 
present.  The  tendency,  then  current,  to  political  fickle- 
ness and  to  the  maddest  of  extremes,  he  castigated  with 
a  ruthless  hand.  In  his  commencement  address  before 
the  Law  School  at  Yale,  in  the  summer  of  1903,  he  ex- 
amined certain  old  principles  in  order  to  advocate  a 
more  enlightened  application  of  them.  He  traversed  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  in  the  light  of  common  sense,  depre- 
cating a  pedantic  interpretation  which  would  ignore 
changed  conditions.  Speaking  with  special  reference  to 
the  assassination  of  McKinley,  he  urged  on  this  occasion 
a  drastic  treatment  of  the  doctrine  of  anarchism.  He 
wanted  our  extradition  treaties  overhauled  and  cafled 
for  a  tightening  of  the  screws  in  international  law  which 
would  help,  in  a  measure  at  least,  to  throw  an  added 
protection  around  the  lives  of  public  men.  Through  all 
these  speeches  there  runs  as  a  familiar  undercurrent 
Reid's  refusal  to  accept  the  easy  doctrine  that  every- 
thing is  for  the  best  in  the  best  of  all  possible  worlds. 

A  good  illustration  of  his  sociological  criticism  is  pro- 
vided by  the  address  he  made  on  Founder's  Day  at 
Carnegie  Institute  in  Pittsburgh,  in  1902.     He  spoke  on 


RELATIONS  WITH   ROOSEVELT  289 

''Organization  in  American  Life,"  and,  speaking  just  as 
the  great  coal  strike  was  nearing  its  end,  he  uttered  an 
earnest  warning  against  the  dangers  inherent  in  any 
trade-unionism  that  threatened  to  smother  individual 
enterprise.  He  believed  in  organization  and  extolled  its 
virtues.  But  citing  the  kind  of  organization  that  is 
embodied  in  our  own  form  of  government,  he  pointed  out 
that  its  strength  resided  in  the  quality  of  man  it  devel- 
oped. Describing  our  historic  victory  over  the  wilder- 
ness, he  continued: 

To  such  a  continental  conquest  of  nature  and  of  men  have  those 
two  traits  of  the  fathers  brought  us — their  respect  for  authority  and 
their  widest  freedom  of  individual  initiative.  These,  with  the  origi- 
nal vigor  of  the  stock,  hav^e  made  Americans  what  they  are;  and  by 
consequence  have  made  this  blessed  country  of  ours  the  ioy  and 
pride  and  hope  of  our  lives.  To  harm  either  is  criminal — whether  to 
break  down  respect  for  authority  by  unlawful  combinations,  tricky 
evasions,  and  open  defiance  of  order,  or  to  cramp  the  widest  freedom 
of  the  individual  in  any  lawful  enterprise  or  labor  anywhere.  Who- 
ever or  whatever  now  dares  to  interfere  with  the  permanent  union 
of  these  two  traits  and  their  continued  development  in  the  American 
life  is  an  enemy  to  the  Republic — whether  known  as  Political  Boss, 
or  as  Trust,  or  as  Trades  Union. 

One  of  his  most  important  speeches  in  this  period  was 
delivered  at  the  dinner  of  the  New  England  Society  in 
New  York,  in  the  winter  of  1903.  He  dwelt  then  upon 
a  peril  as  great  as  that  which  is  latent  in  an  exaggeration 
of  trades-unionism,  the  peril  which  lies  in  unrestricted 
immigration.  I  cite  part  of  his  protest  against  the  men- 
ace which  must  always  engage  the  consideration  of  those 
who  give  serious  thought  to  the  problems  of  American 
life: 

For  seventeen  years  there  has  been  a  steady  decline  in  immigration 
from  the  lands  of  our  ancestors  and  of  their  kinsfolk — that  is  to  say 
from  England,  Scotland,  Ireland,  Wales,  Germany,  Denmark,  and 
Switzerland.     During  the  same  period  there  has  been  a  steady  and 


290         THE  LIFE  OF"  WHITELAW  REID 

progressive  increase  from  Italy,  Austria-Hungary,  Russia,  Spain, 
Portugal,  Greece,  Belgium,  Roumania,  etc.  And,  finally,  to  give  an 
analysis  by  races  rather  than  mere  nationalities,  28  per  cent  of  the 
whole  immigration  in  1902  was  Italian,  11  per  cent  of  it  was  Polish, 
9  per  cent  was  Hebrew,  and  15  per  cent  was  Slovak,  Croatian,  Sla- 
vonian, and  Magyar — these  races  thus  making  practically  two-thirds 
of  the  whole  immigration. 

We  have  emphatically  and  even  vociferously  made  everybody  else, 
from  all  over  the  world,  at  home  in  our  Fathers'  house.  But  as  we 
look  around  at  the  variegated  throng,  do  we  always  feel  just  as  much 
at  home  ourselves?  I  will  yield  to  none  in  reverence  to  our  ances- 
tors and  pride  in  the  work  they  did.  But  perhaps  even  these  ances- 
tors, viewing  now  from  above,  as  we  love  to  think,  these  scenes  of 
their  glorious  achievements,  might  be  better  pleased  with  imitation 
than  with  praise,  and  might  think  it  as  important  for  us  to  preserve 
their  work  as  to  glorify  it.  And  so  I  venture  to  take  the  past  for 
granted.  The  men  who  made  New  England  hold  securely  and  for- 
ever a  page  resplendent  as  any  in  the  world's  history.  The  govern- 
ment they  were  perhaps  the  most  potent  factors  in  founding  has 
developed  into  the  greatest  and  most  powerful  agency  in  modern 
civilization.     Let  us  leave  it  at  that. 

I  ask,  then,  consideration  of  something  different  and  more  pressing. 
Are  we,  their  sons,  managing  this  heritage  of  our  Fathers  so  as  to 
further  their  ends?  How  are  we  likely  to  leave  it  to  our  sons? 
Will  it  still  fulfil  the  purpose  of  those  great  men  who,  according  to 
the  eulogium  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  struck  out  at  one  blow  the  most  per- 
fect form  of  government  yet  devised  by  human  intelligence? 

A  common  notion  seems  to  be  that  their  real  purpose  in  starting 
this  government  was  a  missionary  one.  They  wanted,  as  our  stump 
orators  declaim,  with  unction,  "to  make  America  spell  Opportunity." 
So  interpreting  the  purpose  of  the  Fathers,  we  have  developed  a  con- 
tinent in  order  that,  first  of  all,  it  might  bestow  the  benefit  of  their 
and  our  labors,  in  the  shape  of  Opportunity,  on  the  just  and  the 
unjust,  on  the  fit  and  unfit,  of  every  class  and  race  and  nativity 
under  the  sun. 

The  variety  and  number  of  engagements  indicated  in 
the  last  few  pages  suggests  a  rather  narrow  margin  for 
Reid's  usual  political  interests,  and  they  became  engross- 
ing enough  around  the  date  of  the  Yale  address  to  make 
him,  thenceforth,  somewhat  chary  of  similar  undertak- 
ings. In  fact,  Roosevelt's  ante-convention  campaign  had 
begun  even  earlier.     In  June,    1902,   Republican  State 


RELATIONS  WITH  ROOSEVELT  291 

conventions  in  Kansas  and  Pennsylvania  passed  resolu- 
tions in  favor  of  his  selection  in  1904.  Stanwood,  in  his 
"History  of  the  Presidency,"  noting  the  fact,  adds  that 
**we  should  probably  have  to  go  as  far  back  as  the  time 
of  General  Jackson  to  cite  similar  action,  so  early  in  an 
administration,  in  favor  even  of  an  elected  President." 
The  settlement  of  the  coal  strike  widely  confirmed  the 
prestige  developed  by  sheer  force  of  personal  character, 
and  if  his  action  in  Panama  provoked  criticism  in  some 
quarters  it  did  Roosevelt  no  harm  with  the  country  at 
large.  Reid's  interest  in  this  matter  was  especially  keen. 
In  his  address  at  Yale  he  had  vigorously  emphasized 
what  he  believed  to  be  the  real  rights  conferred  by  our 
strength  and  our  leadership  on  this  continent  with  regard 
to  adjoining  territory  actually  within  our  sphere  of  in- 
fluence. He  was  not  unwilling  to  relax  the  scope  of  the 
Monroe  Doctrine  in  remoter  regions,  but  at  our  doors 
he  preached  its  fullest  possible  enforcement.  The  Gulf 
of  Mexico,  the  Caribbean  Sea,  and  the  waters  of  both 
oceans  about  the  Isthmus  he  held  to  be  absolutely  within 
our  sphere  of  influence,  and,  he  averred,  "they  must  be 
forever  dominated  by  the  great  Republic."  Fresh  from 
the  enunciation  of  this  belief  as  a  private  conviction  he 
cordiaHy  welcomed  the  opportunity  publicly  to  uphold 
the  President's  hands,  and  the  hearty  support  he  gave 
the  administration  is  illustrated  by  his  outline  of  edi- 
torial policy  sent  to  the  office  on  the  recognition  of  the 
republic  of  Panama: 

The  secession  of  Panama  was  the  natural  sequence  to  the  bare- 
faced hold-up  of  the  United  States  by  the  Colombian  Congress 
about  the  Canal.  It  is  absolutely  in  the  interest  of  Panama  and 
seems  to  have  originated  in  Panama.  Panama  has  no  close  connec- 
tion with  Colombia,  and  really  has  as  logical  a  reason  for  indepen- 
dence as  any  of  the  other  Central  American  States.  That  indepen- 
dence, however,  must  necessarily  be  modified  by  the  existing  rights 
and  obligations  of  the  United  States  for  the  preservation  of  order 


292         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

on  the  line  of  the  Panama  Railroad;  as  well  as  by  existing  obligations 
concerning  the  Panama  Canal.  It  is  also  probable  that  the  effort  to 
maintain  a  national  existence  separate  from  Colombia  would,  in  the 
long  run,  have  a  doubtful  chance  without  the  friendly  regard  of  the 
United  States.  -The  statesmen  at  Washington  should  seize  this 
situation.  The  recognition  of  the  de  Jacto  government  in  Panama, 
which  appears  to  be  natural,  if  not  inevitable  (unless  Colombia 
should  soon  show  unexpected  vigor)  should  recognize  in  distinct 
terms  the  actual  suzerainty  which  the  United  States  will  be  com- 
pelled to  exercise.  It  is  a  suzerainty  somewhat  similar  to  that  which 
the  inevitable  application  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine  in  the  countries 
actually  within  our  sphere  of  influence  must  ultimately  compel  us  to 
assume  with  reference  to  the  whole  region  of  the  Caribbean  Sea  and 
the  Gulf  of  Mexico — as  we  have  already  assumed  it  with  reference 
to  Cuba.  Let  us  have  it  now  embodied  in  unmistakable  terms  in 
any  recognition  of  the  new  Republic  through  whose  territory  we  are 
expected  to  construct  a  canal. 

The  Tribune  was  thus  ranged  conclusively  behind  the 
President,  and  in  a  private  letter  sent  a  day  or  two  later 
Reid  restated  his  adhesion  to  Roosevelt's  course.  "It 
looks  as  if  your  Panama  coup  would  be  overwhelmingly 
successful,*'  he  said.  "It  is  obviously  the  right  thing 
for  the  country,  which,  according  to  my  notion  as  you 
know,  has  the  right  to  assert  its  paramount  authority  at 
any  rate  in  any  great  emergency,  anywhere  in  the  region 
of  the  Caribbean  Sea  or  the  Gulf  of  Mexico.  That, 
nowadays  is  the  chief  use  of  the  Monroe  Doctrine!" 
He  had  no  fear  of  the  consequences  of  the  administra- 
tion's policy,  for  that,  he  felt,  was  rooted  in  the  essential 
bases  of  our  government.  Writing  to  Representative 
Gillett,  of  Massachusetts,  in  this  crisis,  he  says:  "I  hope 
we  may  agree  in  the  notion  that  the  general  policy  of  a 
Nation  cannot  be  altruistic,  but  that  its  statesmen,  at 
least,  are  bound  to  look  first  to  its  own  interests;  that  far 
from  there  being  anything  discreditable  in  this,  as  so 
many  of  the  sentimentalists  assume,  it  is  a  statesman's 
chief  duty.  At  this  moment,  for  example,  our  first  duty 
in  the  Isthmus  is  to  protect  the  interests  of  the  United 


RELATIONS  WITH   ROOSEVELT  293 

States  to  the  fullest  extent  consistent  with  international 
law.  That  in  the  end  this  will  result  in  a  practical  pro- 
tectorate over  the  Isthmus  I  cannot  doubt;  and  I  believe, 
in  the  end,  that  is  where  our  Monroe  Doctrine  is  going 
to  land  us  with  reference  to  the  whole  region  washed  by 
the  Caribbean  Sea  and  the  Gulf  of  Mexico." 

In  the  first  stages  of  preparation  for  the  presidential 
contest,  which  began,  as  I  have  indicated,  at  an  unusually 
early  date,  there  were  signs  of  opposition  to  Roosevelt 
within  as  well  as  without  the  party.  Writing  to  a  friend 
abroad  in  the  spring  of  1903,  Reid  mentioned  the  move- 
ment then  in  sight  to  bring  forward  Mark  Hanna  as  the 
RepubHcan  nominee.  "There  is  no  doubt,"  he  said, 
**that  most  of  the  politicians  and  some  important  finan- 
cial interests,  would  like  to  trip  Roosevelt  up  if  they 
could;  but  they  are  confronted  by  the  phenomenon  of 
his  unquestionable  and  apparently  increasing  popularity 
throughout  the  country,  and  particularly  in  the  West. 
The  very  things  which  make  the  politicians  hate  him  are 
the  things  which  increase  his  popularity;  and  it  may 
prove  that  the  state  machines  will  be  as  unable  to  resist 
the  popular  tendency  in  his  case  as  they  were  in  McKin- 
ley's."  The  ** important  financial  interests"  it  was  the 
particular  function  of  The  Tribune  to  combat,  and  it 
gave  short  shrift  to  '*the  small  but  determined  body  of 
people  who  think  that  a  candidate  whom  the  discom- 
fited promoters  in  Wall  Street  choose  to  blame  for  their 
misfortunes  must  be  defeated  for  renomination."  The 
failure  of  Seth  Low  to  win  in  the  mayoralty  campaign  in 
New  York  was  blindly  seized  upon  by  this  cabal  as  a 
sign  that  the  whole  country  was  against  Roosevelt.  Reid 
exposed  the  true  opposition  behind  such  silliness,  and 
the  President  thanked  him  for  his  editorial  aid.  It  was 
needed  aid.  **One  is  lonely  enough  in  the  New  York 
newspaper  field  at  present,"  Reid  had  occasion  to  write 


294         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

in  February,  1904,  **in  supporting  the  Administration/' 
In  his  loneliness  he  preserved  his  confidence  as  to  the 
outcome.  In  one  of  his  letters  there  is  an  amused  ref- 
erence to  "the  angry  politicians  and  capitalists  who  are 
vainly  hunting  around  for  escape  from  the  inexorable 
and  inevitable  Roosevelt.'*  He  enjoyed  their  discomfi- 
ture, cheerfully  adding  to  it  to  the  best  of  his  ability  in 
the  columns  of  his  paper.  I  may  pointedly  cite  here 
the  tribute  of  a  friend  who  was  one  of  his  strongest  Dem- 
ocratic opponents,  Joseph  Pulitzer.  "I  am  reading  The 
Tribune  here  with  pleasure,"  he  wrote  from  Aix-Ies-Bains, 
shortly  before  the  national  conventions.  *'I  prefer  its 
political  news  to  that  of  all  other  papers.  I  always  like 
to  see  the  other  side." 

The  Democratic  side,  at  this  juncture,  was  headed, 
under  the  adroit  management  of  Governor  D.  B.  Hill, 
toward  a  repudiation  of  Bryan  which  was  to  produce, 
however,  no  more  formidable  a  candidate  in  Judge  Alton 
B.  Parker.  Reid  pounced  like  a  hawk  upon  the  letter 
of  acceptance  framed  by  this  eminently  respectable  but, 
on  the  whole,  rather  weak  nominee.  Parker,  he  de- 
clared, did  not  dare  to  say  a  word  on  the  gold  stand- 
ard beyond  the  recognition  of  existing  statutes  he  had 
allowed  himself  in  a  telegram  sent  to  St.  Louis  during 
the  convention.  He  did  not  dare  to  adopt  the  **  Eve- 
ning Post's"  hostility  to  the  tariff,  commit  himself  to  a 
revenue  for  tariff  only,  or  even  to  a  square  demand 
for  any  basis  of  reduction.  He  did  not  dare  to  commit 
himself  to  giving  up  the  Philippines,  or,  indeed,  to 
go  in  that  direction  one  iota  beyond  President  Roose- 
velt's position.  These  were  only  a  few  of  the  multitude 
of  awkward  questions  with  which  Reid  found  the  letter 
bristling,  and  he  marvelled  at  the  Democratic  pohcy 
which  had  put  forward  this  candidate.  "What  a  con- 
fidence game  Hill  played  at  St.  Louis,"  he  wrote  to  Hay, 
"and  what  a  gold   brick  the   bucolic  southerners  and 


RELATIONS  WITH  ROOSEVELT  295 

hay-seed  westerners  bought !"  It  did  not  seem  too  hard 
a  task  to  bring  this  edifying  transaction  to  naught. 
Earlier  in  the  year,  before  either  of  the  conventions  had 
been  held,  the  "important  financial  interests"  had  been, 
as  I  have  shown,  trying  to  make  trouble.  **Some  of 
these  men,"  Reid  wrote  to  Roosevelt,  "find  it  hard  to 
realize  that  money  doesn't  do  everything,  and  that  they 
can't  always  have  their  own  way.  It  is  still  harder  for 
some  of  them,  even  after  intellectually  convinced  that 
they  have  at  no  time  had  any  real  grievance,  to  admit 
it  to  themselves.  I  think  that  to  be  the  present  mental 
attitude  of  a  good  many  who  were  most  angered  some 
months  ago  about  the  coal  strike,  the  Northern  Securi- 
ties, and  certain  trivialities  like  Negro  appointments, 
etc."  But  even  at  this  point  he  observed  a  marked 
change  in  the  political  tide,  a  change  growing  more 
decisive  every  week,  and  he  could,  for  example,  quote 
to  his  correspondent  the  heartfelt  exclamation  of  one 
exalted  member  of  the  discontented  Wall  Street  crowd: 
"Unless  the  President  should  be  a  darn  fool  now,  he  has 
everything  his  own  way  and  will  win  hands  down."  It 
was  a  safe  prophecy.  The  public  temper  everywhere 
was  all  the  time  making  plainer  the  success  of  "the  in- 
exorable and  inevitable  Roosevelt."  Neither  Hanna  nor 
Spooner  nor  anybody  else  could  have  kept  the  nomina- 
tion from  him  in  1904.  There  was  some  manoeuvring 
over  the  vice-presidency.  In  February  Elkins  wrote 
Reid  that  he  was  being  pressed  in  many  quarters  to  be- 
come a  candidate  and  asked  his  advice.  Reid  counselled 
him  to  stay  where  he  was,  in  the  Senate.  He  himself 
favored  the  selection  of  Elihu  Root  and  suggested  it  to 
the  President.  Roosevelt  had  a  leaning  toward  "Uncle 
Joe"  Cannon.  There  was  general  satisfaction,  however, 
with  the  choice  ultimately  made,  that  of  Charles  W. 
Fairbanks,  of  Indiana. 
The  ticket  was  enthusiastically  adopted  at  Chicago 


296         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

in  June,  and  the  campaign  was  launched  with  every 
presage  of  victory.  Reid  had  in  June  to  make  one  more 
address,  the  chancellor's  speech  at  Albany  to  which  I 
have  referredrbut  there  were  no  further  interruptions  to 
his  work  in  the  political  field.  Following  his  practice  of 
seeking  the  counsel  of  friends  as  to  his  public  utterances, 
Roosevelt  sent  him  copies  of  his  speech  to  the  notifica- 
tion committee  and  his  letter  of  acceptance.  Reid  had 
a  few  suggestions  to  make  on  both  documents,  but  re- 
joiced in  their  abounding  vitality.  He  drew  potent 
ammunition  from  them  in  the  course  of  the  campaign 
and  his  private  letters  breathe  a  stalwart  faith  in 
the  upshot.  "I  can't  persuade  myself,"  he  wrote  to 
Hay,  "that  there  can  be  any  serious  doubt  about  the 
final  judgment  of  the  American  people  in  November 
upon  the  higgledy-piggledy  nondescript  array  of  Fal- 
staffian  soldiers  attacking  the  Administration."  It  was 
always  his  way,  to  be  sure,  to  commend  the  wisdom  of 
waiting  for  any  decision  until  the  votes  were  counted, 
and  not  even  his  scorn  of  the  Democratic  ticket  could 
keep  him  from  reckoning  on  untoward  possibihties.  He 
didn't  overlook  the  malcontents  in  his  own  party,  nor 
was  he  indifferent  to  the  mischief-making  capacities  of 
the  Mugwumps.  In  New  York  State,  too,  he  was  ner- 
vous over  the  nature  of  the  various  candidacies  discussed 
for  the  governorship.  Since  Root  hadn't  been  chosen 
for  the  vice-presidency  he  wanted  him  to  run  for  governor 
in  his  own  State,  and  was  worried  over  the  fixity  of  the 
secretary  of  war's  refusal.  It  was  his  habit  to  fight  hard- 
est, however,  when  the  horizon  w^as  at  all  clouded,  and 
The  Tribune  was  never  more  gleefully  aggressive,  to 
Roosevelt's  huge  delight.  "I  think  you  have  done  up 
the  'World'  and  the  *  Times'  completely,"  he  wrote 
apropos  of  one  smashing  blow,  and  their  correspondence 
reveals  no  discouragement.     Even  as  he  noted  the  wave 


RELATIONS  WITH   ROOSEVELT  297 

of  despondency  which  touched  the  party  in  New  York 
— and  not  there  alone — in  October,  and  watched  with 
apprehension  the  struggle  for  the  governorship,  Reid 
remained  convinced  that  Roosevelt  would  carry  the 
State  by  a  handsome  majority.  Discounting  his  own  so- 
licitude, he  wrote  to  the  President:  **I  am  reminded  of 
an  old  saying  of  Gen.  Grant's.  He  admitted  having  been 
somewhat  alarmed  about  the  prospect  on  the  evening 
before  a  certain  battle,  but  said  he  afterwards  discov- 
ered that  the  opposing  general  was  worse  scared  at  the 
same  time  and  had  more  reason  to  be."  Senator  Chan- 
dler, writing  the  day  before  election,  and  assuming  that 
the  Republicans  were  to  have  an  overw^helming  victory, 
discreetly  added:  **There  will  be,  of  course,  a  few  small- 
sized  surprises."  There  were.  One  of  them,  over  the 
size  of  which  no  one  was  disposed  to  waste  any  time  with 
a  measuring-stick,  it  was  so  peculiarly  welcome  on  any 
terms,  was  the  election  of  Governor  Higgins,  the  Repub- 
lican candidate.  He  won  on  his  merits  and  he  shared, 
besides,  in  the  momentum  of  what  Reid  described,  in  his 
telegram  of  congratulations  to  Roosevelt,  as  **an  unparal- 
leled popular  endorsement." 

The  President,  in  thanking  Reid,  expressed  warm  ap- 
preciation of  all  that  he  had  done  in  this  campaign. 
What  he  had  done  possessed,  as  I  have  pointed  out  at 
the  opening  of  this  chapter,  a  special  significance.  It 
marked  the  conclusion  of  a  lifetime  of  editorial  service 
to  the  Republican  party,  of  long  participation  in  the 
great  game  of  President-making,  of  unremitting  activity 
in  national.  State,  and  local  politics.  The  record  as  I 
have  endeavored  to  outline  it,  stretching  from  Lincoln  to 
Roosevelt,  is  far  richer,  I  think  the  reader  will  admit,  in 
victory  than  defeat.  It  is  a  party  record,  and  as  such  it 
has  been  unreservedly  traversed  in  these  pages.  White- 
law  Reid  himself  never  considered  it  in  any  other  light. 


298         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

The  role  of  party  man,  if  it  needed  any  sanction  at  all, 
received  it  conclusively  enough,  in  his  opinion,  from 
Abraham  Lincoln,  of  whom  he  said  in  his  address  at  the 
University  of  Birmingham :  *'He  was  an  ardent  partisan, 
and  the  most  skilful  master  of  men,  and  of  all  the  intrica- 
cies of  the  game  of  politics,  known  in  his  state."  But  in 
any  estimate  of  Reid's  work  for  the  political  organization 
with  which  he  was  identified,  just  consideration  of  the 
independence  which  I  have  shown  as  his  leading  char- 
acteristic must  tend  to  a  certain  discrimination  in  ter- 
minology. He  remains  an  Exponent  of  the  Republican 
party.  But  in  a  larger  sense  he  remains  more  signifi- 
cantly an  exponent  of  Republican  ideas. 


CHAPTER  XVI 
AMBASSADOR  TO  ENGLAND 

The  expectation  that  Whitelaw  Reid  would  be  sent 
to  England  as  the  ambassador  of  the  United  States 
dated  from  a  time  prior  to  McKinley's  first  inaugura- 
tion. If  it  was  not  immediately  revived  when  Roose- 
velt entered  the  White  House  it  was  because,  as  has 
been  noted  in  a  previous  chapter,  the  new  President  was 
resolved  to  disturb  as  little  as  possible  the  arrangements 
made  by  his  predecessor.  That  the  appointment  was  in 
his  mind,  however,  he  intimated  some  time  before  his 
own  election,  and  following  on  that  event  Reid  heard 
from  several  friends  of  Roosevelt's  determination  in  the 
matter.  By  that  time  political  conditions  had  ceased  to 
exercise  the  obstructive  influences  operative  in  McKin- 
ley's administration.  Hay,  of  course,  knew  all  about 
it,  and  leaving  Washington  for  a  few  days,  just  as  the 
Reids  were  coming  on  to  lunch  with  the  President,  he 
wrote  these  afi*ectionate  words: 

Department  of  State, 

Washington, 

njr  7^  January  6,  1005. 

My  dear  Reid:  j    >    y  :> 

I  am  afraid  we  shall  pass  each  other  on  the  train  to-day  and  I  will 

therefore  not  have  the  chance  of  seeing  you  before  Tuesday.     I  have 

refrained  from  saying  anything  to  you  about  a  matter  which,  as  you 

know,  is  very  near  to  my  heart,  wishing  to  leave  the  President  the 

pleasure  of  talking  to  you  first,  but  I  cannot  help  telling  you  with 

what  long-Iooked-for  delight  I  shall  countersign  your  commission  as 

Ambassador  to  England.     When  that  is  done  I  shall  feel  like  intoning 

my  nunc  dimittis.     It  will  be  the  crowning  act  of  a  friendship  and 

close  association  of  forty  years.     This  for  the  personal  side  of  it, 

299 


300        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

without  referring  just  now  to  the  great  and  lasting  advantage  to 

our  interests  and  to  our  honor  and  prestige  abroad  which  will  come 

from  your  Embassy.     Mrs.  Hay  joins  me  in  affectionate  regards  to 

Mrs.  Reid,  and  I  am  always,       r-  •  t  r  n 

Faithfully  yours.         j^^^  j^^^_ 

Among  the  first  to  congratulate  him  was  Ambassador 
Choate,  who  wrote,  indeed,  before  the  official  announce- 
ment was  made.  "So  far  as  I  have  learned,"  he  said, 
"no  other  man  has  even  been  thought  of  for  the  place, 
and  that  seems  to  be  well  understood  here  so  that  the 
English  people  will  take  to  ypu  at  once,  and  in  earnest. 
With  your  large  and  varied  experience  in  public  ques- 
tions, your  diplomatic  record,  and  the  important  part 
you  took  in  making  the  last  great  Treaty  that  changed 
the  map  of  the  world,  your  complete  success  may  be 
foretold.''  The  commission  which  Hay  was  so  keen 
upon  countersigning  was  dated  March  8th,  when  Reid 
was  in  California,  and  he  planned  for  an  early  saifing  on 
his  return  to  the  East;  but  Mr.  Choate  received  an  ex- 
tension of  time,  in  order  that  he  might  personally  dedi- 
cate his  memorial  window  to  John  Harvard,  in  St. 
Saviour's  Church,  and  his  letter  of  recall  was  not  pre- 
sented until  May  23d.  In  the  interim  Reid  effected  his 
formal  retirement  from  the  management  of  The  Trib- 
une, settled  his  business  affairs,  and  attended  more  than 
one  compfimentary  dinner.  Apropos  of  his  farewell  to 
journalism,  which  was  to  prove  even  more  conclusive 
than  he  knew  at  the  time,  there  are  some  interesting  pas- 
sages in  a  letter  of  his  to  the  President : 

Here  is  the  httle  paragraph  which  was  printed  at  the  head  of  the 
editorial  columns  on  April  20th,  1889:  "Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid,  having 
taken  office  under  the  Government,  retires  herewith  from  the  editor- 
ship and  direction  of  The  Tribune."  Before  printing  this  I  consulted 
with  Mr.  Blaine  and  Gen.  Harrison  on  the  subject,  and  they  both 
thought  it  correct  and  ample.  I  should  think  of  doing  something 
of  the  same  sort  now,  and  of  so  organizing  the  paper  that  it  would 


AMBASSADOR  TO  ENGLAND  301 

run  absolutely  without  direction  or  responsibility  on  my  part  during 
my  absence.  The  question  whether  I  ought  at  the  same  time  to 
divest  myself  of  the  ownership  was  raised  in  my  talk  with  Mr.  Blaine 
and  the  President,  and  they  laughed  at  the  idea — saying,  as  I  recall 
it,  that  I  might  as  well  be  asked  to  part  with  bank  stock  or  railway 
shares. 

The  publication  of  a  paper  Hke  The  Tribune  in  competition  with 
copper  miners,  railway  owners  and  others  who  think  it  an  advantage 
to  their  business  to  run  a  newspaper  and  sell  it  below  the  cost  of 
manufacture,  is  not  in  itself  a  very  alluring  business  proposition  while 
the  one-cent  craze  continues  to  prevail.  But  I  have  long  looked  upon 
my  ownership  of  The  Tribune  as  a  sort  of  trust,  and  should  not  feel 
at  liberty  to  divest  myself  of  it  without  trying  to  insure  its  continuing 
to  stand  for  good  morals,  good  citizenship  and  the  public  policies 
with  which  the  country  has  learned  to  identify  it.  If  in  office  I 
should  not  assume  to  direct  it;  but  I  should  be  sure  its  general  course 
would  not  depart  from  these  established  lines  during  my  absence. 

There  were  rumors  afloat,  at  the  moment,  of  offers  to 
purchase  The  Tribune.  Discrediting  these,  Reid  ex- 
plained to  the  President  that  so  far  from  thinking  of  sell- 
ing, he  was  only  waiting  for  his  son  to  be  graduated  from 
the  Law  School  at  Yale  to  take  up  the  question  of  ulti- 
mately putting  the  paper  in  his  charge,  the  plan  which 
was  fulfilled  when  Ogden  Reid,  after  a  period  on  the 
staff,  assumed  the  editorship  in  191 3. 

At  dinners  given  to  him  in  May  by  the  Lotos  and 
Republican  Clubs,  Reid  made  the  speeches  which  will 
be  found  in  his  '* American  and  English  Studies"  out- 
lining the  diplomatic  point  of  view  which  he  carried  with 
him  on  his  mission.  In  speaking  at  the  annual  banquet 
of  the  St.  George's  Society  he  gave  expression  to  the 
Anglo-American  sympathy  which  it  had  become  his  func- 
tion oflicially  to  promote,  and  London  comments  pre- 
figured an  appreciative  welcome  for  him  there.  In  a 
private  letter  to  Professor  Woolsey,  at  Yale,  the  mood 
underlying  all  his  public  remarks  on  the  eve  of  his  de- 
parture is  concisely  stated:  **Your  congratulations  give 
a  great  pleasure,  but  inspire  also  a  great  sobriety.     To 


302         THE   LIFE  OF'  WHITELAW  REID 

attain  worthily  the  aspirations  we  both  cherish  as  to  the 
relation  of  the  two  great  English  speaking  countries  is, 
as  you  say,  well  worth  any  man's  ambition.  Merely  to 
help  and  never  hinder  in  such  attainment  by  others  is 
an  ambition  high  enough  to  make  it  sure  that  whoever 
takes  up  the  work  will  naturally,  if  successful,  lay  it 
down  again  with  a  far  lighter  heart/' 

He  sailed  with  his  family  on  May  27th  and  reached 
London  to  be  swept  immediately  into  the  thick  of  diplo- 
matic activities.  Their  home  was  ready  for  them  in 
Dorchester  House,  which  through  the  intervention  of 
friends  had  been  secured  on  lease  from  Major  Holford. 
Its  status  among  the  larger  houses  of  London  was  not 
calculated  to  lessen  its  dignity  as  the  residence  of  the 
American  ambassador,  but  there  are  always  some  com- 
mentators impossible  to  satisfy,  and  in  this  case  there 
were  a  number  who  feared  that  dignity  might  be  carried 
too  far.  With  this  gratuitous  assumption  the  Reids  had 
naturally  no  concern,  especially  as  their  environment  in 
London  was  in  no  essential  an  enlargement  upon  their 
environment  in  New  York,  and  there  would  be  ordinarily 
no  occasion  for  reference  to  the  matter  here.  But  the 
housing  of  our  diplomatic  representatives  abroad  has 
always  been  a  subject  of  public  discussion,  and  it  is  not 
inapposite  to  show  how  the  criticisms  aforesaid  struck 
persons  vitally  concerned  with  the  government  of  the 
United  States. 

The  secretary  of  state,  at  the  outset,  when  Raid  was 
negotiating  for  a  house,  confirmed  his  judgment  that 
the  best  was  good  enough  for  us  when  devoted  to  the 
service  of  the  American  Government  and  people.  John 
Hay  strongly  recommended  Dorchester  House.  The 
President's  views  are  too  Rooseveltian  in  themselves  and 
throw  too  refreshing  a  light  on  the  whole  problem  to  be 
omitted : 


AMBASSADOR  TO  ENGLAND  303 

T!i«  Ulirte  House. 

Wasiiiiigtioo, 

,,  \r       i  MIovaiiber  13,  1905- 

My  dear  ^iK,  Ambassador:  ^   ^^-^ 

As  for  tiiose  aiiidsuis  iqpoa  jonr  method  of  fife — dD  I  liapc  is  that 
tlii^  bodier  yoa  as  fittk  as  tbe^  bodies- me.  I  think  a  man  sfaould 
five  in  soch  a  posidon  as  he  has  been  aocostomed  to  fi¥eL  It  is  as  it 
is  with  m J  Cabinet  facie.  If  I  found  jost  the  light  man  for  a  gjiicn 
Cabinet  position  and  he  hai^iaied  to  be  a  poor  man,  I  should  not  in 
the  least  cifafect  to  his  filing  in  the  hafl  bedniom  of  a  boaidmg  hooscL 
On  the  contraiy,  I  shoold  be  rather  plrasfd  at  it.  Qa  the  other 
hand,  as  Root  can  affoid  a  big  boose  and  can  afford  to  entertain,  I 
think  it  woold  be  rather  diafafasr,  rather  mean,  if  he  fived  in  a  way 
that  would  be  quite  pnqxr  for  odbos — that  wonU,  for  ™<taiwfw%  be 
quite  proper  for  me  if  I  were  in  the  Cabinet.  I  never  fed  in  the 
least  embarrassed  becansc  at  Sagamore  HiD,  at  m j  onm  house;  we 
have  a  maid  to  wait  on  the  table  and  open  the  door,  instrad  of  haiF- 
ing  a  butler.  I  should  fed  nothing  but  scornful  amusement  for  any 
man  who  felt  that  sndi  method  of  fiving  was  inqvoper  for  a  Presideiit 
or  a  Cabinet  officer;  but  I  shoold  have  aaclly  the  same  feefii^  for 
the  ditic  who  objected  to  a  lich  man  who  was  doiqg  his  full  duty 
fiving  as  he  had  the  light  to  five. 

This  is  sinqily  an  ^ipGcation  of  the  doctrine  that  I  am  trying  to 
preach  to  my  countiymcn  every  day,  and  which  is  the  cfirect  i excise 
of  the  doctrine  preached  by  fool  revolutionists  like  Maxim  Gor^. 
Ophir  HaD  is  as  different  from  Sagamore  HHI  as  Sagamore  H3I  is 
diffacMl  from  the  house  of  Captain  Joe-B3i  Underhfll,  the  bayman, 
and  a  brother  member  of  mine  in  Matineoock  Lodge  of  MasonsL 
My  creed  is  that  it  would  be  quite  as  criminal  for  the  owner  of  the 
big  house  to  look  down  upon  the  owner  of  the  middle-sized  house 
as  for  the  latter  to  look  down  upon  the  owner  of  the  smaD  house; 
and  00  the  other  hand  exactly  as  criminal  to  fed  jealousy  on  the 
asffinfing  scale  as  arrogance  on  the  dcsoendiog  scale;  whfle  it  would 
be  a  piece  of  utter  demagogic  sflfiness  for  you  to  five  as  I  live  or  for 
me  to  five  as  Captam  Joe-Bfll  lived.  And  no  man  has  the  spirit  of 
Americanism  in  him  who  would  be  guiky  of  soch  silfines& 

Dmcaeiy  yours,       Theodore  Roose\^j.t. 

The  first  days  in  Londoa  coincided  with  the  \Tsit  of 
.\Ifonso  XIII  to  the  court,  and  this  meant  the  swiftest 
possible  assumption  of  duties.  The  Reids  armed  in 
time  for  dinner  on  Saturday  night,  only  about  a  day 
before  the  functions  for  the  Spanish   King  beg^m — at 


304         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

every  one  of  which  it  was  peculiarly  the  obligation  of  the 
American  ambassador  to  be  present,  in  order  that  there 
should  be  no  shadow  of  suspicion  that  he  was  not  paying 
proper  respect  to  the  monarch  against  whom  the  United 
States  had  waged  war  at  a  comparatively  recent  date. 
Reid  had  immediate  notice  that  the  usual  call  at  the 
Foreign  Office  would  be  waived  and  that,  instead,  Lord 
Lansdowne  expected  to  see  him  informally  at  his  own 
house  on  Sunday  morning.  When  he  went  there  the 
foreign  minister  at  once  told  him  that  the  King  expected 
to  have  him  present  his  credentials  and  introduce  his 
staff  at  Buckingham  Palace  on  Monday  morning.  When 
he  got  there  the  King  said  that  Mrs.  Reid  and  their 
daughter  were  up-stairs  with  the  Queen,  and  that  as 
soon  as  the  formalities  were  over  he  was  expected  to 
join  them.  He  left  the  palace  just  in  time  to  start  on  a 
breakneck  race  around  the  different  embassies  to  make 
the  essential  calls,  and  the  following  morning,  only  a 
little  while  after  breakfast,  he  had  to  be  in  the  line  of 
ambassadors  at  Buckingham  Palace  for  the  reception 
given  to  them  by  the  King  of  Spain.  There  was  a  state 
banquet  that  night  at  the  palace,  and  the  next  night 
Lord  Lansdowne  gave  a  dinner  to  the  King  of  Spain. 
Thus  the  royal  festivities  rushed  on,  coming  to  a  climax 
on  the  14th  in  a  garden-party  at  Windsor.  The  new 
ambassador's  letters  described  them  as  constituting  a 
dizzy  whirl.  For  a  serious  subject  to  be  discussed  as 
soon  as  the  ceremonies  began,  Reid  had  been  prepared 
by  a  cable  handed  to  him  as  he  had  reached  the  Lizard: 
**Togo  annihilated  Russian  fleet  in  Corea  Straits,  cap- 
turing six  and  sinking  thirteen.  Japanese  losses  trifling." 
His  first  diplomatic  duty  in  London  was  to  talk  of  peace. 
On  the  day  that  he  was  presenting  his  credentials  to  the 
King,  President  Roosevelt  was  writing  him:  "Togo's 
smashing   of  Rojestvensky   was   so   complete   that   the 


AMBASSADOR  TO   ENGLAND  305 

Russian  case  is  absolutely  hopeless.  I  should  be  sorry 
to  see  Russia  driven  out  of  East  Asia,  and  driven  out 
she  surely  will  be  if  the  war  goes  on.  Accordingly  I  have 
urged  her  to  let  me  propose  to  both  combatants  that 
they  meet  and  negotiate  for  peace.  Germany  has  sup- 
ported and  I  think  France  will  support  this  plea  of  mine." 
By  cabling  Reid  to  get  from  Lord  Lansdowne  the  sub- 
stance of  a  despatch  sent  by  Sir  Mortimer  Durand  from 
Washington,  he  put  the  American  ambassador  promptly 
in  possession  of  the  opening  steps  taken  toward  the 
Portsmouth  Conference. 

In  the  course  of  the  evening  at  Lord  Lansdowne's  din- 
ner Reid  had  a  long  conversation  with  the  King,  which 
the  latter  began  by  intimating  that  information  would 
soon  reach  him  through  his  own  channels  as  to  the  dis- 
position of  the  Czar  to  accept  representations  from  the 
President  concerning  the  importance  of  making  peace. 
His  Majesty  thought  the  best  mode  of  commencement 
had  been  adopted  and  expressed  his  gratification,  with 
hopes  for  an  early  settlement.  In  this  and  in  further 
meetings  with  both  exalted  and  lesser  personages  Reid 
was  impressed  by  the  English  good-will  which  was  to 
persist  throughout  his  long  mission.  ** There  is  no  mis- 
taking," he  wrote  to  the  President,  *'the  absolute  deter- 
mination of  the  Government  and  of  the  Royal  Family 
to  embrace  ever\'  opportunity  to  show  their  marked 
friendship  for  the  United  States.  I  think,  however,  that 
they  regard  the  whole  European  situation  at  the  present 
moment  as  critical  in  the  extreme  and  are  exceedingly 
careful  about  every  new  move."  The  trouble  in  the 
East,  for  example,  was  rendered  the  more  delicate  by 
England's  relations  with  Japan.  Morocco,  too,  was  a 
source  of  anxiety,  threatening,  as  it  was,  every  day  in 
the  summer  of  1905,  to  develop  into  a  positive  storm 
centre,  thanks  to  the  Kaiser's  ill-considered  intersention. 


3o6         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

An  important  task  of  Reid's,  pending  the  assembling  of 
the  Portsmouth  Conference,  was  the  ascertainment  of 
precisely  what  England's  view  was — whether,  to  put  it 
bluntly,  she  peally  wished  peace  or  not.  Lord  Lans- 
downe  at  once  eased  the  tension  on  this  point,  explaining 
that  of  course  the  idea  would  be  most  abhorrent  to  them 
of  doing  anything  that  might  tend  to  prolong  bloodshed. 
At  the  same  time  they  did  not  feel  like  exerting  anything 
like  pressure  on  Japan,  especially  at  a  moment  when  the 
Japanese  terms  had  not  been  disclosed.  Reid's  despatch 
brought  welcome  light  to  the  President,  who  was  growing 
meanwhile  ** nearly  mad"  in  the  efforts  to  get  Russia 
and  Japan  together.  Japan  had  a  right,  he  thought,  to 
ask  a  good  deal;  he  did  not  think  her  demands  excessive; 
but  Russia  he  found  difficult,  with  a  government  that 
was  such  an  amorphous  affair  that  they  really  did  not 
know  what  they  wanted. 

The  Russian  attitude  was  extraordinarily  trying.  For 
about  two  years,  both  in  war  and  in  peace,  as  Roosevelt 
expressed  it,  they  had  been  acting  in  the  spirit  of  the 
later  Byzantine  Empire.  In  conversation  with  Balfour 
on  the  subject,  Reid  found  that  statesman  sympathizing 
most  cordially  with  the  views  of  the  President  of  the 
United  States,  especially  with  his  conviction  that  Rus- 
sian pohcy  was  as  unstable  as  water.  Balfour  was 
representative  of  the  British  disposition  to  go  slow  in 
the  matter  of  interfering  with  Japan.  Reid  discussed 
with  him  a  letter  of  the  President's,  citing  especially 
Roosevelt's  argument  that  since  the  Japanese  did  not 
want  East  Siberia,  but  would  regard  its  acquisition  as 
a  disadvantage,  it  seemed  to  him  that  it  would  be  wise 
for  England  to  get  them  to  abate  any  demand  for  an 
indemnity  down  to  the  point  where  it  was  obviously 
Russia's  duty  to  give  it.  "Yes,"  said  Balfour,  '*but 
still  one  would  li^e  to  have  that  *  point'  translated  into 


AMBASSADOR  TO  ENGLAND  307 

pounds,  shillings  and  pence/'  The  choice  for  a  Jap- 
anese statesman,  Roosevelt  indicated  to  Reid  as,  in  his 
opinion,  being  between  two  courses.  Should  Japan  en- 
deavor to  drive  the  Russians  completely  off  the  Pacific 
coast  and  out  of  East  Siberia,  west  to  Lake  Baikal,  or 
should  they  simply  drive  them  out  of  Manchuria  and 
Corea,  take  Saghalien  from  them,  and  leave  them  East 
Siberia?  By  adoption  of  the  second  course  the  Japa- 
nese would  gain  a  certain  security  for  Russia's  good  be- 
havior in  the  future,  inasmuch  as  they  would  thus  leave 
them  at  the  mercy  of  a  forward  movement  by  Japanese 
armies  gathered  in  Manchuria.  .Reid's  correspondence 
is  a  kind  of  mirror  of  all  manner  of  interesting  views  on 
this  whole  matter  of  policy.  At  Ascot  the  King  con- 
fidentially suggested  to  him  that  it  might  be  a  good  idea 
for  Japan  to  take  Vladivostok,  and  restore  it  to  Russia 
after  the  war  with  a  magnanimous  gesture.  Roosevelt 
could  hardly  agree  with  this.  He  deprecated  the  idea, 
maintaining  that  it  would  be  spending  blood  and  trea- 
sure unnecessarily.  What  would  really  happen,  too,  he 
thought,  was  that  if  the  Japanese  took  Vladivostok  they 
would  only  give  it  back  in  exchange  for  something  they 
wanted  more,  such  as  a  big  indemnity. 

There  is  a  sudden  and  bitter  break  in  Reid's  personal 
associations  marked  in  his  correspondence  at  this  time, 
when  the  despatches  he  sends  from  London  are  no  longer 
addressed  to  John  Hay.  One  of  them,  bearing  his 
name,  is  dated  as  late  as  June  i6th,  the  day  after  Hay 
had  reached  New  York  at  the  end  of  a  brief  sojourn 
abroad  for  the  benefit  of  his  health.  He  died  at  his 
summer  home  in  New  Hampshire  on  July  ist.  The  blow 
was  the  more  staggering  to  Reid  because  it  had  been 
undreamed  of  when  they  had  met  less  than  a  month 
before  in  England.  Hay  was  settled  for  a  few  days  at 
Claridge's  when  Reid  landed  to  take  up  his  post.     He 


3o8         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

sent  to  Dorchester  House  one  of  those  characteristic  greet- 
ings which  told  of  the  deep  friendship  between  them. 
"There  is  not  much  left  of  me,"  he  said,  "but  I  shall 
be  glad  and  proud  to  see  you,  where  I  have  long  desired 
to  see  you,  in  a  place  you  will  not  only  fill  but  adorn." 
Their  happy  talks  together  were  marred  by  no  presage 
of  the  end.  On  the  contrary,  all  that  Reid  saw  of  Hay 
in  those  few  days  before  the  secretary's  sailing  for  Amer- 
ica gave  him  not  only  the  liveliest  hopes  but  every  con- 
fidence in  the  recovery  of  his  friend.  It  was  the  feeling 
of  all  the  members  of  their  circle  in  London.  Hay's 
eldest  daughter,  Mrs.  Payne  Whitney,  was  on  the  ocean 
on  the  way  to  England  when  he  died.  She  had  left  him 
well  and  in  the  highest  spirits.  When  the  news  of  the 
end  came  Reid  read  it  with  streaming  eyes  and  a  heart 
immeasurably  stirred.  The  intimacy  between  them  had 
begun  in  their  young  manhood  and  it  had  lasted,  un- 
clouded by  a  single  shadow,  for  over  forty-three  years. 
In  the  course  of  this  narrative  I  have  given  numerous 
instances  of  the  perfect  sympathy  existing  between  them, 
of  the  instinctive  impulse  by  which  each  was  constantly 
moved  to  turn  to  the  other  in  the  handling  and  discus- 
sion of  public  affairs.  From  the  days  of  their  encounters 
at  Washington,  when  Hay  was  Lincoln's  private  secretary 
and  Reid  was  a  correspondent,  through  their  journalistic 
collaboration  in  New  York,  and  afterward  in  campaigns 
and  other  political  activities,  their  minds  ran  in  perfect 
unison,  moving  as  though  by  a  common  understanding 
through  the  same  fields.  Hay  had  spent  far  more  of  his 
life  than  Reid  had  in  public  office,  but,  looking  back 
over  their  comradeship,  Reid  could  not  remember  a  year 
of  it  in  which,  in  one  way  or  another,  they  had  not  been 
allied  in  public  service.  Time  had  welded  their  abilities 
in  the  support  of  a  cause,  and  it  had  welded  their  hearts 
in  a  happy  afi'ection. 


AMBASSADOR  TO   ENGLAND  309 

Reid  was  moved  by  the  evidences  of  English  sym- 
pathy which  poured  into  Dorchester  House,  the  mes- 
sages from  the  King,  his  foreign  minister,  and  scores  of 
others,  and,  finally,  the  touching  memorial  service  at 
St.  Paul's.     I  append  Lord  Lansdowne's  letter: 

Foreign  Office, 
My  dear  Ambassador:  July  3,  1905. 

As  you  are  aware,  we  did  not  lose  a  moment  in  instructing  Sir 
Mortimer  Durand  to  express  in  the  proper  quarter  the  deep  sorrow 
with  which  His  Majesty *s  Government  had  heard  of  Colonel  Hay's 
sad  death,  but  I  am  anxious  that  you,  as  one  of  his  greatest  friends, 
and  the  representative  of  the  Government  of  which  he  was  so  dis- 
tinguished a  member,  should  know  how- sincerely  my  colleagues  and 
I  have  felt  for  your  country  in  that  hour  of  sorrow  common  to  both 
nations. 

Colonel  Hay  was  regarded  with  universal  respect,  and  with  some- 
thing more  than  respect  by  the  British  people;  he  was  no  stranger  to 
us,  but  he  had  endeared  himself,  not  only  by  his  personal  qualities, 
so  admirable,  and  so  calculated  to  gain  our  affection,  but  because 
we  knew  that  no  public  man  in  America  had  worked  harder  or  more 
successfully  than  he  did  to  keep  the  two  nations  together,  and  we 
feel  that  although  our  relations  are  happily  of  a  kind  which  does 
not  depend  merely  upon  personal  influences,  his  death  is,  for  us  all, 
an  irreparable  calamity. 

We  off'er  the  resp>ectful  expression  of  our  sympathy  to  the  President 

who  finds  himself  deprived  of  a  devoted  and  trusted  colleague,  and 

to  Colonel  Hay's  family  in  the  great  misfortune  which  has  overtaken 

them.  Believe  me  to  be 

My  dear  Ambassador, 

Yours  sincerely,      t 

•^        Lansdowne. 

Reid  cancelled  all  his  engagements  for  the  week  of 
Hay's  funeral  and  the  service  at  St.  Paul's.  Resuming 
the  inexorable  round,  he  wrote  to  Watterson,  then  pass- 
ing through  London:  **Yes,  we  are  getting  lonely.  Phelps 
and  Hay  are  gone,  and  of  the  old  comrades  scarcely  any 
but  you  and  myself  are  left;  but  we  must  keep  a  stout 
heart,  and,  in  the  language  of  the  Southwest,  *play  the 
game  to  the  finish.'" 


310         THE  LIFE  OF   WHITELAW  REID 

It  was  part  of  the  game,  for  the  diplomatic  corps,  to 
keep  constant  watch  on  the  political  situation,  and  in 
Reid's  letters,  both  to  the  President  and  to  Hay's  suc- 
cessor, Elihu  -Root,  the  developments  of  party  conflict 
are  clearly  reflected.  When  he  came  to  London,  Bal- 
four's ministry  was  tending  slowly  but  surely  to  its  fafl. 
The  rough  setback  it  received  over  a  question  of  the 
Irish  estimates  in  July  inclined  Reid  to  the  belief  that  it 
might  be  "tipped  out  any  hot  evening"  by  a  repetition 
of  the  mishap.  There  was  not  the  least  question  of  the 
government's  majority  and  of  its  intention  to  stand  be- 
hind Balfour  until  the  end  of  the  session,  maintaining 
Lansdowne  at  the  Foreign  Office  until  Parliament  should 
meet  again  in  February.  There  was,  however,  a  great 
deal  of  discontent  among  the  younger  members  of  the 
party,  who  wanted  more  aggressive  leadership  in  the 
pressing  question  of  fiscal  reform,  and  Reid  thought  that 
while  they  would  not  wiflingly  bring  on  a  dissolution  at 
the  moment,  their  zeal  was  not  suflTicient  to  make  Balfour 
perfectly  sure  of  a  majority  on  any  sudden  issue.  The 
opposition,  meanwhile,  perpetually  clamoring  for  a  test 
before  the  people  of  the  government's  fiscal  policy,  de- 
nounced the  party  in  power  as  a  party  clinging  to  office, 
and  after  the  prorogation  of  Parliament  in  August  the 
Liberals  inaugurated  a  campaign  of  discussion  excep- 
tional for  its  acrid  tone.  Lord  Rosebery  effectively  re- 
entered upon  the  scene.  Mr.  Asquith  was  heard  from, 
as  were  Sir  Edward  Grey,  Mr.  Haldane,  Mr.  Morley, 
Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone,  Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  and,  of 
course.  Sir  Henry  Campbefl-Bannerman,  the  Liberal 
leader  in  the  House  of  Commons,  to  whom  afl  signs 
pointed  as  the  next  prime  minister.  The  debate  went 
on  to  a  well-foreseen  conclusion.  Mr.  Balfour  carried 
the  resignations  of  himself  and  his  colleagues  to  Buck- 
ingham  Palace  ojn  December  4th,   and   **C.-B."   being 


AMBASSADOR  TO   ENGLAND  311 

immediately  sent  for,  "kissed  hands"  the  next  day  as 
prime  minister  and  first  lord  of  the  treasury,  proceeded 
to  form  a  ministry,  and  the  Liberals  came  in. 

The  special  interest  of  the  American  ambassador  in 
all  this  resided,  naturally,  in  the  question  of  its  ultimate 
effect  upon  the  occupancy  of  the  Foreign  Office.  Lib- 
eral criticism  was  slow  to  extend  itself  to  that  branch 
of  the  government.  In  fact,  at  a  dinner  one  night, 
Campbell-Bannerman,  alluding  to  the  probable  triumph 
of  his  party,  remarked  to  Reid  that  such  a  triumph  would 
be  tinged  with  regret  at  the  probable  loss  of  Lord  Lans- 
downe's  services,  which  he  considered  as  of  extraordinary 
value.  The  question  of  his  successor  was  rife  in  private 
conversation  as  well  as  in  public  quarters,  sometimes 
with  piquant  turnings,  as  when  "C.-B."  indicated  in  a 
speech  at  Stirhng,  late  in  November,  that  his  party,  if 
successful,  would  probably  take  some  steps  in  the  direc- 
tion of  Irish  Home  Rule.  Rosebery,  who  had  all  along 
been  thought  of  as  certain  to  take  Lansdowne's  place, 
promptly  spoke  up,  saying  that  if  this  were  to  be  the 
Liberal  pohcy  he  wouldn't  in  any  circumstances  serve 
under  that  banner.  While  the  supporters  of  the  govern- 
ment were  gleefully  haihng  this  division  in  the  opposition 
there  were  cynics  who  averred,  first,  that  '*C.-B.,"  doubt- 
ing his  abihty  to  get  a  safe  majority  in  the  House  with- 
out the  Irish  vote,  had  thrown  out  a  tub  to  the  Irish 
whale,  and,  secondly,  that  he  had  sought  to  do  no  more 
than  make  it  impossible  for  Rosebery  to  serve  in  his 
cabinet.  Sir  Charles  Dilke  was  much  talked  of  for  the 
Foreign  Office,  but  his  chances  were  slight  before  the 
exactions  of  the  Non-Conformist  element.  Sir  Edward 
Grey,  on  the  whole,  held  the  lead  in  all  of  the  summer 
speculations  as  to  the  outcome,  and  Reid  observed  with 
special  interest  the  drift  of  such  pronouncements  on 
foreign  policy  as  he  made  in  public.     The  three  cardinal 


312        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

points  he  enunciated  as  fundamental  to  the  Liberal  pro- 
gramme were  friendship  and  good  feeling  between  Eng- 
land and  the  United  States,  an  alliance  with  Japan,  and 
the  maintenatice  of  cordial  relations  with  France.  With 
what  peculiar  sympathy  he  interpreted  the  American 
clause  in  this  declaration  Reid  came  appreciatively  to 
know  when  Grey  took  over  the  Foreign  Office. 

The  enfant  terrible  of  the  Liberal  party,  Winston 
Churchill,  received  a  prodigious  amount  of  attention  in 
the  pohtical  talk  of  1905.  Campbell-Bannerman,  who 
expected  to  have  him  in  the  government,  nevertheless 
spoke  to  Reid  about  him  with  complete  frankness,  dep- 
recating his  lack  of  judgment  and  his  faculty  for  vitupera- 
tion. *'He  told  amusing  stories,"  Reid  wrote  to  the 
President,  "about  the  extraordinary  care  with  which 
Winston  prepares  his  speeches,  commits  them  to  memory 
and  even  (as  he  was  said  to  have  told  himself)  practices 
them  before  the  mirror  in  his  room.  The  most  curious 
point  of  all,  perhaps,  was  that  Winston  had  told  him  of 
his  preparation  for  two  or  three  possible  turns  interrup- 
tions from  the  other  side  might  take,  and  of  his  having 
carefully  written  out  the  appropriate  reply  for  each 
possibility."  He  was  the  subject  of  a  hundred  keen- 
edged  anecdotes,  of  endless  criticism  and  of  a  consider- 
able amount  of  admiring  comment.  Lord  Tweedmouth 
and  others  spoke  in  warm  praise  of  his  abihty,  and  said 
that  it  would  be  well  for  the  people  who  complained  of 
his  vituperation  of  opponents  to  look  up  some  of  the 
speeches  of  Disraeli.  There  was  general  acceptance,  even 
in  hostile  quarters,  of  the  view  stated  by  Lord  Spencer, 
that  it  would  be  impossible  for  any  Liberal  government 
to  be  made  up  w^hich  did  not  contain  Winston  Churchill. 

In  midsummer,  before  any  of  these  changes  in  the 
British  administration  had  been  reached,  Reid  had  the 
wonderful  news  from  Portsmouth,  the  "colossal  success," 


AMBASSADOR  TO   ENGLAND  313 

as  he  called  it,  of  the  President's  plan  for  bringing  about 
peace  between  Japan  and  Russia.  It  was,  he  wTote  to 
Roosevelt,  "easily  the  greatest  thing  in  the  diplomacy 
over  European  matters  in  the  memor\-  of  this  generation 
or  the  last,''  and  the  thing  about  it  most  pleasing  was 
"that  you  did  it  off  your  own  bat."  Later  he  had  some 
conversation  with  the  King  about  it,  and  reported  him 
as  lost  in  admiration  of  the  President  of  the  United 
States  and  his  work,  convinced  that  nobody  else  could 
have  done  it. 

The  event  befell  in  a  time  of  comparative  repose  for 
the  American  ambassador,  who  was  free,  then,  to  make 
numerous  visits  promised  for  the  summer  and  to  take 
possession  of  his  own  house  in  the  countr}'.  This  was 
the  old  seat  of  the  Cowpers  at  \\'rest  Park,  in  Bedford- 
shire, which  he  leased  from  Lord  Lucas.  Lenotre  had 
designed  the  gardens.  In  the  house  was  a  large  Iibrar\', 
apparently  begun  by  Henrj*,  Duke  of  Kent,  and  kept  up 
by  all  his  successors.  There  were  many  pictures,  family 
portraits  by  Sir  Joshua  and  other  masters  of  the  eigh- 
teenth-century school.  Deer  grazed  in  the  park,  some- 
times coming  to  the  verj'  door-step.  A  brief  glance  at 
the  estate  is  pertinent,  for  it  made  the  background  of  a 
great  deal  of  the  life  of  the  Reids  during  their  English 
years.  They  were  as  often  at  Wrest  as  at  Dorchester 
House.  The  serenity  of  the  place  made  it  an  invaluable 
scene  to  which  to  turn  from  the  busy  life  and  the  search- 
ing fogs  of  London.  In  a  letter  of  Rudyard  Kipling's, 
received  not  long  after  the  establishment  of  the  family  in 
Bedfordshire,  he  says:  "I  see  from  your  address  that  you 
have  taken  to  the  English  country-,  which,  I  maintain,  is 
in  winter  a  hundred  times  better  than  anj-thing  town 
has  to  offer,  and  I  hope  you  will  find  in  it  whatever  of 
peace  and  rest  is  allowed  to  an  Ambassador."  The  hope 
was  well  fulfilled. 


314         THE   LIFE  OF   WHITELAW  REID 

Writing  to  Mrs.  Cowles,  Reid  glanced  at  some  of  the 
incidents  of  their  travels  in  the  north  that  summer.  On 
one  day  they  lunched  with  Arthur  Balfour.  On  another 
Lady  Tweeddale  drove  them  to  Gosford,  the  superb  place 
of  the  Earl  of  Wemyss,  the  sprightly  peer  who  had  cele- 
brated his  entry  upon  his  eighty-first  year  by  surprising 
his  children  with  a  brand  new  stepmother.  There  is  a 
magnificent  view  from  Gosford — Edinburgh  in  the  dis- 
tance and  the  Firth  of  Forth  in  the  foreground.  The  old 
gentleman  told  Reid  with  some  amusement  of  his  point- 
ing out  this  body  of  water  to  Mr.  Herbert  Gladstone  on 
a  recent  occasion,  when  they  had  been  discussing  Irish 
Home  Rule,  and  asking  him  how  far  he  supposed  it  to  be 
across  to  Kirkcaldy,  on  the  other  side  of  the  Firth.  Glad- 
stone could  not  guess,  whereupon  Wemyss  quietly  re- 
marked: "Several  miles  farther  than  the  distance  across 
the  Irish  Channel  between  England  and  Ireland,  which 
you  wished  to  have  set  up  as  an  independent  govern- 
ment." Lord  Dartmouth,  at  his  place  at  Wolverhamp- 
ton, spread  before  his  guest  a  marvellous  collection  of 
books,  documents,  and  pictures  relating  to  our  Revolu- 
tionary period,  fascinating  souvenirs  of  George  III, 
under  whom  Dartmouth's  grandfather  had  served,  of 
Lord  North,  and  other  salient  figures  in  the  old  argu- 
ment. He  pointed  out  some  droll  marginal  notes  writ- 
ten by  the  Georgian  Dartmouth  in  a  folio  edition  of 
Bishop  Burnet's  "History  of  His  Own  Times."  One  in 
the  second  volume  ran  something  hke  this:  "I  stated  in 
the  first  volume  that  I  did  not  think  Bishop  Burnet  had 
written  anything  which  he  did  not  believe.  I  now  feel 
bound  to  say,  after  reading  that  volume,  that  he  cer- 
tainly wrote  many  things  which  he  knew  to  be  untrue." 

There  was  scarcely  room  in  official  despatches  for  im- 
pressions in  the  lighter  vein  which  I  have  just  illustrated, 
but  these  were  received  with  keen  interest  at  the  White 


AMBASSADOR  TO   ENGLAND  315 

House,  and  Reid  sent  them  often  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt. 
"I  must  send  you  a  line  myself,"  wrote  the  President,  on 
one  occasion,  "to  say  how  interested  I  was  in  your  last 
letter  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt,  as  likewise  in  all  those  that 
went  before.  Your  letters  make  a  kind  of  contemporary 
Greville's  memoirs,  but  with  even  more  interest  and 
charm."  He  begged  the  ambassador  to  write  to  Mrs. 
Roosevelt  whenever  he  got  the  chance.  To  her  Reid 
sent  detailed  descriptions  of  visits  at  Buckingham  Palace, 
Sandringham,  and  Windsor,  or  of  ceremonies  hke  the 
King's  opening  of  Parliament,  and  interspersing  these 
"set"  pictures  there  are  anecdotes,  and  vignettes  of  the 
personalities  of  the  hour.  Some  fragments  from  this 
correspondence  follow: 

July  10,  1905. 

The  next  morning  came  the  King  of  Spain's  reception  of  the  Dip- 
lomatic Corps  in  Buckingham  Palace.  This,  like  all  similar  recep- 
tions that  I  have  ever  seen,  consisted  in  having  the  corps  arranged 
around  the  two  sides  of  the  room  in  the  order  of  their  rank  when  the 
doors  were  thrown  open  and  the  King  entered  accompanied  by  his 
Cabinet  officers  and  the  Ambassador  and  began  at  the  head  of  the 
line,  the  Spanish  Ambassador  presenting  each  Ambassador  in  turn. 
There  followed  a  moment's  conversation,  and  then  the  King  requested 
to  have  the  staff  of  the  Embassy  presented,  shaking  hands  with  each 
one.  Then  drawing  his  heels  together  until  the  spurs  made  a  click 
which  sounded  almost  like  a  pistol  shot,  he  made  his  bow  to  that 
Embassy  and  passed  on  to  the  next.  When  my  turn  came  you  can 
guess  at  my  surprise  when  the  King  began  by  saying  in  French, 
"You  have  served  more  than  once  in  Paris,"  and  then  inquired  as 
to  my  liking  London.  The  next  thing  he  said:  "Your  daughter  is 
fond  of  horses  and  drives  four.  I  have  seen  a  newspaper  picture  of 
her  on  her  coach  with  you  by  her  side  on  the  box  seat.  I  would  like 
you  to  have  her  send  me  that  picture  with  her  autograph  and  yours 
on  it." 

A  day  or  two  later  I  met  the  King  again  at  the  dinner  given  in  his 
honor  at  Lansdowne  House.  I  was  seated  nearly  opposite  him. 
His  greeting  across  the  table,  when  he  glanced  over  and  saw  me 
there,  was  as  frank  and  cordial  as  if  he  had  been  some  college  friend 
of  my  son's.  That  same  night  I  saw  for  the  second  or  third  time  an 
engaging  bit  of  boyishness  in  the  Spanish  King.  He  had  finished 
his  cigar  in  the  smoking  room  and  was  about  leaving  the  room  with 


3i6         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Lord  Lansdowne  when  he  suddenly  discovered  that  he  had  forgotten 
his  chapeau,  which  was  lying  on  the  table  where  he  had  been  stand- 
ing, and  leaving  Lord  Lansdowne's  side  ran  back  to  the  table,  seized 
the  chapeau,  and  ran  again  to  Lord  Lansdowne  at  a  sharp  Httle  dog 
trot,  just  as  aay  boy  of  sixteen  or  seventeen  would  do  who  thought 
he  ought  not  to  keep  his  host  waiting.  On  the  night  of  the  dinner 
given  him  at  Buckingham  Palace  he  did  exactly  the  same  thing  with 
the  King  of  England — forgetting  his  chapeau  in  the  same  way, 
deserting  the  King  at  the  door  and  making  a  run  for  the  lost  article 
and  back  again  to  the  King,  who  stood  waiting  with  an  amused  smile 
and  was  evidently  pleased. 

The  ladies  all  took  a  fancy  to  him.  His  face  in  repose  is  not  hand- 
some; in  fact,  he  has  the  protruding  lips  and  chin  and  general  unat- 
tractive lower  face  of  the  Hapsburgs;  but  when  he  smiles  the  whole 
face  changes  in  character  and  is  very  winning.  At  the  review  at 
Aldershot  he  led  the  regiment  of  which  he  had  been  elected  Honorary 
Colonel  in  review  past  the  King.  As  he  approached,  the  blare  of  the 
band  frightened  his  horse  and  he  displayed  some  really  handsome 
horsemanship  in  keeping  it  under  control,  giving  the  salute  to  King 
Edward  at  exactly  the  proper  moment.  Everybody  decided  that 
he  hadn't  admired  horse  flesh  for  nothing. 

I  went  down  on  two  of  the  four  days  at  Ascot,  having  learned  from 
former  experience  that  at  least  this  much  attendance  was  expected 
from  the  Ambassador.  Lord  Churchill,  who  is  now  Master  of  the 
Hounds,  made  us  his  guests  at  luncheon  the  first  day  and  told  me 
that  on  the  second  the  King  and  Queen  would  expect  me  at  their 
lunch  table.  This  was  the  day  when  the  King  had  a  rather  remark- 
able talk  with  me  which  I  have  already  reported  to  the  President 
about  aff*airs  in  the  East.  When  we  entered  the  enclosure  from 
which  the  Royal  party  viewed  the  races  one  of  the  Lords-in-waiting 
told  me  that  I  was  to  take  in  the  Princess  Ena,  daughter  of  the 
Princess  Henry  of  Battenberg  and  niece  of  the  King.  She  is  the 
youngest  of  all  the  Royal  Princesses,  being  barely  eighteen,  and  is 
one  of  the  most  attractive,  though  I  think  the  palm  of  beauty  must 
be  given  to  the  Princess  Patricia,  daughter  of  the  Duke  of  Connaught. 
When  we  started  to  go  out  I  said  to  the  young  Princess,  "I  don*t 
quite  know  when  our  turn  comes,"  and  said  she,  "I  am  the  very  last 
of  everybody."  To  which  I  replied,  "Well,  you  shall  not  be  in  this 
case,  for  now  Til  claim  my  own  rank."  So  I  followed  the  Spanish 
Ambassador,  and  as  I  entered  the  lunch  room  was  surprised  to  have 
the  King,  who  was  already  seated,  catch  my  eye  and  motion  me  to 
a  place  opposite  him  at  the  right  of  the  Queen.  It  took  me  some 
little  time  to  realize  that  the  dumpy,  fat,  bald-headed  person  on  the 
other  side  of  the  Queen  was  the  Khedive  of  Egypt,  who  had  been 


AMBASSADOR  TO  ENGLAND  317 

very  civil  to  me  years  before  in  Cairo  and  up  the  Nile  and  whose 
father  I  had  also  known  on  the  occasion  of  my  first  visit  to  Egypt. 
He  hasn't  grown  in  beauty  as  he  has  grown  older,  but  the  English  say 
he  has  much  more  sense!  At  any  rate,  he  has  quit  fretting  about 
the  fact  that  Lord  Cromer  is  the  real  ruler  of  Egypt,  and  apparently 
gets  on  very  comfortably  now  with  the  changed  conditions  which 
have  transformed  his  country  from  poverty  to  great  prosperity  and 
general  contentment. 

During  the  visit  of  the  Japanese  Princes  I  had  one  or  two  experi- 
ences which  reminded  me  of  the  President's  struggles  with  the  lady 
of  the  diplomatic  corps,  who,  as  he  declared,  spoke  no  known  lan- 
guage excepting  Aztec.  At  the  dinner  to  the  Japanese  at  Bucking- 
ham Palace  I  was  told  I  had  to  take  in  the  Duchess  of  Connaught 
and  place  her  at  the  left  hand  of  the  King.  So  I  thought  I  was  sure 
of  a  good  time,  since  she  is  at  once  one  of , the  most  gracious  and  one 
of  the  most  intelligent  of  the  Royalties.  But  alas  I  when  I  got  seated 
I  found  a  Japanese  lady  on  my  left  with  Lord  Lansdowne  next  her. 
The  King  had,  of  course,  taken  out  the  leading  Japanese  Princess. 
The  result  was  that  after  a  few  moments'  struggle  with  her,  he  dis- 
covered enormous  interest  in  his  sister-in-law's  conversation.  So  I 
had  to  leave  the  Duchess  of  Connaught  alone  and  devote  myself  to 
the  Japanese  Princess  on  my  left — whom  Lord  Lansdowne  was  quite 
willing  to  leave  alone  also.  She  did  have  a  few  words  of  English, 
but  the  struggles  I  had  to  find  out  for  the  Duchess  of  Connaught 
what  was  the  name  of  the  Japanese  decoration  they  were  wearing 
were  such  that  I  was  exhausted  for  a  day  or  two  with  the  effort.  The 
intense  interest  the  King  felt  in  his  sister-in-law's  talk  throughout 
the  dinner  left  me  with  this  fair  Japanese  to  talk  to  nearly  all  the 
time,  and  if  my  life  depended  on  it  I  don't  think  I  could  now  recall 
one  intelligible  idea  evolved  from  the  whole  conversation. 

Let  me  close  with  something  a  little  less  trivial  than  all  this  farrago 
of  egotistical  reminiscences.  The  other  evening  at  the  Duchess  of 
Sutherland's  ball  fortune  happened  to  seat  me  for  a  little  while 
beside  the  Duchess  of  X.,  and  the  conversation  somehow  reached 
the  German  Emperor.  "He  is  unbearable,"  she  said.  "The  real 
trouble  is  that  he  is  a  tyrant  by  nature." 

October  31,  1905. 
Winston  Churchill  has  been  working  very  hard  for  a  long  time 
[on  the  then  forthcoming  life  of  his  father]  and  he  has  plenty  of  ability 
in  other  directions  besides  that  of  merely  making  everybody  angry 
who  comes  in  contact  with  him.  Someone  quoted  his  mother  to  me 
the  other  day  as  having  said:  "The  next  Government  will  have  to 
put  Winston  in  the  Cabinet.  If  it  doesn't,  God  help  them  I"  The 
only  reason  why  I  don't  give  full  credence  to  this  is  that  Lady  Ran- 


3i8        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

dolph,  while  quite  capable  of  thinking  it,  is  probably  too  clever  to 
say  it.  The  last  time  she  was  at  Dorchester  House  was  the  morning 
after  Winston  had  made  his  savage  prepared  invective  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  on  the  occasion  of  Balfour's  refusing  to  resign.  You 
will  remember  That,  in  closing  the  debate,  Balfour,  who  was  Win- 
ston's father's  great  friend,  gave  the  young  man  a  tremendous  dress- 
ing-down. In  her  call  at  Dorchester  House  Lady  Randolph  seemed 
worried  about  Winston's  strong  language  and  frankly  said  she  had 
met  that  morning  several  friends  who  had  told  her  her  son  had 
behaved  abominably.  I  feel  sure,  however,  that  feeling  did  not  go 
very  deep  or  last  very  long.  She  is  extremely  proud  of  him  and  has 
a  good  deal  of  regison  for  it. 

A  week  or  two  ago  I  had  to  go  up  to  Scotland  again  to  receive  a 
degree  at  St.  Andrews.  Bishop  Totter,  Charlemagne  Tower  and 
the  President  of  the  Carnegie  Institute  at  Pittsburgh  were  the  other 
three  Americans  receiving  the  same  degree.  The  scene  was  an 
extraordinary  one.  Mr.  Carnegie  was  first  installed  as  Lord  Rector, 
and  then  attempted  to  deliver  what  they  call  the  "Rectorial  address." 
The  boys,  however,  had  some  idea  about  that  themselves.  His 
speech  was  a  violent  denunciation  of  all  war  excepting  a  purely  de- 
fensive war  for  your  own  land  and  home,  which  he  said  did  not 
justify  attacking  anybody  else's  land  and  home.  As  he  was  speaking 
to  a  good  many  students  who  belonged  to  the  volunteer  regiments 
and  was  actually  in  the  hall  of  the  St.  Andrews  armory,  you  may 
imagine  that  his  sentiments  were  not  acceptable  to  everybody. 
The  whole  speech  was  punctuated  with  shouts  of  dissent,  groans, 
cat-calls  and  the  like.  Carnegie  took  it  very  good  humoredly,  how- 
ever; chaffed  the  boys  a  little  at  times,  telling  them  that  he  had 
given  them  their  turn  and  they  ought  now  to  give  him  his;  and  on 
the  whole  succeeded  far  better  than  many  English  speakers  do  in 
addressing  these  turbulent  Scotch  University  audiences.  I  have 
never  seen  a  speaker  at  home  persevere  in  the  midst  of  such  inter- 
ruptions and  cannot  imagine  anyone  delivering  an  address  at  an 
American  college  who  would  for  a  moment  think  of  submitting  to 
it.  Once  Mr.  Carnegie  was  unlucky  in  giving  the  boys  a  tempting 
cue.  In  one  of  his  violent  outbursts  against  war  he  closed  with  the 
quotation,  "Is  thy  servant  a  dog  that  he  should  do  this  thing?" 
He  appealed  to  the  boys  to  make  such  an  answer  when  called  upon 
to  go  to  war.  Instead,  the  whole  crowd  instantly  began  barking  in 
every  tone  of  canine  expression  from  the  bull-dog  and  the  mastiff 
to  the  toy-terrier,  and  you  may  imagine  the  ludicrous  nature  of  the 
scene  for  the  next  few  moments. 

Much  to  the  astonishment  of  most  of  us,  the  boys  took  it  into 
their  heads  that  everyone  who  received  a  degree  should  address  to 


AMBASSADOR  TO  ENGLAND  319 

them  a  speech  of  thanks.  Luckily  they  were  very  amiable  towards 
us,  and  interrupted,  while  we  were  all  speaking,  only  with  frequent 
and  very  generous  applause.  They  were  not  so  considerate,  how- 
ever, to  the  "public  orator,"  who  recited  our  alleged  merits  to  the 
Vice-Chancellor  in  proposing  our  degrees;  and  I  was  particularly 
charmed  by  one  fellow  who,  in  the  midst  of  some  story  of  what  I 
had  done,  whispered  in  a  tone  perfectly  audible  throughout  the  hall, 
"If  you  didn't  say  so,  I  could  hardly  believe  it." 

December  12,  1905. 

Yesterday  I  took  my  leave  of  Lord  Lansdowne  at  the  Foreign 
Office  a  few  minutes  before  he  went  to  Buckingham  Palace  to  sur- 
render the  seals.  The  papers  announced  that  the  new  Foreign  Min- 
ister would  receive  the  diplomatic  corps  on  Wednesday,  but  as  I  am 
sailing  on  Wednesday  morning  and  as  my  relations  with  the  new 
Foreign  Minister,  Sir  Edward  Grey,  were  pleasant,  I  telephoned  to 
the  Foreign  Office,  explaining  the  situation  and  asked  if  he  could 
see  me  to-day.  He  immediately  made  an  appointment,  and  I  have 
just  returned  from  paying  my  respects  to  the  new  Minister  and  pre- 
senting Mr.  Carter  as  Charge  during  my  absence. 

Sir  Edward  was,  of  course,  most  cordial,  and  he  seemed  gratified 
that  the  first  diplomatic  visit  he  received  after  entering  upon  his 
office  was  that  from  the  American  Ambassador.  He  says  that  as  at 
present  advised  Parliament  will  be  dissolved  on  the  8th  of  January, 
that  a  few  elections  will  come  off"  before  the  20th,  but  that  the  more 
important  will  come  then,  and  that  they  hope  to  have  the  elections 
finished  before  the  end  of  the  month.  The  new  Parliament  will 
then  be  convened  in  the  second  week  in  February. 

I  spoke  to  him  briefly  about  the  only  question  with  Great  Britain 
of  the  slightest  importance  which  we  have  on  the  diplomatic  slate 
at  present.  He  seemed  to  concur  heartily  with  me  in  the  hope  and 
belief  that  matters  could  be  satisfactorily  adjusted  and  spoke  warmly 
of  his  earnest  desire  for  permanent  good  relations.  I  mentioned  the 
satisfaction  with  which  I  had  heard  of  his  appointment,  particularly 
on  account  of  his  recent  speech  on  foreign  afi*airs  in  which  he  had 
dwelt  on  the  necessity  of  continuing  the  present  policy  of  the  Gov- 
ernment in  three  particulars  and  had  named  first  of  all  among  the 
points  on  which  there  ought  to  be  no  change  the  efi'ort  to  cultivate 
constantly  the  most  cordial  relations  with  the  United  States.  He 
seemed  pleased  when  I  told  him  that  I  had  transmitted  these  remarks 
to  our  Government;  and  then  went  on  to  speak  of  his  high  esteem 
for  the  President  and  of  the  hope  he  had  cherished  that  he  would  be 
able  to  go  to  the  United  States  and  make  his  acquaintance.  He  said 
that  he  heard  so  much  of  him  from  his  intimate  friend  Ronald  Munro- 
Ferguson  as  to  feel  almost  as  if  he  knew  him. 


320        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

With  this  altogether  satisfactory  interview  the  ambas- 
sador closed  the  first  period  of  his  stay  in  England.  The 
Reids  sailed  on  the  Oceanic  the  next  day  to  spend  Christ- 
mas at  honxe.  They  visited  Washington,  also,  and  the 
ambassador  had  some  interesting  talks  with  the  Presi- 
dent and  Secretary  Root.  In  January  he  returned  to 
his  post. 


r 


CHAPTER  XVII 
NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO 

The  question  with  Great  Britain  which  Reid  had  men- 
tioned as  "on  the  diplomatic  slate"  was  one  over  which 
negotiations  were  protracted  far  longer  than  had  been 
expected  when  they  began.  A  despatch  from  Washing- 
ton to  London,  paraphrased  in  the  "Foreign  Relations 
of  the  United  States,"  concisely  indicates  a  problem  in 
the  solution  of  which  the  American  ambassador  was  to 
be  occupied  over  a  considerable  period:  "Mr.  Root  in- 
forms Mr.  Reid  that  the  Newfoundland  government  has 
forbidden  American  fishing  vessels  already  on  the  treaty 
coast  to  take  fish  within  the  treaty  limits  prescribed  in 
Article  I.  of  the  treaty  of  1818.  They  consider  that  their 
right  is  perfectly  clear  and  in  accordance  with  the  con- 
struction of  the  treaty  always  followed,  and  never  ques- 
tioned by  the  British  Government,  and  they  have  been 
so  advised  by  the  Department."  Before  he  was  through 
with  the  subject  Reid  might  have  qualified,  academically 
at  least,  as  an  expert  in  the  technic  of  life  on  the  fishing- 
banks.  The  doings  of  those  distant  mariners  rever- 
berated in  stately  exchanges  between  two  powerful  gov- 
ernments. From  the  original  broad  question  of  fishing 
or  no  fishing,  there  sprang  an  infinity  of  ramifications. 
There  was  the  distinction  to  be  drawn  between  registered 
and  licensed  vessels.  It  carried  imphcations  as  to  fish- 
ing and  trading,  two  very  difi'crent  things,  and  this  col- 
lateral distinction  afi'ected  the  fishermen  in  the  matter 
of  obtaining  their  bait.  A  nice  complication,  all  by  it- 
self, was  involved  in  the  designation  of  the  precise  coast 

321 


322         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

on  which  it  was  legitimate  for  the  American  fishermen  to 
construct  platforms  for  the  freezing  of  herring,  and  all 
that  was  needed  still  further  to  load  discussion  was  the 
introduction  ^f  reports — duly  provided — of  wilful  dam- 
age to  nets  and  tackle  or  the  illegal  shipment  of  New- 
foundland fishermen  by  American  vessels. 

Diplomatic  proceedings  over  all  this  were  accompanied 
by  a  good  deal  of  comment  in  the  press,  not  always  help- 
ful. Talking  with  Reid  on  the  subject,  the  King  shrewdly 
characterized  these  newspaper  references  as  "tiresome" 
— the  favorite  English  euphemism  for  things  disagreeable 
or  troublesome.  The  whole  matter  was  "tiresome"  but 
it  was  important,  and,  besides,  very  humanly  interesting, 
as  when,  among  the  fishermen  themselves,  there  were 
discovered  Newfoundlanders  keen  against  prohibitions 
which  their  governor  and  his  council  were  desirous  of 
enforcing.  Our  own  men  were  equally  ready  to  compose 
differences,  their  friendly  disposition  having  been  shown 
over  the  matter  of  "wilful  damage"  to  their  gear.  Sol- 
emn declarations  by  masters  or  agents  of  some  eighteen 
schooners  made  it  appear  that  a  large  number  of  the 
fraternity  were  "well  satisfied  with  the  conduct  of  the 
local  fishermen."  The  pohtical  powers  in  the  island 
were  not  so  accommodating.  Reid  thought  them  im- 
petuous and  disposed  to  make  difficulties,  a  judgment 
which  must  sometimes  have  been  shared  by  the  Foreign 
Office  itself.  When  Reid  came  back  from  his  brief  visit 
home  he  made  a  httle  gift  of  a  diplomatic  pouch  to  Lord 
Lansdowne,  then  retired  from  the  government.  Thank- 
ing him,  Lansdowne  humorously  said:  "Is  there  not 
something  appropriate  in  the  presentation  of  an  empty 
despatch  case  to  an  extinct  Foreign  Secretary?"  Since 
Reid  couldn't  fill  that  receptacle  he  filled  Sir  Edward 
Grey's — to  overflowing.  The  literature  of  this  subject  is 
formidable. 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       323 

It  IS  marked  in  August,  1906,  by  a  statement  that 
divergence  in  the  views  of  the  two  governments  made 
an  immediate  settlement  impossible.  This  conclusion, 
however,  had  its  compensation  for  the  American  ambas- 
sador, who  was  able,  thereupon,  to  negotiate  a  modus 
Vivendi  which  for  the  moment  poured  salutary  oil  upon 
the  troubled  waters.  The  Newfoundlanders,  to  be  sure, 
'  were  left  with  what  they  thought  a  grievance.  Reid's 
comment,  in  a  letter  to  Nicholas  Murray  Butler,  disposes 
of  them  with  scant  good-nature:  ** Boiled  down,  the  case 
hasn't  a  look  they  ought  to  take  much  pride  in.  We 
have  certain  fishing  rights  guaranteed  to  us  by  the  treaty 
of  1818  and  absolutely  undisputed.  They  wanted  us  to 
give  them  some  privilege  in  our  ports,  which  I  person- 
ally (following  Hay's  lead)  would  have  been  glad  to  see 
them  get,  though  the  Senate  thought  differently.  Be- 
cause they  don't  get  them,  they  turn  around  now  and 
deliberately  avow  the  purpose  to  avenge  themselves  by 
damaging  and,  as  far  as  they  can,  destroying  our  rights 
under  a  treaty  which  has  been  respected  for  nearly  a 
century.  If  they  were  not  so  little  and  so  poor,  one 
would  be  tempted  to  use  strong  language  about  such 
conduct."  How  the  signing  of  the  agreement  was  taken 
in  London  he  tells  in  the  following  letter: 

Dorchester  House, 
My  dear  Mr.  President:  October  8,  1906. 

We  have  had  quite  a  lively  stir  this  morning  in  London  newspapers 
and  among  the  newspaper  men  who  have  been  coming  to  the  Embassy 
about  our  innocent  little  modus  vivendi  with  Newfoundland.  As 
usual,  the  correspondent  of  the  "Morning  Post,"  in  his  Washington 
despatch,  sees  it  through  Newfoundland  or  Canadian  spectacles  and 
regards  it  as  a  ** complete  surrender  on  the  part  of  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment to  the  demands  of  the  United  States."  Other  despatches 
set  forth  that  the  Newfoundland  Ministry  feels  so  outraged  that  it 
threatens  to  resign,  following  the  example  set  by  the  Natal  Ministry 
immediately  after  Winston  Churchill's  speech.  I  don't  believe  they 
will  resign,  and  I  don't  believe  they  have  any  just  grievance. 


324        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

At  the  same  time  we  have,  perhaps,  a  right  to  take  their  outcry 
as  evidence  that  at  least  the  modus  vivendi  doesn't  wholly  sacrifice 
the  interests  of  the  United  States  I  The  reporters  who  have  been 
around  the  Embassy  this  morning  say  that  the  Colonial  Office  is 
indignant  at  the-4;one  the  Newfoundlanders  have  taken  about  it. 
At  any  rate,  we  have  all  we  really  asked  for;  and  I  think  besides  we 
have  the  feeling  at  the  Foreign  Office  that  we  appreciated  their  dif- 
ficulties with  their  cantankerous  little  colony  and  showed  a  friendly 
and  conciliatory  desire  to  help  them  out. 

Your  last  letter  reached  me  under  an  historic  roof — "Camper- 
down,"  where  I  was  the  guest  of  the  great-grandson  of  the  big  Ad- 
miral who  was  created  Viscount  of  Camperdown  immediately  after 
the  naval  victory  on  the  Texel.  It  made  one  feel  quite  naval  to  be 
surrounded  by  historic  pictures  by  Copley  and  others  relating  to 
this  victory  over  the  Dutch,  to  see  in  the  hall  the  sword  Admiral 
Duncan  had  worn  and  the  sword  he  received  from  the  Dutch  Ad- 
miral in  surrender,  and  a  hundred  other  souvenirs  of  his  long  service. 
Even  the  light  walking  stick,  which  he  carried  in  his  hand  through- 
out the  action,  is  preserved  in  the  same  case  with  the  sword.  It 
struck  me  as  a  queer  collocation  that  on  either  side  of  this  case  stood 
a  marble  bust,  the  one  of  Charles  James  Fox,  the  other  a  laurel- 
crowned  Napoleon ! 

They  have  an  extraordinary  mass  of  Camperdown  correspondence. 
There  must  be  fifteen  or  twenty  volumes  of  it,  I  think.  Among  the 
curiosities  in  it  which  I  looked  at  with  special  interest  were  the 
notes  of  the  Admiral's  speech  to  his  sailors  at  the  time  of  the  mutinies 
on  the  Nore,  which  so  shortly  preceded  the  action  off  Camperdown. 
Another  thing  that  struck  me  was  a  most  enthusiastic  letter  from 
the  wife  of  the  First  Lord  of  the  Admiralty  of  the  time,  in  which  she 
wound  up  her  rather  ecstatic  congratulations  after  the  battle  with 
the  exclamation:  "As  an  English  woman,  as  an  Irish  woman,  as 
Lord  Spencer's  wife,  I  cannot  express  to  you  my  grateful  feelings." 

I  am  amused  and  ashamed  to  find  that  you  know  more  in  Wash- 
ington about  Oliver,  who  wrote  the  Hamilton  book,  than  anybody  I 
have  seen  in  London  has  been  able  to  tell  me.  I  am  going  to  get 
into  communication,  however,  with  his  publishers  here  and  with  the 
Professor  of  History  in  Edinburgh  University  about  him;  and  I  shall 
pump  Birrell  dry  on  the  subject  the  next  time  I  meet  him.  I  have 
been  reading  at  the  book  as  I  had  a  chance  but  have  not  yet  finished 
it.  Some  things  in  it  seem  to  me  surprisingly  well  done;  on  the 
other  hand,  now  and  then  I  strike  on  something  which  grates  on  all 
my  preconceived  ideas  about  Hamilton  and  leads  me  to  think  I 
must  re-examine  the  other  authorities.  Such,  for  example,  is  his 
point  about  Hamilton's  having  made  Washington  impatient  with 
his  delay  in  answering  a  certain  call  only  an  excuse  for  a  resignation 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       325 

of  the  private  secretaryship,  which  he  was  bent  on  getting  rid  of 
any  way. 

But  for  your  finding  time  in  the  midst  of  the  worries  over  Cuba 
to  write  about  this  book,  I  shouldn't  venture  to  think  you  could 
have  time  to  give  to  another  new  book.  As  it  is,  however,  I  am 
going  to  send  you  in  the  first  diplomatic  bag  a  copy  of  Rosebery's 
new  book  just  out  last  week  on  Randolph  Churchill.  You  will  read 
it  in  an  evening — if  you  haven't  already  done  so — and  I  am  sure  you 
will  hke  some  things  in  it,  though  I  doubt  if  it  will  leave  you  with 
quite  as  high  an  opinion  of  Randolph  as  Lord  Rosebery  had.  The 
truth  is  his  son  (who  was  on  bad  terms  with  him,  as  you  know,  in 
his  life  time)  has  already  made  good  his  ill-mannered  boast  that 
people  would  soon  quit  speaking  of  him  as  Lord  Randolph's  son  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  would  speak  of  Lord  Randolph  as  the  father  of 
Winston  Churchill !  I  think  I  mentioned  to  you  once  before  that 
his  biography  of  his  father  is  an  admirable  piece  of  work.  In  fact, 
it  is  the  best  pohtical  biography  they  have  had  here  for  several  years. 

What  you  said  about  Bryan  in  your  letter  of  Sept.  24th  struck  me 
as  singularly  acute  and  just.  No  man  can  consistently  take  the 
position  he  has  taken  about  the  Fihpinos  and  yet  fail  to  fight  most 
vigorously  against  the  conduct  of  his  own  party  towards  the  negroes 
in  the  South.  His  wholesale  denunciation  of  English  rule  in  India 
was  not  only  ignorant  but  curiously  reckless.  I  believe  with  you 
that  his  fall  after  the  Madison  Square  speech  from  the  absurd 
height  to  which  the  European  tour  and  the  imaginations  of  the 
Democrats  had  Hfted  him  was  complete;  but  I  don't  beheve  we  have 
heard  the  last  of  him.  His  party  is  dreadfully  hard  up  for  Presiden- 
tial timber,  and  may  come  back  to  him  again. 

Sincerely  yours.  Whitelaw  Reid. 


Roosevelt's  reply  contains  a  terse  statement  of  his 
satisfaction  with  Reid's  handling  of  the  fishery  question. 
"I  feel,'*  he  says,  "the  attitude  you  have  taken  is  in 
every  respect  admirable."  He  was  amused  by  Winston 
Churchill's  book,  which  he  found  "a  very  bright  and 
clever  one,"  but,  he  added:  "I  should  most  mortally 
hate  to  have  any  son  of  mine  write  such  a  book  about 
me!"  There  is  a  charming  passage  in  this  letter  on 
two  of  his  coadjutors:  **Are  not  Root  and  Taft  big  men? 
I  simply  cannot  say  what  a  source  of  continual  strength 
they  are  to  me." 


326         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

The  Algeciras  conference  has  taken  its  place  m  his- 
tory as  a  superfluous  vexation.  Reid's  relation  to  the 
subject  well  illustrates  the  power  that  it  had  to  keep 
diplomats  everywhere  in  a  state  of  nervousness.  He 
learned  this  early,  too.  The  apprehensions  over  the 
Moroccan  question  which  Kaiser  Wilhelm  raised  in  the 
chancelleries  of  the  Powers  was  swiftly  gathering  when 
the  American  ambassador  to  England  took  leave  of  the 
President  in  May,  1905.  Mr.  Roosevelt  touched  then, 
in  his  last  verbal  instructions,  on  the  attitudes  of  France 
and  England,  where  the  new  problem  was  concerned. 
They  were  in  process  of  establishment  as  Reid  took  up 
his  service  abroad,  and  wherever  he  went  in  London  he 
found  Morocco  to  the  fore.  It  was  a  never-failing  topic. 
In  his  conversations  one  seems  to  be  assisting,  behind 
the  scenes,  at  the  rise  and  fall  of  emotion  in  the  develop- 
ment of  a  crisis  to  which  the  Kaiser  was  always  striving 
to  give  a  theatrical  turn.  His  obvious  influence  in  bring- 
ing about  the  resignation  of  Delcasse  was  the  first  star- 
tling episode  in  the  drama  as  Reid  saw  it  unrolled  from 
the  vantage-ground  of  the  English  scene.  He  gathered 
from  the  King  that  the  latter  deeply  regretted  the  fall  of 
the  foreign  minister.  They  talked  about  Rouvier,  his 
successor,  on  whose  traits  Reid  could  speak  with  famil- 
iarity, having  known  him  in  Paris  fifteen  years  before. 
His  ministry  was  occupied  at  the  moment  of  Reid's  talk 
with  the  King  in  fending  off*  the  German  proposals  for 
a  conference  of  the  Powers.  The  French  reply  to  these, 
while  conciliatory  in  tone,  indicated  that  so  portentous 
a  handling  of  the  issues  was  unnecessary.  Without  dis- 
tinctly refusing  assent  to  a  conference,  it  put  Germany 
in  a  position  where  she  could  not  insist  without  showing 
that  her  real  purpose  was  not  to  reach  a  proper  under- 
standing about  Morocco,  but  to  force  a  difficulty.  In 
the  course  of  these  opening  parleys,  when  all  sides  were 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  iMOROCCO       327 

jockeying  for  position,  Reid  reported  to  the  President 
that  the  English  professed  entire  confidence  in  the  good 
faith  of  France,  that  they  were  persuaded  of  Rouvier's 
skill  in  handhng  his  negotiations  with  Germany,  and 
that  they  were  grateful  for  the  assurance  received  from 
the  United  States  that  we  should  not  come  into  a  con- 
ference unless  it  was  satisfactory  to  France.  They 
meant  themselves  to  stand  by  France  in  the  matter  to 
an  equal  or  greater  extent. 

At  Washington  the  President  was  obtaining  light  on 
the  subject  from  Speck  von  Sternburg,  the  German  am- 
bassador, and  his  French  colleaguje,  M.  Jusserand.  Ulti- 
mately he  sent  to  Reid  the  detailed  survey  of  his  Moroc- 
can diplomacy,  which  closes  the  first  volume  of  Mr. 
J.  B.  Bishop's  recently  published  ^'Theodore  Roosevelt 
and  His  Time."  From  this  document  and  from  Reid's 
own  papers  there  is  to  be  derived  the  picture  of  a  gro- 
tesquely involved  situation.  The  Kaiser  started  by  seek- 
ing Roosevelt's  co-operation  in  an  intervention  with  the 
Sultan  of  Morocco,  which,  if  nominally  in  the  interest  of 
internal  reform  and  the  "Open  Door,"  was  really  aimed 
at  the  curtailment  of  French  influence.  Piously  solici- 
tous of  the  welfare  of  his  own  nationals  and  of  other 
foreigners  in  the  Sultan's  territory,  he  was  thinking  all 
the  time  of  possible  eventualities  between  himself  and 
France,  with  a  sharp  eye,  too,  on  the  chance  of  England's 
being  drawn  in.  Under  his  malign  manipulation,  the 
question  bristled  increasingly  with  possibilities  of  war. 
He  couldn't  believe,  or  at  all  events  pretended  not  to 
believe,  that  the  Moroccan  problem  could  be  handled 
by  itself;  it  was  linked  with  too  many  other  interests. 
Hence,  the  Powers  must  all  take  official  cognizance  of 
it.  Especially  was  he  uneasy  about  the  English  point 
of  view,  in  which  he  suspected  a  sympathy  for  France 
inimical  to  himself.     Our  good-will  toward  his  plan  was 


328        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

certain,  he  thought,  to  dissipate  British  opposition.  The 
truth  was,  of  course,  that  American  relation  to  the  crisis 
was  in  the  nature  of  things  detached.  Roosevelt  did  not 
feel  that  as  a  government  there  was  any  occasion  for  the 
United  States  to  interfere.  We  had  no  real  interests  in 
Morocco.  But  as  Germany's  sabre-ratthng  became  more 
pronounced  he  saw  that  he  was  in  a  position  to  avert 
catastrophe,  and  in  an  absolutely  disinterested  spirit, 
acting  as  the  friend  alike  of  France,  England,  and  Ger- 
many, he  made  his  decision.  As  he  wrote  to  Reid,  he 
"took  active  hold  of  the  matter  with  both  Speck  and 
Jusserand,  and  after  a  series  of  communications  with  the 
French  Government  through  Jusserand,  got  things  tem- 
porarily straightened  up."  What  he  did  was  to  over- 
come French  reluctance  to  a  conference,  and  thereby  to 
pave  the  way  for  negotiations  which  at  any  rate  dis- 
counted the  nightmare  of  a  continental  conflagration. 
His  powerful  influence,  as  in  the  conflict  between  Russia 
and  Japan,  was  on  the  side  of  peace.  Through  a  con- 
structive gesture  at  the  right  moment  he  did  not  pull 
Germany's  chestnuts  out  of  the  fire — far  from  it — but  he 
saved  her  face,  and  at  the  same  time  increased  the  friend- 
liness between  ourselves  and  the  other  Powers  involved. 
We  entered  the  Algeciras  conference  on  a  status  making 
our  participation  really  a  benefit  all  around. 

The  preliminary  passages  at  Algeciras,  about  the  time 
of  Reid's  return  from  his  holiday  in  the  United  States, 
were  the  occasion  of  some  rather  ominous  comments. 
In  the  papers  there  were  sensational  despatches  attribut- 
ing to  our  representative  in  the  deliberations  an  inten- 
tion to  intervene  at  the  psychological  moment  with  pro- 
posals for  a  compromise  of  the  respective  claims  of 
France  and  Germany.  The  duty  of  policing  and  pre- 
serving order  in  the  various  cities  in  Morocco,  on  the 
hypothesis  of  this  compromise,  was  to  be  so  distributed 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       329 

that  Germany  would  be  assigned  responsibility  for  the 
Atlantic  port  of  Mogador.  Reid  had  heard  before  of 
what  was  believed  to  be  the  Kaiser's  desire  for  a  coaling 
station  which  might  be  useful  to  the  German  navy  and 
to  German  commerce  on  the  voyage  from  Kiel  to  Buenos 
Ayres,  and  had  mentioned  it  when  in  Washington. 
Now,  in  London,  he  found  that  this  idea  and  others 
were  renewing  the  tension  in  the  pubhc  mind  with 
reference  to  Morocco,  and  he  divined  that  questions 
would  be  forthcoming  at  the  Foreign  Office  regarding 
our  own  policy.  Secretary  Root  promptly  told  him  that 
that  policy  remained  absolutely  unchanged.  "Our  in- 
terests," he  wrote,  '*are  not  sufficient  to  justify  us  in 
taking  a  leading  part;  and  while,  of  course,  we  should 
be  very  glad  to  contribute  towards  keeping  the  peace, 
we  do  not  wish  to  get  into  a  position  where  we  will  be 
justly  charged  with  intermeddling  or  to  become  a  party 
to  a  controversy,  and  we  have  not  yet  considered  that 
there  was  a  situation  in  which  any  move  by  us  would  be 
practically  useful."  We  were  in,  indeed,  to  keep  the 
peace,  but  the  conference  seemed  always  to  be  simulating, 
nevertheless,  the  potentiahties  of  a  powder-magazine. 
In  the  course  of  a  flying  trip  south  that  he  made  that 
winter,  motoring  along  the  Corniche,  and  visiting  Rome 
before  he  returned,  Reid  had  a  letter  from  the  President 
which  reflects  the  tendency  of  the  Moroccan  imbroglio 
to  bring  back  the  shadow  of  war: 

The  White  House, 

Washington, 

XM  x€      A  March  i,  1906. 

My  dear  Mr.  Ambassador: 

Things  do  not  look  as  well  as  they  should  in  Algeciras.  Last  June 
the  Kaiser,  entirely  of  his  own  accord  and  without  any  need,  prom- 
ised me  that  if  they  had  the  conference  and  the  French  and  German 
representatives  differed,  he  would  instruct  the  Germans  to  follow 
my  directions.  As  my  exp>erience  has  always  been  that  a  promise 
needlessly  entered  into  is  rarely  kept,  I  never  expected  the  Kaiser 


330        THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

to  keep  this  one,  and  he  has  not.  We  may,  however,  get  an  agree- 
ment among  them.  The  trouble  is  that  with  Russia  out  of  the  way 
as  she  now  is,  Germany  firmly  believes  that  she  can  whip  both 
France  and  England.  I  have  excellent  reason  for  believing  that  the 
German  Naval  authorities  are  as  confident  as  the  German  military 
authorities,  and  believe  that  England  is  relying  still  upon  the  mem- 
ory of  the  Nelsonic  triumphs  and  that  they  would  have  a  first-class 
chance  of  temporarily  crippling  or  driving  ofi*  her  fleet;  while  the 
military  men  firmly  believe  that  an  army  of  fifty  thousand  Germans 
landed  in  England  would  with  but  little  difficulty  take  possession  of 

the  entire  island.  c-         r 

Smcerely  yours,      rj.  r% 

'^  ^  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

The  President  never  lost  sight  of  the  pov^der-magazine 
and  the  fuses  lying  so  temptingly  around.  When  he  had 
counselled  the  French  to  agree  to  a  conference  he  had 
spoken  v^ith  the  utmost  frankness  on  the  safeguard  it 
would  develop  against  a  military  clash.  His  moderating 
influence  at  Algeciras  always  took  account  of  the  one  be- 
setting danger,  and  that  influence  prevailed.  As  Reid 
wrote  him  on  the  emergence  of  the  conference  into  in- 
nocuous waters,  he  had  "for  a  second  time  rendered  a 
great  service  to  the  cause  of  peace  in  Europe."  English 
appreciation  of  the  potency  of  his  hand  in  the  game  was 
warm.  Writing  to  him  on  the  advisability  of  showing 
the  King  some  of  the  more  significant  passages  in  his 
summary  of  what  he  had  done,  Reid  made  these  obser- 
vations : 

Dorchester  House, 
Dear  Mr.  President:  ^""^  ^9,  1906. 

The  King  showed  intense  interest  in  the  subject  when  I  had  my 
first  long  talk  with  him  on  his  return  from  his  Continental  tour;  and 
it  was  so  obvious  that  the  notion  that  Speck  had  been  trying  to  get 
you  to  play  the  Emperor's  game  for  him  had  been  impressed  upon 
the  King  that  I  was  exceedingly  eager  to  let  him  know  how  absolutely 
you  had  understood  them,  had  drawn  a  line  in  the  matter  and  refused 
to  go  to  the  lengths  they  desired. 

The  truth  is  that  the  Emperor's  assiduous  efforts  to  cultivate  the 
most  intimate  relations  with  you  have  attracted  the  attention  of  all 
the  chancelleries  in  Europe,  and  a  common  comment  upon  it  is  that 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       331 

the  Emperor  overdoes  his  love-making  as  he  does  his  diplomacy, 
with  a  certain  German  confidence  in  the  value  of  brute  vigor  in 
either  pursuit !  What  I  have  sometimes  feared  was  that  this  might 
aflPect  the  feeling  here  in  a  way  which  might  not  be  beneficial  in 
Mr.  Root's  coming  negotiations  on  the  questions  still  unsettled 
between  us.  The  truth  seems  to  me  that  our  relations  with  England 
are  of  far  greater  imp>ortance  to  us  than  those  with  Germany — there 
being  more  points  at  issue,  more  chances  of  friction  and  greater  diffi- 
culty in  almost  every  question  that  arises  on  account  of  the  irre- 
sp>onsibiIity  and  exacting  temp>er  of  Canadian  p>oIiticians.  I  cannot 
personally  see  an>^hing  to  be  gained  from  unusually  good  relations 
with  Germany  which  would  compensate  us  for  the  least  jar  in  our 
relations  \\Tth  Great  Britain,  since  I  know^  of  no  serious  question  we 
have  to  settle  with  Germany,  while  there  are  certainly  a  good  many 
with  Great  Britain  still  unsettled.  Aside  from  that,  Germany  isn't 
planted  all  along  our  frontier,  and  our  negotiations  \\'ith  her  will 
ordinarily  therefore  be  on  subjects  less  acute  and  ticklish. 

As  of  course  you  know,  there  has  been  at  times  great  tension  here 
between  England  and  Germany.  And  I  know  (in  a  very  confiden- 
tial way)  that  the  King  has  felt  acutely  some  personal  attacks  which 
he  thought  might  have  been  prevented.  He  sp>oke  particularly  of 
attacks  made  on  him  in  the  German  papers  during  his  late  stay  in 
Paris,  and  insinuations  that  he  was  staying  there  merely  to  intrigue 
against  Germany.  He  intimated  that  his  nephew  knew  better  than 
this,  and  that  such  attacks  could  not  appear  in  the  German  press 
without  their  Government  winking  at  them.  There  had  also  been 
intimations  that  he  was  responsible  for  the  resentment  sometime 
expressed  in  English  papers.  "Yet  the  Emperor  knows,"  he  said, 
"as  well  as  you  or  I  that  we  cannot  control  the  press  here,  just  as 
you  cannot  control  it  in  the  United  States,  while  he  also  knows  per- 
fectly that  I  know  he  can  and  does  habitually  control  the  German 
press." 

Some  of  his  talk,  as  well  as  that  which  I  have  heard  elsewhere, 
leads  me  to  think  that  at  one  moment  they  feared  grave  results  from 
Algeciras;  but  were  perfectly  resolved  to  meet  the  issue.  Their  view, 
like  that  in  France,  is  that  the  Emperor  had  no  interests  in  Morocco 
worth  mentioning,  and  that  he  recklessly  stirred  up  a  controversy, 
which  might  have  resulted  in  a  conflagration,  merely  to  assert  his 
importance  and  gratify  his  vanity.  Whenever  they  discuss  the  ques- 
tion seriously  they  refer  to  the  fact  that  the  treaty  which  was  the 
basis  of  his  demand  that  the  signatory  Powers  be  called  into  con- 
ference, was  merely  a  treaty  as  to  the  rights  of  Nationals;  that  it 
referred  to  nothing  else;  that  the  favored -nation  clause,  under  which 
Germany  claimed  the  same  voice  in  Moroccan  affairs  as  other  of  the 


332         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Signatory  Powers,  referred  only  to  the  same  subject  of  Nationals; 
and  that  she  really  had  no  business  in  questions  which  belonged  pri- 
marily, if  not  exclusively,  to  the  Mediterranean  Powers. 

Another  view  commonly  expressed  among  the  Continental  diplo- 
matists, as  well  as  the  English,  is  that  the  Emperor's  whole  course 
towards  France  and  Morocco,  from  the  day  when  he  caused  the 
French  to  dismiss  in  a  panic  the  best  Foreign  Minister  they  have 
had  for  many  years,  was  pure  bluff.  They  say  it  would  have  been 
ruinous  for  him,  both  at  home  and  abroad,  to  go  into  a  war  on  any 
pretext  he  had;  and  that,  besides,  it  would  have  been  madness  for 
him  to  be  engaged  in  stirring  up  hostilities  at  the  West,  when  the 
chance  seemed  almost  at  hand  for  realizing  the  dream  of  his  life  at 
the  East  by  completing  the  Pan-German  Empire  on  the  death  or 
downfall  of  Francis  Joseph. 

On  this  point  I  had  a  curious  talk  the  other  night  with  Sir  Frank 
Lascelles,  the  very  capable  British  Ambassador  in  Berlin.  He  said 
he  believed  the  Emperor  too  wise  a  man  (no  matter  what  his  Pan- 
German  dream  may  have  been)  to  think  of  risking  the  annexation 
of  South  Germany,  even  if  he  could  bring  it  about.  The  Ambassa- 
dor's reason  for  this  view  was  that  the  Emperor  must  know  of  the 
existing  discontent  in  parts  of  his  own  domain  and  must  realize  that 
with  the  South  Germans  added  the  discontented  elements  would 
have  an  absolute  majority  in  the  Empire,  with  the  certainty  that 
sooner  or  later  Prussian  wings  would  be  clipped.  He  had  the  same 
view  as  so  many  others  have  expressed,  that  the  Emperor's  Morocco 
course  was  pure  bluff,  but  he  did  not  believe  that  the  Emperor  was 
unwise  enough  to  do  anything  actively  at  present  towards  the  realiza- 
tion of  the  Pan-Germanic  notions. 

Very  sincerely  yours.        Whitelaw  Reid. 

There  are  some  delectable  sayings  of  Roosevelt's  in 
his  reply,  authorizing  Reid  to  shov^  to  the  King  and  to 
Sir  Edv^ard  Grey  all  that  he  deemed  it  proper  to  show 
them  in  the  long  Moroccan  letter  to  which  I  have  re- 
ferred. "In  this  Algeciras  matter,"  he  writes,  "you  will 
notice  that  while  I  was  most  suave  and  pleasant  with  the 
Emperor,  yet  when  it  became  necessary  at  the  end  I 
stood  him  on  his  head  with  great  decision.  ...  As  for 
the  Germans,  I  really  treat  them  much  more  cavalierly 
than  I  do  the  English,  and  I  am  immensely  amused  at 
the  European  theory   (which  cannot,  however,  be  the 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       333 

theory  of  the  French  Government)  that  I  am  taken  in 
by  the  Kaiser.  I  am  very  polite  to  him,  but  I  am  ready 
at  an  instant's  notice  to  hold  my  own.  In  the  same  way 
my  policy  with  Japan  is  to  be  scrupulously  pohte,  to 
show  a  genuine  good  will  toward  her,  but  to  keep  our 
navy  in  such  shape  that  the  risk  will  be  great  for  Japan 
if  it  undertakes  any  aggression  upon  us." 

Various  other  diplomatic  themes  of  importance  were 
developed  in  this  year  of  Reid's  embassy,  but  for  the 
moment  I  turn  from  them  to  glance  at  other  activities. 
A  deep  shadow  was  cast  upon  the  social  side  of  these  in 
the  spring,  when  news  came  of  the  appalling  disaster  at 
San  Francisco.  The  Reids  were  personally  concerned  on 
account  of  relatives  and  friends,  they  had  practical  inter- 
ests both  in  the  stricken  city  itself  and  at  Millbrae,  and 
there  were  besides,  of  course,  other  than  family  claims  in 
the  matter  upon  the  American  ambassador.  The  great 
railway  wreck  at  Salisbury  tragically  deepened  the  gloom 
at  the  embassy.  Reid  was  overwhelmed,  privately  and 
officially,  in  the  business  flowing  from  these  two  events, 
and  the  movements  in  promotion  of  aid  and  sympathy 
which  were  inaugurated  by  both.  The  annual  American 
invasion  of  London  was  in  full  flood  at  the  time.  Con- 
spicuous among  his  countrymen  was  Mr.  W.  J.  Bryan. 
He  didn't  ask  to  be  presented  to  the  King.  His  Majesty 
saved  him  the  trouble,  proposing  to  Reid  the  interview 
at  Buckingham  Palace  which  was  soon  arranged.  Bryan 
made  a  good  impression  there,  as  he  did  with  most  of 
his  speech-making.  Some  EngHsh  Hsteners  found  his 
style  more  demonstrative  and  rhetorical  than  that  to 
which  they  were  accustomed,  but  comment  in  general 
testified  to  his  having  vindicated  his  repute  for  "silver- 
tongued"  oratory.  Reid  observed  that  the  net  result  of 
Bryan's  visit  to  London  was  that  he  rose  decidedly  in 
the  estimation  of  the  English  and  of  the  diplomatic  corps. 


^  > 


334         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

The  American  ambassador  himself  had  to  do  a  good 
deal  of  public  speaking.  Before  the  presentation  of  his 
credentials  he  received  a  request  from  Lord  Tennyson 
to  preside  at'^he  next  banquet  of  the  Royal  Literary 
Fund,  and  this  invitation  was  the  forerunner  of  a  stream 
of  communications  of  the  same  sort.  He  told  the 
authors  when  he  addressed  them,  on  the  problem  of 
making  provision  for  disabled  members  of  their  craft, 
what  he  had  said  to  Mr.  Gladstone  on  their  first  meet- 
ing, many  years  before.  The  great  statesman  asked, 
among  a  multiplicity  of  other  things:  "What  does  your 
Republic  do  to  reward  distinguished  public  services  from 
private  citizens?"  After  some  cogitation  Reid  felt  com- 
pelled to  reply:  "There  are  only  three  things  we  can  do. 
If  they  live  at  the  North,  we  can  invite  them  to  lecture; 
if  they  live  at  the  South,  we  can  call  them  Colonel  or 
General;  wherever  they  live,  if  they  can  get  votes  enough, 
we  can  send  them  to  Congress  and  let  them  take  the 
consequences."  At  University  College,  Bristol,  where  he 
went  for  a  degree,  he  spoke  on  the  development  of  scien- 
tific and  technological  education  in  the  United  States. 
The  opening  address  which  he  delivered  at  the  summer 
meeting  of  the  University  of  Cambridge  was  devoted  to 
an  excursion  into  eighteenth-century  history,  "The  Rise 
of  the  United  States."  Later,  when  the  freedom  of  the 
city  was  conferred  upon  him  at  Dundee,  he  made  the 
opening  address  in  the  series  founded  by  Lord  Armitstead 
and  traversed  the  experience  of  his  countrymen  in  facing 
and  conquering  their  educational  problem.  The  educa- 
tional motive  is  always  recurring  in  his  speeches  on 
English  soil.  It  was  as  though  he  were  carrying  on 
abroad  the  discussion  in  which  as  a  member  of  the  Board 
of  Regents  he  delighted  at  home.  Alike  at  scholastic 
institutions  and  at  dinners  of  all  sorts  he  was  called  upon 
with  a  frequency  which  he  sometimes  found  embarrass- 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       335 

ing.  To  an  American  friend  he  wrote:  "As  you  know,  I 
am  never  quite  sure  about  these  things  myself,  and  I 
always  approach  the  task  of  making  a  speech  with  a 
certain  reluctance  and  a  hope  that  it  may  be  the  last. 
At  the  same  time,  I  am  bound  to  say  that  the  English 
audiences  are  extraordinarily  amiable  and  cordial." 

These  speeches  offer  many  an  inducement  to  the  biog- 
rapher to  stray  off  into  a  b}^vay.  For  example,  the  one 
at  the  Royal  Literary  Fund  contained  a  friendly  allusion 
to  Henr\'  Adams,  in  the  long  line  of  American  historians. 
When  reported  in  the  press  it  elicited  this  charming  note 
from  that  writer: 

Paris 
My  de.\r  Ambassador:  May  14,  1906. 

Rarely  have  I  been  more  bewildered  than  at  catching  sight  of 
my  name  in  the  columns  of  the  "Times,"  apropos  to  nothing,  when 
I  was  thinking  only  to  read  about  the  Douma  and  the  Education 
Bill.  You  do  not  know  what  it  is  to  be  dead,  or  to  feel  so,  for  twenty 
years,  and  suddenly  to  be  called  up  for  judgment.  I  like  being  dead; 
it  offers  great  advantages  to  historians;  it  is  also  in  good  taste  to  be 
quiet  and  restful  in  society  among  the  gentlemen  of  polished  man- 
ners who  lived  in  high  philosophy  with  Plato  and  Confucius;  but  if 
I  must  be  pulled  up  for  judgment,  I  am  beyond  expression  relieved 
to  get  so  kind  a  judge  as  you. 

Such  a  compliment  merits  rare  acknowledgment,  for  I  am  not  used 

to  feeling  flattery*.     I  wish  I  could  offer  suitable  recognition.     I  can 

offer  no  such  return.     The  best  I  can  do  is  to  offer  my  latest  work. 

It  was  meant  only  for  girls,  and  you  are  certainly  not  a  niece;  but  it 

will  serv^e  as  proof  of  my  appreciation.     You  need  not  read  it,  for 

it  is  meant  only  for  the  nurser>%  and  contains  only  nursery  lines. 

With  profound  thanks,  ,,  ii-     j  n  * 

'^  Your  obliged  Henry  Adams. 

The  work,  written  for  his  nieces,  was  the  beautiful 
"Mont  St.  Michel  and  Chartres,"  the  masterpiece  in  the 
study  of  mediaevalism  which  since  the  death  of  Mr. 
Adams  has  happily  been  made  more  widely  known  than 
it  was  in  the  original  privately  printed  edition.  Reid 
had  some  talk  about  it  with  one  of  his  most  interesting 
literary  friends  in  England,  Sir  George  Otto  Trevelyan. 


'  s 


336        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

A  sequel  to  this,  however,  takes  us  straight  from  the 
Middle  Ages  to  one  of  Reid's  early  achievements,  his  de- 
spatch from  Pittsburg  Landing.  "I  respectfully  repeat," 
wrote  Sir  George,  "what  I  told  Mrs.  Whitelaw  Reid  dur- 
ing our  delightful  talk  at  dinner,  that  I  cherish  the  pos- 
sibihty  of  some  day  getting  you  to  tell  me  of  the  battle 
of  Shiloh  as  the  most  interesting  to  me  of  conceivable 
conversations."  The  ambassador  told  him,  at  Dor- 
chester House,  which  was  made  doubly  sympathetic  to 
Trevelyan  by  the  souvenirs  which  his  friend  gathered 
there,  in  prints,  of  the  leading  figures  in  the  American 
Revolution.  Periodically  the  subject  of  Shiloh  used  to 
come  up  in  Reid's  career.  Another  Adams,  Henry's 
brother  Charles  Francis,  revived  it  by  quoting  a  passage 
from  "Ohio  in  the  War."  Reid  said  that  he  read  the 
extract  with  some  apprehension,  after  thirty-seven  years, 
and  then  went  on:  "But,  barring  a  little  youthful  exuber- 
ance of  style,  I  see  nothing  in  it  which  I  am  not  disposed 
to  stand  by  today.  I  didn't  remember  having  discharged 
my  soul  quite  so  completely  on  the  excesses  of  that 
march,  but  am  not  sorry  now  that  I  did  it !  I  was  very 
fond  of  good  old  Sherman  personally,  and  our  relations 
grew  very  cordial;  but  there  are  at  least  three  things  in 
his  career  which  nobody  need  attempt  to  defend.  One 
was  his  persistent  denial  of  his  surprise  at  Pittsburg 
Landing  or  Shiloh,  and  the  others  were  his  licence  to 
*  Sherman's  bummers,'  and  his  insubordinate  attitude 
after  the  very  proper  disapproval  of  his  treaty  with 
Johnson.  I  remember  once  summing  up,  somewhere  or 
another,  one  curious  phase  of  his  character  by  saying 
that  he  never  acknowledged  an  error,  and  never  repeated 

it."     Adams  rephed: 

Boston 

My  dear  Mr.  Reid:  January  6,  1906. 

I  entirely  sympathize  with  your  feelings  when  you  learned  that 

your  book  of  thirty  or  forty  years  ago  was  to  be  quoted  from.     A 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       337 

cold  shiver  in  such  cases  instinctively  creeps  down  one's  back.  I 
have  been  there  myself!  Meanwhile,  in  the  present  case  I  had  no 
hesitation  in  quoting  from  your  "Ohio  in  the  War,"  because  it 
seemed  to  me  that  the  sentiments  expressed  in  the  extract  made 
reflected  great  credit  upon  you.  That  a  young  fellow  should  have 
then  ventured  so  boldly  to  criticize  the  act  of  a  man  holding  Sher- 
man's position  in  the  public  eye  was  much  to  his  credit.  What  you 
wrote  was  written  in  the  flush  and  glamour  following  the  triumphant 
close  of  the  war.  Everything  was  glorious;  the  record  was  immacu- 
late! Under  such  conditions,  for  you  to  come  forward  and  tell  the 
disagreeable  truth  was  to  my  mind,  looking  back  through  forty 
years,  altogether  commendable. 

I,  too,  adm^ire  Sherman.  I  consider  him  as,  on  the  whole,  the 
most  striking  individuality  I  have  ever  met.  The  few  conversations 
I  had  with  him  all  left  a  vivid  impression  on  my  memory.  He  was 
instinct  with  a  personality  all  his  own.  In  this  I  think  you  will  con- 
cur. As  compared  with  Grant  he  was  Hyperion  to  a  Satyr.  The 
one  was  a  most  interesting  person  to  meet;  the  other  impressed  one 
as  being  thoroughly  commonplace.  There  was  a  fine  vein  running 
through  Sherman;  a  distinctly  coarse  fibre  pervaded  Grant. 

As  to  Sherman's  record,  I  concur  in  all  your  conclusions.  I  sup- 
pose you  know  how  the  disaster  at  Shiloh  came  about.  It  was  all 
due  to  the  old-fogy.  West  Point,  regular-army  theory  that  field- 
works  made  the  men  "cowardly."  They  should  be  required  to 
"stand  up  and  fight  man-fashion."  I  cannot  tell  how  often  I  heard 
that  agreeable  aphorism  set  forth  in  war  days.  It  is  the  old,  Brown- 
Bess,  Enghsh  theory  which  prevailed  in  Waterloo,  and  which  they 
had  to  give  up  in  South  Africa.  Incredible  as  it  may  seem,  though 
the  English  halted  at  Mont  St.  Jean  at  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon 
of  a  long  day  in  June,  and  lay  there,  all  night,  until  they  were  attacked 
the  next  morning,  they  never  threw  up  any  entrenchments;  they 
never  made  the  slightest  eff'ort  to  protect  themselves.  To  do  so 
would  not  have  been  according  to  regulation ! 

In  this  respect,  Sherman  got  his  lesson  at  Shiloh.  Before  that  en- 
gagement he  had  maintained  that  the  way  to  make  men  soldiers 
was  to  drill  them;  that  any  temporary  earthworks  or  protection 
caused  them  to  lose  reliance  on  themselves.  He  there  got  his  lesson 
and  he  never  afterward  forgot  it.  As  you  say,  Sherman  never  con- 
fessed to  a  mistake,  and  never  repeated  it.  Later,  in  North  Caro- 
lina, he  made  a  very  wry  face  over  Johnstone's  "earthworks  of  the 

I  remain,  etc.  Charles  F.  Adams. 

Reid  confirmed  the  explanation  of  Sherman's  slip  at 
Shiloh,  recalling  a  talk  of  the  general's  in  which  he  had 


^  * 


338         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

hinted  at  exactly  the  reason  assigned  by  Mr.  Adams  for 
the  misfortune  he  suffered.  Apropos  of  this  matter  of 
mihtary  reputations,  I  may  mention  a  country-house 
colloquy  of  Rdd's  with  one  of  the  strongest  army  officers 
he  met  in  England.  This  personage  did  not  think  that 
Lord  Roberts's  strategy  in  South  Africa  amounted  to 
much,  although  he  spoke  admiringly  of  the  man.  Nor 
was  his  opinion  of  Kitchener  quite  as  high  as  that  held 
by  the  general  public.  He  was  very  positive  in  saying 
that  far  and  away  the  best  soldier  in  the  British  army, 
though  then  too  old,  was  Lord  Wolseley.  It  is  in  such 
intimate  and  unconventional  glimpses  as  these  of  Eng- 
lishmen and  their  point  of  view  that  Reid*s  correspon- 
dence with  Mrs.  Roosevelt  is  especially  rich  and  I  may 
here  return  to  some  further  extracts  from  it: 

February  27,  1906. 
You  must  have  noticed  that  there  is  a  great  crop  of  new  peers — 
some  promoted  by  the  late  Government  when  it  went  out  of  power, 
some  by  the  new  Government  when  it  came  in.  One  of  the  best 
earned  was  that  of  the  late  permanent  Under  Secretary  for  Foreign 
Affairs,  Sir  Thomas  Sanderson.  After  his  advancement  to  the  peer- 
age was  announced;  there  was  quite  a  little  interval  before  it  was 
determined  under  what  style  he  should  be  known.  Meantime,  his 
brother  in  New  York,  Sir  Percy,  was  naturally  desirous  to  send  con- 
gratulations on  the  event,  but  didn*t  know  how  to  address  the  new 
peer.  So  he  put  his  letter  inside  another  to  his  sister  and  requested 
her  to  see  that  it  reached  its  destination.  When  the  new  peer  re- 
ceived it  he  found  it  thus  addressed:  "To  my  brother,  the  Lord." 

June  I,  1906. 
Alma  Tadema,  the  artist,  told  me  the  other  evening  a  little  story 
about  Winston  Churchiirs  encounter  with  one  of  his  brother  artists 
which  may  interest  you.  As  Tadema  told  it,  the  artist  was  making 
a  little  sketch  of  a  group  of  noted  people  gathered  at  some  social 
occasion.  The  sketch  was  intended  for  publication  and  Winston 
was  not  one  of  those  to  be  included.  He  thought  it  a  good  group 
to  be  in,  however,  and  kept  hovering  about  it  and  putting  himself 
under  the  artist's  eye  until  the  latter  rather  in  self  defence  sketched 
him  in  slightly  in  profile  in  the  outer  line.     When  the  sketch  was 


11 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       339 

finished  they  were  all  crowding  around  to  look  at  it  and  expressing, 
as  is  apt  to  be  the  Case  at  such  times,  favorable  opinions  of  the 
artist's  work.  Winston,  having  got  into  the  picture  in  this  fashion, 
came  up  to  give  his  opinion  and  in  his  characteristic  way  said:  "I 
don't  agree  with  you.  I  don't  think  the  likenesses  are  good  at  all. 
Look  at  that  thing  of  me.  Surely  that  isn't  like  me."  The  artist, 
whom  Tadema  described  as  one  of  the  most  patient  and  gentle- 
spoken  of  his  race,  turned  at  this  like  the  proverbial  worm.  "Yes," 
he  said,  "I  think  you  are  right,  Mr.  Churchill.  It  doesn't  do  you 
full  justice,  but  then  you  see  it  is  in  profile,  so  that  I  could  only  get 
in  half  your  cheek." 

Any  little  story  like  this  against  Winston  is  received  with  delight 
in  London.  There  is  nobody  at  the  moment  more  thoroughly  un- 
popular, in  fact,  detested  in  the  more  important  social  circles.  They 
don't  like  him  as  a  Liberal,  and  they  don't  resp>ect  him  as  a  "turn 
coat";  but  for  his  bad  manners,  his  recklessness  and  the  row  he  has 
stirred  up  in  South  Africa,  they  hate  him.  At  the  moment,  this  boy 
is  one  of  the  most  prominent  p>eople  in  the  House  of  Commons,  and 
scarcely  one  of  the  older  members  shows  much  more  ability  in  catch- 
ing the  ear  of  the  House  or  in  making  what  might  be  called  distinctly 
"smart"  sf>eeches.     His  fertility,  too,  is  wonderful. 

We  are  just  sending  out  the  invitations  for  the  first  big  dinner 
after  the  expected  arrival  of  your  daughter  and  her  husband.  With 
a  fair  voyage  they  ought  to  reach  here  Saturday  night — possibly  in 
time  to  let  me  take  them  out  in  the  motor  car  to  Wrest  Park  for  a 
quiet  Sunday.  The  dinner  comes  on  Tuesday.  The  King  will 
come,  probably  accompanied  by  Major  Holford  as  his  Equerry. 
After  dinner  there  are  to  be  about  fifty  or  sixty  people  invited  to 
come  in  for  some  music.  Eames  is  to  come  over  from  Paris  to  sing, 
and  there  will  be  music  by  Caruso  and  others.  When  I  was  in  Rome 
I  happened  to  see  a  fine  spread  eagle,  carved  in  marble,  which  took 
my  fancy;  and  I  bought  it  really  for  the  grounds  at  Ophir  Hall. 
After  getting  it  here,  however,  it  suddenly  struck  me  that  I  could 
mount  it  over  the  porte-cochere  of  Dorchester  House,  so  that  our 
noble  bird  would  seem  to  be  just  poising  his  wings  for  a  flight  down 
Park  Lane  and  across  Hyde  Park.  So  I  have  set  the  masons  to 
work  to  put  a  prop)er  pedestal  for  it  on  the  balcony  above  the  porte- 
cochere,  and  trust  to  have  the  fellow  spreading  his  wings,  six  feet 
or  more  from  tip  to  tip,  over  Mrs.  Longworth  when  she  arrives. 

There  was  an  Indian  prince  in  London  early  this  sum- 
mer, the  Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  who  wanted  to  observe  the 
American  eagle  in  his  native  element.  He  was  a  very- 
up-to-date  prince,  extremely  keen  about  public  institu- 


340         THE,  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

tions,  governmental  methods,  inventions,  and  so  on.  He 
was  bent  upon  visiting,  among  other  things,  the  electrical 
works  at  Niagara  Falls.  Reid  talked  over  his  itinerary 
with  him  and  gave  him  a  sheaf  of  introductions.  When 
he  got  back  the  Gaekwar  offered  in  return  a  glimpse  of 
the  West  as  seen  through  Eastern  eyes.  "For  a  long 
time,"  he  wrote,  "I  have  been  thinking  of  sending  you 
a  letter  with  a  short  account  of  my  trip  to  your  fine 
country.  Not  only  the  wealthy  people  but  even  the 
poorer  classes  struck  me  as  being  both  well  informed  and 
patriotic  and  their  whole  tone  is  at  once  manly  and  sym- 
pathetic— their  sympathy  with  the  down-trodden  being 
very  great.  The  women  are  well  educated  and  of  fine 
physique.  Altogether  the  people  and  institutions  of  the 
United  States  have  created  in  me  a  very  favorable  im- 
pression, and  I  heartily  wish  them  every  success.  With 
her  vast  extent,  resources  and  active  civilization,  I  am 
quite  convinced  that  America  has  an  even  greater  future 
before  her  and  is  bound  to  play  a  large  part  in  the  mould- 
ing of  the  destinies  of  the  world.  No  one  could  grudge 
her  this  position  should  she  continue  to  maintain  her 
present  high  ideals  of  liberty.  I  was  much  impressed 
with  her  great  Ministers  from  the  President  downward 
— all  of  them  men  of  great  ability  and  scholarship." 

The  Gaekwar  was  bland  and  amiable,  if  not  precisely 
original.  If  he  had  travelled  to  Dundee  when  the  Ameri- 
can ambassador  delivered  his  Armitstead  lecture  there 
he  might  have  noted  in  the  speech  a  veiled  intimation 
that  the  "great  Ministers"  to  whom  he  alluded  were  just 
then  interesting  themselves  in  one  of  the  crucial  prob- 
lems of  the  East.  On  accepting  the  freedom  of  the  city, 
Reid  had  occasion  to  touch  upon  this  question.  They 
were  lectured  a  good  deal,  he  said,  about  the  tyranny  of 
habit,  the  whiskey  habit,  the  tobacco  habit,  and  the 
opium  habit;  and  this  reminded  him  that  they  were  co- 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND  MOROCCO       341 

partners  in  the  opium  habit.  Britain  had  a  corner  in 
her  Eastern  possessions  where  they  grew  opium,  and  the 
United  States  had  an  Eastern  corner  where  they  con- 
sumed opium.  Some  fine  day  they  might,  let  them 
hope,  put  their  heads  together  and  somehow  mitigate 
that  habit.  In  this  guarded  way  he  referred  to  nego- 
tiations which  he  had  already  begun  at  the  Foreign  Office. 
Our  government  was  supplied  with  impressive  data  on 
the  opium  traffic  when  the  committee  on  the  subject 
appointed  by  the  Philippine  Commission  made  its  report. 
In  September,  1906,  a  Chinese  imperial  decree  had  de- 
nounced opium  as  responsible  for  **the  poverty  and 
weakness  that  for  the  past  few  decades  have  been  daily 
increasing  amongst  us,"  and  the  United  States  was  re- 
solved to  take  drastic  measures  for  the  correction  of  its 
own  relation  to  an  indefensible  trade.  Reid  saw  Sir 
Edward  Grey  about  a  suggestion  from  Secretary  Root  of 
the  issuance  of  an  invitation  by  the  United  States  to 
China  to  Join  it,  together  with  Great  Britain,  France, 
Holland,  and  Japan,  in  a  common  investigation  of  the 
opium  question.  It  was  important  to  ascertain  the 
British  view  on  this  project  in  advance  of  any  general 
overture  to  the  other  Powers.  The  American  ambassa- 
dor explained  that  we  were  **much  concerned"  in  this 
question,  and  that  "it  was  desired  to  come  to  a  decision 
as  to  whether  the  consequences  of  the  opium  habit  were 
not  such  that  civilized  powers  should  do  what  they  could 
to  put  a  stop  to  them."  He  energetically  urged  all  the 
points  that  could  be  brought  to  bear.  Sir  Edward  was 
sympathetic  and  promised  to  consult  his  colleagues.  On 
a  later  occasion  he  stated  the  attitude  of  the  ministry  as 
one  of  ready  concurrence  in  the  proposed  conference,  on 
the  understanding  that  the  other  countries  named  also 
agreed  to  it,  and  that  the  growth  of,  and  trade  in,  Chinese 
as  well  as  India  opium  should  be  considered.     The  path 


342         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

was  thus  broken  for  the  organization  of  the  international 
meeting  held  at  Shanghai  in  February,  1909. 

In  the  preparations  for  the  second  Peace  Conference 
at  The  Hagu«,  it  fell  to  the  American  ambassador  to 
obtain  the  co-operation  of  the  British  Foreign  Office  in 
changing  the  date  first  fixed  by  the  Czar.  That  poten- 
tate had  contemplated  the  opening  of  the  meeting  in 
July.  With  the  Geneva  Red  Cross  Convention  on  hand, 
and  the  Pan-American  conferences  scheduled  to  assemble 
at  Rio  de  Janeiro,  Secretary  Root  advised  delay.  Eng- 
land acquiesced  and  so  did  Russia,  and  though  the  dis- 
orders and  massacres  in  that  country  threw  a  kind  of 
ironic  light  on  all  these  humane  negotiations,  they  went 
forward  without  remission.  Reid's  conversations  at  the 
Foreign  Office  brought  out  the  difficulties  always  hedging 
a  pacific  enterprise.  Sir  Edward  could  assure  him  that 
the  British  delegates  would  be  instructed  cordially  to 
support  the  proposal  for  the  reduction  or  limitation  of 
armaments  in  which  Secretary  Root  was  then  ready  to 
take  the  initiative.  He  was  aware,  though,  that  there 
would  be  two  Powers  which  would  be  difficult  on  the 
question,  France  and  Germany.  He  thought  France 
would  wish  to  follow  the  line  taken  by  her  historic  enemy. 
Germany,  in  his  opinion,  held  the  key  of  the  situation. 
Secretary  Root  was  well  aware  of  the  obstacles  in  the 
way,  but  there  is  a  noble  statesmanship  expressed  in  a 
comment  of  his  to  Reid  on  one  of  the  subjects  mooted, 
that  of  limiting  the  collection  of  pubhc  debts  to  private 
persons.  *'If  we  are  right,"  he  said,  "it  is  better  to 
press  the  subject  and  endure  many  defeats  in  the  hope 
of  ultimate  success  rather  than  remain  silent." 

The  President,  of  course,  was  intensely  interested. 
That  he  was  also,  in  his  characteristic  way,  pro- 
foundly practical  in  his  view  of  the  matter,  this  letter 
shows : 


NEWFOUNDLAND  AND   MOROCCO       343 

Oyster  Bay, 

New  York 
My  dear  Reid:  August  7,  1906. 

I  have  received  your  letter  of  July  27th.  I  am  glad  that  the 
British  Government  seems  likely  to  take  the  same  ground  that  we 
do  in  the  Hague  Conference.  I  enclose  you  copy  of  a  letter  to  Car- 
negie. As  he  speaks  very  freely  to  Grey,  I  think  it  just  as  well  for 
you  to  see  this  letter  and  to  tell  Grey  you  have  seen  it.  I  do  not 
want  this  new  Liberal  Government,  with  which  in  many  matters  I 
have  such  hearty  sympathy,  to  go  to  any  maudlin  extremes  at  the 
Hague  Conference.  It  is  eminently  wise  and  proper  that  we  should 
take  real  steps  in  advance  toward  the  policy  of  minimizing  the 
chances  of  war  amongst  civihzed  people,  of  multiplying  the  methods 
and  chances  of  honorably  avoiding  war  in  the  event  of  controversy; 
but  we  must  not  grow  sentimental  and  commit  some  Jefferson-Bryan- 
like piece  of  idiotic  folly  such  as  would  be  entailed  if  the  free  people 
that  have  free  governments  put  themselves  at  a  hopeless  disadvantage 
compared  with  mihtary  despotisms  and  military  barbarisms.  I 
should  Hke  to  see  the  British  Navy  kept  at  its  present  size  but  only 
on  condition  that  the  Continental  and  Japanese  Navies  are  not 
built  up.  I  do  not  wish  to  see  it  relatively  weaker  to  them  than  is 
now  the  case.  As  regards  our  own  Navy,  I  believe  in  number  of 
units  it  is  now  as  large  as  it  need  be,  and  I  should  advocate  merely 
the  substitution  of  efficient  for  inefficient  units.  This  would  mean 
allowing  for  about  one  new  battleship  a  year,  and  of  course  now 
and  then  for  a  cruiser,  collier,  or  a  few  torpedo-boat  destroyers. 
Sincerely  yours,  Theodore  Roosevelt. 

Early  in  December  Reid  sailed  home  for  Christmas, 
as  he  had  done  the  hohday  season  before,  and  this  time 
even  in  greater  need  of  rest.  In  referring  to  matters 
like  the  fisheries  dispute,  Algeciras,  and  the  Hague  con- 
ference, I  have  touched  only  upon  salient  incidents  in 
his  official  year.  A  multitude  of  interests  made  that 
extremely  arduous.  Colonel  Watterson  once  printed 
some  reflections  on  ambassadorial  life,  cordial  and  con- 
siderate where  our  representative  in  London  was  con- 
cerned— he  was  never  anything  else  in  their  association 
of  thirty  odd  years — but  not  altogether  favorable  on  the 
subject  at  large.  With  Reid's  remarks  to  him,  in  re- 
joinder, I  may  appropriately  close  this  chapter: 


344         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

I  think  your  view  of  the  diplomatic  service  would  be  more  accurate 
and  useful  if  you  had  reflected  more  on  the  inside  view  of  it,  and  if, 
besides,  you  hadn't  lost  sight  of  our  history  in  your  impatience  with 
some  jack-in-office,  who  may  naturally  enough  have  disgusted  you, 
and  had  not,  wheu-  in  that  mood,  written  with  your  eye  on  an  audi- 
ence always  ready  to  respond  to  the  sort  of  slashing  attack  you 
make. 

If  you  sat  in  my  office  for  half  an  hour  and  ran  your  eye  over  the 
files  showing  the  questions  that  suddenly  come  up  and  can  be  dealt 
with,  not  by  special  commissions  and  not  by  cabled  despatches,  but 
only  by  telling  your  representative  to  find  out  how  the  land  lies  on 
certain  subjects,  and  then  to  move  according  to  his  judgment  of  the 
local  conditions  with  reference  to  the  end  you  desire — after  looking 
over  even  a  brief  record  of  this  sort  of  thing  you  would  realize  how 
impracticable  is  this  notion  of  dispensing  with  diplomatic  representa- 
tives to  which  you  have  lent  the  great  influence  of  your  name  and 
brilliant  work. 

People  say  the  cable  has  done  away  with  the  necessity  for  them 
— ^that  mere  despatches  between  our  State  Department  and  the  vari- 
ous Foreign  Offices  can  do  everything.  But  a  despatch  can't  carry 
any  more  than  a  letter  used  to,  in  the  days  when  letters  were  our 
quickest  mode  of  communication.  If,  then,  the  interests  of  a  Gov- 
ernment of  eighty  millions  of  people  can  be  properly  and  entirely 
managed  from  the  Home  Office  by  cable  despatches,  why  couldn't 
the  interests  of  the  three  millions  in  1776  have  been  managed  just 
as  well  by  letters?  What  was  the  use  of  sending  Benjamin  Franklin 
over  and  Thomas  Jeff'erson,  and  the  rest  of  our  early  diplomats? 
The  cable  merely  gives  us  the  quickest  transmission  at  the  present 
day;  the  letter  gave  us  the  quickest  transmission  at  that  day,  and  if 
need  be,  that  could  be  sent  by  a  special  post-bag  as  well  as  by  Ben- 
jamin Franklin.  If  the  diplomatic  service  is  useless  now  it  was 
equally  useless  then,  and  we  have  persisted  in  a  costly  folly  for  a 
century  and  a  third.  If,  on  the  other  hand,  the  system  has  had  a 
public  service  to  do,  how  can  it  be  thought  patriotic  to  bring  it  into 
ridicule  and  contempt? 


CHAPTER  XVIII 
A  DIPLOMATS  CIRCLE 

In  the  letter  to  Colonel  Watterson  which  terminates 
the  preceding  chapter  cable  communication  is  put  clearly 
in  its  right  place,  as  a  means,  merely,  of  accelerating 
international  negotiations.  These  are  benefited,  obvi- 
ously, by  any  convenience  which  increases  their  pace. 
Yet  the  tempo  of  diplomacy  remains  what  it  has  always 
been,  the  tempo  of  conversation.  I  have  turned  over 
innumerable  state  documents  as  I  have  followed  the 
activities  of  the  American  ambassador  in  London,  but 
their  dry  official  phrases  yield  only  part  of  the  history 
of  his  work.  Quite  as  rich  a  part,  if  not  indeed  a  richer 
one,  is  to  be  found  in  the  record  of  personal  contacts,  of 
that  interplay  of  friendly  discussion  without  which  the 
solution  of  a  given  problem  is,  to  tell  the  truth,  impossi- 
ble. The  point  involved  is  not  as  trite  as  it  might  seem. 
Even  John  Bigelow,  who  had  been  a  minister  of  the 
United  States  himself,  was  disposed  to  think  that  the 
telegraph  minimized  a  diplomat's  labors,  overlooking  the 
fact  that  the  reduction  of  time  in  the  transmission  of 
instructions  made  no  difference  at  all  in  the  responsibility 
involved  in  carrying  them  out.  "At  this  moment,"  Reid 
wrote  him,  **  I  have  instructions  requiring  the  use  of  all 
arguments  and  influence  I  can  bring  to  bear  on  matters 
ranging  from  Canada  to  China,  Russia  and  Japan,  and 
in  fact  pretty  much  over  the  habitable  globe."  In  the 
stout  volumes  of  **The  Foreign  Relations  of  the  United 
States"  one  may  trace  the  results  of  our  diplomatic  ser- 
vice throughout  the  world — and  still  miss  the  atmosphere 
in  which  those  results  were  achieved. 

345 


346         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Of  the  springs  of  ** argument  and  influence"  significant 
to  Reid  at  the  period  of  which  I  write  there  was  one 
transcending  all  the  rest  in  freshness  and  force.  Presi- 
dent Roosevelt  was  an  incomparable  chief.  He  had  a 
gift  for  the  initiative  if  ever  a  man  had  it  and  I  remem- 
ber a  conversation  with  him  in  which  he  told  me  with 
the  utmost  frankness  how  he  had  been,  upon  occasion, 
his  own  State  Department.  But,  "instructions"  having 
been  once  given,  through  the  usual  official  channels,  he 
delighted  in  the  conversation  which  I  have  noted  as  so 
important  in  diplomatic  exchanges  and  liked  it  only  the 
more  when  it  took  an  unconventional  turn.  His  letters 
to  Reid  are  true  talk,  so  spontaneous,  so  free,  that  they 
seemed  to  annihilate  the  distance  between  him  and 
the  ambassador.  He  hated  circumlocution.  When  he 
wished  to  appraise  the  mentality  of  a  certain  function- 
ary who  had  crossed  his  path  he  wasn't  in  the  least 
mealy-mouthed  about  it.  He  described  the  unfortunate 
man  as  having  a  mind  of  "eight  guinea-pig  power." 
And  the  directness  which  filled  his  correspondence  with 
arresting  characterizations  of  men  and  things  told  even 
more  heavily  in  the  enunciation  of  high  policies.  In  all 
international  matters,  dealing  with  Roosevelt,  the  Ameri- 
can ambassador  knew  in  a  very  full,  inspiriting  sense 
just  where  the  United  States  stood,  and  the  circumstance 
was  reflected  in  his  diplomatic  surroundings.  The  Presi- 
dent's name  and  the  Kaiser's  were  sometimes  associated 
in  London,  because  of  the  ebuflient  personality  charac- 
teristic of  both  men;  but  Reid  noted  the  difference  be- 
tween the  two  observed  by  his  cofleagues:  "They  both 
talk  unconventionafly,  but  your  President  always  makes 
good."  All  England  recognized  this  difference.  When 
Roosevelt's  administration  was  drawing  to  a  close  and 
his  African  hunting  plans  were  taking  shape,  Reid  hap- 
pened to  fall  into,  conversation  with  the  foreign  minister 


A  DIPLOMATS  CIRCLE  347 

over  the  visit  of  M.  Fallieres,  which  was  good-naturedly 
but  not  enthusiastically  received.  **Now  if  your  Presi- 
dent would  come/'  said  Sir  Edward  Grey,  **  London 
would  grow  wild.  There  is  no  man  anywhere  in  the 
world  who  has  such  a  hold  on  the  imagination  and  ad- 
miration of  our  people." 

It  was  with  Sir  Edward  Grey,  of  course,  that  the 
American  ambassador  came  most  in  contact  over  diplo- 
matic questions,  but  I  may  appropriately  touch  here 
upon  his  relations  with  King  Edward  VII.  Their  ac- 
quaintance dated  from  the  time  of  the  great  Queen's 
jubilee,  and  when  it  was  renewed. in  1905  it  developed 
into  a  warm  friendship.  They  met  frequently  on  cere- 
monial occasions,  and  on  country-house  visits  where 
there  were  more  opportunities  for  informal  talk.  Reid's 
impressions,  scattered  through  his  letters,  uniformly 
illustrate  the  King's  devotion  to  business  and  his  sound 
statesmanship.  He  saw  how  rigidly  the  line  was  drawn 
between  royal  and  governmental  action.  When  the 
King,  on  one  of  his  sojourns  at  Marienbad,  gave  inter- 
views to  Clemenceau  and  Izvolski,  without  the  partici- 
pation of  his  foreign  minister  or  the  permanent  under- 
secretary usually  assigned  to  duty  on  such  occasions, 
there  were  immediately  critical  whisperings  in  London. 
But  this  jealousy  for  parhamentary  prerogative  left  the 
King  plenty  of  margin  for  effective  service.  In  a  letter 
of  Reid's  to  the  President,  written  on  his  return  from  his 
Christmas  at  home  in  1906,  he  speaks  of  the  importance 
of  our  being  as  cordial  with  the  King  as  with  the  Kaiser, 
and  adds:  **The  more  you  know  of  him  the  better  I  am 
sure  you  will  like  him,  and  the  more  you  will  come  to 
the  prevalent  English  and  in  fact  European  belief  that 
he  is  the  greatest  mainstay  of  peace  in  Europe."  If 
his  influence  upon  public  and  especially  political  opinion 
could  be  exercised  only  indirectly  it  nevertheless  had  its 


348         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

force.  Alluding  to  some  criticism  the  King  had  passed 
upon  a  recent  speech  by  one  of  the  leading  men  in  the 
House  of  Lords,  Reid  wrote  to  the  President:  "Nobody 
ever  ventures-to  repeat  remarks  Hke  this  in  London,  but, 
nevertheless,  the  spirit  of  them  oozes  out  imperceptibly 
and  has  an  extraordinary  effect  on  the  opinion  of  society/* 
There  was  an  interesting  case  of  this  "oozing"  in 
1908,  when  the  Kaiser's  weakness  for  seeing  his  notions 
in  print  resulted  in  the  famous  interview  in  the  London 
"Telegraph"  and  a  consequent  tempest.  Reid  observed 
to  the  President  that  if  Wilhelm  had  sat  up  nights  for  a 
month  to  devise  the  best  way  of  discrediting  himself  at 
home  and  abroad,  he  could  not  have  hit  upon  a  more 
successful  method.  "Doubtless  it  will  blow  over,  like 
the  Kruger  telegram,  the  Tweedmouth  letter  and  all  the 
rest.  In  the  language  of  the  southern  negro,  comment- 
ing on  his  son's  experience  with  the  hind  legs  of  a  mule: 
'Biiril  never  be  so  handsome  again  but  he'll  know  a 
heap  sight  more.'"  Meanwhile  Reid  expected  that 
English  opinion  on  the  subject  would  be  formed  more  or 
less  in  exalted  quarters,  and  when  these  promptly  began 
to  "ooze"  he  wrote  to  the  President  as  follows  from 
Wrest: 

Among  my  guests  down  here  this  week  were  several  who  had  been 
passing  a  good  deal  of  time  in  various  house  parties  for  or  by  the 
King  during  the  previous  fortnight.  Their  whispers  about  his  atti- 
tude confirmed  the  opinions  I  formed  during  the  two  or  three  days  I 
spent  with  him  in  a  house  party  three  weeks  ago.  He  was  not  then 
mourning  particularly  over  the  fact  that  his  head-strong  nephew 
was  beginning  to  be  entangled  in  the  results  from  his  own  indiscre- 
tions. But  the  retention  of  Biilow  and  the  subsequent  incidents 
have  occurred  since  I  saw  him.  From  the  talk  of  my  guests,  it  was 
plain  that  he  views  the  explanations  in  the  Reichstag  with  utter 
increduHty.  He  regarded  the  alleged  English  gentlemen  who  put 
together  their  recollections  of  the  Emperor's  talk  and  so  made  up 
the  famous  interview  as  utterly  mythical.  And  the  elaborate  story 
about  how  the  interview  passed  from  Chancellor  to  Foreign  Minister, 


A  DIPLOMAT'S  CIRCLE  349 

and  from  Foreign  Minister  to  Locum  Tenens,  and  thence,  duly  coun- 
tersigned, to  the  office  of  the  "Daily  Telegraph,*'  as  equally  mv-thical. 
In  short,  the  Court  belief  at  least,  whether  the  King  avows  it  or  not, 
is  obviously  that  the  Emperor  wrote  the  inter\^iew  himself,  sent  it 
"off  his  own  bat,"  and  then,  when  the  hubbub  arose,  compelled 
Bulow  and  the  rest  to  invent  such  an  explanation  as  they  thought 
would  be  accepted  by  the  Reichstag!  They  may  be  all  wrong  in 
this;  but  after  all  they  know  the  Emperor  pretty  well,  these  English. 

Of  earlier  origin,  but  forming  a  suitable  match  for 
this  episode,  is  another  *'scrap  of  paper,"  what  purported 
to  be  an  extremely  free-spoken  interview  with  the  Ger- 
man Emperor,  printed  in  a  Manchester  journal  at  a 
time  when  the  restless  monarch  was  actually  visiting  on 
English  soil.     Reid  thus  recorded  the  occurrence: 

The  interview  was  promptly  repudiated  and  thereup>on  the  paper 
denounced  the  repudiation  and  declared  the  interview  in  question 
had  actually  been  revised  by  the  German  Ambassador  at  Highcliffe 
— where,  as  you  know,  the  Emp>eror  is  staying.  There  came  a  second 
Renter  contradiction  from  the  German  Embassy,  admitting  the 
revision,  but  denying  that  the  inter\'iew  was  with  the  Emperor. 
Thereupon  the  Manchester  paper  came  back  again  with  a  facsimile 
of  portions  of  the  interview,  with  the  interlineations  and  corrections 
made  by  the  Ambassador,  apparently  in  his  own  handwriting,  and 
with  statements  of  what  the  Councillor  of  the  Embassy,  Herr  von 
Stumm,  had  said  to  the  correspondent  about  it.  Von  Stumm  hap- 
pened to  be  staying  down  here  over  the  week-end  with  a  small 
shooting  party.  Out  in  the  woods  in  the  middle  of  the  afternoon 
he  was  pursued  by  a  messenger  boy  on  a  bicycle  with  a  telegram  on 
receipt  of  which  his  countenance  fell,  while  he  seemed  to  take  iittle 
further  interest  in  the  pheasants.  Soon  after  we  got  back  in  the 
evening  he  was  enquiring  about  trains  up  to  London,  and  presently 
he  explained  to  me  that  he  had  been  summoned  back  on  account  of 
this  mess,  and  that  evidently  it  was  a  situation  in  which  he  had  to 
go  as  promptly  as  possible.  I  was  sorry  for  the  poor  fellow — esp)e- 
cially  as  I  am  afraid  he  will  be  made  a  scape-goat.  The  "Times** 
comments  on  it  as  an  illustration  of  the  German  methods  of  manag- 
ing their  press  bureau;  and  it  docs  remind  one  of  Bismarck's  old 
talk  about  the  reptile  press. 

The  predicament  of  the  hapless  Von  Stumm  brings 
him  a  little  more  tangibly  into  the  picture  than  is  usually 


350        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  case  with  the  American  ambassador's  colleagues. 
They  figure  rather  impersonally  in  his  correspondence  as 
"the  Italian,"  or  "the  German,"  in  the  idiom  of  the 
diplomatic  corps.  But  the  circle  embraced  many  warm 
friends.  Conspicuous  among  them  was  "the  Spaniard," 
Villa-Urriuta,  well  met  again  in  London  after  their 
encounters  over  the  peace  table  at  Paris  in  1898.  Met- 
ternich  was  Germany's  representative  and  Benckendorf 
Russia's.  The  dean  of  the  ambassadors  was  the  French- 
man, Paul  Cambon,  and  his  rank  among  the  ministers 
was  held  by  M.  de  Bille,  of- Denmark,  who,  as  coming 
from  Queen  Alexandra's  native  country,  enjoyed  a  pecu- 
liarly prominent  position.  Reid  glances  at  the  sohdarity 
of  the  diplomats  in  a  letter  to  the  President  on  a  dinner 
given  by  the  Chinese  ambassador.  The  corps  had  ac- 
cepted invitations  to  this  when  the  government  sent  out 
cards  for  a  dinner  to  be  given  on  the  same  evening  for 
the  athletes  and  committees  at  the  Olympic  Games. 
The  ambassadors  were  in  a  quandary,  but  only  for  a 
moment.  "The  conflict  between  the  previous  engage- 
ment with  the  Chinaman  and  this  invitation  in  behalf  of 
the  Government  was  submitted  to  Cambon,  who  ruled 
that  if  it  had  been  an  invitation  from  the  King,  we  would 
have  been  obliged  to  throw  the  Chinaman  over,  but  as  it 
was  only  an  invitation  from  one  Minister,  in  behalf  of 
the  Government,  the  previous  acceptance  of  our  col- 
league's invitation  in  the  name  of  the  Emperor  could 
not  be  thrown  over  without  off^ense."  Apropos  of  these 
mysteries  of  etiquette,  I  may  allude  to  a  phase  of  them 
which  the  President  brought  up  when  he  was  planning  his 
hunting  trip  and  the  travels  through  the  European  capi- 
tals which  he  soon  saw  were  bound  to  follow.  "I  want 
to  avoid,"  he  wrote  to  the  American  ambassador,  "the 
frightful  nuisance  of  big  banquets  or  other  formal  enter- 
tainments.    My  idea,  if  it  meets  with  your  approval,  is 


A   DIPLOMATS  CIRCLE  351 

that  I  should  take  with  me  the  dress  uniform  of  a  colonel 
of  United  States  cavalry  (which  I  am  entitled  to  wear 
as  an  ex-CoIond  of  the  Spanish  War — not  a  paper  colonel 
either,  but  one  who  saw  service).  Then  if  I  hav^e  to 
appear  at  some  function  I  could  wear  this,  and  if  it  was 
felt  that  in  a  military  country  like  Germany  or  Italy 
they  would  like  to  see  me  in  uniform  when  I  called  on 
the  sovereign  I  could  wear  it.  But  I  should  hope  to 
avoid  wearing  it  and  that  I  could  go  in  civilian  costume." 

Reid  reassured  him.  There  wouldn't  be  the  least 
harm  in  bringing  the  uniform,  but  Roosevelt  would 
probably  have  no  occasion  for  taking  it  out  of  his  trunk. 
At  Buckingham  Palace,  "j^ou  would  go  dressed  exactly 
as  you  would  be  in  the  afternoon  in  Washington."  Wad- 
ing up  the  subject,  he  said:  "Even  if  you  should  want 
to  go  to  a  Levee  or  a  Court,  you  would  wear  exactly  the 
same  evening  dress  already  described;  but  there  also  you 
would  find  yourself  made  the  most  conspicuous  person 
in  the  room,  since  everybody  else  w^ould  be  in  uniform. 
As  Choate  once  remarked  to  me,  when  we  were  standing 
together  in  the  line  of  Ambassadors  formed  upon  the 
left  of  the  King  and  supporting  him,  *At  a  Court  this 
republican  simplicity-  dodge  of  ours  about  "plain  clothes" 
is  the  most  impertinent  piece  of  swagger  in  the  world. 
Under  pretense  of  making  our  Ambassadors  modest  and 
inconspicuous  we  single  them  out  from  everybody  else 
in  a  room  with  a  thousand  f>eopIe,  and  not  one  human 
being  in  the  room  fails  to  notice  the  conspicuous  charac- 
ter of  their  dress  or  to  know  that  they  are  the  modest 
and  retiring  American  Ambassadors!'  Personally,  I 
don't  dislike  it  in  the  least;  but  there  never  was  a  case 
where  demagogues  so  thoroughly  defeated  their  own 
desires." 

At  the  American  Embassy,  where  republicanism  func- 
tioned in  its  o\N-n  atmosphere,  untrammelled  by  consid- 


352         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

erations  of  court  formulas,  I  have  hitherto  stressed  the 
transaction  of  government  business.  Reid  made  it  also 
a  stronghold  for  the  interests  of  his  countrymen  travel- 
ling abroad.  -He  was  fortunate  in  his  staff.  His  first 
secretary,  when  he  came  to  London,  Mr.  John  Ridgeley 
Carter,  was  one  of  the  most  distinguished  and  efficient 
of  the  younger  men  in  the  service,  and  from  a  succession 
of  accomphshed  private  secretaries  and  other  figures  in 
the  embassy  personnel  Reid  received  indispensable  help 
in  endless  matters  of  detail.  Of  detail,  infinite  detail, 
the  business  of  an  American  ambassador  is  all  compact, 
and  without  the  tactful,  sympathetic,  and  really  devoted 
work  of  Delancey  Jay,  Sheldon  Whitehouse,  Elhot  Bacon, 
Craig  Wadsworth,  Lydig  Hoyt,  Grant  Smith,  and  others, 
Reid  would  have  been  overwhelmed.  He  was  deeply 
appreciative  of  all  that  was  done  for  him  by  the  mem- 
bers of  his  "official  family,"  a  fact  to  which  he  was  wont 
to  make  warm  allusion.  The  offices  wxre  the  scene  of 
much  hard  w  ork  for  everybody,  hghtened  not  infrequently 
by  amusing  episodes.  There  is  no  place  in  the  world 
like  an  American  embassy  for  the  accumulation  of  things 
incredible.  Reid  chuckled  over  some  of  the  ** curios,"  as 
he  called  them,  that  came  his  way.  When  a  certain 
minor  European  throne  was  the  subject  of  discussion  in 
the  chancelleries  one  American  visitor  turned  up  having 
at  hand  an  excellent  occupant  for  it,  and  seeking  advice 
as  to  approaching  the  King  of  England  on  the  subject. 
Another  incident  is  thus  described  in  a  letter  to  the 
President : 

You  may  be  interested  in  knowing  that  I  have  warded  off — as  far 
as  I  could — the  offer  of  some  brand  new  territory  and  responsibilities 
for  the  United  States.  Some  years  ago  Great  Britain  found  her 
authority  on  the  Mosquito  Coast  of  Nicaragua  chiefly  a  nuisance 
and  contrived  to  land  her  control  over  the  Mosquito  Indians  in  the 
lap  of  Nicaragua.  Since  then  the  Indians  think  they  have  been 
badly  treated  by  the  Nicaraguans  and  have  been  appealing  to  Great 


A  DIPLOMATS  CIRCLE  353 

Britain  for  protection  or  intervention,  and  have,  I  believe,  got  a 
little  money  out  of  them,  at  least  for  the  expense  of  delegations  here. 
They  were  definitely  "turned  down"  however  a  few  weeks  ago. 
Whereupon  they  appeared  solemnly  at  our  Embassy  offices  and 
sought  an  interview  with  me  to  tender  the  sovereignty  of  their  coun- 
try through  me  to  the  United  States!  I  avoided  seeing  them  at 
the  time,  but  this  only  brought  on  me  a  formal  letter  from  their 
agent,  offering  absolute  sovereignty  over  the  Mosquito  Territory  to 
the  United  States  in  return  for  protection  by  us  and  asking  for  an 
interview  in  which  the  chiefs  of  the  tribes  wished  to  make  the  tender 
in  person  and  give  any  further  evidence  that  might  be  required  of 
their  authority.  They  enclosed  various  documents  with  their  letter 
to  substantiate  their  right  to  represent  the  tribe  and  their  good  faith. 
It  seemed  to  me  best  to  decline  any  interview  with  them  at  all,  and 
to  say  that  if  they  were  bent  on  making  such  a  proposition  it  should 
be  presented  directly  to  the  Government  through  the  Secretary  of 
State  at  Washington.  I  sent,  therefore,  the  enclosed  letter  signed 
by  my  private  secretary.  To  this  the  agent  replies  that  he  proposes 
forthwith  to  carry  out  my  suggestion !     So  there  you  are. 


If  only  some  of  the  other  visitors  at  the  embassy  could 
have  been  as  easily  placated!  It  sometimes  seemed  to 
the  secretaries  that  the  universal  American  desire  was 
to  listen  to  debates  in  the  House  of  Commons.  A  man 
would  calmly  send  in  a  note  stating  that  he  had  just 
arrived,  was  leaving  for  the  Continent  in  two  days,  and 
meantime  would  like  to  spend  that  afternoon  or  the  fol- 
lowing one  at  the  House.  He  would  therefore  want 
tickets  for  himself,  his  wife,  his  son  and  daughter,  and 
for  John  Jones,  whose  acquaintance  he  had  made  on  the 
steamer,  and  whose  wife,  son,  and  daughter  also  wished 
to  join  the  party.  It  then  became  necessary  to  explain 
to  him,  first,  that  the  House  of  Commons  furnished  the 
embassy  with  no  tickets  at  all  for  ladies;  next,  that  it 
furnished  the  embassy  only  two  tickets  per  day  (just 
double  what  it  furnished  any  other  embassy),  and  next, 
that  previous  applicants,  taking  time  by  the  forelock, 
had  already  asked  for  and  been  promised  tickets  for 
every  day  when  the  House  would  be  in  session  for  the 


354         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

ensuing  fortnight  or  three  weeks !  By  the  time  all  this 
was  made  plain  the  disappointed  applicant  would  want 
to  know  what  a  United  States  ambassador  was  sent  over 
to  London  for,  anyway.  The  requests  of  women  for 
presentation  at  court  and  for  invitations  to  the  royal 
enclosure  at  Ascot  or  to  court  balls  were  always  greatly 
in  excess  of  the  number  of  such  privileges  to  which  every 
embassy  is  limited,  and  sometimes  it  was  next  to  im- 
possible to  convince  a  resolute  lady  that  denial  of  her 
wishes  had  nothing  personal  about  it.  Nor  did  presenta- 
tion at  court  always  suffice  t6  satisfy  ambition.  Regard- 
less of  the  fact  that  it  carried  no  right  to  subsequent 
invitations,  one  embodiment  of  offended  majesty  ad- 
dressed to  the  secretary  who  had  taken  special  charge 
of  her  interests  this  concise  note:  "I  am  at  a  loss  to 
understand  why  no  invitation  was  sent  for  the  Court 
Ball  of  next  Tuesday.  Having  been  presented,  one  is 
eligible.     I  am  not  pleased." 

But  first  and  last  the  American  Embassy  succeeded 
in  pleasing  a  myriad  of  Americans,  and  always  when 
the  Fourth  of  July  came  round  they  flocked  to  the  recep- 
tion at  Dorchester  House  in  thousands.  On  innumerable 
occasions  through  the  year  the  ambassador's  countrymen 
lunched  and  dined  there  or  at  Wrest,  a  broad  stream  of 
Americans,  his  own  old  private  friends  and  a  larger 
host  of  others.  Through  their  hospitality,  as  well  as 
through  the  routine  processes  of  the  embassy,  the  Reids 
made  the  latter  truly  a  rallying-ground  for  travellers 
from  home.  At  the  offices,  as  I  have  said,  the  ambassa- 
dor had  a  staff  which  greatly  aided  him,  and  there  were 
matters,  too,  in  which  he  received  invaluable  co-opera- 
tion from  the  American  Society  in  London,  headed  by 
Mr.  A.  T.  Van  Duser.  It  was  one  of  Reid's  picasantest 
duties  to  speak  at  the  Fourth  of  July  and  Thanksgiving 
Day  dinners  organized  by  this  body.     But  just  in  tasks 


A   DIPLOMATS  CIRCLE  355 

of  this  sort  his  burdens  were  heavy.  Anthony  Hope 
Hawkins,  in  proposing  his  health  at  a  public  banquet, 
once  said  that  the  American  ambassador  was  the  hard- 
est worked  man  in  England,  and  Reid  was  fain  to  be- 
lieve that  the  novelist  wasn't  so  far  wrong.  Certainly 
the  American  ambassador  was  immeasurably  the  hard- 
est worked  man  in  the  diplomatic  corps.  In  July,  1907, 
he  gives  the  President  this  sketch  of  some  of  his  lighter 
obligations : 

Within  a  week  I  have  unveiled  a  tablet  to  the  memory  of  the 
second  President  of  Harv^ard  at  Ware  (where  John  Gilpin  dined, 
you  will  remember,  while  his  wife  dined  at  Edmonton),  and  made  a 
serious  little  speech  to  a  large  congregation  in  the  course  of  the 
religious  exercises  which  accompanied  the  unveiling;  have  attended 
the  dedication  of  a  tablet  to  the  memory  of  John  Davenport,  founder 
of  New  Haven,  Connecticut,  an  early  benefactor  of  both  Yale  and 
Har\'ard,  and  progenitor  of  all  the  Davenports  in  America;  have 
made  a  little  sp>eech  in  the  midst  of  the  religious  service  at  Southwark 
Cathedral,  and  turned  over  in  behalf  of  Harvard  graduates  the 
Har\'ard  Memorial  Chapel  to  the  Cathedral  authorities;  have  spoken 
very  briefly  in  response  to  a  toast  in  your  honor  at  the  luncheon 
given  by  Sir  George  Chubb  for  the  Duke  of  Connaught's  Soldiers' 
and  Sailors*  Home,  and  have  acted  on  a  committee  of  reception  for 
the  Duke  and  Duchess  themselves  at  the  opening  of  an  extension  to 
the  Home.  Meanwhile,  I  have  made  the  prop>osaI  for  arbitration  in 
the  Newfoundland  business  and  discussed  it  on  two  occasions  with 
the  Minister  of  Foreign  Affairs,  have  had  revived  their  proposal  for 
reciprocity,  giving  the  reductions  on  art  authorized  by  Section  3  of 
the  Tariff  Act  in  return  for  free  commercial  samples,  and  have  dis- 
covered two  or  three  things  in  the  form  which  they  wanted  signed 
that  we  have  never  agreed  to  and  were  obviously  to  our  disadvan- 
tage, and  have  had  the  document  sent  back  to  the  Board  of  Trade 
in  accordance  with  our  agreement. 

He  deprecated  what  he  called  **this  perpetual  speak- 
ing," but  found  it  hard  to  escape  from  **the  bondage  of 
the  fatal  precedents/'  And  there  were  some  occasions 
which  he  found  not  unwelcome.  One  of  them,  for  ex- 
ample, was  that  offered  by  the  opening  of  the  John 
Bright   Memorial   School   at   Llandudno   in    the    fall   of 


356         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

1907.  He  remembered  Bright's  services  to  us  in  the 
Civil  War  and  the  shabby  incident  in  Congress  which 
was  one  of  our  returns  to  him  for  it.  He  was  glad  to 
pay  the  great"  Englishman  his  tribute.  He  enjoyed,  too, 
the  dinner  of  the  Titmarsh  Club,  at  which  he  was  asked 
to  speak  on  Thackeray  in  America.  He  spoke  with  a 
gusto  which  led  the  editor  of  "Everyman's  Library"  to 
extract  from  him  a  version  of  his  address  to  use  as  a 
preface  in  the  edition  of  "Vanity  Fair"  printed  in  that 
series.  It  was  with  peculiar  interest  that  he  spoke  before 
the  Luton  Chamber  of  Commerce,  describing  the  destruc- 
tion of  San  Francisco  by  earthquake  and  fire  and  the  rapid 
restoration  of  the  city.  But  the  episode  of  this  period 
which  most  strongly  appealed  to  him,  I  think,  came 
when  he  went  to  Bath  in  the  autumn  of  1908  for  the 
unveiling  of  a  tablet  on  Edmund  Burke's  old  residence 
there,  and  delivered  an  address  on  Burke  as  America's 
foremost  friend  in  Great  Britain.  The  paper  may  be 
found  in  the  second  volume  of  his  "American  and  English 
Studies,"  a  brief  but  searching  essay  in  historical  anal- 
ysis and  portraiture.  A  sentence  in  his  reply  to  a  letter 
about  it  from  the  Reverend  Edward  Everett  Hale  indi- 
cates how  early  his  acquaintance  with  the  subject  had 
begun.  "Like  you,"  he  said,  "I  was  brought  up  on 
extracts  from  Burke,  which  we  had  to  declaim,  and  I 
have  been  rather  surprised  to  find  how  apparently  sHght 
is  the  acquaintance  of  the  present  generation  with  his 
work."  I  may  cite  a  passage  on  that  work  especially 
illustrative  of  Reid's  appreciation  of  the  Enghshman's 
service  to  ourselves : 

No  other  man  in  England,  hardly  one  even  in  America,  saw  quite 
so  clearly  as  Edmund  Burke  that  after  an  unwise  ministry  had 
forced  the  colonists  into  a  long  war  in  defence  of  the  English  prin- 
ciple of  no  taxation  without  representation,  the  only  possible  out- 
come of  the  war  by  which  the  real  England  could  succeed  was  an 


A  DIPLOMAT'S  CIRCLE  357 

American  victory.  Yet  no  other  deprecated  the  struggle  so  much; 
no  other  at  the  outset  more  sincerely  desired  to  preserve  the  authority 
of  Parliament  and  the  just  rights  of  the  crown.  He  even  admitted 
the  precedents,  both  in  Great  Britain  and  in  the  colonies,  for  taxa- 
tion without  representation.  But  when  once  the  right  was  deter- 
minedly challenged,  he  frankly  recognized  that,  as  he  put  it  in 
lawyer-Hke  phrase,  "the  assertion  of  the  title  would  be  the  loss  of 
the  suit."  While  there  was  still  a  chance  to  draw  back  he  pleaded 
with  the  ministry  and  with  Parliament:  "It  is  our  business  to  rule, 
not  to  wrangle.  It  is  poor  compensation  to  triumph  in  a  dispute 
whilst  we  lose  an  empire."  "Your  ancestors,"  he  exclaimed,  "did 
at  length  op>en  their  eyes  to  the  ill-husbandry  of  injustice.  They 
found  that  the  tyranny  of  a  free  people  could  of  all  tyrannies  the 
least  be  endured."  And  then  he  reminded  the  ministry  that,  while 
reciting  the  entire  and  perfect  authority  of  the  crown,  its  predeces- 
sors had  nevertheless,  with  the  approval  of  the  crown,  given  succes- 
sively to  various  Enghsh  communities  and  also  to  the  Welsh  all  the 
rights  and  privileges  of  Enghsh  subjects.  "Are  not  the  colonists," 
he  demanded,  "as  much  EngHshmen  as  the  Welsh?"  By  such 
steps  he  came  to  regard  the  struggle  as  not  a  rebellion,  but  a  civil 
war,  in  which  EngHshmen  in  the  colonies  fought  for  old  Enghsh 
rights,  and  in  gaining  these  rights  for  themselves  made  them  hence- 
forth forever  secure  for  England,  too. 

In  this  speech  the  American  ambassador  was  very 
frank  and  he  says,  in  a  letter  to  Senator  Lodge,  **the 
thing  which  most  struck  and  interested  me  there — as  it 
has  struck  me  several  times  before — is  the  singular  ami- 
ability and  tolerance  with  which  the  British  pubhc  of 
to-day  receives  sweeping  condemnation  of  the  general 
course  of  their  Government  and  people  before  and  dur- 
ing the  Revolutionary  War.  I  have  always  shrunk  a 
little  from  treating  such  questions;  but  when  specifically 
invited  to  do  so,  have  always  felt  that  it  was  better  not 
to  *shy'  at  them."  The  subject  is  pursued  in  another 
letter  to  Mr.  Root,  from  which  I  must  quote  at  greater 
length : 

As  to  your  question  whether  Burke  is  r«ally  appreciated  in  Great 
Britain  as  fully  as  in  the  United  States,  I  think  I  should  answer, 
first,  that  I  have  some  doubt  as  to  the  vivid  nature  of  his  apprecia- 


358         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

tion  in  either  country,  excepting  among  literary  men,  and,  secondly, 
that  when  his  merits  are  recalled,  I  believe  there  is  a  much  quicker 
response  in  America  than  here. 

I  doubt  if  even  after  this  lapse  of  time  the  English  mind  generally 
has  forgiven  BilTke  for  being  an  Irishman,  or,  in  spite  of  his  own 
Protestantism,  for  his  frank  efforts  in  a  legislative  way  to  befriend 
the  Roman  Catholic  religion  of  his  mother  and  of  his  native  land. 
In  addition  to  that  he  was  what  they  were  accustomed  in  those  days 
to  consider  an  Irish  adventurer;  and  they  did  not  quite  forgive  him 
for  his  obvious  intellectual  superiority  to  the  representatives  of  Great 
English  houses,  who  then  controlled  English  politics.  Besides,  they 
refused  to  see  how  he  could  afford  such  a  place  as  Beaconsfield,  even 
after  his  inheritance  and  the  gifts  from  Lord  Rockingham  were  ex- 
plained; and,  while  they  could  shut  their  eyes  against  Pitt's  and 
Fox*s  extravagances  and  debts,  they  could  never  forgive  the  Irish 
adventurer  for  the  presumption  of  having  similar,  though  smaller, 
debts.  Of  course  this  is  mainly  true  as  to  the  attitude  of  his  con- 
temporaries and  of  the  generation  that  immediately  succeeded  them. 
But  I  have  fancied  that  the  same  note  could  be  felt  in  the  discussions 
about  him  which  sprang  up  after  the  Bath  ceremonial,  as  well  as  in 
the  frequent  remarks  made  to  me  on  the  subject  by  various  English- 
men. 

The  life  of  a  diplomat  as  constantly  occupied  as  White- 
law  Reid  was  must  have  proved  arduous  for  even  a 
younger  man.  It  was  arduous  for  him.  But  the  sys- 
tematic regimen  he  followed,  and  his  always  buoyant 
will,  kept  him  abreast  of  his  work.  In  October,  1907, 
he  had  an  invitation  from  his  old  friend  Colonel  A.  K. 
McCIure  to  the  celebration  of  that  gentleman's  eighty- 
first  birthday.  In  the  course  of  his  reply  he  said:  *'I 
shall  be  turning  the  seventieth  mile  stone  on  next  Sun- 
day. There  was  a  time  when  I  thought  this  was  about 
the  limit  of  old  age;  now  it  seems  to  me  just  about  the 
beginning  of  some  Httle  real  fitness  for  the  duties  of 
active  life.  The  curious  thing  about  it  is  that,  while  I 
can't  shut  my  eyes  to  the  fact  that  I  trace  in  myself 
some  signs  of  advancing  years,  I  never  did  my  work 
easier  or  seemed  to  myself  to  be  more  capable  of  doing 
it  than  at  present."     A  great  source  of  rest  and  recupera- 


A  DIPLOMAT'S  CIRCLE  359 

tion  was  his  home  in  the  country.  The  library  at  Wrest 
was  by  itself  a  well-spring  of  repose,  full  of  rare  old 
editions,  steeped,  as  the  whole  estate  was,  in  memories 
of  an  historic  past.  A  modern  souvenir  of  the  place 
came  to  him  from  Trevelyan.  **  I  should  like  immensely 
some  day,"  he  writes,  "to  see  you  and  Mrs.  Whitelaw 
Reid  at  Wrest,  and  to  renew  my  recollections  of  1864-5. 
I  shot  a  woodcock  across  the  nose  of  William  the  Third 
in  the  ornamental  garden;  and  there  is  a  little  room — I 
think  on  the  opposite  side  of  the  hall  from  the  dining 
room  or  breakfast  room — where  I  had  the  most  curious 
talk,  almost  a  dramatic  scene,  with  Mr.  Disraeli."  But 
most  of  the  Wrest  stories  go  further  back.  Rosebery, 
after  one  of  his  visits,  writes  to  the  ambassador,  saying: 
**You  had  either  forgotten,  or  concealed  from  me,  at 
Wrest,  that  Henry  Duke  of  Kent,  to  whose  honor  every- 
thing at  Wrest  seems  to  tend,  was  known  in  his  life 
time  as  *the  Bug,'  from  his  extreme  dirtiness,  as  you  will 
see  in  Pope's  Imitations  of  Horace !  I  must  break  this 
gently  to  Lucas."     The  allusion  follows: 

"Barnard  in  spirit,  sense  and  truth  abounds; 
Pray  then,  what  wants  he?     Fourscore  thousand  pounds; 
A  pension,  or  such  harness  for  a  slave 
As  Bug  now  has,  and  Dorimant  would  have.** 

They  had  some  diverting  colloquies  on  this  quaint 
subject.  Reid  looked  it  up  in  the  only  edition  of  Pope, 
that  of  1806,  which  was  on  the  shelves  at  Wrest.  In 
this,  by  good  luck  for  any  reader  favorable  to  the  house 
of  Kent,  a  note  by  Warton  confessed  ignorance  of  the 
person  aimed  at  in  the  poet's  satire.  **  Lucas  is  armed 
in  his  own  library,  you  see,"  wrote  Reid  to  Rosebery, 
**and  if  you  break  it  to  him,  I  am  afraid  you'll  have  to 
do  it  more  than  gently,  to  make  him  lose  faith  in  his 
ducal  ancestor."     Rosebery  responded  by  sending  him 


36o        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  latest  edition  of  Pope,  containing  all  the  evidence 
that  he  really  meant  to  castigate  the  Duke  of  Kent  for 
his  uncleanliness  and  other  disagreeable  qualities  and 
that  the  name  of  *'the  Bug"  had  been  applied  to  him 
by  Swift,  in  the  correspondence  of  the  Duke  of  Marl- 
borough, and  in  Lord  Dartmouth's  notes  on  Bishop 
Burnet.  Swift's  lines  were  particularly  bitter.  The 
Duke  of  Kent  died  on  the  5th  of  June,  1740,  and  in  1741 
Swift  wrote  some  verses  on  the  new  Knights  of  the  Gar- 
ter, in  which  these  lines  appear: 

"That  short  bit  of  riband,  for  men  never  meant. 
May  serve  httle  Portland  that  served  little  Kent. 
Though  stained  ...  by  nasty  old  Bug, 
What  tied  an  old  monkey  may  hold  a  young  pug." 

Reid  cheerfully  acknowledged  the  evidence.  "No;  you 
didn't  disturb  my  enjoyment  of  the  Duke  of  Kent  a 
particle,"  he  said.  "To  me,  he  is  the  man  who  had  the 
wit  to  employ  Lenotre,  and  the  luck  to  have  heirs  who 
didn't  spoil  the  work.  The  note  is  most  interesting, 
and  I  suppose  conclusive  as  to  Pope's  meaning.  Whether 
the  decent  looking  old  Duke  deserved  it  is  another  ques- 
tion. I  wouldn't  condemn  a  skunk  on  Marlborough's 
testimony,  or  on  that  of  Her  Grace's  correspondence; 
nor  would  one  accept  Swift  as  final.  But  Dartmouth's 
manuscript  notes  in  Burnet's  History  I  suppose  to  be 
another  sort  of  thing.  I  spent  a  whole  Sunday  once 
poring  over  them,  and  found  many  curious  stories — 
about  the  youth  of  William  of  Orange  for  example — 
which  haven't  got  into  print,  but  didn't  stumble  on 
this." 

It  was  on  the  occasion  of  this  visit,  which  started  their 
researches  into  the  history  of  "the  Bug,"  that  Reid  de- 
scribes Rosebery  as  in  great  form,  in  fine  health  and 
spirits,  and  very  sanguine  over  the  labors  of  his  com- 


A  DIPLOMAT'S  CIRCLE  361 

mittee  on  the  changes  which  the  House  of  Lords  was 
preparing  to  work  in  its  own  body.  He  wouldn't  go  out 
with  the  guns.  He  said  that  he  had  reached  that  time 
of  life  when  he  felt  that  his  shooting  was  better  done  at 
home  and  with  few  witnesses.  In  Reid's  letters  to 
Roosevelt,  who  was  always  interested  in  matters  of 
sport,  the  shooting-parties  at  Wrest,  and  their  bags,  are 
often  mentioned.  One  story  I  reproduce  as  unique.  It 
relates  to  a  party  in  November,  1907,  when  Prince 
Arthur  of  Connaught  was  among  the  guests: 

The  total  of  pheasants  should  have  been  1294.  It  was  not,  for  a 
reason  which  the  old  gamekeeper  pronounced  to  be  absolutely  un- 
precedented. There  were  eight  guns  in  the  line,  and  advancing  upon 
them  were  forty  beaters  driving  up  the  game.  Just  as  the  beaters 
had  nearly  reached  the  guns,  the  Prince  shot  a  pheasant  which 
dropped  almost  at  his  feet.  At  that  instant  and  in  full  view  of  the 
forty-eight  pairs  of  eyes,  a  splendid,  well-fed  fox  dashed  up,  caught 
the  still  fluttering  pheasant  in  his  jaws,  and  was  off"  like  an  arrow. 
The  Prince's  exclamation  was:  "What  infernal  cheek  I"  The 
amused  remark  among  several  of  those  about  him  was:  "That's  lese 
majeste !  If  we  were  in  Germany,  the  fox  would  have  a  hard  time 
of  it."  Even  in  America,  I  fancy  that  some  of  us  would  have  been 
tempted  to  give  him  the  benefit  of  an  undischarged  barrel.  But 
not  a  gun  was  lifted,  and  evidently  every  Englishman  thought  that 
the  fox  was  within  his  rights. 

The  French  ambassador,  M.  Cambon,  was  among  the 
witnesses  of  this  curious  occurrence,  a  sportsman,  like 
the  rest.  His  presence,  however,  recalls  us  for  a  mo- 
ment to  diplomacy,  to  the  commingling  of  political  and 
social  threads  characteristic  of  English  country-house 
life.  These  gatherings  at  Wrest,  from  which  one  catches 
the  whir  of  pheasants  and  the  sound  of  guns,  constantly 
echo,  also,  with  the  conversation  of  public  men  on  mat- 
ters of  moment — the  fate  of  measures  pending  in  the 
House,  the  rise  and  fall  of  party  reputations,  the  affairs 
of  the  world  everywhere.     On  one  occasion  the  prevailing 


362         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

informality  was  interrupted  by  a  ceremonious  observ- 
ance through  which  the  King  charmingly  signalized  his 
good-will  for  the  United  States  by  a  courtesy  which 
estabhshed  a  new  precedent.  The  27th  of  October, 
Whitelaw  Reid's  birthday,  was  likewise  the  birthday  of 
the  President.  In  1907  the  King  intimated  in  advance 
a  desire  that  his  congratulations  to  Mr.  Roosevelt  should 
be  personally  presented  to  the  American  ambassador  by 
the  master  of  ceremonies,  a  thing  which  had  never  been 
done  before.  Accordingly,  the  private  celebration  at 
Wrest  was  transformed  into  something  like  a  diplomatic 
function.  There  was  a  very  formal  call  paid  by  the 
Honorable  Arthur  Walsh,  in  the  morning,  with  a  little 
speech  and  a  reply,  both  of  which  were  duly  cabled  to 
the  White  House.  The  German  ambassador  was  there, 
and  in  view  of  what  we  have  seen  of  the  Kaiser's  attitude 
toward  the  United  States,  maintained  with  a  jealous  eye 
on  England,  one  can  extract  a  little  humor  from  specula- 
tion on  Count  Metternich's  thoughts.  In  the  course  of 
his  toast  Reid  took  account  of  them,  and  by  a  friendly 
allusion  sought  to  allay  the  possible  emotions  of  his  Ger- 
man friend,  judiciously  ignoring  Germany's  role  in  the 
Hague  conference,  then  recently  concluded. 

Before  adverting  to  The  Hague  and  similar  subjects  I 
must  add  to  this  chapter  on  the  more  intimate  side  of 
the  life  of  the  Reids  in  England  some  reference  to  the 
marriage  of  their  daughter  to  John  Ward,  son  of  the 
late  Earl  of  Dudley.  He  had  served  in  South  Africa  on 
the  staff  of  Lord  Roberts,  and  that  famous  soldier  spoke 
highly  of  him  as  an  officer  and  as  a  man.  He  was  occu- 
pied there  in  the  supervision  at  headquarters  of  the 
despatches  sent  by  army  correspondents  from  the  field, 
and  the  ambassador  was  charmed  by  the  tribute  paid 
him  by  the  most  distinguished  member  of  that  corps. 
Soon  after  the  engagement  was  announced  he  met  Rud- 


A  DIPLOMATS  CIRCLE  363 

yard  Kipling,  and  the  author  said:  **Your  future  son-in- 
law  isn't  half  a  bad  sort,  in  spite  of  his  having  censored 
my  despatches.'*  Soldiers  and  civihans  spoke  well  of 
Ward  when  he  returned  to  England.  He  entered,  then, 
the  War  Department,  but  during  his  stay  there  was  sent 
for  by  King  Edward  to  be  his  equerry.  The  King  and 
Queen  were  present  when  the  wedding  took  place  in  the 
Chapel  Royal  on  June  23d,  1908.  It  was  difficult  for 
the  Reids  to  contemplate  a  future  with  their  daughter 
separated  from  them  by  the  sea;  but  there  was  too  much 
of  genuine  happiness  in  the  event,  too  sure  a  conviction 
of  its  lasting  significance,  for  this  thought  to  weigh 
heavily. 

It  was  in  1908  that  Ogden  Reid  gave  them  another 
cause  for  congratulation  in  beginning  the  service  on  the 
staff  of  The  Tribune  which  was  to  end  in  his  estabhsh- 
ment  in  the  editorship.  The  ambassador  watched  this 
launching  of  his  son's  fortunes  with  an  interest  that  is 
often  disclosed  in  letters  to  his  friends.  It  was  always  in 
his  mind,  hoped  for,  planned  for,  and  encouraged  with 
dehght.  His  friends  in  turn  gave  him  pleasure  when 
they  touched  upon  a  subject  so  dear  to  his  heart.  I  may 
cite  one  of  these  communications: 

New  York 
Dear  Mr,  Reid:  November  18,  1908. 

When  I  was  talking  to  Mr.  Mills  last  evening  he  seemed  so  gratified 
at  my  observations  on  your  son  that  I  feel  there  can  be  no  harm  in 
writing  and  telling  you  my  impressions  of  the  young  man's  work 
here.  At  my  first  encounter  with  him  neither  my  secretary  nor  I 
had  any  notion  that  he  was  your  son  and  we  were  much  pleased  with 
the  very  conscientious  way  in  which  he  set  about  interviewing  me. 
Afterwards  we  found  out  by  accident  who  he  was  and  I  naturally 
observed  him  at  public  meetings  and  other  places  to  which  I  went. 

I  must  say  that  I  think  you  have  in  young  Mr.  Reid  the  material 
for  a  very  good  journalist  and  a  conscientious  one.  I  was  only  sorry 
that  I  could  not  see  more  of  him.  I  am  so  fond  of  my  profession 
that  it  delighted  me  to  see  his  keenness. 

Yours  sincerely,  Northcliffe. 


^  > 


364         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Reid  rejoiced  as  he  saw  his  son  following  the  advice 
which  he  had  himself  received  from  an  old  hand  at  the 
outset  of  his  own  journalistic  career:  "If  anybody  wants 
to  succeed  he  must  do  whatever  work  he  can  get  to  do, 
and  do  it  better  than  it  has  been  done.  Report  any- 
thing they  set  you  at  and  do  your  very  best  every  time." 
In  the  glimpse  into  Ogden  Reid's  apprenticeship  that 
the  Enghsh  editor  gave  him  he  read  one  more  augury  of 
the  continuance,  after  he  had  gone,  of  that  policy  for  the 
paper  to  which  he  had  alluded  in  writing  to  Roosevelt 
on  the  eve  of  taking  up  his  embassy.  "I  have  long 
looked  upon  my  ownership  of  The  Tribune  as  a  sort  of 
trust,"  he  had  then  said.  His  son's  thoroughness  pointed 
to  the  same  spirit. 


CHAPTER  XIX 
A  TROUBLE-MAKING  KAISER 

When  the  American  ambassador  got  back  to  London 
after  the  Christmas  of  1906,  in  time  for  the  opening  of 
Parliament,  he  found  elements  in  the  air  heightening  his 
zest  for  diplomatic  business.  Mrs.  Reid  was  extending 
her  visit  at  home  and  he  wrote  to  her:  **I  am  afraid  we 
are  in  for  a  period  of  rather  more  fault-finding  in  the 
English  press  than  heretofore.  The  Conservatives  are 
hkely  to  find  it  suit  their  political  interests  to  find  fault 
with  the  Government  about  the  modus  vivendi  (which 
has  just  come  up  in  the  Newfoundland  Parhament  and 
is  hkely  to  here)  and  in  general  to  accuse  the  Govern- 
ment of  such  a  desire  to  keep  on  good  terms  with  the 
United  States  as  to  be  ready  to  submit  to  anything. 
*Man  never  is  but  ahvays  to  be  blest.'"  Nor  was  the 
modus  vivendi  the  only  subject  productive  of  atmospheric 
mutations.  In  January  occurred  the  earthquake  in 
Jamaica  and  Governor  Swettenham's  curious  behavior 
over  the  American  aid  promptly  rendered  by  Admiral 
Davis.  When  Reid,  on  the  steamer,  first  heard  of  the 
disaster,  the  news  was  accompanied  by  the  intimation 
that  our  men  had  only  been  landed  at  the  request  of  the 
authorities,  and  his  natural  expectation  was  of  words  of 
appreciation  in  the  English  press.  Instead,  he  discov- 
ered that  in  the  opinion  of  a  good  many  commentators 
we  had  ** butted  in"  without  adequate  warrant,  unable 
to  conceal  our  unholy  hankering  for  possession  of  Jamaica 
or  at  least  for  paramountcy  in  those  waters !  Even 
among  the  public  men  he  met,  whose  feeling  of  surprise 

365 


366         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

and  disgust  at  their  own  governor  was  manifest,  there 
was  a  certain  nervousness.  They  hated  to  accept  the 
fact  that  the  Swettenham  incident  had  been,  in  fact, 
merely  ridiculmis.  It  made  a  queer  little  flurry,  in  which 
the  Enghsh  were  as  sore  as  if  they  had  burnt  their  fin- 
gers. **I  have  never  seen  them  so  thoroughly  ashamed 
of  anything,"  said  Reid,  in  one  of  his  letters  home.  "It 
isn't  an  altogether  satisfactory  mood,  however,  for  it 
naturally  leaves  them  on  the  look-out  for  some  occur- 
rence of  the  same  kind  on  our  side  which  would  enable 
them  to  let  themselves  down  a  Httle  easier.  I  am  afraid 
they  are  going  to  be  pretty  captious  about  fisheries  and 
other  questions  we  have  on  our  Northern  frontier." 

Whatever  eff'ect  irresponsible  agents  might  have  upon 
public  opinion,  the  American  ambassador  was  sure  of  a 
thoroughly  open-minded  and  judicial  attitude  at  the 
Foreign  Office.  The  Liberals  inspired  a  confidence  in 
that  branch  of  the  government  which  was  as  wide-spread 
as  in  Lansdowne's  time.  "Sir  Edward  Grey,"  said 
Reid,  "is  perhaps  a  little  less  of  the  traditional  official, 
but,  on  the  other  hand,  he  has  a  singularly  fresh,  strong 
intellect,  and  he  makes  the  speech  of  a  broad-minded 
and  thoughtful  statesman.  Nobody  in  either  party  has 
a  word  to  say  against  him."  He  made  short  work  of  the 
Swettenham  business  on  the  occasion  of  Reid's  first  visit 
after  his  return,  introducing  the  subject  himself  and  ex- 
pressing warm  appreciation  of  the  whole  attitude  of  the 
United  States  in  the  matter.  With  the  withdrawal  of 
the  governor's  unfortunate  letter  to  Admiral  Davis  a 
trifling  but  unpleasant  episode  easily  gave  place  to  more 
important  questions.  In  Sir  Edward  Grey's  hands  these 
could  never  be  the  sport  of  party  politics.  At  the  same 
time  there  were  bound  to  be  certain  links  between  them 
and  the  Liberal  programme,  and  some  of  the  most  strik- 
ing passages  in  Reid's  correspondence  with  the  President 


I 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING   KAISER  367 

carry  on  the  survey  of  political  conditions  which  was  a 
constant  part  of  his  work.  It  was  a  congenial  diversion. 
Secretary  Root  makes  this  reference  to  the  passages  in 
question:  "I  have  been  much  interested  in  your  recent 
letters  both  to  me  and  to  the  President,  and  I  took  occa- 
sion to  say  to  the  President  that  they  showed  the  good 
results  of  editorial  training  in  enabling  a  man  to  select 
the  matters  which  really  constitute  interesting  news  to 
write  about.''     I  quote  some  fragments: 

May  24th,  1907. 

Last  autumn  it  was  my  impression  that  nobody  in  public  life  had 
gained  more  in  the  British  estimation  since  the  opening  of  this 
Parliament  than  Campbell-Bannerman.  People  generally  had  not 
been  accustomed  to  think  of  him  as  a  personage  of  first  rate  or  per- 
haps even  of  second  rate  political  importance;  and  everybody  was 
astonished  at  finding  that  he  was  leading  with  an  unexpected  author- 
ity and  vigor.  They  had  all  been  standing  ready  to  guffaw  at  his 
blunders,  and  were  feeling  a  little  cheap  at  the  fact  that  he  kept 
using  his  majority  relentlessly,  and  enforcing  his  purposes  with  a 
vigor  they  hadn't  in  the  least  anticipated.  It  was  not  possible  to 
sneer  at  him  or  to  undervalue  him. 

But  since  then  I  fancy  we  have  all  been  conscious  of  a  relaxation. 
It  would  be  a  little  hard  to  tell  why  the  change,  but  I  don't  think 
I  can  be  mistaken  in  the  behef  that  there  is  a  considerable  change 
in  the  general  public  feeling  concerning  "C.-B."  and  his  government. 
It  certainly  has  not  gained  by  Mr.  Birrell's  new  Irish  bill,  by  Mr. 
Asquith's  budget,  or  even  by  Mr.  Haldane's  army  bill;  while  the  first 
impression  at  the  close  of  the  Colonial  conference  is  one  of  a  distinct 
disadvantage  to  the  Government.  Some  of  the  Premiers  them- 
selves have  been  almost  defiant  in  the  tone  they  have  adopted.  It 
probably  does  not  mean  much;  but  it  certainly  does  not  indicate 
any  great  substance  in  any  British  hold  on  the  Colonies  the  moment 
the  Colonies  fail  to  get  the  chief  profit  from  it. 

The  outburst  most  noticeable  to  us  is,  of  course,  that  of  Sir  Robert 
Bond  [Premier  of  Newfoundland].  He  has  contrived  to  get  a  great 
deal  of  sympathy  for  himself  and  for  the  colonies.  There  has  been 
little  unfriendly  talk  toward  us  and  not  much  that  we  could  complain 
of  concerning  the  modus  vivendi  of  last  autumn.  But  the  tone  now 
certainly  indicates  that  we  cannot  get  such  a  modus  vivendi  again, 
and  that  Sir  Robert  Bond  has  secured  a  large  amount  of  sympathy 
for  his  little  colony  on  the  ground  that  it  was  not  permitted  to  regu- 


368        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

late  its  domestic  affairs  as  a  self-governing  colony  should.  From 
one  point  of  view  this  is  quite  right;  from  another  it  is  absurd.  It  is 
grotesque  to  suppose  that  a  long-standing  right,  which  seems  un- 
questionable under  an  independent  treaty  between  two  great  powers, 
can  be  nullified  fey  a  spit-fire  little  colony  of  one  of  them,  barely  two 
hundred  thousand  in  number.  When,  in  the  course  of  negotiating 
the  modus  vivendiy  I  had  occasion  to  point  out  that  this  little  colony 
was  deliberately  telling  the  United  States  it  meant  to  put  its  local 
law  against  our  treaty  right  and  call  on  Great  Britain  to  back  it  up, 
the  Foreign  Office  recognized  the  absurdity  of  that  situation,  and 
we  had  little  difficulty  in  inducing  them  to  say  that  for  the  present 
at  least  they  would  have  to  suspend  such  colonial  legislation. 

July  25th,  1907. 
Sir  Henry  Campbell-Bannerman  was  asked  the  other  night  whether 
it  was  true  that  he  was  going  to  be  cruel  enough  to  keep  Parliament 
in  session  until  the  middle  or  end  of  September — in  spite  of  the 
grouse  shooting  opening  on  the  12th  of  August.  "Oh,  that  is  entirely 
a  meteorological  question,"  said  the  canny  Scot.  "If  the  weather 
clears  up,  we  should  probably  find  it  difficult  to  hold  them.  If  it 
remains  as  damp  and  dismal  as  it  has  been,  they'll  think  they  might 
just  as  well  stay  here  in  London  and  serve  their  country,  since  there 
is  not  much  fun  to  be  had  elsewhere.'* 

August  28th,  1907. 

Parliament  was  prorogued  to-day,  and  we  shall  see  nothing  of 
them  again  until  next  winter.  It  has  been  a  session  bringing  dis- 
appointments to  nearly  everybody.  The  Liberals  are  disappointed 
in  having  succeeded  with  but  a  very  small  part  of  the  programme 
they  set  forth  in  the  King's  speech.  Mr.  Birrell  is  particularly  dis- 
appointed in  seeing  the  failure  of  his  Irish  bill  added  to  his  previous 
failure  on  an  education  bill.  The  Conservatives  are  disappointed 
in  finding  that  after  all  the  session  has  been  productive  of  a  good 
deal  of  legislation — rather  more  than  an  ordinary  session — and  that 
much  of  what  has  been  done  is  likely  to  be  fairly  well  received  by  the 
country.  But  I  don't  believe  that  it  will  be  felt  that  the  net  result 
of  the  session  gives  the  Liberals  any  considerable  gain  throughout 
the  country.  They  are  still  somewhat  under  the  influence  of  a 
natural  reaction;  and  have  besides  stirred  up  a  great  deal  of  hostility 
by  land  measures,  disagreements  with  the  Irish,  with  the  Labor 
leaders,  and  with  the  suffragettes.  If  the  other  party  were  better 
united,  this  situation  might  be  somewhat  threatening.  As  it  is,  I 
don't  believe  there  is  much  to  interfere  with  their  holding  power 
considerably  longer. 

Few  men,  either  in  the  Government  or  in  the  opposition,  have 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING  KAISER  369 

made  any  great  personal  gains  this  season.  In  the  Government  it 
may  fairly  be  said  that  Sir  Edward  Grey,  John  Morley,  Mr.  Haldane 
and  "Lulu"  Harcourt  are  all  stronger  than  they  were;  and  Winston 
Churchill  has  by  sheer  dint  of  pertinacity  and  speaking  power  con- 
quered a  degree  of  toleration  which  at  the  outset  was  not  expected; 
in  fact  he  has  made  himself  much  too  important  in  his  party  to  be 
quarrelled  with.  On  the  other  side,  both  Arthur  Balfour  and  Lord 
Lansdowne  have  gained  in  authority  and  in  the  public  estimation  of 
them  as  capable  party  leaders.  Balfour,  at  any  rate,  seems  stronger 
in  opposition  than  he  did  as  leader  of  the  House.  To  have  Lans- 
downe as  leader  of  the  House  of  Lords  was  thought  an  experiment, 
but  the  experiment  has  worked  so  admirably  that  certainly  nobody 
would  dream  now  of  proposing  to  put  anybody  else  in  his  place. 
The  other  great  discovery  of  the  session  was  the  continued  personal 
power  of  Lord  Rosebery.  His  single  speech  defeated  the  Scotch 
small  landholders*  bill  and  was  universally  talked  of,  whether  by  his 
Liberal  associates,  on  whom  he  turned  so  effectively,  or  by  the  Con- 
servatives, whom  he  helped,  as  a  beautiful  and  telling  intellectual 
display. 

Early  in  1908  the  Liberals  were  possessed  of  an  over- 
whelming majority  against  which  the  tide  nevertheless 
seemed  to  be  running  strongly.  "C.-B."  was  in  a  criti- 
cal state  of  health,  and  the  prospects  were  that  Asquith 
would  soon  be  coming  in  in  his  place.  In  March  the 
parliamentary  waters  were  tremendously  stirred  by  the 
famous  letter  from  the  Kaiser  to  Tweedmouth.  There 
was  a  bad  slump  in  Anglo-German  feeling,  and  it  looked 
for  a  little  while  as  if  the  first  lord  of  the  admiralty 
would  be  driven  into  retirement.  The  American  ambas- 
sador's notes  on  the  subject  yield  a  good  picture  of 
British  solidarity  in  the  face  of  an  awkward  episode. 
"Nothing  but  the  patriotic  feeling  of  the  Opposition,"  he 
writes,  **and  their  determined  purpose  to  minimize  the 
incident  in  Parliament,  saved  an  extremely  embarrassing 
situation.  On  Saturday  night  I  happened  to  sit  near 
Lord  Lansdowne  at  dinner.  After  the  ladies  had  retired 
he  talked  with  some  freedom  about  the  trouble;  spoke 
of  it  as  a  patriot  would;  deplored  the  tone  the  *  Times* 


370         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

had  adopted;  and  said  that  unless  something  came  out 
in  the  statement  on  Monday  to  make  a  different  course 
necessary,  he  should  do  nothing  to  embarrass  the  Gov- 
ernment. Later  on  in  the  evening  I  had  a  similar  talk 
with  another  member  of  the  late  Ministry,  Lord  Midle- 
ton  (better  known  still  as  St.  John  Brodrick,  late  Minis- 
ter of  War),  who  said  he  had  not  talked  with  Lord  Lans- 
downe,  but  on  his  own  account  expressed  with  a  good 
deal  of  emphasis  very  much  the  same  opinion.  Evi- 
dently these  men  and  their  associates  gave  the  tone  to 
the  Parliamentary  temper  as'  well  as  that  of  the  press 
generally,  for  before  the  two  Houses  met  yesterday  it 
was  well  understood  that  the  Opposition  would  help  the 
Government  out  of  its  situation."  There  was,  neverthe- 
less, a  little  salt  sprinkled  over  poor  Tweedmouth's 
wounds.  When  the  opposition  learned  that  he  had  im- 
mediately carried  the  Kaiser's  letter  to  the  Foreign 
Office  it  saw  that  there  was  nothing  to  do  but  laugh  at 
him  for  not  having  followed  Sir  Edward  Grey's  advice 
and  treated  it  as  a  private  communication.  In  a  grave 
and  even  tone  Lansdowne  remarked  that  if  such  letters 
were  not  public  they  should  be  private,  and  that  this 
one  appeared  to  have  been  kept  about  as  private  as  the 
** private  view"  of  the  pictures  at  the  Royal  Academy. 
In  the  key  of  that  bland  mot  the  incident  was  closed, 
not,  however,  without  the  development  of  a  feeling  that 
it  might  have  its  force  in  the  determination  of  the  next 
naval  estimates. 

The  American  ambassador  was  struck  by  the  personal 
misfortune  which  pursued  this  Liberal  government.  It 
seemed  to  him  enough  to  attract  the  attention  of  the 
superstitious.  Sir  Edward  Grey  tragically  lost  his  wife 
just  as  he  was  entering  upon  his  career  at  the  Foreign 
Office.  Lady  Campbell-Bannerman's  invalidism  became 
more  pronounced  almost  in  the  moment  of  her  husband's 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING   KAISER  371 

rise  to  the  premiership.  As  Lloyd  George  was  taking 
the  first  steps  in  his  phenomenal  capture  of  British  con- 
fidence, the  death  of  his  eldest  daughter  occurred. 
"Lulu"  Harcourt's  activities  were  for  a  time  checked  by 
an  alarming  illness  in  his  family.  "C.-B."  himself  col- 
lapsed at  the  zenith  of  his  ministerial  success.  He  made 
a  brave  struggle  for  recovery,  put  in  a  few  rather  per- 
functory appearances  in  the  House,  went  off"  to  Biarritz 
to  recuperate,  and  came  back  for  another  attempt  at 
his  duties,  only  beginning  thereupon  a  last  gallant  fight 
for  life — while  his  elder  brother  was  lying  in  similar 
case  across  the  border.  As  for  the  man  who  was  marked 
to  be  his  successor,  Reid  makes  this  note: 

Next  comes  poor  Asquith — a  man  they  speak  of  as  having  fewer 
friends  than  "C.-B.,"  who  nevertheless  one  can't  help  admiring  for 
his  ability,  and  in  whom  I  have  also  found  a  very  agreeable  person- 
ality. He  has  never  made  an  appearance  in  an  important  speech 
in  the  House  in  which  he  has  not  strengthened  his  position,  till  at 
last  it  became  perfectly  clear  that  in  spite  of  the  number  of  other 
strong  men  in  the  Government,  he  was  overwhehningly  indicated  as 
the  new  Prime  Minister.  Finally  he  was  summoned  to  Biarritz  and 
"kissed  hands."  On  his  return  and  before  he  had  had  a  chance  to 
appear  in  the  House  as  Premier,  his  brother-in-law,  whose  guest  he 
was  to  have  been  over  Easter,  was  burned  to  death  by  an  over-turned 
lamp.  Poor  Asquith  was  down  there  only  to  be  called  in  for  the 
inquest  and  now  for  the  funeral. 

It  was  under  the  administration  of  **C.-B.''  that  the 
American  ambassador  recorded  progress  made  in  what 
had  become  **a  perennial  question,''  i.  e.,  the  question 
of  the  Newfoundland  fisheries.  I  have  glanced  at  the 
slight  perturbation  with  which  he  took  it  up  again,  early 
in  1907,  when,  as  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Cowles,  **  Parliament 
opens  next  week,  and  the  prospects  are  that  in  the  lan- 
guage of  our  southern  friends,  there'll  be  razors  in  the 
air."  In  his  talk  at  the  Foreign  Office  he  found  soon 
enough  that  the  demands  of  Sir  Robert  Bond  were  an 


372         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

inescapable  factor.  Our  government  steadily  maintained 
its  position,  and  with  very  little  delay  the  American 
ambassador  was  authorized  to  propose  a  reference  of  the 
pending  que^ions  under  the  treaty  of  1818  to  arbitra- 
tion before  the  Hague  Tribunal.  In  carrying  out  this 
policy  of  Secretary  Root's  he  executed  a  dehcate  task, 
involving  serious  issues,  but  there  was  a  fund  of  amuse- 
ment supplied  in  the  movement  developed  in  the  press  as 
the  discussions  reached  the  critical  point.  It  had  for  its 
object  the  laudation  of  Sir  Robert  Bond,  no  less,  as  the 
man  to  come  first  into  the  field  with  the  idea  of  arbitra- 
tion on  the  subject !  The  honor  was  really  our  own  and 
Washington  was  gratified  at  the  outcome.  "I  want  to 
congratulate  you,"  wrote  the  President,  "on  the  ad- 
mirable way  you  have  handled  the  Newfoundland  busi- 
ness. I  think  it  has  come  out  pretty  satisfactorily." 
Meanwhile,  of  course,  a  modus  vivendi  had  to  be  fixed 
again,  since  the  fishing  fleet  could  not  hold  up  its  regular 
August  saihng  while  awaiting  the  Hague  decision,  and 
these  subsidiary  negotiations  ran  on  for  weeks.  It  was 
not  until  September  that  Reid  could  thus  describe,  in  a 
letter  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt,  the  chnching  of  the  matter: 

The  King  came  back  on  Saturday  afternoon  and  left  on  Monday 
for  Balmoral.  I  met  him  at  luncheon  on  Sunday  and  found  him  in 
extraordinary  health — I  should  say  looking  better  than  I  have  seen 
him  for  years.  He  was  in  excellent  spirits  over  his  last  European 
trip.  I  had  the  opportunity  to  tell  him  that  between  the  Embassy 
and  the  Foreign  Office  we  had  succeeded  in  celebrating  the  day  of 
his  return  by  settling  a  modus  vivendi  for  the  Newfoundland  fisheries 
pending  the  arbitration  of  the  whole  question  at  the  Hague  Tribunal, 
and  had  thus,  as  it  was  to  be  hoped,  taken  forever  out  of  diplomacy 
this  century-old  source  of  irritation  between  Great  Britain  and  her 
colonies  on  the  one  hand  and  the  United  States  on  the  other.  He 
seemed  much  pleased  and  expressed  decided  gratification  at  the  end 
of  the  business. 

The  argument  was  not  to  be  dealt  with  at  The  Hague 
until   191  o,  and  so  the  American  ambassador  went  on, 


I 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING   KAISER  373 

knowing  that  in  one  way  or  another  he  had  the  fisheries 
question  always  with  him.  But  it  was  there,  now,  with 
a  difference. 

In  the  matter  of  the  second  Peace  Conference,  dis- 
cussion of  which  went  forward  side  by  side  with  the 
Newfoundland  negotiations,  he  came  to  very  close  quar- 
ters with  that  tangle  of  unappeasable  national  interests 
which  so  pathetically  invalidates  pacifist  gestures  in  in- 
ternational affairs — when  those  happen  to  embrace  more 
than  academic  elements  of  controversy.  When  I  touched 
upon  the  conference  in  a  preceding  chapter  Reid  was 
occupied  with  the  simple  matter  of  sharing  in  conversa- 
tions to  change  the  date.  Secretary  Root  was  meditat- 
ing a  move  regarding  the  limitation  of  armaments  and 
Sir  Edward  Grey  thought  his  government  could  readily 
second  such  a  proposal.  However,  the  difficulties  even 
then  perceived  rapidly  took  on  more  tangible  aspects. 
Reid  looked  at  them  all  from  a  cool,  common-sense  point 
of  view.  Least  of  all  was  he  impressed  by  the  counsels 
of  fanatics.  "The  amateur  diplomatists,"  he  wrote  the 
President,  "have  never  yet  learned  that  human  nature 
when  swept  by  elemental  passions  can't  be  controlled  by 
the  resolutions  of  dilettante  reformers.  Some  European 
nations,  I  am  sure,  will  not  consent  to  a  reduction,  and 
probably  not  to  a  limitation  of  armament,  especially  on 
land."  He  received  abundant  evidence  that  he  was 
right  on  this  point.  Professor  Martens,  the  Russian 
representative,  after  a  visit  to  Berhn,  paid  a  visit  to 
London,  to  learn,  if  he  could,  the  position  of  Great 
Britain  and  to  give  that  government  the  lead  by  some 
candid  intimations  at  the  Foreign  Office  that  Russia, 
Germany,  and  France  would  all  be  opposed  to  discussion 
of  the  armament  problem.  He  was  also  extremely 
anxious  to  find  out  where  the  United  States  stood  on 
the  question.      Sir  Edward  couldn't  be  drawn.     Neither 


374         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

could  Reid,  when  a  telephone  call  from  the  German 
Embassy  preceded  the  visit  of  a  secretary  of  Metter- 
nich's.  This  emissary  had  been  peremptorily  instructed 
to  get  out  of  the  American  Embassy  what  Russia  had 
been  trying  to  get,  to  find  out  whether  the  United  States 
was  going  to  insist  on  bringing  up  the  question  of  dis- 
armament which  the  trio  of  Powers  designated  by  Mar- 
tens thought  inexpedient  and  likely  to  do  harm.  Where 
these  indirect  methods  failed,  Prussian  bluntness  suc- 
ceeded. Followed  Prince  Billow's  forthright  speech,  in 
which  the  German  attitude  was  exphcitly  declared. 
Secretary  Root  was  loth  to  abandon  the  point.  With 
the  high  philosophy  to  which  I  have  already  alluded,  he 
felt  that  it  would  be  perhaps  the  better  to  make  the 
effort  and  fail  than  not  to  make  it  at  all.  But  in  the 
circumstances  to  press  the  matter  was,  for  England,  to 
winnow  the  wind,  and  our  own  view  was  inevitably  ad- 
justed to  the  stubborn  facts.  The  scope  of  the  confer- 
ence was  narrowed  as  the  opening  approached.  On  his 
way  to  The  Hague,  as  a  delegate,  Choate  saw  Reid  in 
London  and  told  him  that  we  were  not  to  propose  dis- 
cussion of  armaments,  but  only  to  second  a  proposal  if  it 
were  made  by  some  other  government.  The  results  of 
the  meeting  were  not  impressive.  Reid  had  a  weakness 
for  steps  that  really  counted,  and  with  pardonable  frank- 
ness he  wrote  to  Andrew  Carnegie:  "I  don't  believe  the 
whole  Conference  this  year  has  done  as  much  for  the 
course  of  peace  as  our  single  success  in  getting  the  New- 
foundland fishery,  which  we  have  been  wranghng  over 
for  a  century  and  a  quarter,  referred  to  the  Hague 
Court."  Carnegie,  of  course,  though  grateful  for  the 
small  graces  he  could  extract  from  the  affair,  was  a  good 
deal  disappointed.  So,  in  a  measure,  was  Reid.  But 
then  he  had  never  shared  the  ironmaster's  sentimental 
hopes.      Clipping  from  the  **Times"  for  Roosevelt  what 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING   KAISER  375 

he  trenchantly  called  "the  obituary  of  the  Hague  Confer- 
ence," he  added  these  brief  observations:  "As  I  didn't 
expect  much  else  from  the  beginning,  I  cannot  myself 
profess  any  surprise.  In  fact,  I  feel  about  it  a  good  deal 
as  you  will  remember  the  New  England  farmer  did  about 
the  pig  he  had  taken  to  market.  *That  hog  didn't 
weigh  as  much  as  I  expected  he  would,  and  I  always 
knew  he  wouldn't.' "  Prince  Munster's  reflection  on  the 
futility  of  threshing  old  straw  at  The  Hague,  especially 
Russian  straw,  came  back  to  him  with  renewed  force. 
Only  it  brought  with  it,  far  more  than  in  1899,  a  sense  of 
the  Kaiser's  reactionary  influence. 

We  have  already  observed  more  than  one  instance  of 
the  German  Emperor's  capacity  for  giving  the  diplomats 
of  Europe  something  unsetthng  to  talk  about.  Aflusions 
to  it  increase  in  number  in  the  ambassador's  letters  as 
the  months  pass.  When  the  Kaiser  made  his  visit  to 
London  in  1907,  and  Reid  met  him  at  the  state  banquet 
at  Windsor,  he  looked  well  fed,  perfectly  well,  extremely 
alert,  and  in  the  highest  good-humor.  But  that  good- 
humor,  no  matter  how  earnestly  manifested  on  a  cere- 
monious occasion,  was  never  any  insurance  against  some 
vexatious  outbreak.  English  nervousness  over  the  pos- 
sibilities latent  in  his  temperament  comes  out  comically 
in  the  colloquy  that  Reid  had  at  Wrest  in  the  fall  of  1908 
with  a  distinguished  guest.  "There's  bad  news  this 
morning,"  remarked  this  personage  at  breakfast,  after 
glancing  through  the  papers.  "It  will  surely  give  us  an 
unsettled  state  of  afl'airs  in  Europe  for  weeks."  As  the 
Balkan  business,  the  trouble  over  the  German  deserters 
in  Morocco,  and  other  things  were  at  the  moment  acute, 
the  American  ambassador  started  a  little  and  asked 
what  was  the  matter.  "The  German  Emperor,"  was  the 
reply,  "lost  his  box  containing  all  his  uniforms  the  other 
evening  on  his  Austrian  visit,  and  had  to  come  to  dinner 


376         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

in  his  shooting  clothes.  I  tell  you  there  must  be  great 
unrest  in  Europe  for  at  least  a  month  to  come."  Prince 
Arthur  of  Connaught  once  asked  Reid  what  he  had 
thought  of  t-he  Kaiser  when  he  met  him;  if  he  seemed  as 
agreeable  and  as  fascinating  as  he  was  to  most  of  those 
who  met  him  for  the  first  time.  Even  remembering  the 
cousinly  relation  existing  between  his  interlocutor  and 
the  Kaiser,  Reid  had  to  reply  that  while  the  latter  had 
seemed  agreeable  and  desirous  of  showing  cordiality, 
somehow  he  did  not  inspire  confidence.  The  American 
ambassador  recognized  a  similar  feeling  in  England,  and 
apprehension  that  the  Emperor's  restless  plunging  from 
one  extravagance  to  another,  in  the  hope  of  making  peo- 
ple forget  the  last  mistake  by  shocking  them  with  a  new 
one,  would  ultimately  embroil  the  countries  and  bring 
on  war.  In  fact,  the  feeling  seemed  to  creep  out  that 
since  it  was  inevitable,  the  sooner  it  came  on  and  was 
got  through  with  the  better  for  both  countries.  Con- 
tinuing on  this  subject  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt, 
Reid  says,  in  November,  1908: 

His  last  performance,  demanding  an  expression  of  regret  from 
France  on  a  question  in  which  he  had  already  agreed  to  refer  to  arbi- 
tration the  point  as  to  which  country  was  to  blame,  outrages  the 
general  feeling  of  fair  play  here  as  much  as  in  France.  If  he  should 
be  so  ill  advised  as  to  push  it  to  extremities,  France  is  sure  to  resist; 
and  so  far  as  the  present  temper  of  the  press  and  the  people  gives 
any  clue,  it  would  seem  that  Great  Britain  would  be  sure  to  help 
France  in  the  struggle.  But  I  cannot  conceive  that  he  is  unwise 
enough  to  force  a  war  on  this  issue.  No  Emperor  is  powerful  enough, 
no  matter  what  the  size  of  his  army  or  what  the  population  of  his 
country,  to  go  to  war  in  flagrant  defiance  of  the  judgment  and  con- 
science of  the  civilized  world. 

But  meantime  the  Emperor  is  in  the  very  position  most  trying  to 
his  nerves  and  most  humiliating  to  his  pride — he  is  being  laughed 
at  by  everybody.  The  excuses  for  the  "Telegraph"  interview  were 
ludicrous;  the  attempt  to  divert  attention  by  picking  a  quarrel  with 
France  outrages  the  conscience  of  his  own  people  as  well  as  the  rest 
of  the  world;  and  the  news  that  they  have  had  to  purchase  the  sup- 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING  KAISER  377 

pression  of  an  interview  already  printed  in  the  "Century  Magazine" 
caps  the  climax. 

And  now  comes,  just  as  the  previous  dictation  has  been  written 
out,  the  further  news  that  poor  Prince  Biilow,  after  having  been 
forced  to  take  upon  himself  the  blame  for  the  "Telegraph"  interview, 
has  also  been  compelled  by  the  threatening  attitude  of  the  Reichstag 
to  give  a  notice,  which  is  half  pledge,  half  warning,  that  his  versatile 
Imperial  master  will  hereafter  practise  greater  reserve  in  discussing 
foreign  affairs,  under  penalty  not  only  of  losing  his  present  Chancellor, 
but  future  ones !  At  the  same  time  they  have  crawled  down  on  the 
Casablanca  incident.  One  doesn't  know  whether  to  be  amused  or 
sorrowful  over  the  whole  business,  and  yet  it  is  the  most  incredible 
recklessness  in  playing  with  fire.  From  France  to  Constantinople, 
and  from  the  Dalmatian  coast  to  St.  Petersburg,  Europe  is  at  this 
moment  like  a  powder  magazine;  and  through  this  magazine  goes 
the  short-sighted  potentate,  striking  sparks  at  almost  every  move- 
ment he  makes.  He  means  so  well  in  many  ways,  and  is  such  a 
terror ! 

How,  in  the  midst  of  such  an  atmosphere  of  mingled 
mirth  and  alarm,  could  the  American  ambassador,  in- 
credulous of  any  such  tragedy  as  was  actually  to  come, 
yet  conscious  all  the  time  of  European  peril,  get  any  sat- 
isfaction out  of  the  flutterings  of  the  dove  of  peace  at 
The  Hague,  "beating  in  the  void  his  luminous  wings  in 
vain"?  He  turned  with  rehef  to  other  matters,  nego- 
tiation over  which  at  least  yielded  concrete  results.  The 
organization  of  the  opium  conference  was  still  further 
advanced,  and  it  gave  the  American  ambassador  a  spe- 
cial pleasure  when  in  an  informal  discussion  of  the  sub- 
ject Sir  Edward  Grey  stated  that  the  filling  of  the  chair- 
manship would  naturally  fall  to  us.  The  path  was  thus 
opened  for  the  choice  of  Bishop  Brent,  the  senior  mem- 
ber of  the  American  commission,  and  Reid's  personal 
friend.  In  seeking  British  co-operation  where  disorders 
at  Harbin  woke  Secretary  Root's  solicitude  for  the  open 
door,  the  Foreign  Office  found  it  was  not  directly  enough 
concerned  at  that  particular  geographical  point  to  ren- 
der any  great  services;  but  at  any  rate  it  did  what  it 


378         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

could  to  meet  our  wishes  half-way.  The  same  sympa- 
thetic spirit  was  manifested  when  topics  like  the  fate 
of  the  Congo  and  the  boundaries  of  Liberia  came  up. 
In  the  sphere  of  every-day  practicality  Reid  was  drawn 
into  a  channel  somewhat  outside  his  province,  expediting 
the  adoption  of  penny  postage  between  Great  Britain 
and  the  United  States.  His  convention  securing  a  lower 
tariff  on  British  works  of  art  in  return  for  the  free  entry 
of  our  commercial  samples  was  nominally  of  trifling  im- 
port, but  it  had  its  uses,  and,  humble  instrument  that  it 
was,  nevertheless  gave  the  American  ambassador  more 
satisfaction  than  was  to  be  got  out  of  ** threshing  old 
straw."  The  day  it  was  signed  at  the  Foreign  Office, 
Sir  Edward  Grey  remarked:  "That  is  about  the  smallest 
commercial  convention  I  fancy  ever  negotiated  between 
two  nations,  and  it  is  curious  that  it  should  be  between 
two  of  the  biggest  nations.  But  it  is  in  the  right  direc- 
tion, and  perhaps  something  more  may  come  of  it." 
Reid's  belief  that  it  would  encourage  the  pushing  of  our 
trade  in  Great  Britain  was  confirmed  by  several  of  the 
London  papers,  in  which  Sir  Edward  Grey  was  asserted 
to  have  suffered  a  lapse  in  astuteness.  They  rapped  him 
over  the  knuckles  on  the  score  of  having  signed  a  con- 
vention which  was  a  great  concession  to  the  United 
States,  intimating  that  we  gained  at  both  ends  of  it. 
Reid  thought  it  was  certainly  an  advantage  to  those 
Americans  who  regarded  the  whole  tariff  on  art  as  dis- 
creditable to  see  it  reduced  one-fourth.  If  we  could  wipe 
it  out  altogether,  he  thought,  it  would  be  still  better  for 
the  country. 

His  interest  in  art  is  frequently  reflected  in  his  corre- 
spondence— apropos  of  the  great  collection  of  paintings 
at  Dorchester  House,  the  work  of  Alfred  Stevens  also 
there,  his  own  gathering  of  historical  portraits,  begun  as 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING  KAISER  379 

a  Christmas  surprise  for  him  by  Mrs.  Reid  and  steadily 
enlarged  by  them  both,  and  the  masterpieces  in  the 
many  town  and  country  houses  they  frequented.  The 
"Modernists"  were  just  coming  into  view,  and  he  amus- 
edly observed  their  performances.  He  sent  me  a  copy 
of  the  manifesto  issued  by  the  Futurist  painters  in  19 10, 
and  on  the  margin  made  this  appreciative  comment: 
"See  how  little  nous  autres  know!  The  Pope's  bull 
against  the  comet  was  nothing  to  this.'*  In  matters  of 
art  he  clung  to  the  classics.  I  have  alluded  in  the  pages 
on  his  ministry  in  France  to  his  sympathetic  relations 
with  Whistler.  In  London  he  knew  the  leading  Ameri- 
can artists  living  in  England,  especially  Sargent  and 
Abbey.  He  was  deeply  interested  in  the  President's  ef- 
fort to  improve  our  coinage,  and  was  so  enthusiastic  over 
the  double-eagle  design  by  Saint-Gaudens  that  he  had 
some  correspondence  with  the  secretary  of  the  treasury 
about  it.  There  is  a  piquant  reminiscence  in  his  letter 
to  Mr.  Cortelyou,  referring  to  his  old  friendship  with 
the  sculptor.  "I  was  concerned,"  he  says,  "in  persuad- 
ing General  Sherman  to  give  him  the  sittings  which  re- 
sulted in  the  magnificent  statue  at  the  entrance  to  Cen- 
tral Park,  after  the  old  veteran  had  profanely  refused 
to  be  pestered  any  more  with  *d — d  sculptors.'  Stan- 
ford White  came  to  me  in  despair  about  it,  and  I  tackled 
the  old  gentleman  first  through  his  daughter  Rachel  and 
afterwards  in  person  the  next  time  he  came  to  my 
house.  He  swore  a  little,  but  finally  consented  to  give 
Saint-Gaudens  the  sittings.  In  memory  of  the  incident, 
Saint-Gaudens  and  all  the  Shermans  who  were  able  to 
attend  the  unveiling  of  the  statue,  met  afterwards  at 
dinner  at  my  house,  and  that  happened  to  be  the  last 
time  I  ever  saw  poor  Saint-Gaudens  alive." 

Cambridge   University   had   conferred  a  degree   upon 


38o         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Whitelaw  Reid  in  1902,  when  he  had  come  to  England  as 
special  ambassador  to  the  King's  coronation.  Five  years 
later  a  similar  honor  was  thus  offered  him  by  Oxford: 

*^ 

Munden, 
Watford. 
Dear  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid:  May  2,  1907. 

As  the  newly  elected  Chancellor  of  Oxford  University  it  is  my 
privilege  to  select  a  number  of  distinguished  names  for  the  grant 
of  an  Honorary  Degree  at  the  ceremony  of  my  installation  which 
will  take  place  at  Oxford  on  June  26th.  I  should  like  to  be  allowed 
the  honor  of  conferring  the  degree  of  D.C.L.  upon  yourself  in  recog- 
nition of  your  distinguished  career  and  services  and  because  of  the 
illustrious  position  that  you  occupy  with  so  much  satisfaction  to 
both  great  countries.     Will  you  do  me  the  favor  of  accepting  it? 

On  the  same  occasion  it  is  my  desire  to  confer  the  Hon.  Degrees 
of  Doctor  of  Letters  and  Doctor  of  Science  upon  two  others  of  your 
countrymen,  the  former  upon  S.  L.  Clemens  (Mark  Twain)  whose 
influence  upon  pubhc  life  seems  to  me  to  have  been  uniformly  healthy 
and  pure  and  who  is  one  of  the  conspicuous  literary  figures  of  our 
time;  the  latter  upon  Thomas  Edison,  who  enjoys  a  world-wide 
scientific  reputation.  But  these  degrees  can  only  be  conferred  if 
the  recipients  are  present  in  person  to  receive  them  at  my  hands. 
It  occurs  to  me  as  the  time  is  so  short  that  you  may  perhaps  be  will- 
ing to  telegraph  my  invitation  to  them  with  such  explanations  as 
you  may  think  fit.  I  would  either  accompany  or  follow  this  with 
a  personal  letter.  It  would  I  think  be  a  novel  and  certainly  an 
intentional  feature  in  my  fist  that  it  should  contain  the  names  of 
as  many  as  three  of  the  most  eminent  of  Americans. 

I  am,  dear  Mr.  Reid,      ^^  .  . 

Yours  sincerely,      ^ 

*^  CURZON. 

Edison  couldn't  leave  his  experimenting.  "So  many 
new  things  coming  along,"  he  cabled,  with  his  thanks. 
Clemens  accepted  and  followed  his  despatch  with  a  note 
in  which  he  added:  '*The  dates  are  exactly  right;  they 
couldn't  possibly  be  righter.  I  wanted  two  engagements, 
and  only  two;  and  these  two  are  the  choicest  that  could 
be  imagined.  [The  other  was  to  dine  with  the  Pilgrims.] 
They  and  Oxford  leave  me  seven  days  for  private  dissi- 
pation and  last^  good-byeing  with  old  friends  whom  I 


1 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING  KAISER  381 

shan't  meet  again  without  their  haloes.  And  there's  one 
or  two  whom  I  shan't  ever  meet  with  them.  I  am  sorry 
for  that,  for  they  are  among  the  best  of  the  flock."  A 
few  days  before  the  ceremony  at  Oxford  there  was  a 
dinner  for  Mark  Twain  at  Dorchester  House,  at  which 
the  American  ambassador  assembled  about  twoscore 
authors  and  artists  to  meet  him,  the  president  of  the 
Royal  Academy,  the  Poet  Laureate,  Sidney  Lee,  Edmund 
Gosse,  Conan  Doyle,  and  others.  On  the  Queen's  re- 
quest he  presented  him  at  Windsor.  Describing  the 
great  humorist's  visit  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt  and 
alluding  to  Mark's  various  speeches,  some  of  which,  as 
it  happened,  did  not  show  him  at  his  best,  Reid  said: 

There  was  one  good  sentence  (which  I  have  taken  great  pleasure 
in  repeating  several  times  to  his  harsh  critics)  in  a  speech  at  the 
dinner  in  the  great  Hall  of  Christ  Church  at  Oxford  which  was  not 
reported — these  dinners  being  always  held  strictly  private.  His 
speech  was  rather  longer  than  was  expected,  rambling,  and,  as  the 
English  said,  thin  in  straining  for  humor  to  which  he  did  not  attain. 
But  the  closing  sentence  redeemed  it.  He  wished  them  to  under- 
stand, in  spite  of  the  light  tone  in  which  he  might  seem  to  have 
spoken,  that  he  fully  appreciated  and  was  profoundly  grateful  for 
the  great  honor  they  had  done  him — perhaps  the  greatest  he  should 
ever  receive.  It  impressed  him  all  the  more  when  he  realized  that 
in  receiving  it  he  had  been  bracketed  between  a  Prince  of  the  Blood 
(here  he  turned  and  bowed  to  Prince  Arthur  of  Connaught)  and  a 
Prince  of  the  Republic  of  Letters,  whose  fame  enveloped  the  world 
like  an  atmosphere,  Rudyard  Kipling.  And  with  that  he  sat  down. 
It  struck  me  as  really  fme. 

One  of  the  earliest  of  the  American  ambassador's  con- 
tacts with  the  world  of  British  authors  was  with  Kip- 
ling. In  1905,  at  the  request  of  the  New  England  So- 
ciety, he  asked  him  to  write  the  centennial  poem  for 
that  organization.  Kipling  replied  that  there  was  no 
honor  in  America's  gift  appealing  to  him  more  closely, 
but  said  that  he  felt  himself  **  unequal  to  doing  this 
worthily."     Reid  had  an  interesting  meeting  with  him 


^  / 


382         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

in  the  summer  of  1908.  Two  years  previously  the 
Royal  Literary  Fund  had  drafted  Reid  to  preside  at  the 
annual  banquet.  This  time,  in  recognition  of  the  ser- 
vice, they  made  him  immune  from  speech-making,  and 
he  had  only  to  enjoy  himself.  Writing  to  Roosevelt 
about  Kipling,  beside  whom  he  sat,  he  says : 

He  was  full  of  talk  through  the  evening  about  his  late  experiences. 
He  seemed  delighted  with  the  abuse  he  had  received  from  the  labor 
unions  on  account  of  his  candid  statements  as  to  the  mischief  they 
were  doing  in  Canada.  He  regards  the  hostility  to  the  open  shop  as 
an  absolute  warfare  upon  freedorn,  and  thinks  the  despotism  of  the 
trades  unions  more  dangerous  than  any  other  despotisms,  because 
more  ignorant  and  irresponsible.  He  was  full  of  the  most  sanguine 
hopes  as  to  the  future  of  Canada,  and  he  reserves  his  special  admira- 
tion for  the  western  part  of  it. 

From  Canada  he  went  on,  as  you  know,  to  South  Africa,  and  his 
account  of  the  condition  of  things  there  was  curious  and  discourag- 
ing. He  considered  it  the  most  conspicuous  case  in  modern  times 
in  which  a  highly  advanced  and  civilized  race  had  deliberately  turned 
over  the  Government  of  a  country  to  the  half-castes.  He  regarded 
the  future  of  South  Africa  as  most  discouraging,  and  by  way  of 
emphasizing  his  opinion,  said,  "You  might  just  as  well  turn  over 
the  Government  of  the  Philippines  to  the  FiHpinos." 

It  was  pretty,  after  he  had  finished  his  speech,  to  see  him  ignoring 
the  applause  and  leaning  eagerly  forward  to  catch  the  glance  and 
smile  from  his  wife.  He  is  singularly  devoted  to  her  and  she  wor- 
ships him. 

On  one  literary  occasion,  which  he  described  in  a 
letter  to  me,  Reid  had  an  amusing  passage  with  the 
Poet  Laureate.  There  was  a  meeting  of  the  Dante  So- 
ciety at  Dorchester  House.  The  exercises  were  really 
over  when,  in  the  course  of  the  speeches  of  ceremony, 
Alfred  Austin  made  the  usual  polite  remarks  and  then 
surprised  everybody  by  saying:  "And  yet  in  the  candor 
which  I  am  sure  my  host  and  his  countrymen  appreciate, 
we  must  frankly  say  that  greatly  as  we  admire  their 
magnificent  country's  progress  and  the  wonderful  mate- 
rial things  they  have  done,  we  cannot  yet  admit  that 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING   KAISER  383 

they  have  produced  poetry  or  a  great  poet."  To  this 
charming  deliverance  the  American  ambassador  had  to 
make  his  acknowledgments.     He  made  them: 

I  waited  until  I  had  said  several  other  things  which  occurred  to 
me  as  suitable  for  the  occasion.  Then  referring  to  the  Poet  Laure- 
ate's remark,  I  said  that  I  understood  he  objected  that  our  young 
country  had  not  yet  produced,  for  example,  a  Dante.  I  was  not 
disposed  for  the  moment  to  dispute  it,  though  perhaps  I  might  take 
the  Hberty  of  finding  some  encouragement  in  the  fact  that  even  his 
old  country  had  not  for  the  past  three  hundred  years  produced  either 
a  Shakespeare  or  a  Milton.  With  that  I  turned  off  to  speak  of 
translators,  paid  a  Httle  compliment  to  that  wonderful  old  nonage- 
narian. Sir  Theodore  Martin  (ninety  two  years  old  and  making  a 
ten  minute  speech  to  defend  the  moral  character  of  Francesca),  and 
then  went  on  to  speak  of  later  translators  from  my  own  country, 
including  Longfellow,  Charles  Eliot  Norton  and  James  Russell 
Lowell.  But  I  wasn't  quick  enough  to  stop  the  instant  outburst  of 
laughter,  and  glancing  out  of  the  corner  of  my  eye  felt  really  a  httle 
uncomfortable  at  seeing  how  squarely  the  shot  had  gone  home. 
But  they  all  told  me  he  could  not  possibly  complain,  and  the  Enghsh 
seemed  to  be  particularly  pleased.  I  don't  think  Austin  meant 
anything  discourteous;  he  is  simply  built  that  way.  Withal,  he  is  a 
very  agreeable  fellow,  and  I  think  means  to  be  sincerely  friendly. 
But  if  Heaven  had  only  taught  him  that  he  was  a  good  prose  writer 
and  not  a  good  poet,  he  would  have  fitted  into  the  scheme  of  the 
English  world  very  much  better. 

The  American  ambassador  has  always  ex-officio  rela- 
tions to  certain  English  boards.  He  shares  in  the  meet- 
ings of  the  Peabody  trustees.  He  is  concerned  with  the 
house  that  is  preserved  as  a  memorial  to  Carlyle.  The 
latter  was  peculiarly  interesting  to  Reid  from  his  life- 
long admiration  for  the  great  Scotchman.  Unexpectedly, 
in  a  purely  artistic  quarter,  he  stumbled  upon  a  notable 
story  of  Carlyle  and  Froude.  He  had  it  from  Sir  George 
Reid,  when  that  artist  was  painting  his  portrait,  and 
passed  it  on  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt  in  this  form:' 

The  hullabaloo  about  Froude's  treachery  to  Carlyle  in  the  volumes 
about  him  published  by  Froude  when  he  had  become  Carlyle's  lit- 


384        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

erary  executor,  but  quite  shortly  after  the  Chelsea  philosopher's 
death,  was  curiously  recalled  the  other  day.  Sir  George  Reid,  the 
eminent  Scotch  artist  and  for  many  years  President  of  the  Royal 
Scottish  Academy,  was  telling  me  that  he  had  painted  Froude's  por- 
trait at  the  tiifie  of  this  disturbance.  Froude  talked  a  great  deal 
during  the  sittings,  but  didn't  happen  for  a  long  time  to  refer  to 
the  racket  in  the  newspapers  and  magazines  at  all.  Finally,  one 
day  he  asked  Sir  George  if  he  had  seen  the  attacks  and  what  impres- 
sion they  had  made  on  his  mind.  Sir  George  replied  that  he  felt 
sure  they  were  based  on  imperfect  knowledge  of  the  facts.  To  this 
Froude  replied  by  the  question,  "What  would  you  think  if  you 
knew  that  every  line  for  which  I  am  being  censured  was  revised  by 
Carlyle  himself?"  He  then  proceeded  to  tell  how  Carlyle  had 
turned  over  to  him  a  great  bunch  of  his  wife's  letters,  which  he 
wished  Froude  to  examine  with  reference  to  their  possible  publica- 
tion, or,  at  any  rate,  to  some  use  of  them.  One  long  letter  particu- 
larly struck  Froude.  It  was  lively  and  witty,  but  brimmed  over 
with  dangerous  personalities.  He  took  it  to  Carlyle  and  said,  "I 
would  like  to  print  this,  but  I  am  afraid  it  is  too  dangerous,  and, 
as  you  see,  it  ridicules  an  important  man  and  a  friend  of  yours, 
who  is  still  living."  Carlyle  read  it  over,  chuckled  over  it,  and 
handed  it  back  to  Froude,  saying,  "Print  it  if  you  like.  If  he  ever 
sees  it,  it  will  do  him  good." 

The  incident  led  Froude  to  thinking  it  would  be  well  to  let  Carlyle 
see  what  he  was  then  writing  about  him.  Carlyle  readily  assented 
to  looking  over  the  pages  before  they  were  sent  to  press.  "Now," 
said  Froude,  in  concluding  his  narrative,  "every  word  that  I  am 
being  censured  for  writing  about  Carlyle  in  the  first  volume  was 
revised  by  himself.  He  read  also  a  large  part  of  the  second  volume, 
but  by  that  time,  as  he  was  growing  feeble,  he  began  to  feel  it  a  bur- 
den, and  told  me  I  must  finish  the  rest  on  my  own  responsibility." 
Somebody  may  have  made  this  defense  for  Froude  at  the  time;  but 
if  so  I  can't  remember  it. 

I  haven't  had  access  to  the  book  since  Sir  George  told  me  this 
story,  to  see  where  the  things  which  were  most  severely  criticized 
occurred,  but  Sir  George's  recollection  was  that  most  of  them  were 
in  the  first  volume,  and  he  says  he  got  distinctly  the  impression  from 
Froude  that  nearly  all  that  Carlyle's  friends  assailed  him  for  had 
been  read  and  approved  by  Carlyle. 

Reid  had  numerous  delightful  meetings  in  England 
with  members  of  the  writing  craft,  with  novelists  like 
Mrs.  Craigie,  Rider  Haggard,  and  Conan  Doyle.  At  his 
acquaintance  with  Kipling  I  have  already  glanced.     With 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING  KAISER  385 

Trevelyan  he  had  much  good  talk  about  that  historian's 
work  on  our  Revolution.  One  bookish  episode  that 
especially  occupied  him  was  of  purely  American  sig- 
nificance. It  developed  when  Mrs.  Hay  decided  to  col- 
lect her  husband's  letters  in  a  privately  printed  edition 
and  placed  the  task  of  preparing  them  for  the  press  in 
the  hands  of  Henry  Adams.  Quantities  of  the  best  of 
Hay's  letters  had  been  written  to  Whitelaw  Reid.  They 
were  in  correspondence  practically  all  their  lives.  Reid 
ransacked  his  files  from  early  journalistic  days  down  to 
their  last  period  of  comradeship  in  diplomatic  matters, 
and  entered  into  exhaustive  consultation  over  the  sou- 
venirs of  their  alliance  to  be  scattered  through  the 
three  volumes  ultimately  printed.  Rereading  the  thick 
sheaves,  he  had  a  deepened  sense  of  his  friend's  bril- 
liancy. *'I  have  just  been  going  through  Hay's  letters 
with  Henry  Adams,"  he  wrote  to  Stedman.  "They  are 
far  better  than  Horace  Walpole's — better  literature,  and 
with  more  of  a  man  behind  them."  Adams  came  over 
from  Paris  and  they  spent  nearly  a  week  at  Wrest  on 
these  papers.  It  was  a  dehcate  enterprise.  As  Reid 
wrote  to  Mrs.  Hay,  her  husband  had  a  fad,  almost  a 
craze,  for  imagining  that  every  particularly  good  letter 
he  wrote  contained  something  that  might  some  time 
make  trouble,  therefore  marking  it  **burn  when  read," 
** destroy,"  **c/e/enc/a,"  etc.  Many  of  these,  nevertheless, 
were  letters  which  at  the  time  could  not  be  destroyed 
and  ought  not  to  have  been,  since  they  related  to  things 
in  progress  and  often  concerned  others  as  well  as  the 
writer  and  his  correspondent.  Adams  proceeded  with 
mingled  prudence  and  courage,  disclosing  his  point  of 
view  early  in  his  labors : 

You  have  to  settle  the  same  difficulties  that  fret  me.  I  feel  no 
great  hesitation  in  ignoring  the  order  to  "burn  when  read,"  because 
I   believe  it  was  meant  only  as  a  safe-guard  during  his  life-time. 


386         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

And  if  I  wrote  it  on  letters  of  my  own  I  should  regard  it  as  equiv- 
alent to  "personal"  or  "private**;  but  I  feel  more  hesitation  about 
allusions  to  persons,  dead  or  living,  public  or  private.  Therefore  I 
think  Mrs.  Hay  would  probably  prefer  that  you  should  edit  the 
letters  yourselfTand  send  only  what  you  pass. 

As  editor  I  have  always  strained  liberaHty  of  assent.  No  editor 
ever  spared  any  one  of  my  family  that  I  know  of,  and,  in  return, 
we  have  commonly  printed  all  that  concerned  other  people.  Whether 
this  state  of  war  ever  injured  anyone  I  do  not  know;  but  it  lasts  to 
this  day,  and  makes  me  rather  indifferent  to  conventional  restraints. 
On  the  other  hand  we  have  never  willingly  hurt  anyone's  feelings, 
and  yet  have  sometimes  been  compelled  to  do  it. 

To  Adams  and  to  Mrs.  Hay  Reid  gave  counsel,  looking 
to  every  nuance  of  the  correspondence.  It  was  a  labor 
of  love  thus  to  aid  in  a  tribute  to  Hay's  memory.  Inci- 
dentally the  episode  brings  into  the  present  narrative 
one  of  the  most  fascinating  personalities  in  Reid's  circle. 
It  was  only  after  his  death,  when  his  privately  printed 
"Education'*  was  made  public,  that  the  world  at  large 
was  permitted  to  know  more  about  Henry  Adams  than 
had  previously  been  inferred  from  his  historical  writings. 
One  of  the  finest  talkers  of  his  time,  the  beloved  com- 
rade of  John  Hay,  Clarence  King,  and  John  La  Farge, 
all  masters  of  conversation,  the  gifts  which  enabled  him 
to  hold  his  own  with  them  were  obscured  for  some  ob- 
servers because  he  was  curiously  shy.  Only  with  those 
whom  he  really  knew  did  he  show  his  true  self.  Reid 
had  known  him  for  many  years  and  they  foregathered  in 
perfect  harmony  over  the  Hay  letters.  "Adams  talked 
with  great  freedom  about  everything  under  the  sun," 
Reid  wrote  to  his  wife  from  Wrest,  and  was  loth  to  let 
him  go  when  the  time  came  for  him  to  travel  on  to  Tilly- 
pronie.  "Tonight  I  am  to  eat  the  dinner  at  Ampthill 
Park  that  was  meant  for  both  of  us,"  he  writes  to  the 
departed  guest.  "Did  you  realize  when  at  Ampthill 
Park  that  you  were  not  only  where  Katherine  of  Aragon 
fretted  out  her  soul,  and  where  the  inconsiderate  Henry 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING  KAISER  387 

had  deer  driven  that  she  might  see  Anne  Boleyn  shoot 
them  with  arrows;  but  that  it  was  where  Horace  Walpole 
sent  all  those  interminable  letters  to  Lady  Ossory  and 
where  Lord  Holland  reigned,  what  time  he  escaped  from 
the  urban  charms  of  Holland  House!" 

Adams  at  this  time  was  disposed  to  recall  Reid  from 
excursions  into  the  remote  past,  and  for  a  very  definite 
purpose.  "I  think  it  altogether  necessary,"  he  argued, 
"that  you  should  lose  no  time  writing  your  own  life,  and 
printing  in  it — very  freely — all  the  letters  that  illustrate 
our  contemporaries.  They  will  not  be  the  worse  for  it, 
even  if  none  the  better."  Over  and  over  again  he 
returned  to  the  charge.  He  pointed  out  the  importance 
of  fragments  in  the  correspondence  with  Hay  as  pieces 
justificatives,  and  impressed  upon  him  the  duty  of  writ- 
ing out  a  record  which  he  alone  could  frame.  **No  one 
else  survives  of  our  time,"  he  said,  '*who  has  enough 
literary  skill  to  tell  his  own  story — much  less  that  of  his 
enemies.  The  innings  of  us  damn  literary  fellers  comes 
last,  and  best."  Presently  the  correspondence  took  a 
wider  sweep,  as  was  always  the  way  with  Adams.  I 
reproduce  a  few  of  his  characteristic  sayings: 

Paris, 
September  27,  1907. 

This  morning  I  read  your  Welsh  address  in  the  "Times,"  and  con- 
gratulate you  on  your  achievement.  You  have  put  into  it  a  quan- 
tity of  information  quite  new  to  me,  and  that  gives  me  matter  for 
reflection.  The  next  generation  needs  more  mind  than  it  can  get 
out  of  any  schools  I  can  yet  see  in  the  future.  What  it  wants  is 
more  brain.  How  can  we  give  it  that?  Some  day  I  shall  send  you 
my  own  volume  of  lucubration  on  the  subject.  At  present  you  are 
too  busy  to  invent  a  new  man;  but  I  am  clear  that  the  physical 
substratum  of  grey  matter  has  got  to  be  suppHed,  and  we  must 
supply  it — or  bust.  This  world  is  too  much  for  us.  It  was  too 
much  for  me  from  the  first.     I  never  could  master  logarithms. 

I  fear  that  your  colleagues  at  The  Hague  are  examples  of  my 
point.  Society  cannot  march  abreast;  it  must  be  dragged  by  lead- 
ers. Progress  is  piecemeal.  But  the  crowd  need  not  be  helped  to 
pull  apart. 


388        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

Paris, 
October  7,  1907. 

I  am  bored  out  of  my  life,  as  Hay  used  to  say;  and  if  I  don't  dis- 
cover some  galley-slave  work  to  do  I  shall  take  to  composing  Mark- 
Twainisms  and  funny  paragraphs  for  the  N.  Y.-Paris  "  Herald."  Yet 
I  see  nothing  much  to  be  funny  about.  Our  chief  magistrate  does 
not  make  me  laugh  much.  Poor  Taft !  I  rage  when  I  think  of  the 
soup  into  which  he  is  pitched  and  left.  Not  but  that  we  are  all  of 
us  in  the  soup  more  or  less. 

Paris, 
September  9,  1908. 

I  did  tell  you,  in  our  talks  about  education,  etc.,  that  I  have  set 
forth  views  of  my  own  on  the  subject,  which  I  meant  to  offer  for 
your  suggestion  and  correction  when  you  should  recover  leisure  for 
such  matters,  and  I  was  earnest  for  you  to  set  down  yours.  The 
value  of  such  studies  is  at  least  quadrupled  by  being  doubled.  You 
have  a  direct  right  to  the  volume  as  one  with  whose  name  I  have 
taken  liberties.  At  the  same  time,  I  ought  to  add  that  in  theory 
the  volume  is  still  only  a  proof  sent  out  for  correction.  Nothing  in 
it  is  supposed  to  be  final.  As  yet  no  one  has  objected,  not  even 
the  President  or  Cabot  Lodge — still  less  their  wives — but,  what 
troubles  me  most  is  that  no  one  has  as  yet  corrected.  My  views  on 
education  are  radically  revolutionary  but  no  one  cares. 

So  I  have  always  found  my  American  audience.  No  one  ever 
cares.  Nothing  diverts  the  American  mind  from  its  ruts.  Harvard 
College  itself  is  outside  of  its  own  education.  Not  only  it  doesn't 
fret  but  it  really  doesn't  care.  Even  when  I  belonged  to  it,  I  could 
never  make  it  fight.  Theodore  Roosevelt  himself  never  could  do 
it,  though  he  does  httle  but  try. 

I  will  send  you  the  volume  promptly  since  you  wish  it,  instead  of 
waiting  till  you  have  time  to  think  about  it;  but  pray  do  not  forget 
that  it  is  what  it  avows; — a  story  of  how  an  average  American  educa- 
tion, in  spite  of  the  most  favorable  conditions,  ran  down  hill,  for 
twenty  years,  into  the  bog  labelled  Failure;  and  how  it  had  to  be 
started  again,  under  every  disadvantage,  and  the  blindest  fumblings 
to  crawl  up  hill  a  little  way  in  order  at  least  to  get  a  little  view 
ahead  of  the  field  it  should  have  begun  by  occupying.  Of  course  the 
path  is  sugar-coated  in  order  to  induce  anyone  to  follow  it.  The 
nearer  we  can  come  to  romance,  the  more  chance  that  somebody 
will  read — and  misunderstand.  But  not  one  reader  in  a  thousand 
ever  understands. 

Paris 
September  13,  1908. 

I  trust  the  "Education"  will  arrive  all  right,  and,  as  for  dissent,  if 
you  will  kindly  draw  a  pen  through  all  you  can,  without  too  much 


A  TROUBLE-MAKING  KAISER  389 

fatigue,  you  will  save  me  much  trouble.  An  exp>eriment,  like  this 
volume,  is  hazardous,  not  as  history,  but  as  art.  To  write  a  heavy 
dissertation  on  modern  education,  and  fill  up  the  background  with 
moving  figures  that  will  carry  the  load,  is  a  Hterary  tour  de  force  that 
cannot  wholly  succeed  even  in  the  hands  of  St.  Augustine  or  Rous- 
seau. The  only  doubt  is  whether  it  wholly  fails,  and  I  want  my 
extra  two  years  to  decide  whether  or  not  I  will  pass  the  pen  through 
it  all.  The  volume  on  Chartres  is  involved  in  the  same  doubt,  for 
both  go  together,  the  three  last  chapters  of  the  "Education"  being 
the  Q.  E.  D.  of  the  last  three  chapters  of  Chartres.  Two  years 
hence,  if  I  can  keep  my  balance,  I  shall  decide  whether  to  put  both 
in  the  fire — or  what. 

I  must  be  back  in  Washington,  not  so  much  to  elect  Taft  as  to 
bury  my  friends.  Lafayette  Square  is  a  grave-yard.  Even  the 
Roosevelts  will  be  packing  up  to  go. 

It  was  apropos  of  the  "packing  up"  at  the  White  House 
that  Reid  enjoyed  some  of  the  most  entertaining  pas- 
sages in  his  correspondence  with  the  President.  The 
famous  hunting  trip  in  Africa,  and  Roosevelt's  subse- 
quent meteoric  travels  in  Europe,  involved  numberless 
preliminary  inquiries  and  arrangements  concerning  which 
he  turned  to  our  representative  in  London,  partly  as  an 
ambassador  but  even  more  as  a  friend.  Responding  to 
requests  for  both  information  and  advice,  Reid  found 
himself  once  again  in  the  role  of  presidential  mentor. 


CHAPTER  XX 
THE  ASQUITH  MINISTRY 

Going  back  to  the  changes  in  the  political  atmosphere 
which  always  ensue  at  Washington  with  the  coming  of  a 
new  administration,  even  when  the  party  in  power  re- 
mains intrenched,  Adams  expressed  to  Reid  his  anxiety 
to  know  what  to  expect  there,  "and  in  what  of  my  man- 
ners I  had  best  hold  my  tongue."  Without  being  in  a 
position  to  throw  any  light  upon  his  first  problem,  the 
American  ambassador  was,  on  the  other  hand,  quahfied 
to  give  him  expert  advice  upon  the  second.  On  our  do- 
mestic politics  he  had  himself  been  holding  his  tongue 
for  four  years.  But  not  the  most  rigorous  detachment 
from  activity  in  their  field,  however,  could  dim  his  inter- 
est in  the  subject,  and  this  was  served  not  only  by  the 
despatches  in  the  press  but  by  numerous  private  letters 
during  the  campaign  of  1908.  "It  looks  like  Taft  on 
the  first  ballot,"  one  well-informed  friend  wrote  him 
before  the  convention,  and  Secretary  Root  confirmed 
this  prognostication.  Of  the  certainty  that  Roosevelt 
would  not  run  again  he  had  similarly  early  news.  Admiral 
Cowles  writing  to  him:  "There  are  still  plenty  of  Third 
Termers,  or  Second  Elective  Termers,  but  they  get  cold 
comfort  from  the  President,  who  is  working  for  a  pohti- 
cal  victory  in  a  hard  times  year,  which  is  not  so  easy." 
Public  men  in  England  were,  of  course,  full  of  curiosity 
on  this  point,  and  Reid  explained  to  Roosevelt  how  he 
answered  their  .queries.  He  thought  nothing  could  pre- 
vent the  nomination  of  Taft.  "On  the  other  hand,"  he 
wrote,  "I  have  said  that  if  there  should  be  delay  for 
several   ballots  there  was   of  course  the  possibility  of 

390 


THE  ASQUITH   MINISTRY  391 

somebody   protesting   against   further   delay   by   saying 

that  the  country  had  a  president  now  with  whom  it  was 

satisfied,   and  insisting  on  his  re-nomination;  and  this 

I  have  always  said,  if  it  occurred,  would  probably  be 

like  a  spark  in  a  powder  magazine."     The  President's 

reply  is  good  to  read: 

The  White  House 
Washington, 

My  dear  Mr.  Ambassador: 

Your  letter  of  the  ist,  as  usual,  is  most  interesting.  I  am  happy 
to  sa\^  that  it  now  looks  as  if  Taft  would  surely  be  nominated  on  the 
first  ballot,  by  a  three  to  one  vote.  There  are  still  a  great  many 
p>eopIe  bound  to  try  to  force  a  third  term.  As  I  have  tried  to  ex- 
plain to  them,  and  as  I  have  succeeded  in  convincing  most  of  them, 
my  value  as  an  asset  to  the  American  people  consists  chiefly  in  a 
belief  in  my  disinterestedness  and  trustworthiness,  in  the  belief  that 
I  mean  what  I  say,  and  that  my  concern  is  for  the  good  of  the  coun- 
try; and  if  they  should  now  nominate  me,  even  under  the  circum- 
stances that  would  force  me  to  take  the  nomination,  I  could  only 
take  it  as  the  least  of  two  evils,  and  with  the  bitter  knowledge  that 
many  good  people  would  have  their  faith  in  me  shaken,  and  that 
therefore  my  influence  for  good  would  be  measurably,  and  perhaps 

greatly,  diminished.      t-  •  i  r  n 

^        -^  Faithfully  yours,      ^  j^ 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

He  wrote  rejoicingly  when  the  election  was  won.  **I 
feel  like  saying  nunc  dijnittis,''  he  added,  and  after  the 
inauguration  he  wrote  again  of  his  satisfaction  in  having 
put  a  quietus  to  the  Third  Term  movement.  **  Looking 
back,"  he  said,  "I  am  convinced  that  the  part  I  took 
was  the  wise  part,  for  inasmuch  as  I  was  to  an  especial 
degree  acting  as  a  crusader  for  decency  and  honesty,  I 
could  not  afford  to  have  my  action  tainted  with  self- 
interest;  and  it  would  have  ruined  the  effect  of  what  I 
was  trying  to  accomplish  if  I  had  put  myself  in  a  position 
where  it  would  have  been  possible  to  make  out  a  plausible 
case  that  I  was  simply  acting  in  the  old  familiar  role  of 
the  demagogue  who,  as  man  on  horseback,  desires  to 


392         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

continue  himself  in  office  under  the  plea  of  being  savior 
of  society."  Reid  congratulated  him  on  his  ''trium- 
phant exit  from  the  most  conspicuous  success  in  our 
modern  times,  in  the  greatest  executive  office  in  the 
world." 

Their  correspondence  continued  from  this  time  on, 
and  I  shall  have  occasion  to  draw  upon  it  again,  espe- 
cially apropos  of  Roosevelt's  travels,  but  I  must  make 
an  extract  here  from  another  of  Reid's  letters  to  him 
during  the  campaign.  Englishmen,  as  I  have  said,  were 
greatly  interested,  and  the  American  ambassador  had  an 
amusing  instance  of  this  at  Wrest: 

Just  before  dinner  the  other  evening  I  happened  to  show  Lord 
Rosebery  the  Taft  button.  He  looked  at  it  critically,  and  inquired 
if  I  was  perfectly  sure  that  this  was  Taft  and  not  Hughes,  and  on 
receiving  my  assurance  to  that  effect  immediately  put  it  on. 
If  it  had  been  Hughes,  he  declared,  he  would  have  been  tempted  to 
throw  it  in  the  fire — perhaps  not  an  unnatural  feeling  for  a  Derby 
winner.*  To  the  amusement  of  the  company  he  continued  to  wear 
the  Taft  button  during  his  stay,  transferring  it  in  the  morning  from 
his  dress  coat  to  his  morning  suit,  and  finally  going  off  Sunday 
afternoon  to  his  Committee  work  in  London  still  wearing  it.  I 
fancy  that's  as  curious  a  tribute  as  Taft  has  received — having  a 
former  Prime  Minister  of  England  wearing  his  campaign  button. 

Secretary  Root  went  from  the  cabinet  to  the  Senate. 
He  was  anxious  to  close  up  certain  matters  before  he 
left  the  State  Department,  and  Reid  did  everything  he 
could  to  expedite  his  wishes  so  far  as  the  Foreign  Office 
in  London  was  concerned.  He  was  especially  gratified 
at  being  able  to  head  off  the  British  protest  which  threat- 
ened to  come  over  our  exemption  of  Colombian  war-ships 
from  Panama  Canal  tolls.  He  was  also  effective  in  clear- 
ing up  the  last  approaches  to  the  Newfoundland  arbitra- 
tion, in  which  Root  was  to  play  an  important  part  at 

*  The  reference,  of  course,  is  to  the  policy  of  Governor  Hughes  in  pressing  legis- 
lative action,  which,  through  the  reformation  of  abuses  developed  around  the 
race-track  in  New  York,  incidentally  discouraged  racing  as  a  sport  in  that  State. 


THE  ASQUITH   MINISTRY  393 

The  Hague  In  the  summer  of  191 0.  In  these  and  all 
other  matters  the  team-work  between  the  secretary  and 
the  ambassador  had  long  since  been  singularly  satisfy- 
ing to  them  both,  and  as  a  souvenir  of  Reid's  service 
under  the  outgoing  administration  I  may  cite  this  frag- 
ment from  a  letter  of  Root's  written  in  May,  1909,  from 
the  Senate: 

I  have  appreciated  very  highly  the  admirable  tact  and  good  judg- 
ment and  wisdom  with  which  you  have  managed  the  many  delicate 
and  important  matters  w^hich  have  arisen  and  have  had  to  be  dis- 
posed of  in  whole  or  in  part  in  London  while  you  have  been  Ambas- 
sador. The  country  probably  never  will  know  how  important  some 
of  these  things  have  been  or  how  easy  it  would  have  been  to  go 
wrong  or  what  unfortunate  results  would  have  followed  if  the  Rep- 
resentative of  the  United  States  in  London  had  not  been  competent 
and  able.  I  have  appreciated,  too,  something  which  the  people  of 
the  country  have  a  much  better  opportunity  to  judge  than  they 
have  to  judge  your  diplomatic  work,  and  that  is  the  high  character, 
dignity,  and  merit  of  your  public  address.  Taken  all  in  all  I  am 
sure  that  you  ought  to  look  back  over  your  period  of  serv^ice  in  the 
distinguished  Hst  of  American  Ambassadors  to  Great  Britain  with 
the  greatest  satisfaction. 

Whether  that  period  of  service  was  to  continue  or  not 
rested,  of  course,  with  Mr.  Taft,  at  whose  disposal  the 
American  ambassador,  following  established  precedent, 
placed  his  office  soon  after  election.  The  activities  of 
continuance  and  the  repose  of  retirement  were  about 
equally  attractive.  There  was  much  to  be  said  on  both 
sides.  The  work  in  London  was  interesting,  in  the 
course  of  it  many  delightful  friendships  had  been  formed, 
and  through  their  daughter's  marriage  the  Reids  natu- 
rally found  in  English  life  an  added  appeal.  On  the 
other  hand,  there  were  family  ties  at  home,  to  say  noth- 
ing of  the  claims  of  rest,  which  made  the  possibility  of  a 
return  look  a  little  more  than  beguiling.  The  decision 
was  left  on  the  knees  of  the  gods.  Meanwhile  it  was 
pleasant  to  receive  from  friends  both  in  England  and  in 


^> 


394         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  United  States  evidence  that  the  work  of  the  Ameri- 
can ambassador  was  estimated  at  such  a  value  that  the 
idea  of  its  termination  was  considered  with  regret.  In 
London  rumors  of  his  retirement  were  roundly  scouted. 
Nothing  could  have  been  more  obvious  than  that  in  that 
part  of  the  world  Reid  was  persona  gratissima.  At  home 
the  respect  for  his  ability  and  his  record  which  Roosevelt 
had  was  shared  by  his  successor.  No  action  was  taken 
while  the  new  administration  was  getting  under  way,  but 
the  matter  was  then  canvassed,  and  in  December,  1909, 
Secretary  Knox  cabled  for  -the  President  that  there  was 
no  thought  of  a  change  at  that  time  in  the  embassy  at 
London,  and  that  his  tenure  was  therefore  indefinite. 
The  news  elicited  this  letter  from  the  King : 

Milton  Abbey, 

TN         K/r      WT  r>  December  10,  1909. 

Dear  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid:  ^  ^ 

I  rejoice  to  learn  that  your  tenure  of  office  as  Ambassador  of  the 
United  States  to  the  Court  of  St.  James'  is  likely  to  continue.  There 
is  no  one  who  could  fill  such  a  post  with  greater  distinction  than 
yourself,  and  I  personally  rejoice  that  one  who  I  have  learned  to 
know  as  a  friend  will  not  now  leave  my  country. 
Believe  me,   ^ ,         .         , 

Very  smcerely  yours,     Edward  R. 

The  Kaiser  was,  for  once,  quiescent  at  the  time  that 
Roosevelt  was  retiring  and  Taft  was  taking  his  place. 
Reid  had  no  imbroghos  of  his  making  to  report  at  this 
juncture.  But  the  scene  on  which  his  influence  was 
ultimately  to  be  so  disastrously  felt  was  even  then  attract- 
ing attention.  If  war-clouds  were  visible  anywhere, 
they  hovered  above  the  Balkans.  What  the  diplomatic 
corps  thought  of  the  outlook  there  is  reflected  in  one  of 
the  American  ambassador's  last  letters  to  Roosevelt,  in 
the  winter  of  1908: 

I  haven't  troubled  you  or  Mr.  Root  with  the  war  rumors  with 
which  the  papers  here  have  been  flooded.     From  the  first  I  had  no 


THE  ASQUITH  MINISTRY  395 

belief  that  a  war  was  likely  to  come  out  of  the  Bulgarian  and  Austrian 
complications,  at  least  immediately.  My  view  was  confirmed  by  all 
the  talk  I  had  with  my  brother  Ambassadors  and  with  leading  Eng- 
lishmen. 

Events  thus  far  fully  sustain  us.  There  is  no  immediate  prospect 
of  war,  at  least  until  after  a  Conference.  Nothing  would  be  hkely 
to  bring  it  on  but  a  popular  outbreak  in  Servia;  and  if  this  should 
come,  there  would  be  a  general  European  desire  to  see  Servia  well 
spanked  and  sat  down  on  hard.  It  is  difficult  to  express  the  con- 
tempt which  most  Europ>ean  poHticians  feel  toward  the  Servians, 
an>^way.  Circumstances  connected  with  the  assassination  of  the 
late  King  which  have  never  got  into  print,  but  are  perfectly  known 
in  every  capital,  are  of  so  incredibly  revolting  and  bestial  a  nature, 
that  most  of  them  feel  it  is  a  pity  to  recognize  Servia  at  all  at  present 
as  having  a  civiHzed  Government. 

I  have  reason  to  know  from  high  sources  that  the  King  and  the 
Ministry  here  were  very  much  exasperated  at  Austria's  action;  but 
they  attribute  it  entirely  to  the  ambition  of  Baron  Aehrenthal. 
There  will  be  no  breach,  however,  with  Francis  Joseph,  whom  all 
respect  and  admire.  On  the  other  hand  they  would  be  quite  wilfing 
to  see  him  put  to  some  trouble  to  furnish  the  spanking  aforesaid  to 
Servia  in  case  of  need. 

That  was  the  inside  view.  Over  in  Paris,  Clemenceau 
and  his  minister  of  foreign  affairs,  Pichon,  were  very 
uneasy  about  Austrian  methods  in  the  Balkans,  fearing 
that  diplomacy  might  fail  to  prevent  hostilities  between 
Austria  and  Servia  in  the  spring,  when  large  armies  could 
be  easily  fed  and  moved.  But  in  London  recognition  of 
the  fact  that  the  Balkan  pot  was  boiling  was  accompa- 
nied by  the  belief  that  the  lid  would  stay  on  for  some 
time  longer.  There  was  no  international  nervousness  of 
a  military  nature  tingeing  the  American  ambassador's 
contacts  with  the  Foreign  Office  as  he  proceeded  to 
carry  out  the  purposes  of  the  new  Repubhcan  adminis- 
tration at  home.  In  the  first  year  of  that  administra- 
tion he  suffered  a  certain  dislocation  in  his  staff.  Mr. 
Carter  was  appointed  minister  to  Bucharest,  and  though 
Reid  rejoiced  in  his  promotion,  he  mourned  the  departure 
of  a  first  secretary  for  whom  he  had  a  peculiarly  warm 


396         THE'  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

regard.  Happily,  a  man  likewise  of  great  ability  took 
his  place,  Mr.  William  Phillips.  In  one  of  his  letters  to 
Mrs.  Reid,  then  on  a  brief  visit  to  California,  the  am- 
bassador sketches  the  variety  of  subjects  pressing  upon 
him.  "It  never  rains  but  it  pours  upon  this  Embassy," 
he  says.  "Curiously  they  keep  stirring  up  more  busi- 
ness of  all  sorts  than  we  have  had  for  a  long  time.  One 
day  it  is  a  fresh  turn  on  the  Chinese  railways,  the  next 
day  is  an  arbitration  with  Chili,  the  next  a  desire  to 
settle  something  about  the  gpvernment  of  Spitzbergen, 
the  next  a  trouble  in  Newfoundland  over  the  landing  of 
the  Commercial  Cable,  the  next  a  new  demand  for  exam- 
ination of  the  originals  of  a  tremendous  lot  of  documents 
in  connection  with  the  approaching  Hague  arbitration!" 
It  was  hke  dipping  every  day  into  Pandora's  box. 

Of  all  these  subjects,  the  one  on  which  Reid  was  most 
solicitous,  of  course,  was  that  of  the  Newfoundland  fish- 
eries. Though  there  were  tedious  passages  in  the  work 
of  preparing  for  the  debate  at  The  Hague,  it  was  always 
inspiriting  to  realize  that  that  consummation  for  which 
he  had  so  devotedly  labored  would  finally  dispose  of  an 
age-long  controversy,  and  his  confidence  in  the  upshot 
was  doubly  fortified  since  Senator  Root  had  undertaken 
to  act  as  senior  counsel  for  the  United  States.  He  had 
interesting  news  from  his  friend,  in  July,  1910,  when  the 
court  of  arbitration  was  in  session.  "We  are  having  a 
long,  hard,  close  fight,"  wrote  Root,  "and  it  is  quite 
impossible  for  any  judgment  to  be  made,  of  any  value, 
as  to  how  it  is  coming  out.  However  it  comes  out,  one 
thing  is  certain,  that  we  shall  be  better  off*  than  we 
were  before  the  submission  to  arbitration,  because  our 
fishermen  were  then  entirely  at  the  mercy  of  the  New- 
foundland Legislature."  The  Gloucester  fishermen  were 
among  the  first  to  cable  their  congratulations  to  the 
American  agent  at  The  Hague  when  the  verdict  was 


THE  ASQUITH  MINISTRY  397 

rendered  in  September,  and,  as  Reid  observed,  they 
were  the  people  most  affected  and  most  likely  to  find 
fault.  There  was,  indeed,  no  fault  to  be  found.  Sen- 
ator Root's  great  closing  argument  summed  up  a  singu- 
larly strong  case,  recognition  of  which  was  manifested  in 
the  most  gratifying  measure  in  the  award.  There  re- 
mained to  be  carried  out  the  reorganization  of  existing 
regulations  by  the  commission  of  experts  agreed  upon  at 
The  Hague,  and  pending  the  completion  of  this  work  it 
was  necessary  to  provide  for  the  usual  programme  of  the 
fishing  fleet.  The  American  ambassador  had  anticipated 
this  in  visits  at  the  Foreign  Office,  obtaining  assurances 
that  aff'airs  might  rest,  in  the  interim,  on  the  last  agree- 
ment. When  Secretary  Knox  brought  up  the  point  he 
could  promptly  reply:  "I  have  just  received  a  note  from 
the  Foreign  Office  saying,  *With  reference  to  our  conver- 
sation we  agree  that  it  is  not  necessary  to  raise  the  ques- 
tion of  the  modus  Vivendi,' "  To  Reid  the  brief  message 
was  in  the  nature  of  a  benediction. 

At  the  same  time  it  left  him  with  quite  enough  of  com- 
plications on  hand.  The  fisheries  dispute,  vexatious  as 
ft  was,  possessed,  after  all,  a  certain  simplicity.  For  one 
thing  it  was,  in  a  sense,  almost  a  family  affair.  As  a 
matter  for  negotiation  the  American  ambassador  would 
willingly  have  had  it  back,  I  think,  in  exchange  for  the 
subject  of  Chinese  railways,  which  lingered  on  and  on 
with  a  far  greater  entanglement  of  interests.  The  origin 
of  this  problem  dated  as  far  back  as  1903,  when  our 
minister  at  Pekin,  Mr.  Conger,  happened  to  read  in  the 
London  ''Times"  that  British  companies  had  applied 
for  a  concession  to  build  a  railway  from  Sinyang,  Honan, 
to  Chengtu,  Szechuen,  and  that  the  government  in  reply 
had  declared  that  the  line  would  be  built  by  the  Chinese 
themselves.  The  answer  of  the  British  Government  re- 
ported in  the  ** Times''  was  that  if  ultimately  foreign 


398         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

funds  were  required,  the  British  should  have  the  prefer- 
ence. Minister  Conger  forthwith  reminded  the  Chinese 
Foreign  Office  that  Americans  had  long  before  applied 
for  a  similar  (Concession,  and  that  he  had  in  a  personal 
interview  called  the  attention  of  the  Chinese  Govern- 
ment to  this  fact,  and  specially  asked  that,  if  foreign 
capital  were  needed,  application  should  be  first  made  to 
Americans,  as  they  were  the  first  in  the  field.  He  then 
entered  a  formal  protest  "against  any  arrangement  with 
others  which  may  deprive  my  countrymen  of  their  just 
claims  to  consideration  in  this  matter."  Three  days 
later  the  Foreign  Office  repHed  to  Mr.  Conger's  note, 
repeating  the  statement  that  China  expected  to  build 
the  railway  herself,  but  adding  that  if  in  the  future 
foreign  capital  was  needed,  since  American  and  British 
companies  had  successively  applied  for  concessions  to 
build  the  road,  application  would  be  made  to  American 
and  British  companies,  and  that  the  British  Legation  had 
been  told  the  same  thing.  A  detailed  analysis  of  the 
developments  ensuing  from  this  posture  of  circumstances 
might  be  carried  to  lengths  hardly  necessary  in  these 
pages.  In  due  course  the  French  and  the  Germans  came 
in,  and  by  Secretary  Knox's  time  the  Chinese  railways 
embodied  one  of  the  most  complex  topics  in  diplomacy. 
He  gave  sturdy  backing  to  the  bankers  comprising  what 
came  to  be  known  simply  as  **the  American  group," 
recognizing  that  the  problem  involved,  while  nominally 
financial,  had  a  collateral  significance  essentially  political. 
There  was  more  than  a  menace  to  trade  in  the  possibility 
of  any  lack  of  sympathy  "between  the  Powers  most 
vitally  interested  in  the  preservation  of  the  principle  of 
equahty  of  commercial  opportunity."  He  pointed  out  in 
his  instructions  to  Reid  that  the  United  States  regarded 
"full  and  frank  cooperation  as  best  calculated  to  main- 
tain the  Open  Door  and  the  integrity  of  China." 


THE  ASQUITH  MINISTRY  399 

The  American  ambassador's  duty  at  the  Foreign  Office 
was  to  urge  the  hypothesis  that  **the  formation  of  a 
powerful  American,  British,  French  and  German  finan- 
cial group  would  further  that  end."  Easier  said  than 
done.  The  American  ambassador  soon  had  all  the  facts 
at  his  finger-tips,  thanks  to  voluminous  exchanges  with 
the  State  Department  and  frequent  conversations  with  Sir 
Edward  Grey.  At  a  dinner  at  Dorchester  House  he 
brought  together  members  of  all  the  banking  groups, 
American  and  foreign.  The  talk  was  luminous  and  of 
happy  augury.  Secretary  Knox  meanwhile  was  from 
Washington  carrying  on  a  vigorous  campaign  in  every 
direction,  and  the  desired  settlement  appeared  to  be 
certain.  Reid's  optimistic  view  is  disclosed  in  the  fol- 
lowing letter: 

Dorchester  House, 

Dear  Mr.  Secretary:  ^"g"^^  BL  1909. 

I  congratulate  you  heartily  on  the  reported  happy  results  of  the 
negotiations  at  Pekin.  I  am  sure  the  outcome  both  in  business  and 
in  national  prestige  will  be  far  greater  than  any  mere  profits  on  the 
present  loan  and  railway  construction  would  indicate.  It  has  always 
seemed  to  me  that  with  our  long  coast  Hne  and  absolute  predomi- 
nance on  the  western  side  of  the  Pacific  Ocean,  and  our  splendid 
foothold  on  its  eastern  side  looking  out  from  the  Philippines  on  the 
China  Sea,  we  ought  to  be  at  least  the  equal  of  any  other  power  in 
the  world  in  the  Chinese  trade  and  in  influence  with  the  Chinese 
Government.  In  fact  I  think  we  ought  to  be  far  ahead  of  any  other 
power.  I  have  long  believed  also  that  before  the  close  of  this  cen- 
tury the  Pacific  Ocean  will  carry  a  more  important  commerce  than 
that  of  the  Atlantic  and  that  our  geographical  and  political  positions 
ought  to  enable  us  to  control  the  larger  part  of  it.  You  can  judge 
therefore  how  thoroughly  I  am  delighted  with  your  op>ening  success 
in  this  field. 

When  you  were  good  enough  to  grant  my  application  for  a  brief 
leave  of  absence,  I  understood  perfectly  the  suggestion  that  it  might 
be  better  to  await  the  result  at  Pekin,  and  abandoned  my  plan  of 
accompanying  my  family  home;  renewing  the  application  the  next 
week  when  the  Pekin  business  seemed  to  be  closed.  If  it  had  been 
necessary  I  believe  we  could  have  secured  any  further  support  that 
seemed  proper  and  necessary  from  the  British  Foreign  OflTice.      I 


400        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

think  I  telegraphed  you  the  substance  of  Sir  Edward  Grey's  very 
frank  private  conversation  on  the  subject  while  negotiations  were 
pending.  He  repeatedly  expressed  his  regret  that  we  had  not  told 
him  of  our  desire  to  act  under  the  old  concession  of  1903  before  he 
had  got  comphcafed  with  other  nations.  Of  course  it  was  perfectly 
natural  that,  if  they  were  to  have  associates  at  all  in  the  Chinese 
business,  they  would  prefer  us  to  the  Germans  or  even  to  the  French; 
and  I  hope  we  can  count  upon  this  feeling  as  a  constant  factor  in 
future  questions  of  that  kind. 

Yours  sincerely,  Whitelaw  Reid. 

The  letter  unconsciously  throw^s  an  ironical  light  upon 
the  Chinese  railway  negotiations.  Once  more  was  the 
American  ambassador  moved  to  repeat  to  himself  the  old 
axiom  that  man  never  is,  but  always  to  be,  blest.  When 
a  personal  telegram  from.  President  Taft  to  Prince  Chen, 
Regent  of  the  Chinese  Empire,  apparently  removed  all 
the  obstacles  that  Oriental  inertia  had  placed  in  the 
way  of  American  participation  in  the  loan,  new  difficul- 
ties supervened,  and  at  one  point,  in  October,  1909,  since 
none  of  the  mundane  powers  was  exerting  any  untoward 
pressure  on  the  situation,  the  Fates  themselves  took  a 
hand.  **I  have  the  honor  to  report,"  cabled  the  Ameri- 
can charge  at  Pekin,  "that  the  negotiations,  which  had 
practically  resulted  in  an  agreement,  have  been  brought 
to  an  abrupt  pause  by  the  death  of  the  aged  grand  coun- 
cillor, Chang  Chihtung,  the  director  general  of  these 
railways."  The  diplomats  could  hardly  have  been 
blamed  if  they  had  irreverently  suspected  the  old  gen- 
tleman of  dying  with  malice  aforethought,  his  taking  off 
was  an  episode  so  completely  and  so  exasperatingly  **in 
the  picture."  But  I  need  say  no  more  now  of  the  Chi- 
nese business,  only  noting  its  incredible  vitality,  hardy 
enough  to  defeat  the  shrewdest  and  most  industrious  of 
statesmen.  "To  sign  or  not  to  sigil"  came  to  be  one  of 
the  most  familiar  queries  caught  up  in  the  world-wide 
negotiations  in  which  Reid  was  always  playing  his  part. 
Other  topics — the  Congo,  Liberia,  the  fur-seal  question 


THE  ASQUITH  MINISTRY  401 

Involving  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States,  Russia 
and  Japan,  the  opium  conference  and  its  aftermath — 
might  come  and  go.  The  Chinese  railways,  multiplying 
their  ramifications,  went  on  forever. 

The  American  ambassador's  communications  to  the 
State  Department  all  through  the  first  half  of  the  Taft 
administration  are  heavily  freighted  with  pure  business, 
but  in  his  private  correspondence  with  Secretary  Knox 
there  is  one  subject  outside  the  routine  of  diplomatic 
negotiations  which  constantly  recurs.  It  appears  also 
in  those  discursive  letters  which  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Taft, 
as  he  had  written  them  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt.  This  is  the 
subject  of  Enghsh  political  life  as  it  affected  the  fortunes 
of  the  Asquith  ministry.  Measures  and  personalities 
alike  figure  in  the  chronicle.  When  Reid  first  began  to 
write  to  the  new  secretary  of  state  he  had  dissensions  in 
the  British  cabinet  to  report,  signs  that  the  prime  min- 
ister was  finding  it  hard  to  maintain  discipline  in  his 
own  house  against  the  pronounced  temperaments  of  such 
colleagues  as  Winston  Churchill  and  Lloyd  George,  and 
the  debates  over  the  budget  seemed  to  him  to  land  the 
Liberals  fairly  in  the  breakers.  He  thought  even  then 
that  their  government  was  likely  to  hold  on  for  pretty 
nearly  the  full  average  life  of  a  Parliament,  and  in  stat- 
ing that  opinion  in  a  letter  to  Senator  Root,  he  observed 
also  that  the  personal  weight  of  Asquith,  Grey,  and  Mor- 
ley,  in  particular,  remained  unimpaired.  But  the  attacks 
of  the  opposition  were  ceaseless,  and  Rcid's  sketches  of 
the  political  scene  reflect  a  tension  steadily  unrelieved. 
He  did  not  neglect  the  touches  of  comedy,  when  at  rare 
intervals  they  enlivened  the  prevailing  grimness.  Thus 
in  the  course  of  a  letter  to  Secretary  Knox  he  throws  in 
this  anecdote: 

One   more  bit  of  the  never  ending  gossip  which   permeates  all 
London    political   society.     The   other   night   Mrs.   Asquith   had   a 


402         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

dinner  at  which  Maud  Allan  (the  dancer)  was  one  of  the  guests,  and 
she  seated  this  lady  beside  Mr.  Winston  Churchill,  H.  M/s  Presi- 
dent of  the  Board  of  Trade.  Winston  did  not  seem  to  think  well 
of  his  neighbor,  and  absolutely  paid  no  attention  to  her  during  the 
dinner.  When  the  ladies  rose  she  got  even  with  him.  As  she  turned 
away,  she  said,  "Well,  Mr.  Churchill,  we  don't  seem  to  have  had 
much  in  common  to-night.  In  fact,  I  think  there  is  in  the  whole 
world  but  one  thing  we  do  have  in  common.  We  were  both  kicked 
out  of  Manchester."  You  will  remember  that  Winston  was  over- 
whelmingly defeated  at  Manchester  when  he  came  up  for  re-election 
after  his  change  in  the  Cabinet,  and  also  that  the  authorities  made 
a  great  sensation  by  refusing  permission  to  Maud  Allan  to  dance 
there. 

Another  anecdote  of  Mr.  Churchill  recounted  in  Reid's 
lighter  correspondence  relates  to  the  time  w^hen  he  w^ent 
to  John  Morley,  secretary  for  India,  and  asked  his  influ- 
ence to  get  him  (Winston)  made  viceroy  at  Calcutta. 
Morley  leaned  back  in  his  chair  w^ith  a  gasp,  and,  brac- 
ing himself  on  the  arms  of  it,  finally  ejaculated:  "Win- 
ston, rather  than  recommend  you  for  Viceroy  of  India, 
I  would  commit  suicide  myself  on  this  spot."  In  the 
fall  of  1909,  v^^hen  the  American  ambassador  went  down 
to  the  University  of  Manchester,  of  which  Morley  was 
lord  chancellor,  to  receive  a  degree,  he  witnessed  an 
extraordinary  heckling  of  the  statesman  by  several  suf- 
fragette militants,  and  described  to  Mrs.  Taft  his  serene 
demeanor  in  a  dramatic  moment.  The  unexpected  chal- 
lenge had  brought  about  a  tremendous  uproar.  In  the 
midst  of  it  Morley  remained  absolutely  unmoved,  ** stand- 
ing with  a  patient  smile  on  his  face  and  his  manuscript 
in  his  hand,  apparently  taking  the  most  languid  interest 
in  the  interruption."  An  anecdote  of  one  of  his  col- 
leagues has  perhaps,  as  Reid  observes,  an  American 
ancestry,  but  it  loses  nothing  on  that  account: 

The  Conservatives  have  been  laughing  lately  at  a  story  about 
another  Cabinet  minister  who  is  for  the  moment  their  bete  noirCt 
Lloyd  George,  the  little  Welsh  lawyer  who  was  suddenly  made  Chan- 


THE  ASQUITH  MINISTRY  403 

cellor  of  the  Exchequer.  Their  story  is  that  at  a  Welsh  meeting 
somewhere  a  great  admirer  of  George's  was  in  a  feverish  state  of 
excitement  about  his  appearance.  He  kept  pulling  his  neighbor  by 
the  shoulder,  and  asking,  "Have  you  seen  Lloyd  George?  Where 
is  he?"  Then  a  little  later,  "There  he  is !  That  little  man — that's 
Lloyd  George."  And  then  a  little  later,  "Do  you  see  Lloyd  George 
is  going  to  speak.  Let's  get  up  closer."  Finally,  his  more  phleg- 
matic neighbor  turned  on  him  and  said,  "Can't  you  shut  up?  Lloyd 
George  is  not  God  Almighty."  "Oh,  well,"  said  the  excitable 
Welshman  apologetically,  "maybe  not;  but  you  know  he's  young 
yet." 

The  vignettes  of  public  men  scattered  through  Reid's 
correspondence  are  never  more  appreciative  than  when 
they  deal  with  Asquith.  He  speaks  of  him  as  one  of  the 
strongest  men  in  parliamentary  life,  commanding  the 
admiration  of  both  sides,  but  he  depicts  him  also  as  the 
object  of  intense  Conservative  bitterness,  exacerbated  by 
the  historic  tussle  between  the  Commons  and  the  House 
of  Lords.  He  was  beset  by  anxieties,  not  all  of  them 
by  any  means  of  Conservative  making.  John  Redmond 
and  his  forces  were  alHes  held  as  by  a  slender  leash,  and 
though  the  general  election  of  1909  wiped  the  political 
slate  it  left  thereon,  in  grudging  fashion,  figures  which 
imparted  no  really  inspiring  vigor  to  the  Liberals'  new 
lease  of  life.  Asquith's  cabinet  had  too  many  unruly 
elements.  It  continued  in  a  state  of  confusion  and  alarm. 
"The  situation  under  the  surface  here,"  Reid  wrote  to 
Knox  in  March,  19 10,  "may  be  better  understood  by  a 
frank  remark  openly  made  by  the  Premier  the  other  day 
at  a  large  dinner,  when  the  subject  of  the  late  general 
election  was  being  talked  about.  *One  of  my  colleagues,* 
said  Mr.  Asquith,  *cost  me  thirty  seats  in  the  House.' 
Everybody  understood  the  reference  to  be  to  Lloyd 
George,  and  there  is  probably  no  doubt  that  Lloyd 
George's  Limehouse  speech  and  other  offensive  utter- 
ances did  do  more  than  that  amount  of  damage  to  the 
Liberal  party  at  the  last  election."     Between  Redmond 


404         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

and  Lloyd  George,  Asquith's  position  on  the  budget,  the 
Lords'  veto,  and  the  whole  question  of  the  reformation 
of  the  Lords,  was  a  thing  requiring  the  endurance  of  a 
stoic  and  the  Agility  of  an  acrobat.  His  demeanor  in  the 
House  and  the  atmosphere  surrounding  him  gain  in 
Reid's  description  to  Mrs.  Taft  from  the  backward  glance 
it  contains: 

February  25,  19 10. 

Temper  is  beginning  to  control  the  general  political  situation.  Mr. 
Asquith  regrets  bitterly  the  action  of  his  own  insubordinate  followers, 
and  with  equal  bitterness  the  taunts  from  the  Irish.  He  settles  back 
in  his  seat  with  a  defiant  air,  grows  red  in  the  face,  puffs  out  his 
cheeks,  thrusts  his  hands  in  his  pockets,  and  sinks  lower  and  lower 
on  the  bench  until  he  almost  seems  to  be  lying  down.  When  an 
attempt  is  made  to  heckle  him,  he  sometimes  makes  no  response, 
and  when  a  question  has  to  be  answered,  answers  it  in  his  own  way. 
Yesterday  the  questioner  came  back  at  him  with  this:  "Am  I  to 
understand  then  that"  so  and  so;  and  Mr.  Asquith  fairly  flung  back 
the  reply,  "The  Hon.  Member  is  to  understand  just  what  my  answer 
said." 

Naturally  the  free-lances  on  both  sides  take  advantage  of  such 
opportunities  to  stir  up  more  temper.  Then  the  close  division  last 
night,  only  31  Government  majority  where  they  used  to  have  354 
last  year,  was  taken  as  a  practical  triumph  by  the  Unionists,  who 
cheered  and  jeered  in  a  way  that  would  try  the  temper  of  a  saint; 
and  Mr.  Asquith,  with  all  his  virtues,  is  not  yet  a  saint. 

All  the  while  I  cannot  help  contrasting  the  scenes  now  with  what 
I  witnessed  at  the  debate  on  the  King's  speech  four  years  ago.  Then 
the  Conservatives,  after  their  long  lease  of  power,  had  come  back 
with  the  overwhelming  majority  of  354  against  them,  and  their 
Premier,  Mr.  Balfour,  was  defeated  outright.  Until  a  vacancy  in  a 
safe  constituency  could  be  made  for  him,  he  had  to  keep  out  of  the 
House,  and  the  leadership  of  the  party  devolved  on  Mr.  Chamberlain. 
Then  the  young  man  who  seconded  the  address  thought  the  Union- 
ists so  nearly  extinguished  that  he  threw  the  old  ideas  of  Parliamen- 
tary courtesy  to  the  winds,  sneered  at  the  absent  leader  and  made  a 
coarse  reference,  almost  if  not  quite  insulting,  to  the  "tariff  reform 
substitute."  A  moment  later  Mr.  Chamberlain  rose  to  reply,  and 
in  an  instant  the  young  man  had  found  that  he  was  a  dangerous 
person  to  attack.  He  paid  the  usual  compliments  to  the  propriety 
and  skill  with  which  the  mover  of  the  resolution  had  discharged  his 
task,  and  then  referred  in  a  single  sentence  to  the  extraordinary 


THE   ASQUITH   MINISTRY  405 

departure  from  the  customary  courtesy  shown  by  the  seconder.  It 
was  a  sentence  so  bitter  and  so  unanswerable  that,  as  I  looked  at 
the  young  man,  I  saw  him  sink  bodily  into  his  seat,  almost  as  if 
somebody  had  struck  him  on  the  head  with  a  sledge  hammer.  With- 
out another  word  of  reference  to  him  Mr.  Chamberlain  plunged  into 
the  various  topics  of  the  address,  and  was  presently  being  howled 
down  by  the  exultant  Liberals,  Labor  men  and  Irish,  all  combined. 
They  really  acted  as  if  they  felt  that  Chamberlain  had  been  so  dis- 
credited by  the  defeat  that  he  ought  to  hide  his  head  in  shame  and 
slink  out  of  the  House. 

Chamberlain  continued  making  point  after  point,  all  thoroughly 
effective  from  his  side  of  the  argument,  and  at  least  calculated  to 
sober  his  opponents;  but  every  sentence  only  made  them  wilder  in 
their  cheers  and  insults.  Finally  he  began  a  sentence  with  the 
words,  "But  when  the  pendulum  swings  back — ."  He  got  no  far- 
ther. The  Liberals  fairly  rose  at  him  with  insulting  cheers  and 
cries,  as  if  they  actually  meant  to  drive  him  out  of  the  House,  or  at 
any  rate  to  refuse  him  a  hearing.  The  slight  figure  stood  perfectly 
erect  at  the  box  on  the  table  which  alone  separated  him  from  Camp- 
bell-Bannerman  and  Mr.  Asquith,  till  the  storm  exhausted  itself, 
and  then  continued,  in  tones  so  penetrating  and  incisive  that  for  a 
moment  the  Liberals  were  sobered.  "There  is  surely  no  one  of  these 
members  so  ignorant  of  the  history  of  his  country  and  of  this  body 
as  not  to  know  that  the  pendulum  will  surely  swing  back."  He  then 
went  on  with  his  argument  as  to  what  would  then  be  thought  of  the 
present  excesses  of  the  Liberals.  Even  during  the  early  days  of  our 
Civil  War  I  never  witnessed  in  either  branch  of  Congress  a  more 
exciting  scene. 

Well,  the  pendulum  has  swung  back  with  a  vengeance,  and  with 
the  exception  of  poor  Campbell-Bannerman,  nearly  all  the  Liberal 
leaders  are  there  to  witness  it,  and  to  feel  more  intensely  than  would 
otherwise  be  possible  the  humiliation  of  being  held  in  the  hollow  of 
their  hand  by  the  Irish  contingent,  and  forced  to  bargain  with  them 
in  the  very  presence  of  their  foes  for  even  a  week's  life. 

Side  by  side  with  this  picture  of  a  scene  in  the  House 
I  must  place  one  of  a  scene  in  the  Lords.  It  occurs,  like 
its  predecessor,  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Taft,  written  only  two 
or  three  weeks  later.  Chamberlain  is  the  hero  of  the 
first.     It  is  Lord  Rosebery  who  is  now  portrayed. 

March  15,  19 10. 
Yesterday  everybody  that  could  get  into  the  House  of  Lords  was 
there  to  hear  the  opening  debate  on  Rosebery's  resolutions  for  the 


^  * 


4o6         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

reform  of  the  Lords.  When  I  arrived,  ten  minutes  before  the  open- 
ing, the  diplomatic  gallery  was  already  jammed;  but  one  of  the 
advantages  of  being  an  Ambassador  is  that  the  minor  members  of 
the  corps  make  rg^om  for  you.  Directly  below  our  gallery  are  the 
"cross  benches"  on  which  peers  more  or  less  detached  from  close 
party  allegiance  are  apt  to  sit.  Lord  Cromer,  Lord  Milner,  and 
many  such  may  nearly  always  be  found  there.  In  the  corner  of  the 
front  cross  bench  nearest  the  Conservative  side  sat  a  slight,  familiar 
bearded  figure,  with  a  silk  hat  tipped  over  the  eye  brows,  preventing 
the  features  from  being  well  seen  from  above.  Presently  you  dis- 
cover that  it  is  the  Prince  of  Wales,  in  animated  conversation  with 
a  heavy  figure  by  his  side  whose  features  are  also  obscured  by  a  tall 
silk  hat  tipped  over  the  forehead.  The  Lord  Chancellor  rises  from 
the  woolsack  and  reads  two  or  three  perfunctory  notices.  As  he 
sits  down,  the  hands  of  the  clock  are  pointing  to  half  past  four,  and 
one  of  the  clerks,  with  a  heavy  curled,  grey  wig  and  black  gown, 
rises  from  the  table  where  he  has  been  sitting  with  his  back  to  the 
cross  benches,  and  with  a  paper  in  his  hand  calls  "Lord  Rosebery." 
Then  the  stout  figure  beside  the  Prince  of  Wales  rises  quickly,  walks 
to  the  center  of  the  table  in  front  of  the  Opposition  row,  takes  his 
hat  off  and  puts  it  on  the  table  in  front  of  him,  leisurely  fills  a  tumbler 
with  water,  puts  that  within  convenient  reach,  draws  from  the 
breast-pocket  of  his  tightly  buttoned  frock  coat  a  sheaf  of  notes, 
written  on  loose  leaves  of  note  paper,  adjusts  these  comfortably  on 
a  box  with  some  sort  of  protection  at  one  side,  in  front  of  him ;  and 
then,  with  his  back  to  Lord  Lansdowne,  Lord  Halsbury  and  Lord 
Londonderry,  who  sit  immediately  behind  him  on  the  front  Oppo- 
sition bench,  with  his  side  to  the  Lord  Chancellor,  sitting  alone  under 
his  big  wig  on  the  woolsack  beyond  the  end  of  the  table,  and  facing 
directly  Lord  Morley,  sitting  in  the  center  of  the  Ministers'  bench 
on  the  other  side  of  the  table,  and  his  own  son-in-law.  Lord  Crewe, 
the  Minister  for  the  Colonies,  he  begins  in  a  low  tone  with  the  con- 
ventional English  pronunciation  of  "Me  Luds" — the  latter  word  not 
quite  so  short  as  this  orthography  indicates,  but  nothing  like  so 
long  as  the  ordinary  American  pronunciation. 

There  had  been  a  curious  kind  of  movement  and  suppressed 
whisper  as  he  took  his  place — a  mere  indication  that  the  great  feature 
of  the  day  was  on.  The  newspapers  describe  it  as  applause,  and 
perhaps  it  was  meant  for  that,  though  I  should  have  considered  it  a 
much  higher  evidence  of  the  strained  attention  of  a  highly  expectant 
audience.  His  first  sentences  were  very  simple,  showed  no  care  in 
literary  construction,  and,  in  fact,  had  a  good  many  repetitions  of 
the  phrases  "this  House*'  and  "the  House  of  Luds"  and  the  like, 
which  Lord  Rosebery  would  have  been  the  first  to  strike  out  with 


THE  ASQUITH  MINISTRY  407 

his  pen  if  he  had  been  revising  an  article  for  the  press.  The  curious 
thing  is  that  this  indication  of  unpreparedness  and  avoidance  of 
literary  form  was  studied  as  carefully  as  any  other  part  of  the  speech. 
It  was  the  effort  to  conceal  his  art.  Hardly  half  a  dozen  sentences 
had  been  uttered,  however,  till  they  began  to  flow  in  perfectly 
smooth  and  polished  phrases,  and  he  was  propitiating  his  audience 
by  a  eulogy  of  its  antiquity,  its  importance,  its  honors,  and  its  great 
service.  Then,  with  a  dextrous  turn,  he  referred  to  the  higher 
eulogies  passed  by  many  great  men  whose  eloquence  and  authority 
he  could  not  hope  to  rival,  and  especially  one  comparatively  recent 
one  which,  in  spite  of  his  knowledge  of  the  dread  with  which  audi- 
ences regarded  extracts,  he  would  venture  to  read.  He  read  it  effec- 
tively. At  one  of  its  swelling  and  extravagant  periods,  he  stopped 
to  say  deprecatingly  that  he  must  say  he  thought  this  was  a  little 
overdrawn,  and  then  went  on  to  the  finish  leaving  everybody  still 
wondering  who  this  unknown  eulogist  was.  He  proceeded  to  say 
a  few  words  in  recognition  of  the  great  knowledge  and  authority  of 
the  man  he  was  quoting,  and  then  quietly  remarked  it  was  Mr. 
Redmond. 

As  Redmond  is  the  head  and  front  of  the  war  on  the  House  of 
Lords,  the  hit  was  instantaneous  and  enormous.  The  whole  House 
broke  into  roars  of  laughter  on  both  sides. 

For  an  hour  and  a  half  the  speech  went  on,  with  frequent  reference 
to  the  notes,  and  yet  with  the  constant  appearance  of  spontaneity, 
and  with  an  extraordinary  variety  of  elocution.  The  voice  was 
sometimes  so  low  and  so  conversational  that  we  had  to  lean  over  the 
galleries  to  catch  it.  At  other  times,  in  moments  of  apparent  pas- 
sion it  rang  out  so  that  it  could  have  been  heard  easily  in  the  lobbies. 
One  rarely  sees  a  more  complete  triumph  of  a  great  reputation  sus- 
tained by  an  address  generally  thought  worthy  of  it.  Before  the 
first  half  hour  had  passed  the  strained  attention  seemed  to  become 
almost  painful.  The  Liberals  watched  him  anxiously,  as  if  they  felt 
that  their  lost  leader  was  their  master  still,  and  were  apprehensive 
every  moment  of  fresh  chastisement  in  a  new  spot.  Morley,  Crewe 
and  nearly  everybody  on  the  front  bench  had  the  same  expression. 
Even  they  however  could  not  fail  to  join  in  the  universal  hilarity 
when  the  remark  dropped,  in  very  low  conversational  tones,  almost 
as  it  seemed  unconsciously,  as  if  thinking  aloud,  that  he  pitied  the 
unfortunate  Secretary  for  the  Colonies  when  he  had  to  communicate 
to  the  new  Dominion  in  South  Africa  that  the  Mother  Government 
was  repudiating  at  home  the  second  chamber  which  it  had  just 
inflicted  upon  them.  The  fact  that  this  unfortunate  secretary  oppo- 
site was  his  son-in-law  seemed  to  add  to  everybody's  enjoyment  of 
the  hit.     Presently  he  was  speaking  of  the  scorn  with  which  the 


4o8        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

United  States,  with  its  strong  Senate  and  double  veto  on  the  action 
of  the  House  of  Representatives,  would  regard  the  present  folly  of 
the  Mother  of  Parliaments.  Some  of  the  newspapers  speak  of  his 
pointing  the  observation  by  turning  to  me,  but  I  did  not  think  it 
was  so  marked  aS'to  attract  notice,  though  he  certainly  did  look  up 
at  us  and  make  a  gesture  towards  our  gallery. 

It  is  a  common  remark  about  Rosebery  that  he  speaks  more  like 
an  American  than  like  an  Englishman.  Nevertheless  it  is  a  remark 
that  Americans  would  not  be  apt  to  make,  especially  at  home.  Every- 
thing that  he  does  is  more  restrained  than  I  can  remember  in  any 
famous  American  speaker  since  Wendell  Philhps.  He  is  Hke  Wen- 
dell Phillips  in  another  respect.  His  literary  taste  is  admirable, 
and,  in  spite  of  occasional  attempts  to  conceal  it,  his  sentences  are 
as  poKshed  as  if  they  were  meant  for  his  Life  of  Pitt  or  his  Last 
Phase  of  Napoleon.  Yet  once  or  twice  when  he  was  interrupted, 
he  showed  that  he  was  easily  effective  in  retorts  and  rephes  which 
must  have  been  extempore. 

The  American  ambassador's  observations  throughout 
this  year  point  to  nothing  save  increasing  virulence  in 
the  quarrel  over  parliamentary  reform.  In  May,  when 
King  Edward  died,  it  seemed  as  though  the  community 
of  feeHng  produced  by  the  event  might  lead  to  some 
sort  of  amiable  composition  of  the  trouble,  but  this  hy- 
pothesis was  short-Hved.  The  dissolution  that  winter 
was  faced  by  Asquith  with  militant  confidence.  He  was 
sure  that  the  bill  affecting  the  House  of  Lords  would 
have  to  be  accepted  by  that  body  without  the  change 
of  a  word.  But  the  general  election  proved  a  disconcert- 
ing blow.  Conservatives  and  Liberals  were  exactly  bal- 
anced in  the  new  Parhament,  and  though  the  prime  min- 
ister was  continued  in  office,  the  people  gave  no  encour- 
agement to  his  more  revolutionary  proposals.  As  Reid 
put  it  to  Secretary  Knox,  Asquith  returned  with  no  new 
mandate  and  no  increased  power. 

There  were  both  lights  and  shadows  in  the  private  life 
of  the  Reids  at  this  period.  In  March,  1909,  Mrs.  Ward's 
son  was  born  in  London,  an  event  sending  ripples  of  re- 
joicing through  his  grandfather's  correspondence.     Then 


THE  ASQUITH   MINISTRY  409 

in  January*,  19 10,  Mr.  Mills  died.  Mrs.  Reid  was  with 
him  in  California  when  the  end  came.  Her  husband 
was  at  his  post,  and  he  sailed  at  once  for  New  York. 
Knowledge  of  the  hea\y  burden  of  Mr.  Mills's  years, 
and  natural  apprehensions  for  his  health,  still  could  not 
soften  the  shock  of  his  death  when  it  befell.  On  a  brief 
visit  home  in  the  preceding  summer  they  had  obser\'ed 
an  encouraging  improvement  in  him,  and  at  the  camp  in 
the  Adirondacks  a  happy  part\*  of  kinsfolk  and  friends 
had  gathered  around  him  on  his  birthday,  happy  and 
confident.  The  immediate  future,  at  all  events,  had 
then  seemed  secure,  with  more  of  the  companionship 
which  was  one  of  the  stanchest  pillars  in  the  family  life. 
Whenever  leaves  of  absence  permitted,  the  Reids  spent 
their  holidays  with  Mr.  Mills,  and  he  was  with  them 
more  than  once  in  England,  where  the  King  and  many 
others  in  public  and  private  life  warmly  welcomed  him. 
His  character  was  both  strong  and  lovable,  whh  a  gen- 
erous unselfishness  at  its  base.  At  the  time  of  the  San 
Francisco  disaster  he  cabled  to  his  daughter  in  London 
and  the  distinction  he  draws  between  thought  for  him- 
self and  thought  for  others  is  so  decisive  that  it  may  be 
cited  here:  "Mills  Building  and  Millbrae  destroyed. 
We  lose  sight  of  our  own  losses  in  the  losses  to  the  State 
and  to  our  friends."  That  was  eloquent  of  a  civic  s\Tn- 
pathy  rooted  in  true  warmth  of  heart.  Men  in  business, 
like  Pierp)ont  Morgan,  who  held  his  rectitude  and  judg- 
ment as  indispensable  bulwarks  in  the  management  of 
large  transactions,  delighted  also  in  the  traits  revealed 
by  his  nature  in  intimate  association.  Philanthropy  was 
accompanied  in  him  by  a  sagacious  practicality,  as  wit- 
ness the  Mills  hotels,  but  the  instinct  to  help  came  first, 
just  as  in  his  conception  of  capitalism  an  impulse  toward 
absolute  fairness  was  fundamental.  It  has  been  said  of 
him  that  in  a  long  life  as  a  financier  he  never  made  an 


410         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW   REID 

enemy  or  a  detractor.  Roosevelt,  from  Gondokoro, 
wrote:  "I  have  always  felt  a  peculiar  regard  for  Mr. 
Mills;  he  is  the  type  of  'captain  of  industry'  whom  I 
cordially  respect;  of  whom  I  am  proud  as  an  American." 
For  Reid  he  had  been  for  nearly  thirty  years  a  tower  of 
strength,  bringing  his  weight  to  bear  upon  the  fortunes 
of  The  Tribune,  taking  a  leading  part  in  the  establish- 
ment of  the  linotype  as  a  working  investment,  in  many 
ways  proving  a  master  of  counsel  and  aid  in  practical 
affairs.  Through  all  this  there  ran  an  inspiring  strain 
of  mutual  understanding  and'  affection,  the  stimulus  of 
true  comradeship.  Like  Roosevelt,  Reid  admired  his 
father-in-law,  and,  besides,  he  loved  him. 


CHAPTER  XXI 
THE  DEATH  OF  EDWARD  VH 

In  the  period  of  political  turmoil  at  which  I  have  just 
glanced,  the  transition  from  one  reign  to  another  is  not 
precisely  foreshadowed  by  the  American  ambassador, 
but  there  are  passages  in  his  correspondence  in  the  light 
of  which  this  event  comes  not  altogether  without  warn- 
ing. The  health  of  King  Edward  was  uneven  for  some 
time  before  he  died.  He  had  an  illness  in  January, 
1909,  which  was  considered  rather  serious,  and  those 
about  him  were  anxious  to  have  him  as  careful  as  possi- 
ble. In  the  following  April  a  bad  cold,  with  an  obsti- 
nate cough,  led  to  alarmist  despatches  in  the  press,  and 
though  he  seemed  in  good  condition  when  he  opened 
Parhament  the  court  physicians  sought  to  keep  him  as 
much  out  of  the  London  chmate  as  possible,  and  to 
moderate  his  passion  for  work. 

For  another  year  he  held  his  own.  When  his  defenses 
were  broken  down  they  went  rapidly.  The  swift  climax 
is  thus  described  by  Reid  in  letters  to  Mrs.  Taft : 

May  5th,  191  o. 
The  King  sent  for  me  the  other  day  to  talk  about  Mr.  Roosevelt's 
visit.  I  was  startled  to  find  that  so  soon  after  we  had  been  assured 
by  rep)eated  despatches  from  Biarritz  that  he  was  in  better  health, 
and  so  soon  after  the  newspapers  had  been  commenting  on  his  im- 
proved appearance  on  his  return,  he  was  suffering  again  from  a  bad 
bronchial  attack.  These  give  him  more  than  usual  trouble  when 
they  come  on,  because  of  his  plethoric  habit.  Our  talk  was  inter- 
rupted by  spasms  of  coughing,  and  I  found  that  he  was  suffering 
from  a  good  many  of  the  symptoms  of  which  I  had  such  painful 
exF>erience  myself  during  the  winters  when  bronchial  asthma  ban- 
ished me  to  Arizona.  It  seems  to  me  that  these  attacks  are  coming 
on  more  frequently  within  the  last  two  years,  and  that  they  are 

411 


412         THE  LIFE  OF"  WHITELAW  REID 

becoming  harder  to  shake  off.  Still,  he  is  a  man  of  tremendous 
vigor  of  constitution,  and  of  extraordinarily  energetic  habits.  The 
general  public  think  him  in  perfect  health;  but  I  am  impressed  with 
the  notion  that  in  the  inner  circles  there  is  more  anxiety  about  him 
lately  than  I  have  ever  observed  at  any  time  before. 


May  6th,  1910. 

The  above  was  dictated  yesterday,  in  order  to  catch  to-night's 
pouch.  Since  then  the  Httle  news  I  gave  you  about  the  King  has 
developed  into  the  sensation  of  this  morning's  papers.  Apparently 
the  physicians  consider  the  case  far  graver  than  I  intimated. 

The  illness  compHcates  the  Roosevelt  business  enormously.  Part 
of  our  invitations  for  the  formal  dinner  at  Dorchester  House,  which 
the  King  and  Queen  were  to  attend,  had  already  gone  out.  Accord- 
ingly, I  rushed  down  to  the  Palace  to  consult  Lord  KnoIIys  as  to 
what  to  do.  After  a  moment's  consideration,  he  said  he  thought  it 
better  to  let  the  rest  go  out,  and  recall  them  later  if  the  illness  should 
be  prolonged.  He  is  ordinarily  the  most  reticent  of  men  in  regard 
to  the  King's  health,  but  in  reply  to  my  inquiries  he  shook  his  head 
sadly  and  said,  "His  condition  is  very  grave."  Then  I  drove  around 
to  the  other  end  of  the  Palace,  where  the  books  are  kept  for  what  is 
called  "inscription  on  the  King  and  Queen."  This  is  the  substitute 
in  their  case  for  caHing,  or  leaving  cards.  The  courtyard  was  filled 
with  red-coated  Guards  going  through  their  usual  morning  evolu- 
tions, with  banners  and  music,  and  outside  were  dense  crowds  press- 
ing against  the  railings,  not  so  much  to  watch  the  evolutions,  which 
are  a  daily  occurrence,  but  drawn  by  the  excitement  about  the  King's 
health,  and  busy  watching  the  constant  stream  of  carriages  driving 
in  with  persons  wishing  to  inquire  and  inscribe.  It  was  a  curious 
contrast;  the  showy  parade,  the  throngs  of  people,  the  lines  of  car- 
riages, the  hushed  inquiries  as  the  callers  came  in,  and  the  prompt 
replies  of  the  red-coated  servants  in  charge  of  the  books  that  His 
Majesty  was  a  Httle  better  this  morning,  when  compared  with  the 
anxious  scene  I  had  just  left  at  the  other  end  of  the  Palace,  in  the 
private  office  of  the  man  nearest  the  King  and  as  famihar  with  his 
condition  as  the  physicians  themselves. 

The  excitement  of  the  morning  in  court  circles  and  around  the 
Palace  has  now  spread  throughout  London.  It  recalls  and  almost 
equals  the  intense  anxiety  and  gloom  which  I  witnessed  here  when 
the  Coronation  was  postponed  on  account  of  the  surgical  operation. 
The  bulletin  of  the  physicians  this  afternoon  is  even  more  alarming 
than  that  of  last  night.  One  hesitates  to  consider  the  gravity  of  the 
eff^ect  in  England .  and  in  Europe  if  the  present  forebodings  are 
reahzed. 


THE   DEATH  OF   EDWARD  VH  413 

The  King  died  in  the  night.  His  physicians  united  in 
a  statement  that  his  disease  was  entirely  bronchial,  but 
in  one  of  the  American  ambassador's  last  notes  on  the 
subject  there  is  a  passage  indicating  that  Edward  VH 
had  never  spared  himself,  and  that  this  fact  was  con- 
tributory to  his  death.  A  doctor  of  high  standing  who 
had  at  times  treated  him,  broke  out  in  Reid's  hearing, 
saying:  '*The  King  killed  himself.  He  would  not  take 
the  proper  precautions.  After  the  severe  warning  at 
Biarritz,  he  came  back  to  the  more  trying  climate  of 
England,  worked  himself  to  death,  then  rushed  off  to 
Sandringham  for  a  day  or  two  in  the  country,  and  spent 
this  time  paddling  about  in  a  dismal,  raw  day,  and  some- 
times in  the  rain,  till  he  brought  on  another  attack, 
which  his  weakened  throat  and  bronchial  passages  were 
not  able  to  resist."  The  idea  that  Edward  VH  "worked 
himself  to  death"  was  easily  shared  by  the  ambassador. 
If  he  regarded  the  life  of  the  King  as  of  prime  importance 
to  Great  Britain  and  to  the  peace  of  Europe,  it  was  be- 
cause his  impressions  of  the  ruler  to  whose  court  he  was 
accredited  centred  on  the  traits  of  a  statesman  ardu- 
ously serving  his  people  up  to  the  limits  prescribed  by 
the  British  system  of  government,  and  always  exercising, 
in  so  far  as  that  system  permitted,  a  sahitary  influence 
upon  international  politics.  Writing  to  me  once  about 
the  relation  to  public  afi'airs  disclosed  in  the  letters  of 
Queen  Victoria,  and  dwelling  upon  the  growth  of  Euro- 
pean appreciation  of  her  character,  Reid  added:  "I 
think,  too,  that  the  reputation  of  her  son  is  likely  to  pass 
through  very  much  the  same  course." 

For  two  years  Reid  had  been  in  correspondence  with 
Roosevelt  over  the  movements  which  the  latter  contem- 
plated on  leaving  the  White  House,  and  had  smoothed 
the  way  for  his  African  venture,  obtaining  Lord  Crewe's 
intercession  \\hh  the  authorities  of  Uganda,  so  that  he 


414         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

might  have  a  chance  at  a  white  rhinoceros,  talking  with 
the  Sirdar  of  Egypt  about  access  to  the  preserves  under 
his  control,  and  in  various  ways  helping  to  facilitate  the 
ex-President's  plans.  Later,  as  has  been  previously 
noted,  he  was  occupied  with  matters  involved  in  Roose- 
velt's journey  through  the  capitals  and  courts  of  Europe. 
By  the  time  the  returning  hunter  had  got  through  a 
good  part  of  these  ceremonious  visits,  the  American  am- 
bassador had  perfected  an  impressive  sequence  of  en- 
gagements to  be  met  in  England.  It  was  necessarily  in 
striking  contrast  to  what  Roosevelt  had  fondly  dreamed 
of  when  he  first  broached  the  African  idea  to  Reid  in  the 
summer  of  1908.  Then  he  imagined  that  he  could  go 
abroad  as  a  private  citizen.  "My  present  intention,"  he 
said,  "is  not  to  go  to  Europe  at  all  until  the  memory  of 
my  presidency  has  faded,  so  as  not  to  make  the  wretched 
sovereigns  and  statesmen  feel  obliged  to  see  me  or  enter- 
tain me.  When  I  stop  being  president  I  stop  being 
president."  He  couldn't  stop  being  Theodore  Roose- 
velt, a  circumstance  of  which  Reid  reminded  him  with 
mingled  firmness  and  humor.  Even  before  he  left  the 
United  States  he  realized  that  it  would  be  quite  impossi- 
ble for  him  to  escape  the  cordialities  which  were  piling 
up  against  his  European  tour.  "I  suppose  you  are 
right,"  he  wrote  to  Reid,  "and  that  even  though  I  am  a 
private  individual  it  would  look  boorish  for  me  not  to 
pay  my  respects  to  the  sovereigns  or  heads  of  govern- 
ments of  the  countries  through  which  I  pass."  It  was 
like  him,  however,  to  receive  with  particular  appreciation 
Curzon's  request  that  he  should  deliver  the  Romanes 
lecture  at  Oxford.  "This  makes  matters  easy  for  me," 
he  said,  "because  it  gives  me  a  genuine  reason  for  going 
to  England." 

He  looked  forward  to  seeing  the  ambassador  in  Lon- 
don, "to  talk  over  many  things  of  both  national  and 


THE   DEATH  OF   EDWARD   VH  415 

international  consequence."  How  interesting  he  made 
the  prospect,  what  inspiring  talks  his  promised  to  be, 
may  be  judged  from  the  following  fragment: 

I  am  amused  by  the  statements  made  to  you  that  the  difference 
between  the  Kaiser  and  myself  was  "that  I  made  good."  That  is 
literally  true.  I  have  never  yet  failed  to  do  what  I  said  I  would  do 
if  called  upon  to  do  it !  On  this  point  I  wish  some  day  to  tell  you 
for  your  own  information  the  inside  history  of  my  relations  with  the 
Kaiser  at  the  time  of  the  Venezuela  matter,  of  the  message  I  finally 
feh  obliged  to  send  him,  and  of  its  instantaneous  effect.  The  recent 
voyage  of  the  fleet  around  the  world  was  not  the  first  occasion  in 
which  I  have  used  it  to  bring  about  prompt  resumption  of  peaceful 
relations  between  this  country  and  a  foreign  power.  But  of  course 
one  of  the  conditions  of  such  use  is  that  it  should  be  accompanied 
with  every  manifestation  of  politeness  and  friendship — manifestations 
which  are  sincere,  by  the  way,  for  the  foreign  policy  in  which  I 
believe  is  in  very  fact  the  policy  of  speaking  softly  and  carrying  a  big 
stick.  I  want  to  make  it  evident  to  every  foreign  nation  that  I 
intend  to  do  justice,  and  neither  to  wrong  them  nor  to  hurt  their 
self-respect;  but  that  on  the  other  hand,  I  am  both  entirely  ready 
and  entirely  able  to  see  that  our  rights  are  maintained  in  their  turn. 

He  was  in  Scandinavia,  on  the  way  to  Berlin,  when 
the  King  died.  The  ambassador  wrote  to  him  on  May 
loth  about  the  funeral,  which  had  been  set  for  the  20th. 
Reid  had  learned  that  France  and  most  of  the  important 
countries  in  Europe  were  going  to  send  special  represen- 
tatives, and  said:  "I  have  taken  measures  to  ascertain 
the  exact  facts  as  to  this  movement,  and  if  it  is  as  gen- 
eral as  reported,  I  shall  venture  to  tell  the  facts  either 
to  the  Secretary  or  to  Mr.  Taft  himself,  and  to  say  that 
under  such  circumstances  I  know  your  appointment  for 
a  similar  duty  would  be  well  received  here  by  the  Gov- 
ernment and  people,  and  that  it  would  be  entirely  agree- 
able to  me."  He  cabled  to  Secretary  Knox,  and  two 
days  later  Roosevelt  had  his  appointment  in  his  hands. 
**I  am  very  much  obhged  to  you,"  he  wrote  from  Berlin, 
"for  having  suggested  my  name  as  special  ambassador. 


4i6         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

I  did  not  know  where  it  came  from.  At  first  I  half  hesi- 
tated about  accepting,  for  I  know  nothing  about  such 
matters,  and  I  suppose  my  function  will  be  entirely  sep- 
arate from  yours,  although  I  hope  it  will  still  be  conve- 
nient for  you  to  have  us  with  you."  He  arrived  with 
Mrs.  Roosevelt  and  three  of  their  children  at  Dorchester 
House  on  May  i6th,  and  entered  upon  three  weeks  of 
prodigious  activity.  A  few  hours  after  his  arrival  the 
Reids  took  him  and  his  family  to  pass  before  the  body 
of  King  Edward,  lying  in  state  at  Buckingham  Palace, 
and  immediately  afterward  the  ambassador  went  with 
him  alone  to  Marlborough  House,  where  they  were  ex- 
pected for  an  audience  with  the  new  King.  Thenceforth 
for  a  day  or  two  the  ex-President  was  fairly  enveloped  by 
royal  personages,  amongst  whom  he  attracted  enormous 
interest.  As  Reid  said:  '*They  are  ordinarily  so  hedged 
about  with  etiquette  that  they  don't  have  a  chance  for 
free  talk  with  such  a  man,  and  this  time  they  were  all 
resolved  to  profit  by  their  opportunity."  The  Kaiser's 
temper  must  have  been  sorely  tried  by  attentions  so 
liberally  bestowed  upon  a  republican,  and  a  mere  ex- 
President  at  that.  That  he  grudged  notice  directed  else- 
where than  upon  himself  is  drolly  suggested  in  the  on  dit 
about  him  which  ran  through  society  at  the  time:  "What 
a  disgusting  fuss  those  English  did  make  over  that  little 
terrier,  Caesar,  that  my  uncle  used  to  have."  "Why? 
How?"  "Why,  they  paid  so  much  attention  to  it  that 
the  people  actually  took  more  notice  of  the  dog  than 
they  did  of  me." 

The  Roosevelt  visit  came  to  an  end  on  June  loth, 
when  he  left  town  early  in  the  morning  to  spend  the  day 
with  Sir  Edward  Grey  in  the  New  Forest,  where  they 
would  sleep  for  the  night  and  get  up  at  four  o'clock  to 
listen  to  the  notes  of  song-birds  which  could  only  be 
heard  then  and  there.     After  that  Roosevelt  was  to  go 


THE  DEATH  OF  EDWARD  VH  417 

on  to  Southampton  for  the  steamer.  The  whole  visit 
was  extraordinarily  successful.  The  English  were  in  a 
mood  not  altogether  uncritical,  the  candor  of  their  guest's 
speeches  in  Egypt  having  evoked  a  breeze  of  comment. 
But  his  plain-spokenness  found  a  justification  not  only 
in  the  conditions  he  traversed  but  in  a  fundamental  per- 
sonal character  which  elicited  wide-spread  sympathy  and 
understanding.  The  famous  speech  at  the  Guildhall,  in 
which  he  frankly  admonished  the  British  Empire  on  its 
policy  in  Egypty  would  have  been  a  blazing  indiscretion 
in  any  one  else,  provoking  a  storm  of  resentment.  From 
his  lips  it  was  received  with  remarkable  amiability  in 
some  quarters,  and  the  criticism  it  met  in  others  was  on 
the  whole  counterbalanced  by  its  good  effect.  Not  long 
after  Reid's  death,  in  a  conversation  about  his  work  in 
London,  Roosevelt  told  me  how  he  had  consulted  the 
ambassador  as  to  this  speech,  and  how  glad  he  was  that 
his  friend  had  made  him  consult  Sir  Edward  Grey,  going 
with  him  to  the  Foreign  Office  for  discussion  of  the  mat- 
ter. He  felt  that  that  was  a  crucial  point,  and  keenly 
appreciated  the  whole  manner  of  Reid's  collaboration  in 
it.  The  American  ambassador  arranged  all  the  precau- 
tionary conversations  that  Roosevelt  had  with  Grey  and 
other  leading  personages.  He  knew  what  was  going  to 
be  said,  and  was  exactly  informed  as  to  the  real  signifi- 
cance of  the  sensation  produced  at  the  Guildhall.  A  ser- 
viceable foot-note  to  the  incident  is  provided  in  what  he 
wrote  to  Secretary  Knox: 

I  was  a  witness  to-day  to  his  extraordinarily  bold  and  unconven- 
tional address  in  the  Guildhall.  Arthur  Balfour  and  Lx)rd  Cromer 
made  no  secret  of  their  delight  with  it.  I  know  confidentially  that 
Sir  Edward  Grey  was  equally  pleased  (although  under  more  necessity 
to  conceal  it),  and  is  sure  to  take  the  same  line  in  the  House  of  Com- 
mons as  soon  as  the  subject  comes  up.  Of  course  he  is  liable  to  a 
little  chaff  on  account  of  it,  since  it  can  be  construed  as  reading  him 
and  the  Government  a  lecture  on  their  failure  hitherto  to  do  their 


4i8        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

duty;  but  he  is  too  big  a  man  to  be  annoyed  about  that.  I  think 
he  would  have  been  glad  if  he  had  had  the  opportunity  to  say  the 
same  thing  first;  but  as  he  didn't,  I  think  he  is  also  glad  to  have  such 
a  powerful  impression  made  in  advance  on  the  public  mind  by  way 
of  preparation  for  the  Government's  approaching  change  of  attitude. 

In  traversing  the  papers  of  a  diplomat  established  in 
London  the  significance  of  that  metropohs  as  a  kind  of 
world's  stage  is  sharply  apprehended.  Sooner  or  later 
every  one  of  international  fame  appears  thereon,  and 
when  the  major  figures  like  Roosevelt  have  had  their 
hour,  there  are  still  plenty  of  minor  ones  who  interest- 
ingly fill  their  briefer  terms.  The  letters  of  the  American 
ambassador  keep  pace  with  the  weighty  things  of  which 
political  history  is  made.  Also  they  constitute  a  viva- 
cious chronicle  of  entrances  and  exits,  picking  out  the 
salient  actors  in  a  thronging  scene.  Usually  the  more 
august  personages  are  clothed  in  the  aloofness  which  is 
part  of  their  status.  Royalty  is  enmeshed  in  the  broider- 
ies of  its  own  pageantry.  But  even  through  the  pag- 
eantry some  human  naturalness  peeps  out.  A  great  ban- 
quet given  for  the  German  Emperor  by  King  Edward 
at  Windsor  Castle  moves  with  unbroken  statehness  until 
it  culminates  in  toasts  exchanged  between  the  two  mon- 
archs.  Then  in  the  drawing-room  the  Kaiser's  ambassa- 
dor and  various  white-wanded  court  officers  strive  in 
desperation  to  adjust  his  conversational  evening  to  the 
same  formal  gait.  He  makes  them  frantic  by  going  on 
talking  with  Lloyd  George  as  though  he  would  never 
stop,  and  next,  tired  of  having  people  tell  him  that  this 
or  that  person  must  be  presented,  he  seeks  out  inter- 
locutors of  his  own  choosing,  in  a  series  of  unconven- 
tional dives  across  the  room.  One  of  the  most  courtly 
spectacles  witnessed  by  the  Reids  in  England  was  not 
at  either  Windsor  Castle  or  at  Buckingham  Palace,  but 
at  Woods  Norton,  the  residence  of  the  Due  d'Orleans, 


THE   DEATH  OF   EDWARD   VH  419 

where  they  attended  in  1907  the  marriage  of  the  due's 
sister.  Not  one  detail  of  Bourbon  splendor  was  omitted. 
Royal  tradition  prevailed,  but  Reid  notes  the  young 
King  of  Spain's  engaging  refusal  to  be  governed  by  it, 
his  ease  in  conversation,  and  his  altogether  delightful 
bearing.  In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Roosevelt  there  occurs  this 
vivid  portrait  of  the  host : 

The  Due  d*0rleans  himself  interested  me  as  much  as  any  of  his 
guests.  Although  knowing  some  other  members  of  the  family,  I  had 
never  seen  him.  He  came  to  Paris  while  I  was  there,  in  what  was 
thought  by  his  followers  a  shrewd  effort  to  gain  popular  favor  by 
demanding  the  right  to  enhst  as  a  private  soldier  in  the  French  Army; 
but  he  was  promptly  arrested,  convicted  of  having  violated  the  law 
of  France  exiling  those  who  consider  themselves  in  a  direct  line  of 
succession  to  the  old  throne,  and  after  a  few  days*  confinement 
escorted  to  the  frontier.  He  was  easily  the  best  looking  of  the  royal- 
ties— much  larger  and  stronger  than  his  kinsman,  the  Spanish  King, 
with  a  fine  well-shaped  and  rather  large  head  and  an  open,  manly 
countenance.  The  hair  is  light  colored,  and  the  beard,  which  he 
wears  after  the  Spanish  fashion,  distinctly  blond.  He  seems  abso- 
lutely unaffected,  and  has  a  very  frank,  cordial  manner.  His  shoul- 
ders and  chest  are  rather  unusually  large,  and  altogether,  as  one 
looked  at  him  in  his  perfectly  fitting  dress  suit,  standing  with  his 
arms  folded,  near  his  sister,  the  bride,  one  could  not  help  thinking 
him  as  fine  a  figure  of  a  man  as  is  to  be  seen  in  months.  He  has  had 
a  stormy  youth,  as  you  know,  and  has  made  many  mistakes;  but 
he  appears  to  be  fiving  very  contentedly  with  his  wife  and  is  evi- 
dently greatly  liked  by  his  family.  Whatever  may  be  said  against 
him,  he  certainly  did  things  en  prince  for  his  sister,  and  with  a  dis- 
regard of  expense  which  never  used  to  be  attributed  to  the  earlier 
descendants  of  Louis  PhiHppe. 

When  the  King  of  Portugal  was  entertained  at  dinner 
at  Windsor  Castle  in  November,  1909,  the  American 
ambassador  had  there  a  brief  conversation  with  the 
Queen  of  Norway,  for  whose  charm  of  manner  he  had 
a  special  admiration.  They  discussed  a  subject  making 
a  signal  appeal  to  Americans.  He  touches  upon  it  in 
writing  to  iMrs.  Taft: 


420        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

She  was  full  of  talk,  first  about  Nansen,  who  used  to  be  one  of  my 
colleagues  here.  She  said  Nansen  did  not  like  diplomacy  (although 
I  am  bound  to  say  he  certainly  liked  the  social  part  of  it  when  he  was 
here,  and  was^ almost  the  last  to  be  sent  out  of  every  ball  room), 
and  that  he  was  now  devoting  himself  to  his  duties  as  a  professor. 
She  was  afraid  the  Copenhagen  people  had  been  a  little  premature 
in  their  recognition  of  Cook,  but  nevertheless  said  that  one  of  their 
greatest  Norwegian  explorers  fully  believed  in  him,  and  had  as- 
sured her  of  his  conviction  that  Cook  had  been  at  the  North  Pole. 
Still  she  said  they  had  been  very  much  shaken  by  the  Mt.  McKinley 
business.  As  to  Peary,  she  supposed  of  course  that  his  record  as  an 
explorer  was  secure,  but  regretted  that  he  had  injured  his  personal 
standing  by  his  despatches  and  talk  about  Cook. 

Peary  came  to  London  in  191  o,  just  on  the  eve  of  the 
King's  death.  In  June  the  American  ambassador  pre- 
sented him  to  George  V,  who  asked  him  all  sorts  of  ques- 
tions about  arctic  exploration  and  sport,  and  drew  him 
out  with  special  interest  on  the  edifying  question  of 
Cook.  By  this  time  even  the  Queen  of  Norway  was 
doubtless  persuaded  that  his  standing  had  not,  after  all, 
been  injured  by  his  observations  on  his  rival  (!).  Reid 
witnessed  the  bestowal  upon  Peary  of  the  special  gold 
medal  of  the  Royal  Geographical  Society.  The  cere- 
mony occurred  in  Albert  Hall,  before  an  audience  of 
ten  thousand,  and  the  explorer's  address  left  a  fine 
impression.  His  short  stay  in  London  made  him  a 
multitude  of  friends.  Its  incidents  had  an  exceptional 
interest  for  the  American  ambassador,  connecting  them- 
selves as  they  did  in  his  mind  with  a  letter  he  had  re- 
ceived from  Peary  six  years  before.  At  that  time,  in 
1904,  a  cordial  editorial  in  The  Tribune  had  moved  the 
explorer  to  express  his  thanks  and  he  went  on  to  ask 
Reid's  co-operation  in  the  difficult  task  of  raising  funds 
for  his  final  dash  to  the  pole.  "This  matter  is  not  an 
idle  dream,"  he  said;  **it  is  not  a  foolish  fancy;  it  is 
today  a  big,  broad,  national  proposition,  with  the  sup- 
port and  approval  of  the  President,  the  Navy  Depart- 


THE   DEATH  OF   EDWARD   VH  421 

ment,  the  press  and  the  people  of  the  country;  and  it  is 
no  exaggeration  to  say  that  both  the  President  and  the 
people  are  waiting,  looking  for  some  one  to  come  forward 
and  see  the  thing  through  and  will  greet  such  man  with 
the  liveliest  acclaim,  commendation,  and  approval.  But 
time  is  vital.  To  insure  the  success  of  the  expedition  the 
question  of  the  purchase  of  the  ship  must  be  settled 
within  a  few  days."  Reid's  response  was  sympathetic. 
His  paper  all  along  had  been,  and  it  continued  to  be, 
enlisted  in  Peary's  favor.  Assisting  in  London  at  the 
triumph  of  the  Columbus  of  the  arctic  he  rejoiced  in 
his  countryman's  development  of  that  *'big,  broad  na- 
tional proposition"  he  had  outlined  in  his  letter  with 
such  ardent  hope  so  long  before. 

Readers  of  Henry  James,  and  especially  of  the  memo- 
rabilia accumulated  around  his  name  since  his  death, 
well  recall  the  perturbations  of  his  ill-starred  career  as  a 
playwright.  The  American  ambassador  took  note  of  the 
curious  fate  which  seemed  to  follow  the  author  in  this 
field.  One  of  his  comedies  was  produced  in  London  in 
February,  1909.  **I  hope  so  much  that  you  are  lunch^ 
ing  here  to-morrow,"  Mrs.  Charles  Hunter  wrote  to 
Reid,  "and  that  you  will  be  able  to  go  to  Henry  James's 
play.  My  box  is  very  large  and  only  your  Excellency 
and  I,  with  Mr.  Sargent  and  Max  Beerbohm,  two  great 
friends  and  admirers  of  Henry  James,  will  be  occupying 
it.  Henry  James  himself  will  be  lying  perdu,''  Reid 
went  to  the  luncheon  and  found  everybody  hopeful. 
But  in  the  undercurrents  of  talk  flowing  through  Lon- 
don society  the  fate  of  the  play  was  almost  immediately 
declared.  It  had  the  usual  succes  d'estime  and  nothing 
more.  Reid's  chief  literary  interest  at  this  moment  was 
in  the  collection  of  John  Hay's  letters  which  Mrs.  Hay 
had  just  sent  him  in  their  final  form.  He  wrote  to  Mrs. 
Reid  that  they  had  kept  him  up  for  two  or  three  nights 


422         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

till  nearly  midnight.  In  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Hay  he  says: 
"It  is  such  a  picture  of  a  many-sided  and  most  lovable 
man  of  genius — loyal  beyond  comparison  to  every  friend 
he  ever  made,  witty,  gay,  light-in-hand,  and  yet  a  prey 
to  the  most  despondent  notions  at  times  about  himself 
and  others,  marvellously  well-informed,  but  wearing  all 
his  knowledge  as  easily  and  jauntily  as  a  debonair  young 
courtier  of  Louis  XIV.  wore  his  sword.  All  this  and 
much  more  these  letters  show;  but  still  they  don't  at  all 
give  the  real  measure  of  the  man.  For  that  we  need 
many  others,  which  no  doubt  you  were  right  in  thinking 
could  not  yet  be  published."  Sir  George  Trevelyan  was 
as  absorbed  by  the  book  as  Reid  was  himself.  **I  am 
deep  in  the  'Letters  and  Diaries  of  John  Hay,'"  he  wrote, 
"and  am  now  paying  it  the  most  sincere  of  compliments, 
that  of  counting  the  pages  that  are  still  to  read — as  I 
did  lately  with  a  second  reading  of  James's  *Life  of 
William  Story.'  What  a  period  it  was  !  What  a  policy  ! 
What  men,  and  what  a  literature  as  the  outcome  of  it ! 
I  had  already  gathered  something  about  that  inner  circle 
from  Henry  Adams's  autobiography,  as  I  prefer  to  call 
the  book  that  he  names  otherwise."  The  remark  recalls 
one  made  to  Reid  by.  Henry  Adams  himself,  apropos  of 
the  political  trouvailles  of  the  new  generation.  They 
didn't  strike  him  as  on  the  whole  quite  comparable  to 
the  men  of  an  earlier  day.  "Apparently  your  lot,"  he 
said,  "was  a  coruscation  of  genius.  We  are  still  living 
on  the  disjecta  membra.'' 

Adams  is  interesting  on  one  of  the  ambassador's  own 
excursions  into  literature,  the  address  on  Byron  dehv- 
ered  at  University  College,  in  Nottingham,  in  the  winter 
of  191  o.  It  was  prepared  with  some  hesitancy.  Reid 
had  plenty  of  appreciative  things  to  say  about  the  poet, 
but  there  were  some  other  things  he  was  disinclined  to 
omit  which  he  feared  might  prove  unpalatable  where 


THE  DEATH  OF   EDWARD   VH  423 

Byron  was  a  local  idol.  But  he  received  official  assurance 
that  he  could  be  as  critical  as  he  liked,  and  the  address 
remains  one  of  the  frankest  of  his  always  frank  speeches 
in  England.     Adams  wrote: 

Byron  I  envy  you.  One  can  hardly  keep  one's  hands  off  him.  His 
is  one  of  the  few  really  amusing  figures  in  the  British  Pantheon. 
One  can  praise  or  criticize,  admire  or  detract,  as  one  hkes,  in  perfect 
safety.  One  is  sure  to  be  more  or  less  right.  One  need  not  even 
treat  him  seriously.  He  did  not  treat  himself  seriously,  and  would 
have  jibed  at  us  for  it.  He  is  the  only  complex  figure,  except  perhaps 
Sheridan,  in  the  whole  galaxy.  You  saved  yourself  some  ugly  risks 
by  keeping  Shelley  and  Keats  out  of  sight,  who  had  nothing  at  all, 
that  I  can  see,  in  common  with  Byron,  whose  only  parallel  is  Cha- 
teaubriand or  Voltaire.  Curiously  enough,  the  closest  EngHsh 
parallel  is  certainly  Disraeli.  I  wonder  whether  there  was  any  Jew 
in  Byron.    There  is  certainly  some  Heine  in  him. 

At  the  same  time  that  the  ambassador  was  framing 
his  study  of  Byron  he  was  engaged  upon  one  of  Lincoln, 
attacking  at  last  a  theme  upon  which  he  had  received 
more  than  one  request  to  speak  since  the  first  period  of 
his  long  stay  in  England.  The  address  which  he  deliv- 
ered at  the  University  of  Birmingham  only  a  week  after 
his  appearance  at  Nottingham  belongs  in  the  forefront  of 
all  his  writings.  Like  the  *' Byron,"  it  is  dedicated  to 
historical  truth.  Rising  to  its  high  theme,  it  is  also  a 
singularly  human  portrait,  fashioned  not  only  out  of  a 
lifetime's  reflection  on  Lincoln's  traits  as  a  statesman 
but  out  of  a  sympathy  dating  from  the  old  personal 
observations  and  contacts  of  which  I  have  given  some 
indications.  Doctor  Warren,  the  president  of  Magdalen 
College,  whose  father  had  stood  fire  on  public  platforms 
in  England  for  the  Union  cause,  and  who  himself  had  a 
cult  for  Lincoln,  wrote  to  Reid:  ** Somehow  I  never  felt 
that  I  had  got  at  the  real  man  until  I  read  this  lecture." 
I  have  forborne  to  swell  these  pages  with  many  extracts 
from  the  congratulations  which  the  ambassador  was  wont 


424         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

to  receive  on  his  speeches,  but  in  this  instance  I  may  cite 
the  appreciation  of  Roosevelt: 

New  York, 

Dear  Mr.  Ambassador:  j  i»    9    • 

I  have  received  your  letter,  and  also  the  Lincoln  address.  I  had 
aheady  written  to  you  about  it  on  the  strength  of  the  newspaper 
reports  and  of  what  Laurence  Abbot  had  told  me.  But  I  have  now 
gone  over  the  whole  address,  have  asked  that  it  be  bound,  and  wish 
to  tell  you  that  I  think  it  a  very  remarkahle  and  really  noteworthy 
address.  I  do  not  beheve  that  as  good  a  thing  of  the  kind  has  ever 
been  done  by  any  American  Ambassador,  including  Lowell;  and  at 
the  moment  I  cannot  think  of  as,  good  a  speech  of  just  the  same  kind 
that  is  to  the  credit  of  any  of  our  public  men.  It  seems  to  me 
that  you  have  done  just  what  at  the  outset  of  the  speech  you  said 
you  could  not  do,  and  that  is  to  give  and  develop  one  or  two  new 
thoughts  of  great  importance.  I  wish  that  not  merely  our  Wall 
Street  friends  but  the  sentimentalists  on  both  sides,  and  the  ex- 
tremists on  the  other  side,  could  be  made  to  learn  your  address  by 
heart.  It  is  not  only  a  finished  and  masterly  piece  of  literary  work, 
but  it  carries  a  weighty  burden  of  insight  and  good  sense  for  all 
serious  politicians. 

Give  my  love  to  Mrs.  Reid.  I  wish  I  could  write  you  about  your 
address  in  a  way  to  make  you  really  feel  how  much  I  regard  it. 

Faithfully  yours,      t^  ^^ 

Theodore  Roosevelt. 

His  friends  used  to  suggest  to  him  that  it  would  be 
desirable  to  collect  his  speeches  in  book  form.  He  had 
done  this  in  his  "Problems  of  Expansion,"  when  the 
whole  question  of  the  Spanish  War  gave  a  certain  unity 
of  purpose  to  the  studies  he  then  gathered  together. 
The  English  addresses  he  never  himself  assembled  for 
such  publication;  but  he  had  them  made  into  pamphlets, 
and  he  played  with  the  idea  of  concentrating  them  in  a 
volume,  to  the  extent  of  inventing  a  title  which  would 
do  for  them  all.  He  called  them  ''Recreations  of  an 
Ambassador." 


CHAPTER  XXII 
THE   CLOSING   YEARS 

The  phrase  just  cited,  "Recreations  of  an  Ambassa- 
dor," in  Reid's  case  hardly  connotes  rest.  When  he 
came  home  for  a  visit  early  in  January,  191 1,  he  wrote 
to  a  friend  that  the  vacation  was  the  first  he  had  had  in 
eighteen  months,  and  the  only  one  with  any  leisure  in  it 
for  nearly  three  years.  It  lasted  well  into  March,  and 
was  filled  with  delightful  experiences,  but  it  gave  him 
very  httle  chance  for  recuperation.  In  fact,  he  had 
rarely  crowded  so  many  things  into  so  short  a  space  of 
time.  He  was  twice  in  Washington  for  meetings  with 
the  President  and  the  secretary  of  state.  He  went 
down  to  Oyster  Bay  for  a  night  with  the  Roosevelts.  In 
Albany  he  attended  a  meeting  of  the  Board  of  Regents. 
A  month  out  of  his  leave  of  absence  was  spent  in  Cali- 
fornia, and  although  at  Millbrae,  as  always,  he  found 
repose,  there  was  no  lack  of  activity.  Business  claimed 
him  as  a  trustee  of  Leiand  Stanford,  Jr.,  University,  and 
at  the  banquet  given  in  San  Francisco  in  the  interests  of 
the  Panama-Pacific  Exposition  he  was  duly  called  upon 
for  a  speech.  In  New  York  the  days  were  marked 
by  directors'  meetings  and  the  evenings  by  public  and 
private  dinners.  All  the  time,  in  the  back  of  his  mind, 
were  the  problems  left  in  London  and  soon  to  be  re- 
sumed. 

There  was,  however,  one  journey  to  be  made  which 
swept  all  diplomatic  problems  away  and  put  public 
affairs   into   the   background.     This   occurred   when   he 

425 


426         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

went  out  to  Wisconsin  with  Mrs.  Reid  in  March.  They 
went  to  Racine  for  the  wedding  of  their  son,  whose 
engagement^  to  Miss  Helen  Rogers  had  been  announced 
not  long  before.  It  was  the  happiest  imaginable  round- 
ing out  of  a  sequence  of  years  to  which  reference  has 
already  been  made  more  than  once  in  the  course  of  this 
narrative.  Hitherto  the  question  had  all  been  one  of 
Ogden  Reid's  progress  in  preparing  himself  for  the  edi- 
torship of  The  Tribune.  Now  there  intervened  the  mat- 
ter which  really  establishes^  a  man  in  life,  and  this  wed- 
ding, like  the  one  which  had  occurred  in  London  three 
years  before,  brought  to  the  Reids  a  rich  contentment. 
They  had  felt  in  England  the  separation  from  their  son. 
Thenceforth,  though  this  continued,  they  could  rejoice 
in  the  consciousness  of  the  strength  and  happiness  added 
to  him  as  he  was  fixed  in  a  new  home. 

Preparatory  to  the  return  to  London  Reid  had  some 
long  talks  in  Washington.  There  he  found  Mr.  Taft  and 
Mr.  Knox  much  occupied  with  Canadian  and  Central 
American  negotiations,  but  they  had  time  for  exhaustive 
discussion  of  matters  in  his  own  budget — Liberia,  the 
opium  question,  and,  perennially,  the  Chinese  railways. 
Salient,  too,  as  especially  important  in  the  President's 
plans,  was  the  projected  general  arbitration  treaty  with 
England.  When  Reid  got  back  to  London  he  learned  that 
the  Foreign  Office  was  in  sympathetic  mood  toward  this. 
Sir  Edward  Grey  had  already  communicated  to  the 
American  Embassy  his  desire  to  consult  as  to  the  best 
means  of  profiting  by  the  enthusiasm  aroused  in  Eng- 
land by  his  public  response  to  Mr.  Taft's  proposals. 
He  feared  that  such  popular  demonstrations  as  he  had 
elicited  might  have  a  bad  effect  if  they  seemed  to  out- 
run the  feeling  in  the  United  States.  With  this  thought 
he  had  discouraged  an  approach  from  both  the  Estab- 
lished Church  and  the  Non-Conformists  for  a  great  mass- 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  427 

meeting  in  favor  of  the  President's  idea  and  his  attitude 
toward  it,  to  be  held  at  the  Royal  Albert  Hall;  and  had 
advised  them  to  consult  first  with  the  churches  in  Amer- 
ica, in  order  that,  if  thought  wise,  there  might  be  recip- 
rocal action  in  the  United  States.  He  wanted  to  be 
advised  frankly  if  things  were  moving  in  our  direction 
too  fast  or  too  conspicuously  in  England.  It  remained 
for  Washington  to  let  the  American  ambassador  know 
if  he  was  to  "Go  slow"  or  **Go  ahead."  But  Washing- 
ton, in  turn,  was  in  some  dubiety,  in  the  absence  of  light 
on  the  Anglo-Japanese  treaty  then  pending  and  its  pos- 
sible bearing  upon  some  future  development  concerning 
the  two  Western  powers.  Reid  had  gathered  from  con- 
versations with  senators  and  others  during  his  recent 
visit  to  Washington  that  the  only  serious  obstacle  in  the 
minds  of  a  good  many  to  the  proposed  arbitration  treaty 
was  the  chance  that  it  might  be  nullified  by  the  clause  in 
the  British  treaty  with  Japan  compelling  them  to  come 
to  Japan's  relief  in  case  of  attack.  Sir  Edward  Grey's 
face  brightened  when  the  American  ambassador  explained 
this  to  him.  The  matter  had  all  been  arranged.  He 
had  foreseen  the  difficulty  from  the  first,  and  it  had 
been  agreed  upon  that  whenever  a  satisfactory  treaty  of 
general  arbitration  between  Great  Britain  and  the  United 
States  was  negotiated,  the  article  in  question  in  the 
Anglo-Japanese  treaty  would  be  revised  so  as  to  make  it 
of  no  effect  with  any  country  with  which  England  had 
a  treaty  of  general  arbitration.  The  incident  was  closed 
with  a  cheerful  agreement  between  the  Foreign  Office 
and  the  embassy  to  adopt  Mr.  Asquith's  familiar  for- 
mula, to  **wait  and  see."  Eventually  the  point  was 
cleared  up  by  an  unequivocal  article  in  the  Anglo-Japa- 
nese treaty:  "Should  either  high  contracting  party  con- 
clude a  treaty  of  general  arbitration  with  a  third  power, 
it  is  agreed  that  nothing  in  this  agreement  should  entail 


428         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

upon  such  contracting  party  an  obligation  to  go  to  war 
with  the  power  with  whom  such  treaty  of  arbitration  is 
in  force."  Jt  is  interesting  to  see,  behind  this  phraseol- 
ogy, the  specific  good-will  toward  America  earlier  dis- 
closed in  Sir  Edward  Grey's  assurance  to  our  ambas- 
sador. That  much  remained  to  console  Reid  for  the 
untoward  fortunes  of  the  President's  humane  project  at 
large. 

I  have  noted  the  magnificent  vitality  of  Chinese  ques- 
tions in  the  course  of  the  American  ambassador's  rela- 
tions with  the  Foreign  Office,  a  vitality  which  carried 
them  along  month  after  month,  indefinitely,  and  made 
him  acquainted  with  endless  windings  and  rewindings 
of  international  finance.  When  the  entanglements  sur- 
rounding the  Hukuang  Railway  loan  were  straightened 
out,  there  supervened  those  belonging  to  loans  for  cur- 
rency reform  and  other  purposes.  Reid  was  discussing 
the  subject  with  Sir  Edward  Grey,  off  and  on,  all  through 
1 911,  and  it  carried  over  lustily  into  the  following  year. 
The  chances  for  smooth  progress  through  the  Oriental 
thickets  hardly  seemed  to  be  improved  when  the  Manchu 
dynasty  was  displaced  by  a  republic.  Secretary  Knox 
cabled  to  Reid  in  August,  191 2,  for  the  views  of  the 
British  as  regarded  prompt  recognition  of  the  new  gov- 
ernment. His  reply  was  not  encouraging.  **The  Presi- 
dent, Yuan  Shih  Kai;"  it  ran  in  part,  **  himself  admits 
that  the  Central  Government  are  unable  to  enforce  the 
observance  of  treaty  obligations  in  certain  provinces  of 
China."  That  much  he  learned  from  Sir  Edward  Grey, 
and,  further,  that  **His  Majesty's  Government  have  no 
reason  to  believe  that  recognition  would  add  perma- 
nently to  the  stability  of  the  existing  administration." 
All  of  which  boded  ill  for  the  peace  of  mind  of  any  diplo- 
mat having  anything  to  do  with  the  loan,  and  it  was  not, 
indeed,  until  toward  the  close  of  his  career  in  London 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  429 

that  Reid  was  in  a  position  to  bid  farewell  to  one  of  the 
most  vexatious  problems  with  which  he  had  ever  had 
to  deal. 

From  international  questions  in  general  he  was  di- 
verted, in  the  summer  of  191 1,  by  a  decidedly  interesting 
situation  in  English  politics.  Parliamentary  reform  was 
necessarily  held  in  abeyance  while  preparations  for  the 
coronation  of  King  George  on  June  iid  were  going  for- 
ward, and  shrewd  observers  were  of  the  opinion  that  it 
would  be  delayed,  in  fact,  until  after  the  voyage  to 
India  and  the  Durbar.  In  the  pause  before  the  battle, 
Reid  reflected  a  good  deal  on  the  new  motive  in  political 
life  which  gained  so  much  headway  at  this  time,  typified 
in  Lloyd  George's  famous  bill  for  the  insurance  of  work- 
ing men  against  disability  or  unemployment.  He  won- 
dered if  the  Liberals  knew  precisely  where  they  were 
going  in  proposing  this  enormous  addition  to  the  burden 
already  inflicted  by  the  old-age  pensions.  Reading  in 
the  ** Telegraph"  a  philosophical  analysis  of  the  English 
constitutional  crisis  by  his  old  friend  M.  Ribot,  he  ex- 
pressed his  appreciation  in  a  letter  from  which  I  may 
take  this  statement  of  his  own  views  on  the  policy  at 
the  heart  of  a  momentous  change : 

One  thing  seems  to  me  plain.  The  old  duty  of  the  statesman  was 
thought  to  be  to  economize  the  resources  of  his  country,  to  avoid 
lavish  expenditure,  and  look  with  alarm  at  every  increase  on  the 
burdens  of  the  tax-payers.  The  present  duty  of  a  statesman  seems 
to  be  to  search  for  new  subjects  of  taxation,  to  find  hitherto  unknown 
economies  which  can  be  seized,  hidden  accumulations  that  can  be 
extorted — all  to  swell  the  increasing  sum  which  the  state  is  eager  to 
gather  up  from  the  thrifty  and  well-to-do,  and  pour  out  in  a  con- 
stantly increasing  flood  upon  those  who  do  not,  and  often  do  not 
want  to,  earn  their  own  living. 

Don't  think  that  I  have  grown  to  be  a  pessimist.  No  man  who 
has  traced  the  magnificent  recuperation  of  his  own  country  from  the 
days  of  the  Civil  War  to  this  time  can  fail  to  believe  that  somehow 
we  shall  pull  through.    Still  one  cannot  help  wondering  how. 


430         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

How  far  the  making  over  of  the  House  of  Lords  would 
serve  in  the  perfecting  of  the  new  administrative  dispen- 
sation hoped  Jor  by  the  Liberals  he  was  at  a  loss  to  sur- 
mise, though  it  may  be  noted  that  his  letters  often  reveal 
a  strong  conviction  of  the  intellectual  superiority  of  the 
upper  house,  and,  in  practical  vein,  he  reminded  Ribot 
that  the  much-abused  chamber  was  the  nearer  to  repre- 
senting the  classes  that  had  to  furnish  the  money.  If 
that  were  really  the  case,  would  not  the  same  reasons 
which  originally  reserved  cojitrol  over  money  bills  for 
the  Commons  demand  in  the  new  crisis  that  that  con- 
trol should  be  given  to  the  Lords?  But  he  would  not 
dogmatize  about  it  any  more  than  he  would  dogmatize 
"about  the  politics  of  the  moon."  He  was  content  with 
the  role  of  detached  observer.  It  required  some  skill 
to  preserve  such  an  attitude  in  an  environment  as  vibrant 
with  excitement  as  was  the  environment  of  every  public 
man  in  London  when  the  time  drew  near  for  voting  on 
a  measure  which  would  restrict  the  veto  power  held  by 
the  House  of  Lords.  In  the  chapter  on  this  subject  in 
his  **  Recollections,"  Lord  Morley  indicates  the  gravity 
of  feeling  amongst  parliamentary  leaders.  ''The  nation 
approached,"  he  says,  "what  might  prove  a  critical  land- 
mark in  its  annals."  How  he  felt  about  it  is  indicated 
by  Reid,  who  talked  with  him  one  Sunday  at  Nuneham, 
all  the  afternoon  and  after  dinner,  too,  when  the  reform 
of  the  Lords  was  the  great  topic  of  the  moment.  "I 
found  him,  as  I  always  do,"  he  writes  to  Mrs.  Reid,  "a 
fascinating  man."  The  talk  went  very  pleasantly.  "He 
seemed  to  want  to  discuss  nearly  everything  under  the 
sun,  including  the  position  of  the  Government,  the  un- 
reason of  the  Conservatives,  etc.  On  the  question  of 
single  chamber  government  he  had  no  defence,  excepting 
that  the  mischief  had  been  done  years  ago  and  that  for 
a  long  time  the  House  of  Commons  had  been  practically 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  431 

supreme.  That  would  not  be  a  defence,  anyway,  even  if 
it  were  true;  but,  in  view  of  their  complaints  against  the 
tyranny  of  the  Lords  now,  I  am  a  little  puzzled  to  see 
how  an  intelligent  man  can  maintain,  first,  that  the 
House  of  Commons  has  long  been  the  sole  authority, 
and,  second,  that  the  House  of  Commons  has  been  de- 
prived of  all  authority  by  the  interference  of  the  auto- 
cratic Lords." 

This  encounter  at  Harcourt's  occurred  late  in  July.  A 
fortnight  later  came  the  vote  on  the  question  as  to 
whether  the  Lords  wxre  to  continue  intrenched  in  a  posi- 
tion to  withstand  the  purposes  of  the  Commons.  Mor- 
ley  says  that  "no  more  exciting  or  dramatic  scene  had 
ever  been  beheld  within  the  walls  of  the  House  of  Lords,'* 
and  compares  the  moment  with  that  in  1640,  when  Pym 
moved  the  impeachment  of  Strafford.  In  a  letter  to 
Mrs.  Taft,  Reid  thus  describes  the  historic  episode: 

There  was  absolute  uncertainty  as  to  how  the  vote  would  go,  and 
in  all  my  knowledge  of  the  House  of  Lords  I  have  never  before  seen 
it  so  turbulent.  When  we  entered  we  were -two  stories  below  the 
diplomatic  gallery,  one  below  the  actual  level  of  the  Chamber,  and 
several  hundred  feet  away  from  it.  Yet  even  at  this  distance  we 
heard  the  loud  shouts  and  counter-shouts — so  amazingly  different 
from  the  usual  tone  of  sober  dignity  which  pervades  the  gilded 
chamber.  As  we  entered  Lord  Halsbury  was  speaking  in  tones  of 
great  excitement  and  with  rasping  personal  references  to  those  of  his 
own  side  who  doubted  the  wisdom  of  his  course.  He  was  interrupted 
by  cries  and  counter-cries  from  the  two  sides,  almost  as  vehemently 
as  if  he  had  been  in  the  Commons.  Rosebery  came  to  the  table  on  a 
run,  began  in  a  very  low  tone,  then  when  somebody  rather  taunt- 
ingly cried,  "Speak  up!"  turned  to  face  the  larger  body  of  tumultu- 
ous Lords  and  the  reporters'  gallery,  and  spoke  in  a  louder  tone  than 
I  had  ever  heard  him  use  before,  but  extremely  well.  He  closed  with 
the  statement  that  in  spite  of  his  disapproval  and  actual  contempt  for 
the  bill,  he  should  follow  the  Government  into  its  lobby.  He  had 
hardly  left  the  table  when  Lord  Selborne  came  to  it,  quivering  with 
excitement  and  waving  aloft  a  scrap  of  paper.  He  began  almost  in  a 
scream,  and  with  wild  gesticulation,  to  call  the  attention  of  the 
House  to  a  recent  speech  of  the  noble  Lord  to  whom  they  had  just 


432         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

listened,  and  then  read  with  declamatory  emphasis  an  extract  in 
which  Lord  Rosebery  had  expressed  in  vehement  language  his  dis- 
approval of  the  Parliament  bill.  Then  shaking  his  fmger — it  almost 
seemed  shaking^  his  fist — at  Lord  Rosebery,  he  shouted  out,  "When 
I  heard  those  words  from  the  noble  Lord,  I  beheved  them;  and  in 
spite  of  his  present  course,  I  believe  them  still."  The  rest  of  his 
speech  spluttered  on  for  a  little,  but  this  was  the  point  of  it  all. 

I  think  I  have  never  seen  such  a  strained  anxiety  as  appeared  to 
fill  everybody  on  both  sides  and  in  the  galleries  when  the  division 
was  finally  ordered,  "Contents  to  the  right  of  the  Throne,  Non- 
Contents  to  the  left."  Before  this  was  carried  out,  Lansdowne's 
following  of  Conservatives,  who  simply  abstained  from  voting,  had 
to  leave  the  chamber.  If  they  had  been  there  when  the  division 
began,  they  would  have  been  compelled  to  vote  on  one  side  or  the 
other.  This  withdrawal  took  a  considerable  time,  and  perplexed 
many  spectators.  Finally  the  real  voters  began  to  move  to  the  two 
lobbies.  To  the  amazement  of  most  of  us,  the  Archbishop  of  Can- 
terbury and  the  Archbishop  of  York  led  the  way  to  the  Government 
lobby,  followed  by  nearly  all  the  entire  flock  of  Lords  Spiritual. 
Lord  Rosebery  and  certain  other  peers  who  sit  on  the  cross  benches, 
or  even  on  the  Opposition  side,  moved  in  the  same  way.  There  was 
general  surprise,  however,  at  the  number  who  followed  Lord  Hals- 
bury.  It  looked  at  first  as  if  there  would  be  enough  to  overcome  the 
Government,  even  with  these  reinforcements.  It  was  not  till  the 
task  of  the  tellers  who  stood  at  the  gates  and  numbered  the  Lords 
as  they  returned  was  more  than  half  over  that  it  could  be  seen  on 
which  side  the  balance  inclined.  Before  the  last  dozen  Lords  had 
returned  through  the  Government  gate,  both  sides  saw  what  had 
happened,  and  applause  ending  in  an  actual  cheer  broke  out  on  the 
Government  side.  During  my  stay  here  I  have  never  seen  or  heard 
of  a  cheer  in  the  House  of  Lords  before. 

Some  idea  of  the  strain  under  which  men  felt  may  be  gathered 
from  the  fact  that  one  of  the  Conservative  peers  who  voted  with 
the  Government  an  hour  later  entered  the  Carlton  Club.  This,  as 
you  know,  is  the  very  sanctuary  of  Toryism  and  high  breeding.  As 
this  man,  whom  the  Halsbury  people  considered  a  traitor,  entered, 
he  was  roundly  hissed — given  what  they  call  here  a  good,  old-fashioned 
"boo."  To  his  credit  be  it  said,  that  his  aristocratic  demeanor  was 
not  shaken,  not  a  hair  was  ruffled,  and  he  took  no  more  notice  of 
their  unprecedented  action  than  he  did  of  the  hooting  of  the  motors 
outside. 

The  "strain"  touched  upon  in  the  Ia$t  paragraph  was, 
of  course,  peculiarly  a  party  strain.     The  American  am- 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  433 

bassador  watched  it  with  the  interest  natural  to  a  life- 
long participant  in  the  ding-dong  of  Republican  and 
Democratic  controversy  at  home  and  there  are  frequent 
allusions  in  his  correspondence  to  the  downright  hatred 
engendered  by  the  vote  on  the  Parliament  bill.  In 
the  Conservative  ranks  there  were  bitter  murmurings 
against  Balfour's  leadership,  and  though  the  revolt  against 
him  was  quelled  it  was  followed  by  his  voluntary  with- 
drawal. Party  irritations,  however,  were  overshadowed 
by  larger  issues.  At  the  very  moment  in  which  some- 
thing like  state  socialism  appeared  to  be  under  way, 
industrial  disturbances  mocked  the  legislation  nominally 
potent  to  pacify  labor.  Early  in  the  Taft  administration 
Reid  answered  an  inquiry  of  the  President's  as  to  the 
working  of  trades-unionism  in  England  by  sending  him 
a  report  giving  a  positively  rosy  account  of  the  con- 
ciliation boards.  It  was  justified  by  the  conditions  then 
prevailing.  By  the  summer  of  191 1  British  trades-unions 
were  unblushingly  breaking  their  agreements,  rioting  was 
going  on  in  Liverpool,  Manchester,  and  other  centres, 
and,  in  short,  the  revolutionary  atmosphere  was  spread- 
ing far  beyond  the  confines  of  Parliament.  Moreover,  to 
troubles  at  home  the  British  had  added  apprehensions 
abroad.  On  September  ist  Reid  wrote  to  Secretary 
Knox:  **The  general  public  is  more  apprehensive  than  I 
have  seen  them  at  any  time  since  scares  about  Germany 
became  the  fashion.  Serious  business  people  and  serious 
politicians  are  equally  frank  in  speaking  of  war  with 
Germany  as  a  thing  that  may  come  at  any  time,  and  in 
fact  is  almost  within  measurable  distance.  They  don't 
want  it,  but  I  doubt  if  they  are  as  much  disturbed  by 
the  prospect  as  they  might  be.  Apparently  they  believe 
that  if  war  comes,  it  will  be  England  and  France  together 
against  Germany,  and  that  the  German  action  has  been 
so  wanton  and  provocative  that  they  will  have  the  moral 


434         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

support  not  only  of  their  own  people,  but  to  some  extent 
of  other  nations."  He  was  in  the  House  in  November 
when  Sir  Edward  Grey  made  his  noteworthy  speech 
ratifying  thelfirmness  of  the  entente  with  France.  It  was 
an  intensely  exciting  occasion.  The  speaker  had  to 
reckon  with  malcontents  in  his  own  party.  The  Labor- 
ites  were  ready  to  cut  loose  from  the  Liberals  on  foreign 
affairs  in  order  to  set  up  what  they  called  **the  solidarity 
of  the  labor  classes"  as  a  working  poHtical  factor  between 
English  and  German  trades-unions.  There  were  other 
elements  of  unrest  on  the  floor  of  the  House,  and  in  the 
diplomatic  gallery  the  nervousness  of  the  moment  was 
suggested  by  certain  marked  absences.  As  Reid  ex- 
pressed it  to  Secretary  Knox,  the  people  most  vitally 
interested  prudently  stayed  away,  the  German,  French, 
and  Russian  ambassadors,  who  were  all  careful  to  avoid 
the  chance  of  hearing  something  said  which  might  be 
unpleasant  to  their  respective  countries.  His  own  im- 
pression of  the  famous  speech  was  that  it  was  one  of 
cautious  and  firm  moderation.  The  net  result  of  the 
debate  was  to  leave  it  certain  that  England  wanted  no 
trouble  with  Germany,  but  would  not  be  buflied  into 
detaching  herself  from  France. 

The  evidence  at  which  I  have  just  glanced  of  the  in- 
creasing prospect  of  some  vast  military  explosion  is  all  a 
matter  of  public  record.  But  in  the  letters  of  the  Ameri- 
can ambassador  there  is  further  and  less  familiar  testi- 
mony to  the  fact  that  the  Kaiser's  conduct  in  19 14  was 
prefigured  long  before,  at  least  to  the  extent  of  his  dis- 
closing a  most  unreasonable  temper.  When  the  German 
ambassador  in  London,  Count  Paul  Wolf-Metternich, 
retired  in  191 2,  he  was  given  a  brilhant  banquet  at  Dor- 
chester House,  attended  by  all  the  members  of  the  diplo- 
matic corps  and  a  number  of  the  leading  figures  in  Eng- 
lish political   life.     His  going   excited  some  sympathy. 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  435 

Lord  Rosebery  in  his  acceptance  said:  *'Metternich  will 
be  lucky  if  he  reaches  Berlin  alive,  for  he  is  being  feasted 
every  night  for  three  weeks."  The  nature  of  the  recep- 
tion he  was  likely  to  get  when  he  arrived  in  the  Prussian 
capital  may  be  inferred  from  the  remarks  on  the  true 
reasons  for  his  retirement  made  by  Reid  to  Secretary 
Knox : 

Count  Metternich  was  in  the  twelfth  year  of  his  service  here  as 
Ambassador,  and  before  that  he  had  already  had  a  conspicuous 
career  in  the  German  diplomatic  service.  He  was  supposed  to  have 
the  absolute  confidence  of  his  Government;  and  here  he  was  always 
regarded  with  respect,  though  it  could  hardly  be  said  that  he  had 
attained  any  particular  popularity.  His  practical  dismissal  from 
the  service  and  the  subsititution  for  him  of  the  man  who  has  so  long 
kept  Germany  at  the  head  in  Constantinople  came  so  suddenly 
and  inexplicably  that  at  the  time  the  explanation  was  currently 
accepted  that  Metternich's  retirement  was  at  his  own  desire  on  ac- 
count of  his  health  as  well  as  of  his  age,  and  that  the  other  man  had 
simply  been  seized  upon  as  the  readiest  man  at  hand  in  their  ser- 
vice and  best  equipped  for  their  most  important  post. 

I  think,  however,  that  I  have  learned  authentically  that  the 
whole  talk  about  Metternich*s  desire  to  retire  has  been  a  sham. 
When  the  Emperor  came  over  here  at  the  unveiling  of  the  Victoria 
Memorial,  just  before  the  Coronation,  he  was  received  with  more 
cordiality  than  the  Germans  expected,  and  it  misled  them  and 
him  alike.  He  instructed  Metternich  that  the  one  thing  for  the 
Embassy  here  to  accomplish  was  to  break  up  the  Anglo-French 
entente.  Metternich  has  been  very  devoted  to  German  interests  and 
has  gone  pretty  far  in  obeying  orders;  but  he  explained  frankly  to 
the  Emperor  that  this  was  an  impossible  task.  The  Emperor  is  as 
headstrong  as  one  or  two  American  pubhc  men  we  know  of,  and 
was  unwilling  to  be  told  that  his  plan  was  impossible. 

Hence  the  change.  It  was  accomphshed  with  a  brutality  curi- 
ously characteristic  of  the  German  Foreign  Office — almost  as  abrupt 
and  indifferent  to  personal  feelings  or  ordinary  courtesy  as  the  dis- 
missal a  few  years  ago  (you  will  remember  the  details)  of  poor  old 
llollcbcn,  the  German  Ambassador  in  Washington.  Various  Eu- 
ropean members  of  the  diplomatic  corps  here  think  they  know  these 
facts,  and  have  been  quietly  resentful.  Of  course  Metternich's 
recent  service  here  has  also  been  embarrassed  by  the  scandals  in 
which   his  nephew  was  involved  in  the  notorious  trial  in  Berlin, 


436        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

though  it  is  not  believed  that  in  their  rough  and  ready  diplomatic 
service  a  trifle  like  this  would  have  been  allowed  to  interfere  with 
his  career. 

Later,  on  "an  occasion  when  Reid  was  sojourning  at 
Harrogate,  the  Beresfords  came  over  to  luncheon  one  day 
and  Lord  Charles,  in  confirming  the  cause  of  Metter- 
nich's  dismissal,  a  cause  which  he  had  learned  authorita- 
tively from  both  English  and  German  sources,  added  an 
interesting  detail.  The  German  ambassador,  after  long 
consideration  of  the  problem  set  before  him  by  the 
Kaiser,  was  believed  to  have  reported  that  the  one  thing 
essential  was  to  do  something  in  Morocco  which  the 
French  would  consider  intolerable,  and  yet  which  the 
English  wouldn't  want  to  back  up  the  French  in  going 
to  war  about.  Accordingly  came  the  unexpected  and 
almost  inexplicable  despatch  of  a  German  war-ship  to 
Agadir.     Only  the  trick  did  not  work. 

A  story  whispered  in  London  on  Metternich's  retiring 
was  that  his  successor.  Baron  Marschall  von  Bieber- 
stein,  had  received  in  his  turn  a  ticklish  mandate.  His 
business  was  to  break  up  the  more  recent  Anglo-Russian 
entente.  Reid  drew  for  Secretary  Knox  this  sketch  of 
him:  » 

A  greater  contrast  between  the  old  Ambassador  and  the  new 
could  hardly  be  imagined.  Metternich  had  the  bearing  and  dignity 
of  an  accomplished  man  of  the  world  and  of  the  old  diplomatic 
school.  Marschall,  but  for  a  certain  dignity  of  bearing,  might  be 
mistaken  for  a  prosperous  shopkeeper,  or  even  butcher,  who  in  his 
early  days  had  gone  through  the  ordeal  of  the  German  duello,  with 
two  or  three  ugly  scars  to  show  for  it  on  his  cheek,  close  to  his  mouth. 
His  looks  bear  out  his  reputation  in  the  Far  East  as  a  man  accus- 
tomed to  push  diplomatic  points  with  a  strong  hand  and  with  the 
rattle  of  the  Prussian  sabre  behind  him. 

The  drollest  observation  I  heard  about  him  was  that  of  my  old 
colleague,  the  Spanish  Ambassador.  Said  he,  "Have  you  noticed 
the  great  change  in  German  diplomacy  since  Metternich  went  and 
Marschall  has  come?"    I  said,  "No,  in  fact,  there  hasn't  been  time 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  437 

for  it."  "Oh,  yes.  You  have  only  to  use  your  eyes  to  see  it.  Met- 
ternich's  court  costume,  prescribed  by  his  Emperor,  always  included 
trousers.  Marschall  is  wearing  breeches."  And  then  the  Am- 
bassador went  on  to  explain  that  at  other  European  courts  the  Ger- 
man diplomatic  costume  included  breeches  but  that  trousers  had 
been  specially  ordered  by  the  Emperor  at  this  court,  "as  a  delicate 
means  of  annoying  his  uncle."  The  late  King  was  always  strict  on 
the  subject  of  knee  breeches,  even  when  you  were  invited  to  a  dinner 
in  ordinary  London  society,  where  the  Queen  was  expected.  I 
remember  the  Duke  of  Connaught  being  much  embarrassed  once  at 
going  to  a  dinner  in  trousers  when  he  didn't  know  that  his  brother 
and  sister-in-law  were  to  be  there.  "I  suppose,"  he  said  in  an 
annoyed  tone,  "that  I  was  the  only  man  in  London  who  did  not 
know  it." 

It  w^as  not  from  the  direction  of  Germany  alone  that 
mutterings  of  w^ar  came  at  this  time.  When  the  Ameri- 
can ambassador  gave  his  dinner  to  Metternich  he  v^as 
faced  by  a  pretty  little  difficulty.  After  he  had  invited 
Imperiali,  the  Italian  ambassador,  he  suddenly  realized 
the  embarrassment  of  asking  the  Turk  and  placing  the 
two  diplomats  at  the  same  table,  when  the  whole  world 
knew  that  their  countries  were  at  war.  Some  members 
of  the  diplomatic  corps  thought  it  would  be  risky,  but 
Cambon,  the  dean,  believed  there  would  be  no  danger, 
and  Sir  Edward  Grey  was  of  the  same  opinion.  Finally 
the  French  ambassador  sounded  Tewfik  Pasha  himself — 
"a  fine  old  fellow,"  Reid  calls  him — and  he  promptly 
accepted,  came,  and  w^as  as  happy  as  Imperiali  or  any- 
body else.  Nevertheless,  it  was  in  the  nature  of  a  depar- 
ture from  precedent — like  the  dinner  itself.  The  sur- 
prise of  the  Italian-Turkish  War,  by  the  way,  was  inter- 
preted by  the  American  ambassador,  from  the  under- 
currents he  observed  at  the  time,  as  precipitated  by  the 
Itahan  discovery  that  Germany  was  on  the  point  of 
securing  an  important  seaport  on  the  Tripolitan  coast. 
The  Italian  Government  thereupon  reasoned  that  the 
coup  they  had  long  been  meditating  must  not  be  delayed. 


438         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

and  that  their  associate  in  the  Triple  Alliance,  when  he 
attempted  to  steal  a  march  on  them  on  the  opposite 
coast  of  the^  Mediterranean,  which  they  had  so  long 
marked  for  their  own,  should  find  himself  in  the  presence 
of  un  jail  accompli.  At  one  of  the  Wrest  shooting-parties 
Imperiali  explained  to  his  host  that  neither  the  minister 
of  foreign  affairs  in  Italy  nor  the  King  could  have  pre- 
vented the  war;  that  the  temper  of  the  Italians  had  been 
so  aroused  by  a  long  succession  of  *'pin  pricks"  that 
nothing  could  have  held  them  back,  especially  after  the 
amazing  indiscretion  of  the  German  demonstration  at 
Agadir.  Of  the  overturn  in  Portugal  few  echoes  of  in- 
terest reached  the  American  ambassador,  but  there  is 
one  incident  which  has  a  certain  piquancy.  The  Mar- 
quis de  Soveral,  King  Edward's  great  friend,  formerly 
Portuguese  minister  in  London,  told  Reid  in  May,  191 1, 
that  he  regarded  a  monarchist  revolution  in  his  country 
as  inevitable,  and  then  likely  to  come  very  suddenly. 
The  people,  he  said,  were  seething  with  discontent. 
There  was,  to  be  sure,  a  general  belief  in  the  air  that  a 
reaction  against  the  republic  had  set  in,  and  that  the 
republican  leaders  had  failed  to  '*make  good." 

Europe  was  undoubtedly  sick  when  the  year  191 2 
dawned.  At  that  time  Lord  Rosebery  was  frankly  talk- 
ing in  a  public  speech  about  the  early  possibihty,  even 
the  probability,  of  a  war  on  the  Continent  greater  than 
any  in  the  Napoleonic  era.  It  was  like  a  passing  release 
from  an  atmosphere  charged  with  electricity  for  the 
Reids  to  come  to  America  for  their  customary  stay  of  a 
few  winter  weeks.  The  visit  was  marked  this  time  by 
activities  in  their  New  York  home  such  as  were  char- 
acteristic of  Dorchester  House.  The  Duke  of  Connaught 
had  lately  been  appointed  governor-general  of  Canada, 
and  before  leaving  London  he  had  casually  spoken  of 
the  chance  of  seeing  the  Reids  in  their  own  country. 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  439 

Whether  the  English  authorities  would  permit  him  to 
leave  his  post  for  the  purpose  was,  however,  an  open 
question,  and  the  whole  project,  lightly  touched  in  con- 
versation, was  left  in  a  nebulous  state.  In  Washington 
the  American  ambassador  was  pleasantly  surprised  to 
hear  from  Ottawa  that  the  matter  had  been  taken  up  in 
London,  that  the  duke's  application  for  leave  had  been 
granted,  and  that  he  would  presently  arrive  in  New 
York  with  the  duchess  and  the  Princess  Patricia  for  a 
stay  of  three  or  four  days.  It  was  an  unofficial  visit,  but 
the  dance  and  other  entertainments  included  in  it,  the 
calls  at  art  galleries  and  public  buildings,  and  all  the 
incidents  that  served  to  lOuse  wide-spread  interest,  had 
results  which  had  not  been  expected.  The  whole  affair 
had  occurred  spontaneously,  without  the  smallest  thought 
that  it  could  have  any  public  significance.  Yet  that 
developed  in  the  happiest  manner.  Smalley,  writing 
from  London,  expressed  the  general  view.  "I  suppose," 
he  said,  "you  never  did  a  better  piece  of  work  than 
when  you  asked  the  Connaughts  to  be  your  guests.  It 
has  proved  in  all  ways  a  masterpiece  of  diplomacy. 
True,  when  the  English  first  read  the  daily  columns  by 
cable  they  were  amused  at  some  of  our  enthusiasms. 
But  it  soon  became  clear  to  them  that  the  American 
people  were  showing  in  a  new  way  a  new  feeling  toward 
the  English;  new  in  its  universal  cordiality  and  so  obvi- 
ously sincere  that  people  here  were  touched  by  it  and 
rejoiced  in  it;  and  so  on  this  side  also  the  visit  had  an 
equally  good  effect." 

Side  by  side  with  the  souvenirs  of  social  diversions  on 
this  trip  home  there  are  others  recalling  Reid's  wider 
interests  in  New  York,  never  quite  discontinued  by  his 
service  abroad.  He  was  glad  of  the  opportunity  to  per- 
form, as  he  so  seldom  could,  his  duties  as  a  trustee  of  the 
Metropolitan    Museum.     He   had   a   similarly   welcome 


440        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

engagement  at  Columbia  University.  On  the  death  of 
Joseph  Pulitzer,  in  October,  191 1,  the  several  agreements 
he  had  entered  into  with  that  institution,  relative  to  the 
establishment  of  a  school  of  journalism,  became  opera- 
tive. The  editor  of  the  "World"  had,  as  I  have  shown, 
obtained  the  consent  of  his  old  friend  to  serve  as  a  mem- 
ber of  the  advisory  board.  By  great  good  fortune  the 
organization  meeting  of  this  body  was  held  while  Reid 
was  in  New  York,  and  he  could,  therefore,  share  in  the 
deliberations  paving  the  way  for  the  formal  opening  of 
the  school.  From  any  participation  in  the  conduct  of 
his  own  paper  he  was,  of  course,  detached  by  his  diplo- 
matic status,  but  there  was  a  side  to  its  affairs  on  which 
he  could  legitimately  intervene,  and  in  one  of  the  little 
black-bound  engagement  books  that  he  was  wont  to 
carry  there  is  an  entry  from  which  a  certain  crucial  action 
of  his  is  to  be  inferred.  Imbedded  in  a  long  series  of 
notes,  the  interminable  appointments  of  a  diplomat's 
crowded  life,  there  occur  under  the  date  of  March  30th, 
19 1 2,  these  words,  in  which  the  reader  will  recognize  an 
unuttered  emotion  of  deep  satisfaction:  "Ogden  began 
as  Managing  Editor  of  The  Tribune." 

They  were  written  in  London,  after  the  ambassador 
had  been  for  nearly  a  month  back  at  his  post.  The  date 
is  near  to  one  which  had  brought  him  another  British 
honor.  At  Belfast,  on  the  28th,  he  repeated  before  the 
Historical  Society  the  address  he  had  delivered  four 
months  before  at  Edinburgh  on  "The  Scot  in  America, 
and  the  Ulster  Scot,"  and  he  was  elected  a  freeman  of 
the  city.  'This  was,  again,  a  "Recreation."  But  it  fell 
in  a  strenuous  period.  Strikes,  with  the  consequent 
scarcity  of  coal,  had  disorganized  railway  traffic,  and 
the  journey  home  was  a  nightmare.  England  pulled 
through  her  spell  of  unrest,  as  we  know,  but  it  seemed  at 
the  moment  as  though  she  were  plunged  deep  into  a 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  441 

welter  of  social  and  economic  troubles.  In  a  letter  to 
Mrs.  Taft,  written  soon  after  his  return  from  the  United 
States,  Reid  touches  upon  the  embarrassments  of  the 
government : 

In  the  Cabinet,  Asquith  is  enormously  overworked  but  up  to  the 
present  seems  to  maintain  his  grip.  He  has  been  apparently  doing 
his  best  to  get  some  hold  on  the  miners,  but  with  precious  little  re- 
ward. Lloyd  George  seems  the  worst  damaged  of  anybody  in  the 
Cabinet,  and  nobody  appears  to  doubt  that  if  the  Government 
should  be  tripped  up  on  some  side  motion  and  compelled  to  go  be- 
fore the  people,  his  insurance  bill  would  defeat  it.  Nobody  can  tell, 
however,  which  side  is  the  more  anxious  to  keep  the  Government 
from  being  thrown  out  at  present,  its  members  or  the  Opposition. 
The  whole  game  of  English  poHtics  at  present  is  to  select  the  ground 
on  which  to  get  their  fall.  Meantime  I  think  the  judgment  of  the 
man  in  the  street  is  that  the  Government  has  bungled  several  things 
badly — particularly  the  insurance  bill  and  the  strike. 

That  hapless  insurance  bill  was  productive  of  mirth  as 
well  as  rage.  Domestic  England  was  convulsed  by  the 
wrath  of  the  servant-girls  at  a  requirement  that  they 
and  their  mistresses  should  together  put  postage-stamps 
on  a  weekly  card,  indicating  the  amount  of  their  taxa- 
tion under  this  measure.  Lady  Sackville  sent  the  Ameri- 
can ambassador,  in  heu  of  a  Christmas  card,  a  clever 
little  statuette  of  Lloyd  George,  shghtly  caricatured  but 
strikingly  like  him,  with  a  big  tongue  much  protruded, 
and  on  the  pedestal  this  inscription:  *'Let  him  lick  his 
own  stamps." 

A  comprehensive  study  of  the  English  pohtical  situa- 
tion in  191 2,  pertinent,  perhaps,  in  this  place,  but  hardly 
necessary,  would  set  Sir  Edward  Grey  conspicuously  in 
the  Liberal  foreground.  We  have  seen  him  affirming  the 
government's  foreign  policy  in  the  House,  and  there 
were  other  occasions  on  which  the  American  ambassador 
observed  his  activity  as  a  party  man.  But  in  the  story 
of  Reid's  last  year  in  London  the  foreign  minister  figures 


442         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

almost  exclusively  as  the  negotiator  of  routine  business, 
the  friendly  colleague  in  the  advancement  of  interests 
common  to  Great  Britain  and  the  United  States.  Some- 
times, no  doubt,  the  interests  of  the  two  countries  were 
not  identical,  but  there  remained  always  the  same  sym- 
pathetic understanding  between  the  diplomat  and  the 
cabinet  officer.  Through  long  absorption  in  the  records 
of  a  man's  work  his  biographer  comes  to  share  in  its 
atmosphere,  to  feel  the  actual  pressure  of  those  influ- 
ences which  helped  or  hindered  it,  and  as  I  approach  the 
close  of  Whitelaw  Reid's  embassy  I  cannot  omit  a  refer- 
ence to  the  personal  elements  in  what  was  bound  to  be 
the  determining  factor  in  its  success,  his  relation  to  the 
Foreign  Office.  The  special  qualities  which  he  himself 
exercised  upon  that  scene  were  the  subject  of  some 
earnest  remarks  once  made  to  me  by  the  President  who 
sent  him  to  London  in  1905.  Roosevelt  spoke  of  the 
peculiar  confidence  which  he  felt  over  any  diplomatic 
matter  which  was  in  Reid's  hands.  Reid,  he  said,  knew 
all  about  the  suavities  of  English  officials.  He  had  these 
suavities  himself.  He  knew  just  how  to  meet  pohteness 
of  the  highest  degree  of  diplomatic  fineness — with  polite- 
ness and  diplomacy  of  precisely  the  same  character.  But 
he  never  lost  sight  of  the  fact  that  American  interests 
were  the  interests  which  he  was  in  London  to  serve. 
When  business  developed  like  the  negotiation  of  a  modus 
Vivendi  in  the  Newfoundland  controversy,  his  handling 
of  it,  said  Roosevelt,  was  ** simply  perfection."  Some 
diplomatic  matters  came  up  in  our  conversation  which 
had  been  dealt  with  more  particularly  by  Roosevelt  him- 
self at  this  end  of  the  wire,  the  matter  of  the  Alaskan 
boundary  among  them.  He  said  frankly  that  if  the 
Alaskan  discussion  had  developed  in  Reid's  time  in 
London  it  would  have  been  dealt  with  there.  His  whole 
tribute   to   the   American   ambassador   testified   to   the 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  443 

peace  of  mind  inspired  in  him  by  his  sense  of  the  thor- 
oughness with  which  Reid  mingled  an  unyielding  Ameri- 
canism with  the  arts  of  persuasion.  Nothing  could  be 
more  businesslike,  more  patriotic,  than  a  typical  con- 
versation of  his  at  the  Foreign  Office,  and  at  the  same 
time  nothing  could  be  more  harmonious,  more  intellec- 
tually disinterested.  In  their  official  discussions  of  in- 
ternational topics  one  recognizes  the  same  happy  meet- 
ing of  minds  that  is  apparent  when  Reid  and  Grey  are 
together  in  private  life.  To  recall  for  a  moment  the  sig- 
nificance of  Metternich's  role  as  it  was  assigned  to  him 
by  the  Kaiser  is  sufficient  to  make,  the  more  effective, 
by  contrast,  the  American  ambassador's  mission  and  to 
deepen  appreciation  of  that  community  of  perfect  good 
faith  through  which  the  friendship  between  England  and 
the  United  States  was  strengthened.  I  have  alluded  to 
the  slow  and  arduous  labors  connected  with  the  Chinese 
loans.  Negotiations  over  these  ramified  everywhere. 
Reid's  despatches  about  them  linked  him  not  only  to 
Washington  but  to  Paris,  Berlin,  St.  Petersburg,  and,  of 
course,  Pekin.  When  he  talked  with  Sir  Edward  Grey 
on  this  topic  they  handled,  as  it  were,  multifarious 
threads  and  each  helped  the  other  to  clarify  the  con- 
fusion. Their  dealings  over  the  opium  traffic  made 
equally  satisfactory  progress.  The  Shanghai  meeting 
early  in  1909  bore  good  fruit,  and  though  there  was 
some  little  delay  in  fixing  a  date  suitable  to  all  the 
powers  for  the  international  conference  at  The  Hague, 
that  momentous  gathering  was  at  last  admirably  opened 
in  December,  191 1.  If  it  did  not  accomplish  absolutely 
all  that  was  hoped  from  it,  it  at  any  rate  justified  the 
United  States  in  having  initiated  the  whole  reformatory 
movement.  The  American  ambassador  was  deeply  con- 
cerned over  the  achievement  of  this  great  step  toward 
the  lessening  of  the  opium  evil.     He  had  opened  the 


444         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

original  negotiations  with  Sir  Edward  Grey,  and  he  had 
a  special  interest  in  the  proceedings  at"  The  Hague  be- 
cause of  the  presence  of  his  friend  Bishop  Brent  among 
the  American  delegates.  Allied  in  his  mind  with  the 
opium  question  was  another  subject  he  had  to  discuss  at 
the  Foreign  Office,  the  Putamayo  atrocities,  but  these, 
as  it  happened,  fell  into  a  subordinate  position  in  the 
tale  of  his  diplomatic  work. 

With  Liberia,  as  with  the  Chinese  loans,  he  was  long 
and  very  intimately  occupied.  Here,  too,  the  theme 
was  largely  financial.  He  was  instrumental  in  develop- 
ing American  co-operation  where  the  economic  affairs  of 
the  none  too  strong  government  were  concerned.  Also, 
he  worked  over  the  settlement  of  certain  vexed  Liberian 
boundary  questions.  It  was  a  matter  of  finance,  purely, 
that  brought  Chili  upon  his  horizon.  That  republic  was 
involved  for  something  like  twenty-five  years  in  a  con- 
troversy with  the  United  States  over  a  huge  claim  which 
the  firm  of  AIsop  &  Company  had  asked  our  government 
to  press.  In  1909,  as  no  solution  had  been  arrived  at, 
the  contestants  agreed  to  submit  the  whole  problem  to 
King  Edward  as  an  aimable  compositeur.  The  task  of 
obtaining  his  acquiescence  was  assigned  to  Reid.  He 
was  successful,  but  the  King  died  shortly  afterward,  and 
the  matter  had  to  be  arranged  all  over  again  with 
George  V.  That  arbitrator  made  his  award  to  the 
AIsops  in  July,  191 1,  and  an  account  incredibly  pro- 
tracted was  thus  wiped  off  the  books.  The  American 
ambassador  rejoiced.  The  episode  involved  him  in  some 
tedious  passages,  even  after  the  award  was  made,  but 
the  final  disposition  of  it  was  clean-cut  and  decisive,  the 
kind  of  settlement  that  a  diplomat  enjoys  the  more 
because  it  is  so  rare.  Fate  was  to  deny  him  anything 
like  the  same  emotion  over  the  last  important  question 
raised  during  his  term  in  London.     This  developed  in 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  445 

1 91 2,  over  President  Taft's  Panama  Canal  bill.  Reid 
transmitted  in  July  Sir  Edward  Grey's  objections  in  the 
matter  of  tolls,  objections  which  continued  on  the  signing 
of  the  bill  in  the  following  month.  In  November  he 
apprised  Secretar^^  Knox  of  the  fact  that  an  outline  of 
the  British  views  had  been  drawn  up  and  was  going 
forw^ard  to  Ambassador  Bryce  in  Washington.  But  this 
document  was  not  handed  in  at  the  State  Department 
until  December  7th,  a  date  which  carries  the  subject 
beyond  the  limitations  of  our  narrative. 

In  sketching  Whitelaw  Reid's  work  at  the  Foreign 
Office  I  have  indicated  the  steady  bearing  it  had  upon 
the  broad  object  of  his  diplomatic  mission,  the  mainte- 
nance of  Anglo-American  good-will.  The  same  purpose 
was  furthered  by  his  labors  as  a  public  speaker.  Specific 
appearances  of  his  in  this  capacity  have  been  signalized 
in  earlier  chapters,  but  they  form  only  part  of  an  ex- 
traordinarily long  list.  From  the  moment  of  his  arrival 
in  London  in  1905  he  learned  that  the  American  ambas- 
sador was  universally  regarded  as  having  a  function 
apart,  an  obligation  shared  by  no  other  member  of  the 
diplomatic  corps,  to  speak  at  banquets  and  upon  com- 
memorative occasions.  He  found  it,  sometimes,  a  tax, 
but  there  was  much  in  this  duty  that  appealed  to  his 
literary-  instincts,  and  the  care  he  lavished  upon  his 
addresses  lifted  them  above  the  plane  of  ordinary  ambas- 
sadorial *' hands  across  the  sea"  oratory.  He  was  at 
pains,  of  course,  to  emphasize,  when  it  was  appropriate, 
the  international  aspect  of  his  discourse.  One  of  the 
last  speeches  he  made  was  delivered  at  the  dinner  given 
by  the  Boz  Club  in  July,  191 2,  to  celebrate  the  centenary 
of  the  birth  of  Charles  Dickens.  He  recalled  the  words 
he  had  heard  the  great  author  utter  at  Delmonico's 
forty  years  before:  *'It  would  be  better  for  this  globe  to 
be  riven  by  an  earthquake,  fired  by  a  comet,  overrun 


446         THE   LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

by  an  iceberg,  and  abandoned  to  the  Arctic  fox  and 
bear,  than  that  it  should  present  the  spectacle  of  those 
two  great  nations,  each  of  whom  has,  in  its  own  way 
and  hour,  striven  so  hard  and  successfully  for  freedom, 
ever  again  being  arrayed  the  one  against  the  other." 
Reid's  audience  cheered  his  quotation.  Audiences  in 
England  often  had  occasion  to  cheer  him  as  a  spokesman 
for  the  good  feeling  existing  between  the  two  countries. 
But  his  success  as  a  speaker  was  based,  also,  on  a  wider 
and  subtler  appeal,  that  of  a  dispassionate  historical  and 
critical  interpreter.  Pure  literature  gave  him  many  of 
his  subjects — Shakespeare,  Bacon,  Milton,  Thackeray, 
Byron,  Dickens,  and  Poe.  Others  he  drew  from  the 
world  of  statesmanship — Washington  and  Lincoln,  Burke 
and  John  Bright.  If  in  some  instances  the  theme  was 
set  for  him,  in  others  he  selected  it  himself,  and  when 
this  was  the  case,  he  had  some  felicitous  inspirations. 
One  of  them  came  when  the  Edinburgh  Philosophical 
Institution  asked  him  to  make  the  opening  address  in 
November,  191 1.  He  traced  the  influence  of  Scottish 
blood  in  American  life  and  enriched  the  subject  with  a 
flood  of  light.  Belfast,  as  I  have  noted,  paid  him  the 
compliment  of  asking  him  to  deliver  his  Edinburgh  ad- 
dress over  again  there.  His  listeners  in  both  places  were 
profoundly  interested  by  his  elucidation  of  ties  between 
their  country  and  his  own.  Charles  Francis  Adams, 
writing  to  him  about  it  from  Boston,  said:  *' Placed  as 
you  are,  I  do  not  see  precisely  how  you  did  it.  I  could 
not  have  got  together  all  those  details  and  special  in- 
stances." Industry  had  something  to  do  with  it,  indus- 
try and  a  zest  for  historical  research  that  he  never  lost. 
Of  afl  the  contacts  with  English  literary  interests  that 
marked  his  life  in  London  none  appealed  to  him  more 
strongly  than  his  membership  in  the  Roxburghe  Club, 


THE   CLOSING  YEARS  447 

an   organization   distinguished   for   its   fine   tradition   of 
historical  documentation.* 

Besides  the  capacity  for  taking  pains,  the  ardor  of  a 
man  of  letters,  Whitelaw  Reid  had  a  quality  on  which  I 
have  paused  again  and  again  in  these  pages,  and  to 
which  he  gave  free  play  in  the  last  of  his  addresses, 
rounding  out  the  large  group  belonging  to  his  English 
activities.  I  refer  to  his  independence,  his  love  of  intel- 
lectual exercise  for  its  own  sake.  It  won  him  apprecia- 
tion from  English  hearers  when  it  operated  to  such  can- 
did purpose  as  it  did  in  his  discussion  of  Byron  at  Not- 
tingham, and  I  may  remark  in  passing  that  the  criticism 
was  received  with  equal  sympathy  when  it  was  soon 
after    placed    before    a   wider   audience   in   the    '*Fort- 

*  The  American  ambassador  was  elected  to  the  Roxburghe  Club  on  the  pro- 
posal of  Lord  Rosebery  in  1909.  Following  custom,  he  sought  some  manuscript 
to  print  for  distribution  among  his  fellow  members,  and  in  his  correspondence 
there  are  frequent  traces  of  the  efforts  he  made  to  find  the  right  material,  espe- 
cially in  American  archives.  Rosebery  offered  him  in  1910,  apropos  of  his  quest, 
these  characteristic  observations:  "As  to  the  Roxburghe  Club,  a  member,  I  fancy, 
prints  what  he  chooses.  I  myself  printed  from  a  manuscript  at  the  Bodleian. 
But  if  you  print,  I  cannot  help  expressing  the  private  and  personal  hope  that  it 
will  be  something  historical,  something  that  one  can  read.  .  .  .  Did  you  hear 
Huth  say  at  the  meeting  that  he  purposed  reading  'Amadis  of  Gaul' !" 

Since  her  husband  was  not  spared  to  carry  his  investigations  to  a  successful 
conclusion,  Mrs.  Reid  commissioned  Lord  Rosebery  to  act  for  her,  and  he  found 
at  Quaritch's  the  Coke  papers,  which  on  behalf  and  in  memor>'  of  Whitelaw  Reid 
she  gave  to  the  Roxburghe  Club  to  print,  later  presenting  the  original  documents 
to  the  New  York  Public  Library.  The  volume  appeared  in  191 5 — "The  Royal 
Commission  on  the  Losses  and  Services  of  American  Loyalists.  1783  to  1785. 
Being  the  Notes  of  Mr.  Daniel  Parker  Coke,  M.P.,  one  of  the  Commissioners 
During  That  Period.  Edited  by  Hugh  Edward  Egerton,  Beit  Professor  of 
Colonial  History  in  the  University  of  Oxford."  The  work  fulfils  the  condition 
commended  to  Reid.  It  is  readable  and  it  throws  valuable  light  on  the  status 
of  the  loyalists.  In  certain  copies  there  is  inserted  this  note,  written  by  Lord 
Rosebery : 

"The  surplus  copies  of  this  book,  after  the  distribution  to  the  Members  of  the 
Roxburghe  Club  and  to  a  few  libraries  and  individuals  in  England,  were  shipped 
to  the  donor,  Mrs.  Whitelaw  Reid,  in  America  by  the  s.s.  'Arabic,'  which  was 
gratuitously  torpedoed,  outward  bound,  with  much  loss  of  civilian  life,  by  a 
Cierman  sub-marine.  A  reprint  was  put  in  hand,  and  this  slip  is  inserted  in  the 
copies  of  the  reprint  as  a  record  of  that  incident  which,  it  may  be  hoped,  will 
remain  unparalleled  in  the  bibliographical  history  of  the  Roxburghe  Club." 


448         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAVV  REID 

nightly."  It  shone  forth  with  even  richer  implications 
when  he  spoke  at  the  University  College  of  Wales,  at 
Aberystwyth^  on  October  31st,  191 2,  and  chose  as  his 
theme  **One  Welshman."  The  man  of  Welsh  origin  to 
whom  he  dedicated  one  of  the  most  polished  analyses  he 
ever  wrote  was  the  great  exemplar  of  the  American 
political  faith  to  which  he  had  been  opposed  from  his 
youth  up.  His  farewell  appearance  on  the  British  plat- 
form was  made  for  the  utterance  of  a  eulogy  upon 
Thomas  Jefferson.  It  was  attempered  eulogy,  no  doubt. 
He  spoke,  as  he  had  spoken  of  Byron,  from  an  absolutely 
frank  point  of  view,  and  there  were  some  Democrats  at 
home  who  did  not  relish  all  his  words.  "How  he  did 
take  our  hair  off,"  Henry  Adams  said  to  me,  in  speaking 
of  this  address.  *'If  the  figure  I  have  been  presenting 
as  an  honor  to  Wales,"  Reid  remarked  in  the  course  of 
it,  "has  a  head  of  gold,  just  as  clearly  it  will  be  seen  to 
have  had  feet  of  clay."  But  Adams  told  me  that  he 
thought  this  address  the  best  that  Reid  had  ever  made, 
and  surely  no  Democrat  could  cavil  at  the  closing  sen- 
tences, spoken  by  a  lifelong  Republican: 

On  the  Fourth  of  July,  1826,  John  Adams  was  slowly  dying,  amid 
the  noisy  rejoicing  already  universal  over  nearly  every  recurrence 
of  the  great  anniversary.  In  a  fmal  effort  to  make  himself  under- 
stood by  the  family,  this  old  and  fervid  friend  and  opponent  whis- 
pered, "Thomas  Jefferson  still  lives."  They  were  Adams's  last 
words,  and  they  were  prophetic.  That  strange  medley  of  incon- 
sistency, extravagance,  enthusiasm,  and  fervid  patriotic  devotion 
to  whom  he  referred  had  in  fact  passed  away  a  few  hours  earlier. 
But  the  author  of  the  statute  for  religious  liberty  in  Virginia  and 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  founder  of  the  University 
of  Virginia,  and  the  purchaser  of  Louisiana  "still  lives"  in  the  re- 
spectful memory  of  the  world  and  in  the  affection  of  the  people  of 
the  continent  he  served.  I  venture  to  appropriate  for  him  the  lines 
of  Shelley — 

"till  the  Future  dares 
Forget  the  Past,  his  fate  and  fame  shall  be 
An  echo  and  a  light  unto  eternity." 


THE  CLOSING  YEARS  449 

Physically  the  speech  cost  an  effort  which  was  to 
make  itself  felt  the  sooner  because  Reid  had  come  to  it 
already  much  fatigued.  In  the  summer  of  19 12  the 
Board  of  Regents  witnessed  the  fulfilment  of  its  great 
ambition,  the  completion  of  the  new  Educational  Build- 
ing at  Albany.  The  event  had  been  anticipated  when 
the  ambassador  was  at  home  in  the  preceding  winter, 
and  pressure  had  been  brought  upon  him  to  make  another 
visit  for  the  opening,  to  preside,  and  to  speak,  as  chan- 
cellor. He  crossed  the  Atlantic,  performed  his  task  on 
October  15th,  and  returned  to  London,  all  within  a 
period  of  a  month.  The  strain  was  too  severe,  and  the 
Welsh  speech,  on  the  31st,  folio w^ed  altogether  too  soon, 
especially  in  view  of  the  journeying  it  involved.  A  sharp 
attack  of  his  old  bronchial  trouble  supervened,  with  the 
asthmatic  accompaniment  that  he  always  dreaded.  The 
sickness  was  complicated  by  a  painful  neuralgia.  Sir 
William  Osier  stimulated  him  with  the  assurance  that 
absolute  rest  and  careful  life  in  the  open  air  would  effect 
a  cure.  He  had  to  remember,  also,  that  he  had  passed 
his  seventy-fifth  birthday.  But  even  a  younger  man 
might  have  felt  the  weight  of  the  burden  he  had  been 
carrying.  *'0sler  tells  me,"  he  wrote  to  Mrs.  Cowles, 
"that  all  my  recent  trouble  is  due  entirely  to  overwork, 
and  especially  to  my  hurried  trip  to  America,  to  do  my 
duty  as  a  member  of  the  Boaitl  of  Regents,  and  to  my 
hurried  trip  back,  to  Aberystwyth,  in  Wales,  to  tell  a 
small  portion  of  the  truth  about  Thomas  Jefferson  at 
their  University  College."  He  had  overdrawn  his  vital- 
ity and  the  consequences  swiftly  ensued. 

He  had  no  forebodings.  All  through  November  he 
went  on  with  the  usual  work  of  the  embassy.  There  was 
a  shooting-party  at  Wrest,  with  Sir  Edward  Grey  among 
the  guests,  at  the  close  of  the  month.  On  Monday, 
December  2d,  he  came  up  from  this  to  Dorchester  House, 


450        THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

apparently  in  need  of  nothing  more  than  rest,  and  the 
numerous  entries  in  his  engagement  book  bear  mute 
witness  to  tjie  confidence  of  his  plans.  Among  them  was 
one  arranging  for  the  Christmas  holidays  at  his  daugh- 
ter's house  in  the  country.  Ogden  Reid  and  his  wife 
were  coming  over  for  this  celebration.  But  when  they 
came  it  was  very  suddenly,  on  a  fast  steamer,  sum- 
moned by  an  anxious  despatch.  The  ambassador's  last 
illness  began,  quite  unexpectedly,  on  December  3d. 
When  the  asthma  overtook  him  it  made  disastrous  in- 
roads upon  his  strength.  For  ten  days  he  kept  to  his 
room,  or  sat  in  Mrs.  Reid's,  talking  with  her.  He  grew 
very  weak,  until  he  could  no  longer  rally  from  the  ex- 
haustion produced  by  the  asthmatic  strain.  The  end 
came  on  December  15th. 

He  died  in  harness,  at  a  great  diplomatic  post,  and  the 
news  of  his  death  was  received  not  only  with  a  multitude 
of  expressions  of  private  grief  but  with  signal  evidences 
of  a  wide-spread  recognition  of  the  loss  suffered  by  the 
public  service.  President  Taft  was  apprised  of  the 
event  by  King  George,  who  sent  him  this  message : 

It  is  with  the  deepest  sorrow  that  I  have  to  inform  you  of  the 
death  of  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid,  at  noon  today.  As  your  Ambassador 
in  this  country  his  loss  will  be  sincerely  deplored,  while  personally  I 
shall  mourn  for  an  old  friend  of  many  years'  standing  for  whom  I  had 
the  greatest  regard  and  respect.  The  Queen  and  I  sympathize  most 
warmly  with  Mrs.  Whitelaw  Reid  in  her  heavy  sorrow. 

Between  the  lines  this  communication  gave  a  height- 
ened significance  to  the  King's  expression  of  regret.  In 
making  it  he  marked  a  departure  from  precedent,  him- 
self sending  news  which,  as  a  rule,  is  transmitted  by 
routine  through  the  Foreign  Office.  Mr.  Taft  made  the 
following  reply: 

Your  Majesty's  sad  news  of  the  death  of  Mr.  Whitelaw  Reid  has 
just  reached  me.    Mr.  Reid's  death  is  a  loss  to  both  countries,  for 


THE  CLOSING  YE.\R3  451 

his  service  as  Ambassador  was  exceptional  in  the  closer  friendship 
that  he  secured  between  them  through  his  own  personality.  His 
intimate  knowledge  of  both  countries,  his  profound  respect  and  love 
for  England,  entirely  consistent  with  the  highest  loyaltv*  on  his 
part  to  this  countiy*,  gave  him  peculiar  influence  for  good  in  his 
great  station.  I  sincerely  thank  your  Majesty  for  your  message  and 
your  expressions  of  sjTnjjathy  and  respect. 

"We  regard  him  as  a  kinsman,"  said  the  prime  mio- 
ister  of  England  in  the  House  of  Commons  the  next  day, 
when  he  and  ex-Premier  Balfour  joined  in  paying  trib- 
ute to  the  dead  ambassador,  and  Mr.  Asquith  stated  his 
intention  of  suggesting  to  the  American  Government 
that  one  of  his  Majest^^'s  war-ships  should  carr\'  the 
body  to  the  United  States.  This  intimation  was  at 
once  conveyed  to  Mrs.  Reid  by  Sir  Edward  Grey,  and 
the  armored  cruiser  Natal  was  assigned  to  the  dut>'.  A 
few  days  would  necessarily  elapse  before  the  embarka- 
tion, and  in  the  meantime  the  Bishop  of  London  sug- 
gested a  memorial  ser\*ice  in  St.  Paul's.  The  King, 
however,  decided  that  Westminster  would  be  preferable, 
and  the  service  was  accordingly  held  in  the  Abbey  on 
Friday,  December  20th,  in  the  presence  of  representa- 
tives of  the  court,  the  diplomatic  corps,  and  many 
political  and  other  personages.  On  Saturday  the  body 
was  conducted  from  Dorchester  House  on  a  gun-carriage 
draped  with  the  American  flag,  proceeding  under  mili- 
tary' escort.  In  recognition  of  the  ambassador's  Scotch 
ancestry-  a  half  battalion  of  Scots  Guards  formed  part 
of  the  procession,  which  was  headed  by  a  troop  of  House- 
hold Cavalr>-  in  their  scarlet  cloaks.  To  the  skirl  of 
pipes  and  the  beating  of  drums  the  march  led  to  the  rail- 
way-station, where  the  Admiralty'  had  in  readiness  a 
special  train  for  the  journey  to  Portsmouth.  During  the 
departure  from  Dorchester  House  a  batter>'  in  St.  James's 
Park  fired  a  salute  of  nineteen  minute-guns,  and  at 
Portsmouth,  as  the  body  was  taken  on  board  the  Nataly 


452         THE  LIFE  OF  WHITELAW  REID 

the  guns  of  the  Victory  rendered  the  same  honor.  All 
the  ships  in  the  harbor  flew  the  United  States  ensign  as 
the  cruiser  left  port. 

A  squadron  of  six  American  war-ships  under  Rear- 
Admiral  Fiske,  led  by  the  Florida,  met  the  Natal  off 
Nantucket  Light  on  its  arrival  here.  On  Friday,  Janu- 
ary 3d,  the  body  was  conveyed,  again  on  a  gun-carriage, 
to  the  Cathedral  of  St.  John  the  Divine.  It  was  guarded 
by  a  detachment  of  Marines  and  placed  in  the  crypt.  In 
the  morning  of  the  next  day  the  funeral  was  held,  the 
edifice  thronged  as  the  Abbey  had  been  thronged,  by 
an  assemblage  including  the  President  of  the  United 
States,  members  of  his  cabinet,  ex-President  Roosevelt, 
and  other  leaders  in  public  life.  Then,  once  more  under 
military  guard,  the  ambassador  was  carried  on  his  last 
journey,  to  be  laid  to  rest  in  Sleepy  Hollow,  at  Tarry- 
town. 

The  End 


INDEX 


Abarzuza,  Don  Buenaventura,  Spanish 
peace  commissioner,  II,  227,  253 

Abbey,  Edwin  A.,  II,  379 

Abdul  Hamid,  II,  155  ff. 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  1872  cam- 
paign and,  I,  204,  209  ff.,  218,  223, 
275;  1876  campaign  and,  I,  331,  337 

Adams,  Charles  Francis,  Jr.,  1873  po- 
litical situation  and,  I,  275  ff.;  Reid's 
friendship  with,  I,  166  ff.;  X.  Y.  Trib- 
une and,  I,  304  ff.;  1875  political  sit- 
uation and,  I,  319  ff.,  331,  337;  on 
Sherman,  II,  336  ff. 
Letters  from,  I,  167,  275,  277,  304, 

305;  n,  336,  337 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  166, 
167,  319.  320 

Adams,  Henry,  1873  political  situation 
and,  I,  276;  Reid's  friendship  with,  I, 
381  ff.;  IL  385  ff.;  Cleveland  criti- 
cised by,  II,  III;  as  historian,  II, 
385  ff.;  on  Byron,  II,  422  ff. 
Letters  from,  II,  335 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  II,  385, 
386,  387,  388,  389.  423 

"After  the  War,"  Reid's,  I,  119  ff. 

Aguinaldo,  II,  260,  262 

Alaskan  Boundary  Commission,  II,  268 

.\ldrich,  Thomas  B.,  in  Paris,  II,  162 

Alfonso  XIII,  in  England,  II,  303  ff.; 
Reid's  account  of,  II,  315  ff. 

Algeciras  conference,  II,  326,  328  ff. 

Allison,  \V.  B.,  1872  campaign  and,  I, 
208;  cabinet  appointment  refused  by, 
II,  54  ff.;  1892  campaign  and,  II,  177; 
1896  campaign  and,  199  ff. 
Letter  to,  I,  208 

"American  and  English  Studies," 
Reid's,  II,  163,  301,  356 

American  Society  in  London,  The,  II, 

354 
Ames,  Oakes,  I,  258,  314 
Andersen,  Hans  Christian,  I,  306 
"Anglo-American    Memories,"    Smal- 

ley's,  I,  169;  II,  247 
Anglo-Saxon  Review,  the,  II,  254 
Antictam,  battle  of,  I,  70,  99 


Appomattox,  I,  100 

Arthur  of  Connaught,  Prince,  II,  361 

ff.,  439 

Arthur,  Chester,  vice-presidential  nom- 
ination of,  II,  31  ff.,  37;  senatorship 
fight  and,  II,  48;  N.  Y.  port  collector- 
ship  and,  II,  61,  65;  Garfield's  death 
and,  II,  72;  inauguration  of,  II,  76; 
Conkling  and,  II,  76;  cabinet  of,  II, 
78;  policies  of,  II,  79  ff.;  1884  candi- 
dacy of,  11,  91  ff.;  N.  Y.  senatorship 
and,  II,  100 

Ashburton-Webster  Treaty,  II,  151  ff. 

Ashley,  General,  I,  265 

Asquith,  Herbert,  rise  of,  II,  310;  min- 
istry of,  II,  401  ff.,  440 

Astor,  J.  J.,  I,  325 

Astor  House  in  1870,  I,  132 

Atlantic  cable,  laying  of,  I,  35 

Atlantic  Monthly,  the,  I,  127 

Austin,  Alfred,  II,  382  ff. 

Babcock,  Samuel  D.,  I,  235 

Bacon,  Elliott,  II,  352 

Baldwin,  Admiral  Charles  H.,  II,  55  ff. 

Balfour,  Arthur  J.,  Russo-Japanese 
peace  negotiations  and,  II,  306  ff.; 
resignation  of,  II,  310;  defeat  of, 
II,  404;  Reid's  death  and,  II,  451 

Baring,  Sir  Evelyn,  II,  159 

Barney,  Hiram,  I,  313 

Bates,  Attorney-General  Edward,  I, 
106 

Beauregard,  Gen.,  I,  85,  100 

Bcecher,  Henry  Ward,  letter  from  re 
Tribune,  I,  266 

Belknap,  Secretary  William  W.,  im- 
peachment of,  I,  326,  336  ff. 

"Ben  Hur,"  II,  159 

Benckendorf,  Count,  II,  350 

Benjamin,  Judah  P.,  I,  49 

Bennett,  James  Gordon,  Jr.,  I,  142; 
II,  162 

Beveridge,  Senator  Albert  J.,  II,  267 

Bigelow,  John,  I,  181  ff.;  on  Grant, 
I,  203;  Reid  supported  by,  I,  248; 
1874  campaign  and,  I,  285  ff.,  290, 


453 


454 


INDEX 


292;     1876  campaign   and,    I,   334, 
347;    on  diplomacy,  II,  127;    1892 
campaign  and,  II,  179  ff. 
Letters  from,  I,  181,  182,  183,  290, 

292,  334;  U.  180 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  185, 

186,  205,  248,  323;  II,  127 
Letters  to,  I,  203,  204,  335 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  127, 

345 

Bigelow,  Mrs.  John,  I,  238 

Bigham,  Reid's  first  teacher,  I,  1 1 

Bishop,  J.  B.,  II,  327 

Bismarck,  Prince  Otto  von,  I,  186 

Blaine,  James  G.,  re  Tribune,  I,  303; 
1876  campaign  and,  I,  329-342,  352 
ff.;  Mulligan  letters  and,  I,  338  ff.; 
Hayes  criticised  by,  I,  377;  1880 
campaign  and,  II,  14-24;  Secretary 
of  State,  II,  43  ff.,  54;  cabinet- 
making  and,  II,  51,  55  ff.;  Arthur 
administration  and,  II,  76  ff.;  resig- 
nation of,  II,  78;  on  the  Arthur 
tariff,  II,  81  ff.;  1884  campaign  and, 
II,  91-97;  nomination  of,  II,  95; 
defeat  of,  II,  97  ff.;  re  Reid  and  the 
Senatorship,  II,  loi;  1888  campaign 
and,  II,  111-118;  Harrison's  Secre- 
tary of  State,  II,  121  ff.,  150  ff.; 
Harrison's  relations  with,  II,  165; 
Reid's  resignation  and,  II,  168  ff.; 
1892  campaign  and,  II,  169,  175  ff., 
181,  185;  second  resignation  of,  II, 
177  ff.;  death  of,  II,  194 
Letters  from,  1,  303,  331,  332,  333, 
353,  377;  n,  15,  16,  17,  70,  81,  82, 
loi,  113,  117,  118,  150,  151 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  II,  83, 

88,91,  97,  115 
Letters  to,  I,  333,  334,  378;  II,  76,  77 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  82,  93, 
94,  99,  126,  152 

Blaine,  Walker,  letter  from,  I,  339,  340 

Blair,  Gen.  Frank  P.,  I,  107 

Blair,  Montgomery,  I,  403 

Bonnat,  Leon,  II,  132,  162 

Booth,  Edwin,  II,  73 

Booth,  Wilkes,  I,  116 

Boulanger,  Gustave,  II,  133  ff. 

Bourgeois,  Ren6,  H,  145  ff. 

Bowen,  S.  J.,  quotation  from  letter  to, 

I,  354 
Bowles,  Samuel,  I,  143;   1872  campaign 
and,  I,  209,  210,  214,  2i6,  218,  221; 


1873  conditions  and,  I,  278;    1876 

campaign  and,  337 

Letter  to,  I,  218 
Boynton,  Gen.  H.  V.,  I,  98 
Brady,  Thomas  J.,  I,  407,  410,  419 
Bramlette,   Gov.,   inauguration  of,   I, 

113 
"Breadwinners,  The,"  Hay's,  II,  86  ff., 

159  ff. 
Brent,  Bishop,  II,  377 
Brevoort  House,  in  1870,  I,  232 
Bright,  John,  Reid  on,  II,  356 
Bristow,    Benjamin,    1876    campaign 

and,  I,  326,  335  ff. 
Broadway,  in  1870,  I,  232 
Broglie,  Due  de,  II,  162 
Bromley,    Isaac,    I,    160;    lectureship; 

1,278;  II,  270 
Brougham,  John,  I,  236 
Brown,  Gratz,  1872  campaign  and,  I, 

210 
Brown,  John,  raid  of,  I,  45  ff. 
Bryan,  W.  J.,  "free  silver"  policy  of, 

I,  318;    II,  208;    1896  campaign  of, 

II,  210;  in  England,  II,  333 
Bryant,  William  Cullen,  I,  304 
Buchanan,    President    James,    I,    23; 

Kansas  policy  of,  I,  43;  Reid  on,  I, 
44,  47;   Brown's  raid  and,  I,  45 

Buell,  Gen.  Don  Carlos,  at  Shiloh,  I, 
88;  in  Kentucky,  I,  92;  Reid  on,  I, 
127 

Bull  Run,  battle  of,  I,  78  ff. 

Bulow,  Hans  von,  I,  236 

Biilow,  Prince  von,  at  Hague  Confer- 
ence, II,  374 

Burchard,  Dr.,  1884  campaign  and,  II, 

97  ff. 

Burke,  Edmund,  Reid  on,  II,  356  ff. 

Burnand,  F.  C,  II,  73 

Burnside,  Gen.  Ambrose,  at  Fredericks- 
burg, I,  100;  removal  of,  I,  100 

Butler,  Ben,  Massachusetts  bossed  by, 
1.283 

Cain,  G.,  II,  132 

Cairo,  111.,  Grant's  advance  from,  I,  84; 
Reid  in,  I,  84 

Cambon,  Paul,  II,  350 

Cambridge  University,  Reid  given  de- 
gree by,  II,  379  ff. 

Cameron,  Don,  1880  campaign  and,  II, 

18  ff.,  22  ff.;  Grant  supported  by,  II, 

19  ff.,  24;  1896  campaign  and,  II,  195 


INDEX 


455 


Cameron,   Simon,   Secretary   of   War, 

I,  65;   II,  213;   1880  campaign  and, 

11,19 

Campbell-Bannerman,  Sir  Henry,  pre- 
miership of,  II,  310  ff.,  367  ff-;  col- 
lapse of,  II,  371 

Cannon,  "Uncle  Joe,"  1904  campaign 
and,  II,  295 

Canrobert,  Frangois,  II,  162 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  Reid  on,  II,  383  ff. 

Carnegie,  Andrew,  on  Blaine,  II,  117; 
on  Philippines,  II,  260  ff.,  267;  Hague 
Conference  and,  II,  374 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  II,  117, 

260,  261 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  374 

Carnifex's  Ferr>%  battle  of,  I,  79  ff.,  98 

Camot,  Nicolas  Sadi,  Reid  received  by, 

II,  125  ff.,  130;  presidency  of,  II,  133; 
American-French  tariff  treaty  signed 
by,  II,  151 

Carrick's  Ford,  battle  of,  I,  75  ff.,  98 

Carter,  John  Ridgely,  II,  352;  minister 
to  Bucharest,  II,  395 

Cassagnac,  Paul  de,  II,  146  ff. 

"Castilian  Days,"  Hay's,  I,  164 

Castillo,  Leon  y,  Reid's  acquaintance 
with,  II,  145,  162;  Spanish-American 
peace  negotiations  and,  II,  231  ff., 
234  ff.,  239  ff.,  252 

Cedarv'ille,  Reid  in,  I,  9,  11,  26;  II,  104 

Century  Association,  Reid  a  member 
of,  I,  235;  Reid's  friends  in,  I,  235 
ntury,  the,  Reid  in,  II,  163;  Spanish- 
American  War  in,  II,  225,  248 

Cerero,  General  Rafael,  Spanish  Peace 
Commissioner,  II,  227 

Chamberlain,  Joseph,  in  Parliament, 
II,404ff. 

Chamerauzun,  M.,  Tribune  correspon- 
dent, I,  168,  172 

Chancellorsville,  battle  of,  I,  93 

Chandler,  William  E.,  re  cipher  de- 
spatches, I,  407  ff.,  418  ff.;  in  Paris, 
II,  162;  Porto  Rican  tariff  and,  II, 
266:  1904  campaign  and,  II,  297 
Letters  from,  I,  400,  418,  419 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  II,  297 
Letter  to,  II,  266,  267 

Charlton,  Robert,  I,  5 

Chase,  Salmon  P.,  presidential  nomina- 
tion sought  by,  I,  51,  195  ff.;  Reid's 
opposition  to,  I,  52  ff.;  Reid's  friend- 
ship with,  I,  105  ff.,  113,  nS,  195  ff.; 


Secretary  of  Treasury,  1, 64, 105, 196, 
198;  II,  213;  as  Chief  Justice,  1, 118; 
death  of,  I,  198;  anti-slavery  move- 
ment and,  II,  140 
Quotation  from  diary  of,  I,  53 
Quotation  from  letters  from,  I,  197, 
198 
Chicago  Tribune,  I,  200  ff. 
Children's  Aid  Society,  II,  10 
Childs,  George  Washburn,  re  Tribune, 

I,  265;  1884  campaign  and,  II,  92 
China,  Boxer  uprising  in,  II,  258,  268; 

revolution  in,  II,  428 
Chinese  railways  question,  II,  398-401 
Choate,  Joseph  Hodges,  a  cabinet  pos- 
sibility, II,  51;  member  of  Union 
League,  I,  235;  ambassador  to  Eng- 
land, II,  281,  351;  Reid's  appoint- 
ment and,  II,  300;  Hague  Conference 
and,  II,  374 

Quotation  from  letter  from,  II,  300 
Churchill,  Lady  Randolph,  II,  253  ff. 
Churchill,   Winston,   rise  of,   II,   310; 
character  of,  II,  312;  in  Asquith  min- 
istry, II,  401  ff. 
Cincinnati,  I,  3,  6;  Lincoln  at,  I,  49  ff.; 
Chase's  burial  at,  I,  198;  Liberal  Re- 
publican Convention  at,  I,  207  ff., 
211,  215  ff.,  223  ff.;  1876  convention 
at,  I,  327,  341 
Cincinnati  "Commercial,"  I,  143 
Cincinnati  "Gazette,"  steam-run  press 
installed  by,  I,  32;  Reid  on,  I,  57,  62 
ff.,  68,  70-89,  91  ff.,  99,  103  ff.,  115, 
119,  125,  128  ff. 
Cincinnati  "Times,"  Reid  on,  I,  62 
Cipher  despatches,  I,  398-424 
Civil    War,    outbreak    of,    I,    64    ff.; 
Ohio's  part  in,  65  ff.,  72;  newspaper 
correspondence  in,  I,  70  ff.;   in  West 
Virginia,  I,  72-80;    in  Kentucky,  I, 
82-90;    in    Pennsylvania,    I,   91-96; 
delays  during,  I,  99  ff.;   in  Washing- 
ton, I,  100-102,  106-114;   surrender 
of  Richmond,  I,  114  ff.;   aftermath 
of,  I,  1 18-122 
Clapp,  Col.,  letter  to,  II,  116 
Clay,  Cassius  M.,  quotation  from  letter 

from,  II,  115 
Clemenceau,    M.   Georges,    Reid's  ac- 
quaintance with,   II,   73,    132,    162; 
on    French    politics,    II,    133,    135; 
cabinet  crisis  and,  II,  146,  148  ff. 
Cleveland,  Grover,  governor  of  N.  Y., 


456 


INDEX 


II,  88;  candidacy  of,  II,  95;  elec- 
tion of,  II,  97  ff.,  106  ff.;  adminis- 
tration of,  II,  no,  114,  118  ff.;  1892 
nomination  of,  II,  186;  second  ad- 
ministration of,  II,  191,  199;  Vene- 
zuela affair  and,  II,  201  ff.;  Cuban 
question  and,  II,  214 

Cleveland  Herald,  Re  id  on,  I,  62 

Colfax,  Schuyler,  vice-presidential  nom- 
ination of,  I,  128;  Tribune  editor- 
ship and,  I,  246  flf. 

Collins,  Wilkie,  in  America,  I,  236,  269 

Columbus,  Lincoln  at,  I,  49  ff.;  Reid  in, 
62  ff.;  Civil  War  and,  I,  65  ff.;  Dem- 
ocratic Convention  at,  I,  71 

Comillas,  Marquis  de,  Spanish-Ameri- 
can peace  negotiations  and,  II,  235  ff. 

Comly,  Gen.,  quotation  from  letter 
from,  I,  389 

Concordia  Parish,  La.,  Reid's  planta- 
tion in,  I,  123 

Confiscation  Act,  I,  loi  ff. 

Congdon,  Charles  T.,  on  Tribune,  I, 
156  ff.;   letter  from,  I,  156 

Conkling,  Roscoe,  Treaty  of  Washing- 
ton and,  I,  187;  Reid  opposed  by,  I, 
188,   371   ff.;     1876  campaign  and, 

I,  334  ff.;  Blaine  opposed  by,  I,  341 
ff.;  election  dispute  and,  I,  357, 
360;  Grant  supported  by,  II,  18,  20, 
24;  Garfield's  struggle  with,  II,  36  ff., 
46  ff.,  53.  55-67;  resignation  of,  II, 
65;  Arthur  and,  II,  76 

Letter  from,  I,  372 
Constans,    M.,    Reid's    acquaintance- 
ship with,  II,  145,  162;   resignation 
of,  II,  145  ff.,  148;  in  new  ministry, 

II,  148 

Cook,  Clarence,  on  Tribune,  I,  168 
Cooke,    Jay,    quotation    from    letter 

from,  I,  250 
Coolidge,  Minister,  II,  193 
Corinth,  I,  100 
Cornell,  A.  B.,  governor  of  N.  Y.,  II, 

11;     1884    campaign    and,    II,    92; 

N.  Y.  senatorship  and,  II,  100 
Cortelyou,  G.  B.,  quotation  from  letter 

from,  II,  379 
Cortissoz,    Royal,    letter    to,    I,    294; 

quotations  from  letters  to,  I,  398  ff., 

413 
Corwin,  Thomas,  I,  42,  48 
Cowles,  Admiral,  quotation  from  letter 

from,  II,  390 


Cowles,  Mrs.,  quotation  from  letter  to, 
II,  449 

Cox,  J.  D.,  I,  278 

Cox,  Sam,  I,  278 

Coyle,  John  F.,  cipher  despatches  and, 
I,  414 

Craigie,  Mrs.,  II,  381 

Crawford,  Emily,  on  Tribune,  I,  160 

Crowley,  Congressman,  senatorial  can- 
didacy of,  II,  48  ff. 

Crump's  Landing,  battle  of,  I,  84  ff.,  88 

Cuba,  unrest  in,  II,  214  ff.,  219  ff.; 
resolutions  on  independence  of,  II, 
221  ff.;  American  intervention  in,  II, 
223;  in  peace  negotiations,  II,  232, 
234  ff.;  America  in,  II,  262,  266; 
American  withdrawal  from,  II,  278 

Curtis,  Francis,  II,  285 

Curtis,  George  Ticknor,  1892  cam- 
paign and,  II,  186 

Curtis,  George  William,  "Nation" 
and,  I,  138;    Reid's  friendship  with, 

I,  166;     Evarts   nominated    by,    I, 
348  ff.;    Conkling's  relations  with, 

II,  37;  Tribune  anniversary  and,  II, 
161 

Curzon,  Lord,  letter  from,  II,  380 
Cushman,   Charlotte,   quotation   from 

letter  from,  I,  275 
Custer,  General  G.  A.,  last  campaign 

of,  I,  312;   letter  from,  I,  312 
"Cyclopedia  of  American  Biography," 

I,  153 

D.  K.  E.,  Reid  a  member  of,  I,  15 
Dana,  Charles  A.,  on  N.  Y.  Sun,  I, 
142  ff.;  Reid's  relations  with,  I, 
238  |if.;  II,  87  ff.,  161  ff.,  170  ff.; 
Turkey  and,  II,  153  ff.;  at  Tribune 
anniversary,   II,   161   ff.;    letter  to, 

II,  153,  154 

Dartmouth  College,  Reid's  address  at, 
I.  237 

d'Assailly,  Count  Octave,  II,  131 

Davis,  Bancroft,  I,  201 

Davis,  Senator  Cushman  K.,  Spanish- 
American  peace  commissioner,  II, 
226;  on  Boxer  uprising,  II,  258;  on 
Philippine  question,  II,  263  ff.; 
quotations  from  letters  from,  II, 
258,  263,  264,  265 

Davis,  Henry  Winter,  Reid's  friend- 
ship with,  I,  105;  in  House  of  Repre- 
sentatives, I,  III 


INDEX 


457 


Davis,  Jefferson,  Sherman  and  the 
escape  of,  I,  121 

Davis,  Rebecca  Harding,  I,  160 

Day,  Judge  William  R.,  Secretary  of 
State,  II,  226;  Spanish-American 
peace  commissioner,  II,  226,  230, 
252 

Defrees,  John,  editorship  of  Tribune 
and,  II,  247 

Delcasse,  Theophile,  resignation  of, 
II,  326 

Delmonico's,  in  1870,  I,  232  ff. 

Dennison,  Governor  William,  election 
of,  I,  49;  in  Civil  War,  I,  65,  72 

Depew,  Chauncey,  senatorial  candi- 
dacy of,  II,  47  ff.,  100;  in  port  col- 
lectorship  fight,  II,  60;  1884  cam- 
paign and,  II,  92  ff.;  Tribune  anni- 
versary and,  II,  161;  1892  political 
situation  and,  II,  172;  1896  cam- 
paign and,  II,  201  ff. 
Letter  from,  II,  92 
Quotation  from  letter  from,  II,  201, 
202 

Dickens,  Charles,  banquet  to,  I,  141; 
Greeley's  appreciation  of,  I,  153; 
Reid's  speech  on,  II,  445 

Dilke,  Sir  Charles,  Reid's  association 
with,  II,  74;  possible  foreign  minis- 
ter, II,  311 

Disraeli,  Benjamin,  defeat  of,  II,  73 

Dix,   Governor   John   A.,    1874   cam- 
paign and,  I,  283  ff.;    Third  Term 
issue  and,  I,  286-290;    defeat  of,  I, 
291 
Letter  to,  I,  287,  288 

Doane,  Bishop,  quotation  from  letter 
to,  II,  275,  276 

Douglas,  Stephen,  I,  44  ff.,  47  ff. 

Dreyfus  Case,  II,  238 

Dubois,  Paul,  II,  132 

Duff,  Grant,  II,  73 

Dumas,  Alexandre,  fils,  Reid's  ac- 
quaintance with,  II,  162 

Dumble,  J.  W.,  Xenia  News  founded 
by,  I.  31 

Dwight,  Margaret,  quotation  from,  I, 
4 

Edison,  Thomas,  II,  380 

Edmunds,  Senator  Geo.  Franklin,  1884 

campaign  and,  II,  91 
"Education  of  Henry  Adams,"  I,  276; 

II.  386,  388  ff.,  422 


Edward  VII,  Reid  sent  to  coronation 
of,  II,  279  ff.;  illness  of,  II,  281  ff. 
Morocco    crisis    and,    II,    330    ff. 
Reid's     relations     with,     II,     347 
death   of,    II,   488   ff.,   415;     letter 
from,  II,  394 

Elkins,  Senator  S.  B.,  1892  campaign 
and,  II,  175  ff.;  1896  campaign  and, 
II,  204;  on  Spanish  War,  II,  223; 
1904  campaign  and,  II,  295 
Quotation  from  letter  from,  II,  175, 
176 

English,  W.  H.,  vice-presidential  can- 
didacy of,  II,  31  ff. 

Etheridge,  Emerson,  plot  of,  I,  106- 
III ;    II,  130 

Evarts,  William  M.,  Reid's  description 
of,  I,  129  ff.;  1872  campaign  and, 
I,  218;  1876  campaign  and,  I,  324, 
326;  gubernatorial  candidacy  of, 
I,  347  ff.;  Morgan  supported  by,  I, 
350;  1876  election  dispute  and,  I, 
358  ff.;  Reid's  relations  with,  I,  235, 
278;  II,  162,  360,  373,  390;  1877 
political  conditions  and,  393  ff.; 
cipher  despatches  and,  I,  398  ff., 
411;  1879  army  bill  and,  II,  4;  re 
Tribune,  II,  5;  on  Hay  and  State 
Department,  II,  7  ff.;  meeting  with 
Reid  and  Lowell,  II,  74;  N.  Y.  sena- 
tor, II,  100,  102;  1892  campaign 
and,  II,  180;  death  of,  II,  273 
Letters  from,  I,  350,  359,  365,  366, 

373,  398 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  352, 

382;  II,  8,  II,  69,  180 
Letters  to,  I,  359»  366 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  I,  392, 

393;  II,  4 
Ewell,  General,  I,  92 

Fairbanks,  Charles  W.,  vice-presiden- 
tial nomination,  II,  295 

Fallieres,  President,  I,  347 

Faure,  Felix,  II,  197 

Fechter,  Ch.,  criticism  of,  I,  156 

Field,  Cyrus,  I,  35,  170 

Fifth  Avenue  in  1870,  I,  232 

Fifth  Avenue  Conference,  I,  218 

"  Fifty  Years  of  the  Republican  Party," 
Hay's,  II,  285 

Fish,  Hamilton,  Secretary  of  State,  I, 
201;  Virginius  affair  and,  I,  261  ff.; 
Civil  Service  reform  and,  I,  384  ff. 


458 


INDEX 


Letters  to,  I,  263  ff. 

Letters  from,  I,  263,  384,  385,  386 
Fiske,  Rear- Admiral,  II,  452 
Fitch,  Charles  E., [letter  to,  II,  100,  loi 
Floquet,  Charles  Thomas,  II,  162 
Florence.  " Billy;"  I,  236;  II,  73 
Florida,  1876  election  returns  from,  I, 

357.  359>  4031  cipher  despatches  and, 

I,  407,  409  ff.,  412,  414 

Flower,  Roswell  P.,  N.  Y.  Governor,  II, 
172 

Folger,  Judge  Charles  J.,  a  cabinet  pos- 
sibility, II,  52;  appointment  of,  II, 
79;  tariff  policy  of,  II,  81  ff. 

Foraker,  Senator  J.  B.,  II,  267 

Forbes,  Archibald,  I,  175 

Ford,  Sheridan,  Whistler  and,  II,  132' 

Fort  Donelson,  capture  of,  I,  84 

Fort  Henry,  capture  of,  I,  84 

Fort  Sumter,  fired  on,  I,  64  ff. 

Franco-Prussian  War,  Tribune  reports 
of,  I,  169-179 

Frederick,  Empress,  in  Paris,  II,  160  ff. 

Fredericksburg,  failure  of  attack  on,  I, 
100 

Frelinghuysen,F.T., Secretary  of  State, 

II,  78 

Fremont,  John  C,  Reid's  support  of,  I, 
23,  40;  military  emancipation  and,  I, 
102 

Fresh  Air  Fund,  I,  85 

Froude,  J.  Anthony,  I,  236;  II,  383, 384 

Gaekwar  of  Baroda,  in  America,  II, 
339  ff-I  quotation  from  letter  from, 
II,  340 
Galland,  Pierre- Victor,  II,  132 
Garfield,  James  A.,  Reid's  early  friend- 
ship with,  I,  105;  in  Congress,  I,  1 1 1 ; 
Reid  on,  I,  127;  on  "Ohio  in  the 
War,"  1, 127  ff.;  re  Tribune,  1, 144  ff.; 
re  1872  campaign,  I,  202;  1876  cam- 
paign and,  I,  344;  1876  election  dis- 
pute and,  I,  358;  senatorship  and,  I, 
388;  1877  political  situation  and,  I, 
394  ff.;  Grant  opposed  by,  II,  23; 
Sherman  supported  by,  II,  24;  1880 
candidacy  of,  II,  25  ff.,  29;  nomina- 
tion of,  II,  26;  character  of,  II,  29  ff., 
34;  Reid's  relations  with,  II,  30  ff.; 
election  of,  II,  32;  problems  of,  II, 
33  ff . ;  Conkling's  struggle  against,  1 1 , 
35  ff.;  cabinet-making  of,  II,  38  ff., 
42  ff.,  51-57;  on  Hay,  II,  41  ff.;  on 


Blaine,  II,  43  flf.;  N.  Y.  senatorship 
and,  II,  46-49;  N.  Y.  port  collector- 
ship  and,  II,  58-66;  assassination  of, 
II,  71  ff.,  76 
Letters  from,  I,  127,  128;  II,  41,  43, 

61,  62,  64,  65 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  239, 

272,  395 

Letters  to,  I,  145,  146,  202,  203,  358, 
394;  II,  35,  37,  38,  47 

Quotation  from  letter  to,  I,  344 
Garibaldi,  G.,  I,  306 
Garnett,  Gen.,  I,  75-78 
Garnica,  Jose  de,  II,  227 
Garrison,  Wendell,  I,  127 
Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  II,  140 
"Gentle    Art    of    Making    Enemies," 

Whistler's,  II,  131  ff. 
George  V,  Reid  presented  to,  II,  420; 

coronation  of,  II,  429;  Reid's  death 

and,  II,  450 
Ger6me,  Jean-Leon,  II,  132 
Gettysburg,  battle  of,  I,  92-98 
Gilbert,  John,  I,  236 
"Gilded  Age,  The,"  I,  272  ff. 
Gillett,  Representative  Frederick,  quo- 
tation from  letter  to,  II,  292,  293 
Gilman,    President    D.    C,   quotation 

from  letter  from,  I,  305 
Gladstone,  Herbert,  II,  310 
Gladstone,  William  E.,  II,  73;  on  Reid, 

11,74 
Godkin,  Edwin  L.,  I,  143  ff.;  "Times" 
attack  on,  I,  241 ;  Reid  supported  by, 
I,   241;   Reid  congratulated   by,    I, 
250,  I,  278 
Letter  from,  I,  241 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  250, 

397 

Goldsmith,  J.  C,  on  Greeley  and  Reid, 
I,  251  ff. 

Gosse,  Edmund,  Reid's  acquaintance 
with,  II,  381 

Grant,  Gen.  U.  S.,  Tennessee  cam- 
paign of,  I,  84;  battle  of  Shiloh  and, 
I,  85  ff.;  Reid  on,  I,  127;  presidential 
nomination  of,  I,  128;  inauguration 
of,  I,  147;  Reid's  opposition  to,  I, 
189;  San  Domingo  affair  and,  I,  189 
ff.;  Sumner's  opposition  to,  I,  189  ff.; 
Motley  recalled  by,  I,  192  ff.;  Gree- 
ley's opposition  to,  I,  188  ff.,  194, 
199,  202,  206;  1872  campaign  and,  I, 
202  ff.;  re-election  of,  I,  226  ff.,  254; 


INDEX 


459 


second  administration  of,  I,  258  flf., 
276  ff.,  314  ff.;  Third  Term  issue  of, 
I,  284,  286,  288  ff.,  320  ff.;  II,  12  ff.; 
1880  campaign  and,  II,  12-20,  22  ff., 
26;  defeat  of,  II,  27;  dinner  to,  II, 
27  ff.;  1884  campaign  and,  II,  92 

Gravelotte,  Tribune  account  of  battle 
of,  I,  173  ff. 

Gray,   David,  editor  Buffalo  Courier , 

I,  284 

Gray,  Senator  George,  Spanish-Ameri- 
can peace  commissioner,  II,  226,  242, 

247 

Greeley,  Horace,  Xenia  "News,"  quo- 
tations from,  I,  35;  Reid's  early 
friendship  with,  I,  106;  Blair  plot 
and,  I,  107;  Etheridge  plot  and,  I, 
108;  draft  riots  and,  I,  113;  offer  to 
Reid,  I,  139  ff.;  Tribune  under,  I, 
143  ff.;  Reid  promoted  by,  I,  148, 
150;  Reid's  association  with,  I, 
150  ff.;  Grant  opposed  by,  I,  188  ff., 
194,  199,  202,  206;  San  Domingo 
affair  and,  I,  190,  192;  presidential 
candidacy  of,  I,  199  ff.,  202,  204  ff.; 
nomination  of,  I,  209,  211;  1872  cam- 
paign of,  I,  212-220;  retirement  from 
Tribune  of,  I,  214;  Democratic  sup- 
port of,  I,  225  ff.;  defeat  of.^I,  226  ff.; 
death  of,  I,  243;  description  of,  I, 
251;  anti-slavery  movement  and,  II, 
140;  Dana's  speech  on,  II,  261; 
statue  of,  II,  164 
Letters  from,  I,  141,  142,  152,  201, 

202,  221 
Quotation  from  letters  from,  I,  153 
Letters   to,    I,    107,   154,  212,  213, 
219 

Gr6vy,  M.  F.  P.  J.,  II,  133 

Grey,  Sir  Edward,  rise  of,  II,  310;  as 
foreign  minister,  II,  311  ff.,  319,  366 
ff.;  Morocco  crisis  and,  II,  332; 
Reid's  relations  with,  II,  347;  Hague 
Conference  and,  II,  373;  Chinese 
Railways  issue  and,  II,  399;  Roose- 
velt and,  II,  416  ff.;  arbitration 
treaty  and,  II,  426  ff.;  French  en- 
tente and,  II,  434;  Reid's  death  and, 

II.  451 

Grosvcnor,  William  M.,  on  Tribune 
staff,  I,  155;  cipher  despatches  read 
by,  II,  411  ff.,  418,  422 

Guam,  in  peace  negotiations,  II,  232 

Guild,  Curtis,  I,  178 


Hague  Peace  Conference  (second),  II, 

258-260,  372,  373,  377 
Hale,  Edward  Everett,  on  Burke,  II, 

356;  quotations  from  letter,  II,  356 
Hall,  Oakey,  I,  154 
Halleck,  Gen.,  war  correspondents  and, 

I,  89-91 ;  letter  to,  I,  90 
Halstead,  Murat,  1872  campaign  and, 

I,  210,  211;  on  Tribune,  I,  246,  249; 
campaign  of  1876  and,  I,  336;  1880 
Grant  boom  and,  II,  13;  Blaine  sup- 
ported by,  II,  15, 18;  Reid  congratu- 
lated by,  II,  120;  quotations  from 
letters  from,  I,  246,  249,  321;  II,  13; 
quotations  from  letters  to,  I,  335;  II, 

10,  II 

Hamilton,  Gail,  Civil  Service  reform 
and,  I,  16,  37,  383,  384,  388,  389 

Hance,  Joseph  L.,  Tribune  correspon- 
dent at  Berlin,  I,  168;  Franco-Prus- 
sian War  reported  by,  I,  172,  174 

Hancock,  Gen.  Winfield  Scott,  Dem- 
ocratic presidential  candidacy  of,  II, 

31 
Hanna,  Mark,  "Gold  Standard"  and, 

II,  207,  208;  campaign  of  1896  and, 

11,  209;  campaign  of  1904  and,  II, 

293»295 
Harjes,  John,  farewell  dinner  in  Paris 

to  Reid,  II,  168 
Harlan,  Hon.Aaron,  1, 25;  defeat  of,  1,42 
Harper's  Ferry,  raid  at,  I,  45,  46 
Harrison,  Benjamin,  election  of,  II, 
118;  cabinet  appointments  of,  II, 
121;  Reid's  friendship  with,  II,  122, 
123;  English  ministry,  Reid,  and,  II, 
123, 124;  French  ministry,  Reid,  and, 
II,  124,  125;  American  Pork  issue 
and,  II,  150;  French  extradition 
treaty  and,  II,  152;  Blaine's  relation 
with,  II,  165;  political  conditions 
1892  and  campaign  of  1892,  II,  172, 
174-178,  181,  182,  186;  nomination 
of,  II,  178;  defeat  of,  II,  182,  188; 
campaign  of  1896  and,  II,  195,  202, 
203;  death  of,  II,  273 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  137, 

150 
Letters  to,  II,  137-139,  165,  166,  187 
Letters  from,  II,  166,  188 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  II,  203 
Harte,  Bret,  Greeley's  appreciation  of, 
I,  153;  Tribune  contributor,  I,  160; 
Reid's    friendship    with,     I,     249; 


'> 


460 


INDEX 


Charles  Reade  complimented  by,  I, 

310;  Hay  on,  II,  86 

Letters  from,  I,  249 
Hassard,  John  R.  G.,  on  Tribune,  I, 

155,  303,  306;  cipher  despatches  read 

by,  I,  411,  4W,  413,  422 

Letter  from,  I,  422 
Hastings,  Hugh,  I,  244;  letters  from,  I, 

243,  244 
Hawkins,  Anthony  Hope,  II,  355 
Hay,    John,    Reid's    early    friendship 

with,  I,  105;  early  literary  work  of, 

I,  105;  Southern  investment  of,  I, 
122,  123;  on  Tribune  stafif,  I,  161- 
164,  166,  216,  223,  267,  268,  302,  303; 
early  poems  of,  in  Tribune,  I,  163, 
164;  Reid's  friendship  with,  I,  233 r 
engagement  of,  I,  268;  "Gilded  Age  '* 
and,  I,  273,  274;  H.  James  recom- 
mended by,  I,  306,  307;  1875  cam- 
paign in  Ohio  and,  I,  321 ;  1876  cam- 
paign and,  I,  335  ff.;  Reid  advised 
by,  I,  364  fT.;  Hayes  criticised  by,  I, 
289;  Reid  congratulated  by,  I,  422; 
German  ministry  and,  II,  5,  6;  State 
Department  offer  to,  II,  7,  8,  9;  1880 
Grant  boom  and,  II,  12,  13;  Blaine 
candidacy  and,  II,  17,  18,  19;  Cam- 
eron and,  II,  21,  22;  Garfield  praised 
by,  II,  29,  34;  Conkling  and  cam- 
paign and,  II,  38,  39;  cabinet-making 
and,  II,  40,  42,  44,  47,  51;  Garfield's 
private  secretaryship  offered  to,  II, 
41,  42;  N.  Y.  port  collectorship  and, 
11,60, 61, 62;  Tribune  editorship  and, 
n,  71,  75,  76;  Garfield's  death  and, 

II,  72;  Tribune  contributions  of,  II, 
77;  tariff  and,  II,  82;  European  trip 
of,  II,  86;  "The  Breadwinners"  by, 
II,  86,  87;  Cleveland  administration 
and,  II,  III;  1888  campaign  and,  II, 
113,  114,  116,  119;  English  ministry, 
Reid  and,  II,  123,  124;  French  minis- 
try, Reid  and,  II,  124,  125;  Greeley 
statue  unveiled  by,  II,  164;  political 
conditions  reported  by,  II,  165,  168, 
169;  campaign  of  1892  and,  II,  180, 
181,  182,  185,  188;  campaign  of  1896 
and,  II,  203,  205,  209,  210;  ambas- 
sador to  England,  II,  216;  Spanish- 
American  War  and,  II,  224,  225; 
made  Secretary  of  State,  II,  226; 
Spanish  peace  negotiations  and,  II, 
246,  247;  in  Department  of  State,  II, 


256,  263;  Porto  Rican  tariff  and,  II, 

267;  Chinese  Crisis  and,  II,  268,  284; 

Hayes's  death  and,  II,  273;   Reid's 

ambassadorship  and,    II,  299,   300; 

death  of,  II,  307,  308;  letters  of,  II, 

385,  386,  421,  422;  Adams's  relations 

with,  II,  386 

Letters  to,  I,  162,  165,  274,  337;  II, 
5,  6,  19,  20,  98,  III 

Letters  from,  I,  166,  217,  306,  307, 
364,367;  II,  40,  86,  119,  168,  169, 
299,  300 

Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  267, 
288,  304,  335,  336,  337,  338,  369, 
389,  422;  II,  6,  7,  17,  18,  40,  41, 
42,  44,  58,  62,  66,  75,  76,  77,  78, 
114,  116,  123,  125,  164,  180,  181, 
185,  192,  198,  256,  263,  273,  274, 
308 

Quotations,  etc.,  I,  370;  II,  51,  60, 
87,   88,   130,   197,  2X2,  225,  226, 

233,   267,  268,   271,   2^2,   273,   281, 

282,  283 

Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  294, 
295,  296 

Hay,  Mrs.  John,  II,  385,  386,  421;  let- 
ter to,  quoted,  II,  422 

Hay-Pauncefote  Canal  Treaty,  II,  258; 
ratification  of,  II,  278 

Hayes,  R.  B.,  governorship  of  Ohio,  I, 
321;  Reid's  support  of,  I,  322;  1876 
campaign  and,  I,  336,  342;  nomina- 
tion of,  I,  342,  343;  candidacy  of,  I, 
343,  344,  345,  346,  353;  disputed  elec- 
tion of,  I,  355  ff.;  official  election  of, 

I,  360;  Reid's  advice  to,  I,  362,  363, 
364;  failure  of  administration  of,  I, 
373,  376,  385;  reconstruction  policy 
of,  I,  377,  378;  currency  policy  of,  I, 
378  ff.;  civil  service  policy  of,  I,  386, 
387,  388;  Stanley  Matthews  and,  I, 
387,  388,  389;  "Olympian  tendency" 
of,  I,  389;  English  mission  and,  I, 
390;  cipher  despatches  and,  I,  399; 
1879  army  bill  and,  II,  4,  5;  party 
discussions  under,  II,  33,  34;  1884 
campaign  and,  II,  91,  92;  death  of, 
II»  I93»  194;  Reid's  last  meeting  with, 

II,  194 

Letters  to,  I,  345,  362,  363 
Letters  from,  I,  345,  346 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  353 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  I,  353; 
II.  4,  5 


INDEX 


461 


Hendricks,  T.  A.,  campaign  of  1876 
and,  I,  336,  343,  345 

Henry,  Duke  of  Kent,  H,  359,  360 

Herron,  General  Francis  J.,  Reid's  part- 
nership with,  I,  123 

Hewitt,  Abram  S.,  Reid's  association 
with,  I,  235;  Reid's  letter  from,  I, 
270;  1876  campaign  and,  I,  345;  H, 
226 

Letters  from,  I,  269,  270 
Quotations  from  letter  to,  H,  229 

Higgins,  Governor,  election  of,  I,  297 

Higginson,  Colonel  T.  \V.,  quotation 
from  letter  from,  I,  295,  296;  letters 
to,  I,  295,  296;  reconstruction  and, 
I,  295,  296 

Hill,  D.  B.,  New  York  governor,  H, 
171,  172;  1892  campaign  and,  H,  181, 
182;  1904  campaign  and,  H,  294 

Hinton,  Colonel  P.  J.,  quotation  from 
letters  to,  I,  196,  197 

Hiscock,  Frank,  political  conditions 
1892  and,  H,  172 

"Histor>^  of  His  Own  Times,"  Bishop 
Burnet's,  H,  314 

"History  of  the  Presidency,"  Stan- 
wood's,  H,  291 

Hoar,  Senator  S.  F.,  chairman  Republi- 
can Convention  1880,  II,  23,  25 

Hoe,  Robert,  invention  of,  I,  370 

Holden,  Professor  E.  S.,  relation  to 
cipher  despatches  of,  I,  411,  413 

Hooker,  General,  I,  92;  supplanting  of, 
I,  93.  100;  Burnside  superseded  by, 
I,  100 

House  of  Lords,  II,  430,  431,  432 

Houssaye,  Ars^ne,  Tribune  staff,  I, 
160,  302,  309 

Howard,  Bronson,  Tribune  staff,  I,  160 

Howard,  General,  I,  94 

Howe,  Postmaster-General,  Arthur's 
appointment  of,  II,  80 

Howells,  William  Dean,  Reid  described 
by,  I,  63;    "Life  of  Hayes"  by,  I, 
345;    article  from  Reid  wanted  by, 
I.  350:  Hay  on,  II,  86 
Quotations  from  letter  from,  I,  350 

Hunt,  Judge,  possible  postmaster- 
general,  II,  54 

Hunter,  Mrs.  Charles,  II,  421 

Hunter,  William,  civil  service  of,  I, 
384.  385.  386 

Huntington,  CoUis  P.,  Reid's  trip 
with,  II,  II 


Huntington,  William  H.,  on  Tribune 

staff,  I,  168 
Hurlbert,  W.  H.,  I,  143;  II,  88 
Huxley,    Professor    T.    H.,    antiseptic 

surgery  and,  II,  271,  272 

Irving,    Henn,',    in    America,    I,    86; 

Reid's  acquaintance  with,   II,  73 
Island  No.  10,  victory  of,  I,  1 00 
Ismail,  Khedive,  II,  158  ff. 
Italian-Turkish  War,  II,  437  ff. 

Jackson,  Reverend  H.  P.,  on  Reid,  I, 
II 

Jackson,  Stonewall,  escape  of,  I,  100 

James,  Henr^',  on  Tribune,  I,  160,  307 
ff.;  Hay's  recommendation  of,  I,  306 
ff.;  Hay's  review  of  novel  by,  II,  77; 
as  play"v\Tight,  II,  421 
Letters  from,  I,  307,  308,  309 

James,  Thomas  L.,  Postmaster-Gener- 
al, II,  52,  55  ff.;  port  collectorship 
fight  and,  II,  61 ;  retirement  of,  II,  80 

Jay,  Augustus,  II,  127 

Jennings,  Louis,  I,  142 

Johnson,  Andrew,  Reid's  pass  signed 
by,  I,  118;  blunders  of,  I,  122; 
impeachment  of,  I,  128  ff.,  142; 
Tribune  interview  with,  I,  305 

Johnson,  Eastman,  Reid's  portrait 
painted  by,  II,  270 

Johnson,  Reverdy,  quotation  from 
letter  from,  I,  316 

Johnston,  General  A.  S.,  I,  100 

Jones,  George,  I,  104  ff. 

"Journey  to  Ohio  in  18 10,  A,"  quota- 
tion from,  Dwight's,  I,  4 

Jusserand,  Jules,  Morocco  crisis  and, 
II,  327  ff. 

"Kansas  Free  State,"  I,  16 

Keeler,  Ralph,  death  of,  I,  264 

Kendall,  George  Wilkins,  I,  69 

Keman,  Francis,  II,  46 

Khedive,  Ismail,  II,  158  ff. 

King,  Clarence,  Hay  on,  II,  86; 
Adams's  relations  with,  II,  386 

Kinglake,  Alexander,  on  newspaper 
correspondents,  I,  178;  Reid's  asso- 
ciation with,  II,  73 

Kipling,  Rudyard,  on  John  Ward,  II, 
363;  Reid's  friendship  with,  II,  381  ff. 
Quotation  from  letter  from,  II,  313 

KnoUys,  Francis,  quotation  from  let- 
ter on  Reid,  II,  217 


462 


INDEX 


Knox,     Philander     C,     Secretary    of 
State,  II,  394,  397  ff.;    Chinese  rail- 
ways issue  and,  II,  398  ff. 
Letters  to,  II,  399,  400 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  401, 
402,  403,  4(Sf,  408,  433,  435,  436 

Knox,  Thomas  W.,  Reid's  friendship 
with,  I,  236 

Kusaie,  German  desire  for,  II,  244  ff.; 
American  purchase  of,  II,  251 

Kyle,  Lieutenant  Colonel,  I,  85 

La  Farge,  John,  Adams's  relations 
with,  II,  386 

Lafayette,  Senator  Edmond  de,  Lafay- 
ette monument  and,  II,  131 

Lansdowne,  Lord,  Reid  received  by, 
II,  281,  304;  Russo-Japanese  War 
and,  II,  305  ff.;  on  Hay,  II,  309; 
Kaiser-Tweed  mouth  letters  and,  II, 

369  ff. 

Letter  from,  II,  309 

Larimer,  William,  letter  to,  I,  244,  245 

Lasteyrie,  Marquis  de,  Reid's  friend- 
ship with,  II,  131 

Lecky,  William  E.  H.,  Reid's  acquain- 
tance with,  II,  73 

Lee,  General  Robert  E.,  escape  of,  I, 
99;  surrender  of,  II,  115 

Leopold,  King,  II,  249 

Liberal  Republican  Party,  I,  205,  207- 
215,  217,  225 

Lincoln,  Abraham,  Reid's  support  of, 
I,  47  ff.,  51  ff.;  Douglas  debates 
with,  II,  48  ff.;  Ohio  canvassed  by, 
I,  49  ff.;  nomination  of,  I,  54;  and  his 
generals,  I,  99  ff.;  Emancipation 
and,  I,  102,  112  ff.;  Blair  plot  and,  I, 
107;  renomination  of,  I,  114;  re- 
election of,  I,  114;    assassination  of, 

I,  116  ff.;  Chase's  relations  with,  I, 
196;  Reid's  account  of  re-election  of, 

II,  130;   cabinet  of,  II,  213 
Lincoln,  Robert,  Secretary  of  War,  II, 

54  ff.;  Arthur's  retention  of,  II,  78; 
1884  campaign  and,  II,  91;  1896 
campaign  and,  II,  200 

Little  Miami  Railroad,  I,  3 

Lloyd,  Demarest,  II,  82 

Lloyd  George,  David,  in  Asquith  min- 
istry, II,  401  ff.;  insurance  bill  of, 
429,  440 

Lodge,  Henry  Cabot,   1888  campaign 


and,  II,  115;    1892  campaign  and, 

II,  180;   English-American  relations 

and,  II,  357 
Logan,  Senator  John  A.,  Grant  sup- 
ported by,  II,  18;    1884  campaign 

and,  II,  91 
Lome,  Dupuy  de,  II,  219 
London  Telegraphy  Kaiser's  interview 

in,  II,  348  ff. 
Longstreet,  General  James,  escape  of, 

I,  100 
Lotos  Club,  Reid  president  of,  I,  236; 

members  of,  I,  236;  guests  of,  I,  236; 

Grant    honored    by,    II,    27;     Reid 

honored  by,  II,  170,  301 
Louisiana,  1876  election  returns  from, 

I,,  357,  359,  403 

Louisville  Courier-Journal,  I,  143 

Low,  Seth,  II,  218,  293 

Lowell,  James  Russell,  I,  189;  English 
ambassadorship  of,  II,  74;  Reid's 
London  meeting  with,  II,  74 

Lytton,  Lord,  II,  162 

McClellan,  General  George  B.,  in 
command  of  Army  of  Ohio,  I,  73  ff.; 
in  command  of  Army  of  Pacific,  I, 
79;  Johnston's  escape  from,  I,  100; 
removal  of,  1, 100;  presidential  nomi- 
nation of,  I,  114;   Reid  on,  I,  127 

McClure,  Colonel  A.  K.,  I,  143;  quo- 
tation from  letter  to,  II,  358 

McCuUoch,  Hugh,  Secretary  of  Trea- 
sury, I,  118;  Tribune  correspondent, 

I,  305 

McCulloch,  John,  II,  73 

McKinley,  William,  Tribune  anni- 
versary and,  II,  161;  1892  campaign 
and,  II,  178;  candidate  for  governor, 
I,  194;  1896  campaign  and,  II,  195, 
198,  200,  203  ff.,  206  ff.;  nomination 
of,  II,  198,  208;  "gold  standard" 
and,  II,  206  ff.;  cabinet  of,  II,  212 
ff.;  Cuban  question  and,  II,  214, 
219,  220  ff.;  Spanish  War  and,  II, 
221-227;  Spanish-American  peace 
terms  and,  II,  225-227;  renomina- 
tion and  re-election  of,  II,  257,  265; 
death  of,  273 

Letters  from,  II,  204,  209 
Letters  to,   II,  213,  214,  220,  221, 

222,  223 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  206, 
211,  214,  248 


INDEX 


463 


McMillan,  Hugh,  I,  13 

McPherson,  General,  death  of,  II,  9 

McPherson,  W.  L.,  II,  285 

MacVeagh,  Wayne,  Hayes  administra- 
tion and,  I,  390  fF.;    1880  campaign 
and,  II,  21;  in  cabinet,  II,  52,  54 
Letters  from,  I,  270,  271 
Letters  to,  I,  271,  390,  391 

Mahan,  A.  T.,  II,  269  ff. 

Maine,  explosion  of,   II,  219  ff.,  241, 

251  ff. 

Manila,  in  peace  negotiations,  II,  232 

Mansfield,  E.  D.,  I,  82 

Marble,  Manton,  I,  143;  1874  cam- 
paign and,  I,  292;  resignation  from 
Times,  I,  408;  Tilden  supported  by, 
I,  408;  cipher  despatches  and,  I, 
408ff.,4i3ff.,  4i9ff.,  422 

Mario,  Madame,  I,  168 

Martens,  Professor,  II,  373  ff. 

Matthews,  Stanley,  senatorship  of,  I, 

387  ff. 

Meade,  General  George  G.,  command 
of  army  given  to,  I,  93;  at  Gettys- 
burg, I,  93  fT.,  100 

Medill,  Joseph,  I,  143,  200  ff. 

Meline,  M. II,  162 

Meredith,  William  Morris,  I,  270 

Merritt,  General  E.  A.,  I,  347  ff. 

Metropolitan  Museum  of  Art,  Reid 
trustee  of,  II,  271 

Metz,  Tribune  report  of  surrender  of, 

f.  177 

Miami  University,  location  of,  I,  12  ff.; 
Reid  student  at,  I,  14  ff.;  faculty  of, 
I,  15;    Reid's  speech  at,  I,  21,  27 

Miller,  Warner,  II,  172 

Millikin,  "Joe,"  I,  18;  Reid  described 
by,  I,  18;  northwestern  trip  of,  I,  S7 
ff. 

Quotation  from  letter  from,  I,  18 
Quotation  from  letter  to,  I,  208 

Millikin,  Minor,  I,  37 

Mills,    Darius  Ogden,    Reid's  engage- 
ment to  daughter  of,  II,  70;    death 
of,  II,  409  fT. 
Letters  to,  II,  142,  143,  144,  145,  146, 

147.  155,  156,  157 

Quotation  from  letter  to,  II,  149 
Mills,  Elisabeth,  Reid  engaged  to,  II, 

70;  Reid  married  to,  II,  70 

Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  54,  55, 
56,  57,  60;  (see  also  Mrs.  White- 
law  Reid) 


Mitchell,  John,  II,  278  ff. 

"Mont  St.  Michel  and  Chartres," 
Adams's,  II,  335,  389 

Montsaulnin,  Count,  II,  238  fT. 

Moore,  William  H.,  I,  126 

Morgan,  E.  D.,  1876  campaign  and, 
I|  336,  353  ff.;  gubernatorial  nomi- 
nation of,  I,  349  fT. 

Morgan,  Pierpont,  on  "gold  standard," 
II,  207 

Morley,  John,  I,  402;  II,  74,  310 

Morocco,  1905  crisis  in,  II,  305,  326- 
329,  330,  332        ^ 

Morphy,  Paul,  Reid's  meeting  with, 
I,  121 

Morris,  Senator,  I,  73,  74 

Morton,  Levi  P.,  cabinet  possibility,  I, 
51,  52;'  secretary  navy,  I,  54,  55; 
N.  Y.  senatorship  and,  I,  lOO;  Vice- 
President  election  of,  I,  118;  cam- 
paign of  1896  and,  I,  195,  201,  203, 
205;  Reid's  friendship  with,  I,  234; 
1876  campaign  and,  I,  336;  con- 
gressional campaign  of,  I,  351,  352 
Letter  to  quoted,  I,  35 
Letter  from  quoted,  I,  352 

Motley,  John  Lothrop,  in  Holland,  I, 
183;  recall  of  from  England,  I,  192, 
193;  Spanish  appreciation  of,  II,  253 

Moustiers-Merinville,  Count  Henry, 
11,196 

Municipal  Art  Commission,  I,  231 

Munster,    Count,    II,    143,    146,    147; 
Spanish- American  War  and,  II,  243- 
245,  250,  252;    Hague  Peace  Con- 
ference and,  II,  258,  259 
Letters  from,  II,  258,  259 

Murphy,  William  D.,  1872  campaign 
and,  I,  221;   letter  to,  I,  221 

Nation,  the,  Reid's  book  criticised  by, 
I,  127;  editorship  of  ofTered  to  Reid, 
1 1  137,  138;  Times'  attack  on  editor 
of,  I,  241 ;  Smalley's  article  in,  I,  242 

New  Orleans  Picayune,  I,  69 

New  York  in  1870,  I,  229  ff.;  sky-line 
of,  I,  230;  architecture  of,  I,  231; 
social  life  in,  I,  233-237;  Reid  a 
citizen  of,  I,  233-237 

New  York  Evening  Post,  I,  181;  cam- 
paign of  1872  and,  I,  212;  1884  cam- 
paign in,  II,  96 

New  York  Herald,  Franco- Prussian 
War  reported  by,  I,  171 


464 


INDEX 


New  York  Sun,  Russell  reporting  for, 
I,  170,  171;  Franco-Prussian  War 
and,  I,  170,  171 

New  York  Times,  Reid  as  Washing- 
ton correspondent  of,  I,  104;  cam- 
paign of  1872  and,  I,  212;  Godkin 
attacked  by,  I,  241 ;  dislike  of  Grant 
administration  for,  I,  280,  281 

New  York  Tribune,  offer  to  Reid  of,  I, 
139,  140,  141;  Reid  on,  I,  142;  char- 
acter of  under  Greeley,  I,  143,  144; 
position  of  "managing  editor"  abol- 
ished on,  I,  148;  Reid  second  in 
command  of,  I,  150;  staff  of,  I,  155- 
160;  character  of  under  Reid,  I,  160; 
Hay  on,  I,  161-166;  foreign  corre- 
spondents of,  I,  168,  169;  Franco- 
Prussian  War  in,  I,  169-179;  San 
Domingo  affair  and,  I,  190;  1872 
campaign  in,  I,  202,  211-213,  221- 
223;  I,  230;  architectural  improve- 
ment of  New  York  and,  I,  231,  232; 
effect  of  Greeley's  death  on,  I,  245- 
247;  Reid  editor  of,  I,  246-250,  252, 
253;  anti-Grantism  in,  I,  254,  257, 
258,  260,  261:  II,  14,  18;  Cuban 
insurrection  in,  I,  262-264;  finances 
of,  I,  265;  Grant  administration  and, 

I,  279-281;  political  independence 
of,  I,  281,  282,  287-289,  322,  327; 
prosperity  of,  I,  301;  new  building 
of,  I,  230,  301,  302;  notable  writers 
for,  I,  305-311;  Pacific  Mail  scandal 
and,  I,  315,  316;  1876  campaign  in, 
I»  343>  3541  candidacy  of  Evarts 
supported  by,  I,  347;  1876  election 
in,  I,  354-356;  Evarts  for  Secretary 
of  State  supported  by,  I,  360;  suc- 
cess of  in  1876,  I,  369-371;  Sherman 
supported  by,  I,  380,  381;  cipher 
despatches  exposed  by,  I,  398-410; 
Hayes  administration  supported  by, 

II,  5;  value  of  service  of,  II,  5; 
Sherman  supported  by,  II,  14; 
Blaine  supported  by  (1880),  II,  22; 
Republican  Convention  1880  in,  II, 
23,  24;  nomination  of  Garfield  in, 
II,  25;  Garfield's  biography  in,  II, 
30;  campaign  in  1880,  II,  32,  38,  39; 
Conkling-Garfield  "fight,"  II,  47; 
N.  Y.  Port  Collectorship  appoint- 
ment and,  II,  59,  60;  Hay's  tempo- 
rary editorship  ot,  II,  71,  75,  76; 
Reid's  return  to,  II,  77,  78;  Arthur's 


administration  and,  II,  78-80;  tariff 
policy  of,  II,  80,  81;  "Fresh  Air 
Fund"  in,  II,  85;  campaign  of  1882 
and,  II,  88,  89;  campaign  of  1884 
and,  II,  91,  93,  94,  99;  improvements 
of  plant  of,  II,  105;  Cleveland  Ad- 
ministration in,  II,  no;  1888  cam- 
paign and,  II,  117,  118;  English 
questions  in,  II,  124;  50th  Anniver- 
sary of,  II,  139,  161;  campaign  of 
1892  and,  II,  175,  177,  178;  Cleve- 
land's second  administration  in,  II, 
191,  192;  Reid's  editing  of  from 
Arizona,  II,  198;  campaign  of  1896 
and,  II,  200-205,  207,  209;  Spanish- 
American  War  in,  II,  224;  Reid's 
return  to,  II,  257;  Philippine  ques- 
tion in,  II,  261;  Boer  War  in,  11,269; 
Roosevelt  supported  by,  II,  276; 
Panama  Republic  and,  II,  292;  cam- 
paign of  1904  and,  II,  293,  294,  296; 
Reid's  retirement  from,  II,  300,  301; 
Ogden  Reid  on  staff  of,  II,  363,  364 

New  York  World,  campaign  1872  and, 
I,  211,  212 

Newfoundland  Fisheries  case,  II,  321 
ff.,  371  ff.,  396  ff. 

Niagara  Falls  Peace  Conference,  I,  169 

Nordhoft',  Charles,  1876  campaign  and, 
I,  341 ;  quotation  from  letter  of,  I,  340 

Northcliffe,  Lord,  letter  from,  II,  363 

O'Connor,  State  Senator,  II,  178 

Odell,  Governor,  II,  257 

"Ohio  in  the  War,"  Reid's,  publication 

of,  I,  126;  Hayes  in,  I,  345;  Garfield 

in,  II,  29  ff.,  33,  66;  Sherman  in,  II, 

130;  quoted  by  Adams,  II,  336  ff. 
Ojeda,  Emilio  de,  II,  250  ff. 
Oliphant,  Laurence,  I,  268 
Opium  Conference,  II,  377 
Oregon,  1876  election  returns  from,  I, 

357 1  3591  cipher  despatches  from,  II, 

401  ft".,  412 
"Organization     in     American     Life," 

Reid's  speech,  II,  289 
Orton,  Wm.,  I,  278 
Oxford  "Citizen,"  I,  16 
Oxford  University,  Reid  given  degree 

from,  I,  380  ff. 

Pacha,  Essad,  II,  162 
Pacific  Mail  Scandal,  I,  314 


INDEX 


465 


Panama,  Republic  of,  II,  291  ff. 

Paris  Peace  Commission,  I,  189 

Parker,  Judge  Alton  B.,  1904  campaign 
and,  II,  294  ff.;  policies  of,  II,  294 

Patrick,  J.  H.  N.,  cipher  despatches 
and,  I,  401,  421 

Peary,  Admiral  Robert  E.,  in  England, 
II,  420  ff. 

Pelton,  William  T.,  cipher  despatches 
and,  1, 402, 409,  413, 417  ff.,  418, 420; 
letters  from,  I,  322,  323 

"People's  Press  and  Impartial  Exposi- 
tor," I,  31 

Phelps,  Royal,  Reid's  friendship  wth, 

1,235 

Quotation  from  letter  to,  I,  235 

Phelps,  Walter  W.,  Reid's  friendship 
u-ith,  I,  235,  250,  313;  in  Congress,  I, 
239,  248;  Grant  opposed  by,  I,  278, 
280  ff.;  1875  situation  and,  I,  321; 
1876  campaign  and,  I,  325,  349; 
Blaine  candidac>',  1880,  and,  II,  21; 
on  Garfield,  II,  29  ff.;  on  Garfield's 
Cabinet,  II,  39;  Italian  ministry 
proposed  for,  II,  44  ff.,  68;  on  Conk- 
ling,  II,  53;  Austrian  ministry  offered 
to,  II,  68;  Garfield's  death  and,  II, 
71;  re  Tribune,  II,  75;  re  Arthur  ad- 
ministration, II,  79  ff.;  1884  cam- 
paign and,  II,  92  ff.;  1888  campaign 
and,  II,  115,  118;  on  Reid's  ambas- 
sadorship, II,  123;  on  Bismarck,  II, 
141;  Blaine's  death  and,  II,  194; 
death  of,  II,  195 

Letters  from,  I,  280,  281;  II,  69,  70 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  313, 
349;  II,  21,  29,  30,  39,  53,  75,  80, 
115, 127, 141, 194;  letters  to,  1, 281, 
282;  11,44.45 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  I,  321; 
11,44,48,91,92,  127,  140 

Philippi,  W.  Va.,  Ohio  troops  at,   I, 

73  ff.. 

Philippines,  Spanish-American  War  in, 
II,  224  ff.;  in  peace  negotiations,  II, 
232,  236,  241  ff.,  244  ff.,  251;  insur- 
rection in,  II,  260  ff.;  pacification  of, 
II,  278;  in  Democratic  platform,  II, 
294 

Phillips,  Wendell,  anti-slavery  move- 
ment and,  II,  140 

Phillips.  William,  II,  396 

Pickett,  General,  at  Gettysburg,  I,  95 


Pierce,  Franklin,  I,  23;  on  "the  ex- 
President,"  II,  17 

"Pike  County  Ballads,"  Hay's,  I,  164 

Pittsburg  Landing,  battle  of,  I,  84  ff., 
88  ff. 

Piatt,  Thomas  C,  election  of,  II,  49; 
Conkling's  relations  to,  II,  50  ff.; 
cabinet-making,  II,  56;  N.  Y.  Port 
CoUectorship  dispute  and,  II,  61  ff.; 
resignation  from  Senate,  II,  65;  po- 
litical situation  1892  and,  II,  172; 
Harrison's  relations  with,  II,  182; 
1896  campaign  and,  II,  203;  McKin- 
ley's  cabinet  and,  II,  212 

Plumb,  Preston  B.,  Xenia  "News," 
founded  by,  I,  31 

"Political  History  of  Slaver>',  A," 
Smith's,  II,  285 

Pope,  General,  war  correspondents  supn 
ported  by,  I,  90;  second  Bull  Run 
and,  I,  100 

Porter,  General  Horace,  II,  178 

Porto  Rico,  Spanish-American  War  in, 
II,  224,  226;  in  peace  negotiations, 
II,  232,  243;  America  in,  II,  262; 
tariff  in,  II,  206 

Portsmouth  Conference,  II,  305,  306, 
312 

Portugal,  revolution  in,  II,  438 

Potter,  Clarkson  X.,  Hayes's  election 
disputed  by,  I,  404  ff.,  411,  419 

Prescott,  Wm.  H.,  Spanish  apprecia- 
tion of,  II,  253 

Price,  Bonamy,  I,  269,  270 

"Problems  of  Expansion,"  Reid's,  II, 
262,  265,  424 

Pulitzer,  Joseph,  Spanish-American 
War  and,  II,  265;  School  of  Journal- 
ism and,  II,  286;  death  of,  II,  440; 
quotations  from  letters  from,  II,  263, 
294 

"Quadrilateral,"  the,  I,  209  ff.,  219, 
227,  279 

Raymond,  Henry  J.,  on  "Times,"  I, 
142 

Reade,  Charles,  letters  from,  to  Trib- 
une, I,  306,  309  ff. 

"Rebellion  Record,"  I,  96 

Redmond,  John,  II,  403,  407 

Reed,  Sam,  1,82 

Reed,  Thomas  B.,  1892  campaign  and, 
II,  176  ff.,  186;  1896  campaign  and, 
II,  195,  200,  205 


466 


INDEX 


Reid,  Caroline,  death  of,  I,  343 

Reid,  Chestina,  birth  of,  I,  10;  death 
of,  I,  343 

Reid,  Gavin  McMillan,  birth  of,  I,  10; 
characteristics' of ,  I,  22;  death  of,  I, 
103 

Letter  to,  I,  13 
Quotation  from  letter  to,  I,  74 

Reid,  James,  early  life  of,  I,  5;  in  Penn- 
sylvania and  Kentucky,  1, 6;  in  Ohio, 

I,  6ff. 

Reid,  Jean  Templeton,  birth  of,  II,  103; 
marriage  of,  II,  362;  birth  of  son  of, 

II,  408 

Reid,  Marion  Whitelaw  Ronalds,  I,  4; 
marriage  of,  I,  7;  ancestry  of,  I,  7; 
birth  of,  I,  8;  in  Xenia,  I,  8;  children 
of,  I,  10;  death  of,  II,  197 
Letters  to,  I,  124  ff. 

Reid,  Mrs.  Whitelaw  (see  also  Mills, 
Elisabeth),  quotations  from  letters 
to,  II,  134,  135,  386,  430,  431 

Reid,  Nettie,  sister-in-law  of  Whitelaw, 
I,  24;  death  of,  I,  103 

Reid,  Ogden  Mills,  birth  of,  II,  78; 
editorship  of  Tribune  assumed  by, 
Ilf  30l»  363  fif.;  marriage  of,  II,  426 

Reid,  Robert  Charlton,  I,  4;  birth  of, 
I,  7;  marriage  of,  I,  7;  homestead  of, 
I,  9;  children  of,  I,  10;  death  of,  I, 
118 

Reid,  Whitelaw,  birth  of,  I,  3;  home- 
stead of,  I,  9;  name  of,  I,  10;  first 
schooling  of,  I,  11;  early  character- 
istics of,  I,  II,  12;  college  education 
of,  I,  12  ff.;  first  writing  of,  I,  16; 
superintendent  of  schools,  I,  23  ff.; 
first  speech  of,  I,  23;  on  the  farm,  I, 
25  ff.;  reading  done  by,  I,  27;  "Di- 
ploma Deliverer,"  I,  27  ff.;  Xenia 
"News"  bought  by,  I,  30  ff.;  success 
of  "News,"  I,  31  ff.;  Republicanism 
of,  I,  38-44;  Harper's  Ferry  raid  and, 
I,  45  ff.;  Lincoln  supported  by,  I,  47 
ff.,  51  ff.;  Chase  opposed  by,  1,51  ff.; 
northwestern  trip  of,  I,  57  ff.;  i860 
campaign  and,  1, 60;  Columbus  news- 
paper correspondent,  I,  62  ff.;  Sher- 
man's election  reported  by,  I,  64; 
Civil  War  outbreak  reported  by,  I, 
65  ff.;  Cincinnati  "Gazette"  and,  I, 
68,  71;  as  war  correspondent,  I,  69ff.; 
West  Virginia  campaign  reported  by, 
I,  71-81 ;  battle  of  Carrick's  Ford  re- 


ported by,  I,  75  ff.;  Rosecrans's  aide- 
de-camp,  I,  79;  in  Kentucky  cam- 
paign, I,  82  ff.;  battle  of  Shiloh  re- 
ported by,  I,  84  ff.;  departure  from 
battle  front,  I,  91;  at  Democratic 
Convention,  I,  92;  Gettysburg  and, 
I,  92-98;  Washington  correspondent, 
I,  99  ff.;  Washington  friendships,  I, 
105;  Horace  Greeley's  early  friend- 
ship with,  I,  106;  on  Blair  plot,  I, 
107;  on  Etheridge  affair,  I,  108  ff.;  on 
N.  Y.  draft  riots,  I,  113;  Baltimore 
convention  and,  I,  114;  in  Richmond, 
I,  114;  death  of  Lincoln  and,  I,  116 
ff.;  Southern  tour  of,  I,  118  ff.; 
"After  the  War"  first  book  of,  I, 
119  ff.;  cotton-growing  experiment 
of,  1, 123  ff.;  "Ohio  in  the  War  "  by, 
I,    126  ff.;   reporter   for   Gazette,    I, 

128  ff.;  Johnson  trial  reported  by,  I, 

129  ff.;  Stevens's  death  and,  I,  130- 
135;  Nation  offer  refused  by,  I, 
137  ff.;  Greeley's  offer  to,  I,  139  ff.; 
early  days  on  Tribune,  I,  142  ff.; 
Greeley's  association  with,  I,  150  ff.; 
Tribune  staff  and,  I,  155-166; 
Twain's  friendship  with,  I,  157;  char- 
acteristics of,  I,  158;  Hay's  associa- 
tion with,  I,  162  ff.;  Franco-Prussian 
War  and,  I,  169-179;  San  Domingo 
affair  and,  I,  188-194;  Chase's  friend- 
ship with,  I,  105,  195  ff.;  Greeley  sup- 
ported by,  I,  199,  204  ff.;  Grant  op- 
posed by,  I,  188-194,  202-208;  N.  Y. 
architecture  and,  I,  231  ff.;  N.  Y. 
homes  of,  I,  233;  social  life  of,  I,  233- 
237;  journalism  lectures  of,  I,  236  ff.; 
attacks  on,  I,  237  ff.,  243;  Greeley's 
death  and,  I,  243  ff.;  editorship  of 
Tribune  and,  I,  246-250,  252  ff.;  de- 
scription of,  I,  251  ff.;  Cuban  insur- 
rection and,  I,  262  ff.;  "Gilded  Age" 
and,  I,  272  ff.;  1873  political  situa- 
tion and,  I,  276  ff.;  1874  campaign 
and,  I,  283-293;  Third  Termism  and, 
I,  285-290;  reconstruction  policies  of, 
I,  294  ff.;  Pacific  Mail  Scandal  and, 
I,  314  ff.;  libel  suits  against,  I,  316  ff.; 
1875  situation  and,  I,  319  ff.;  Hayes 
supported  by,  I,  322;  Tilden  sup- 
ported by,  I,  322  ff.;  Tilden  opposed 
by»  If  325  ff.;  Blaine's  friendship 
with,  I,  330;  1876  campaign  and,  I, 
329-350;  Evarts's  candidacy  and,  I, 


INDEX 


467 


347  flf.;  1876  election  dispute  and,  I, 
355-360;  cabinet-making  and,  I,  360, 
362  ff.;  German  ministry  offered  to, 
1, 365  ff. ;  political  power  of,  I,  369  ff. ; 
address  on  journalism  by,  I,  371;  on 
Board  of  Regents,  I,  372  ff.;  II,  271, 
286  ff.;  1879  army  bill  and,  II,  4  ff.; 
Hay's  friendship  for,  II,  8;  Children's 
Aid  Society,  II,  10;  California  trip 
of,  II,  10  ff.;  1880  Grant  boom  and, 
II,  13  ff.;  Grant's  defeat  and,  II,  27; 
at  Grant  dinner,  II,  27  ff.;  on  Gar- 
field, II,  29  ff.;  Garfield's  friendship 
with,  II,  30  ff.;  1880  campaign  and, 

I,  31.  38;  cabinet-making  and,  1881, 
39  ff.,  51  ff.;  N.  Y.  Senatorship  fight 
and,  II,  45  ff.;  N.  Y.  Port  Collector- 
ship  fight  and,  II,  60  ff.,  63  ff.;  en- 
gagement and  marriage  of,  II,  70; 
Berlin  ministry  refused  by,  II,  71; 
wedding  trip  of,  II,  71  ff.;  Garfield's 
death  and,  II,  71  ff.;  Gladstone  on, 

II,  74;  on  Arthur  administration,  II, 
75  ff-.  79;  birth  of  son  of,  II,  78; 
tariff  and,  II,  81  ff.;  Fresh  Air  Fund 
and,  II,  85;  Dana's  friendship  with, 
II,  88;  1882  campaign  and,  II,  88  ff.; 
Roosevelt's  acquaintance  with,  II, 
89  ff.;  1884  campaign  and,  II,  91  ff.; 
birth  of  daughter  of,  II,  103;  country 
home  of,  II,  104  ff.;  Tribune  plant 
developed  by,  II,  106;  W.  C.  Whit- 
ney and,  II,  no;  1888  campaign  and, 
II,  III  ff.;  French  ambassadorship 
accepted  by,  II,  119  ff.,  122,  I24ff.; 
Harrison's  friendship  with,  II,  122  ff.; 
talk  of  English  mission  for,  II,  123  ff.; 
arrival  in  France  of,  II,  125;  French 
reception  of,  II,  126;  Paris  home  of, 
II,  127;  Paris  Exposition  and,  II,  128 
ff.;  Lafayette  monument  and,  II, 
131;  Whistler's  friendship  and,  II, 
131  ff.;  on  Paris  elections,  II,  134  ff.; 
American  pork  issue  and,  II,  136, 138, 
149;  on  PVench  conditions,  II,  137  ff.; 
Riviera  trip  of,  II,  139;  on  French 
hunting,  II,  142  ff.;  on  French 
political  situation,  II,  145  ff.;  French 
tariff  treaty  obtained  by,  II,  151; 
extradition  treaty  and,  II,  151  ff.; 
in  Turkey,  II,  153  ff.;  on  Talleyrand, 
II,  163  ff.;  resignation  of,  II,  165  ff.; 
farewell  dinner  to,  II,  167  ff.;  Ameri- 
can reception  of,  II,  170;  1892  politi- 


cal situation  and,  II,  171  ff.;  vice- 
presidential  nomination  of,  II,  178  ff.; 
1892  campaign  of,  II,  179-187;  defeat 
of,  II,  188  ff.;  on  Cleveland's  second 
administration,  II,  191  ff.;  death  of 
mother  of,  II,  197;  Arizona  trip  of, 
II,  197  ff.;  1896  campaign  and,  II, 
198-21 1 ;  on  "gold  standard,"  II, 
206  ff.;  McKinley's  cabinet  and,  II, 
212  ff.;  Cuban  question  and,  II,  214, 
219  ff.;  ambassador  to  Queen  Vic- 
toria's jubilee,  II,  215  ff.;  Spanish 
War  and,  II,  223  ff.;  Spanish-Ameri- 
can peace  Commissioner,  II,  226-256; 
on  Peace  Treaty,  II,  260  ff.;  Porto 
Rican  tariff  and,  II,  266;  Chinese 
Boxer  uprising  and,  II,  268,  283  ff.; 
on  Transvaal  War,  II,  269;  portrait 
of,  II,  270;  Yale  addresses  by,  II, 
270;  McKinley's  death  and,  II,  273; 
on  Roosevelt,  II,  275  ff.;  sent  to  Ed- 
ward VII's  coronation,  II,  280  ff.; 
1904  campaign  and,  II,  293-297; 
sent  as  ambassador  to  England,  II, 
300  ff.;  English  house  of,  II,  302  ff.; 
at  entertainments  for  Alfonso  XIII, 
II,  304;  Russo-Japanese  peace  nego- 
tiations and,  II,  305  ff.;  Hay's  death 
and,  II,  307  ff.;  on  English  political 
crisis,  II,  310  ff.;  English  country 
home  of,  II,  313,  359  ff.;  English  life 
of,  II,  314  ff.,  338  ff.;  Newfoundland 
Fisheries  dispute  and,  II,  321  ff., 
371  ff.,  396  ff.;  opium  traffic  and,  II, 
341 1  377  J  second  Hague  Conference 
and,  II,  342,  372  ff.,  377;  Edward 
VII's  relations  with,  346;  colleagues 
of,  II,  350;  embassy  personnel,  II, 
352;  embassy  duties  of,  II,  353  ff., 
377  ff.;  marriage  of  daughter  of,  II, 
362;  Jamaica  earthquake  affair  and, 
II,  365  ff.;  on  English  political  situa- 
tion, II,  367  ff.;  Kaiser  and,  II,  375 
ff.;  Taft's  election  and,  II,  393  ff.; 
Chinese  railways  issue  and,  II,  398 
ff.,  428;  Edward  VII's  death  and,  II, 
409  ff.;  Roosevelt's  European  trip 
and,  II,  414;  Byron  speech  of,  II, 
422  ff.;  Lincoln  speech  of,  II,  423  ff.; 
wedding  of  son  of,  II,  426;  arbitra- 
tion treaty  with  England  and,  II, 
426  ff.;  Arthur  of  Connaught  guest 
of,  II,  439;  characteristics  of  as  am- 
bassador, II,  442;  Dickens  speech  of, 


468 


INDEX 


II,  445;  Jefiferson,  speech  of,  II,  448; 

death  of,  II,  449  ff. 

Letters  from,  I,  13,  90,  96,  97,  107, 
124,  125,  145,  146,  154,  162,  165, 
171,  172^191,  192,  202,  203,  204, 
208,  212,  213,  218,  222,  223,  224, 
225,  238,  244,  245,  263,  264,  274, 
281,  284,  286,  294,  296,  297,  299, 
333,  334,  335,  337,  344,  345,  348, 
358,  359,  360,  362,  363,  378,  380, 

390,  391,  394,  395;  n,  5,  6,  7,  19, 
20,  35,  37,  38,  44,  47,  50,  63,  64,  76, 
90,  98,  100,  loi,  109,  III,  116,  137, 
138,  139,  142,  143,  144,  145,  146, 
147,  153,  155,  156,  157,  165,  166, 
187,  213,  214,  220,  221,  222,  253, 
247,  248,  266,  267,  323,  324,  325, 
331,  332,  399,  400 

Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  61, 
62,  74,  196,  197,  207,  227,  240,  242, 
247,  252,  301,  305,  321,  324,  328, 
335,  343,  344,  348,  351,  353,  354, 
361,  370,  389,  390,  392,  398,  419; 
II,  4,  5,  10,  II,  44,  48,  51,  54,  55, 
56,  57,  60,  82,  87,  88,  91,  92,  93, 
94,  99,  115,  121,  122,  123,  126,  127, 
130,  134,  135,  137,  149,  150,  152, 
197,  200,  202,  205,  206,  214,  217, 
218,  225,  226,  229,  232,  233,  235, 
236,  239,  240,  241,  242,  248,  267, 
268,  271,  272,  273,  276,  278,  279, 
281,  282,  283,  292,  293,  294,  295, 
297,  300,  301,  309,  312,  313,  315, 
316,  317,  318,  319,  336,  338,  344, 
345,  349,  355,  356,  357,  358,  359, 
360,  361,  366,  367,  368,  369,  371, 
372,  373,  374,  375,  376,  377,  379, 
381,  382,  383,  384,  385,  386,  390, 

391,  392,  394,  395,  401,  402,  403, 
404,  405,  406,  407,  408,  411,  412, 
413,  415,  417,  418,  419,  420,  422, 
429,  430,  431,  432,  433,  435,  436, 

449 
Newspaper  articles  of  quoted,  I,  36, 

37,  38,  45,  51,  52,  54,  55,  66,  67, 
76,  11,  83,  87,  94,  95,  108,  109,  no, 
112,  113,  114,  115,  116,  117,  129, 
130,  131,  132,  133,  134,  135,  255, 
315,  325,  375,  376,  383,  420,  471; 
II,  177,  178,  207,  208,  254,  255, 
279,  285,  286,  291,  292,  349 
Speeches  of  quoted,  I,  48,  60,  61,  256, 
257;  II,  125,  126,  173,  174,  183, 
184,  185,  190,  287,  289,  290,  445, 
446,  448 


Books  of  quoted,  I,  65,  66,  120,  121, 
122;  II,  33,  356 

Renan,  Ernest,  II,  162 

Ribot,  M.,  foreign  minister,  II,  149;  ex- 
tradition treaty  and,  II,  152;  at  din- 
ner to  Reid,  II,  167  ff.;  tribute  to 
Reid,  II,  192  fT.;  quotation  from  let- 
ter to,  II,  429 

Rich  Mountain,  battle  at,  I,  75 

Richardson,  William  A.,  Secretary  of 
Treasury,  I,  259,  270 

Richmond,  fall  of,  I,  114  ff. 

Rios,  Montero,  Spanish-American  peace 
commissioner,  II,  231-240,  250  fif., 

255 

Robertson,  Judge  W.  H.,  Conkling's 
relations  with,  II,  46,  50;  cabinet- 
making  and,  1 88 1,  52  ff,;  appointed 
Collector  of  Port  of  N.  Y.,  II,  58- 
65;  letter  from,  II,  52;  quotation 
from  letter  from,  II,  63 

Rochambeau,  Marquis  de,  Lafayette 
monument  and,   II,    131 

Roche,  Jules,  American-French  Tariff 
treaty  and,  II,  151 

Rochefort, II,  133 

Rochester  "Democrat  and  Chronicle," 
II,  100 

Rogers,  Helen,  Ogden  Reid's  marriage 
to,  II,  426 

Ronalds,  George  Slater,  I,  7  ff. 

Ronalds,  Robert,  I,  7 

Roosevelt,  Mrs.  Theodore,  quotations 
from  letters  to,  II,  315,  316,  317, 
318,   319,   339,   372,   377,   381,   383, 

384,  419 
Roosevelt,    Theodore,    popularity    of, 
II,  12;  Reid's  early  friendship  with, 

I,  89  ff.;  campaign  of  1888  and,  II, 
115,  118;  1892  campaign  and,  II, 
180;  Governor  of  N.  Y.,  II,  257; 
President,  II,  274  ff.;  Reid's  rela- 
tions with,  II,  275  ff.,  346;  adminis- 
tration of,  II,  278;    coal  strike  and, 

II,  278  ff.;  1904  campaign  and,  II, 
290,  293;  Panama  and,  II,  291  ff.; 
renomination  of,  II,  295  ft*.;  re- 
election of,  II,  297;  re  Reid's  house, 
II,  302  ff.;  Russo-Japanese  peace 
negotiations  furthered  by,  II,  305- 
307,  313;  Morocco  crisis  and,  II,  326 
ff.;  second  Hague  Conference  and, 
II,  342  ff.,  373  ft".;  English  regard  for, 
II,  346  ff.;  trip  of,  II,  350  ff.,  413  ff.; 
1908  campaign  and,  II,  390  ff.;  Eu- 


INDEX 


469 


ropean  trip  of,  II,  414;  Edward  VII's 
death  and,  II,  415  ff.;  Sir  Edward 
Grey  and,  II,  416  ff.;  in  England, 
II,  415  ff.;  on  Reid's  Lincoln  address, 
II,  424;  at  Reid's  funeral,  II,  452 
Letters  to,  II,  90,  323,  324,  325,  330 

ff. 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  292, 

295,  297,  300,  301,  312,  313,  348, 
349.  355,  361,  367,  368,  369,  373, 
382,  392,  394,  395,  415 

Letters  from,  II,  280,  329,  330,  343, 

391,  422 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  II,  277, 

296,  315,  325,  332,  372,  410,  4I5» 
416 

Root,  Elihu,  secretary  of  war,  II,  279; 
1904  campaign  and,  II,  295  ff.; 
secretary  of  state,  II,  310;  Morocco 
crisis  and,  II,  329;  second  Hague 
Conference  and,  II,  342;  New- 
foundland question  and,  II,  372,  396 
ff.;  1908  campaign  and,  II,  390; 
in  Senate,  II,  392;  Reid's  relations 
with,  II,  392  ff.;  at  Hague,  II,  396 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  278, 

279,  357,  358 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  II,  367, 

393,  396 
Rosebery,    Lord,    in   America,    I,    86; 

Reid's  friendship  with,   II,  74,  359 

fif.;    fall  of,  II,   197;    Liberal  party 

and,  II,  310,  311;    Reid  on,  II,  405 

ff. 

Quotation  from  letter  to,  II,  359  ff. 
Rosecrans,  General,  I,  75,  79  ff.;   Reid 

on,  I,  127 
Rouvier,  Maurice,  Morocco  crisis  and, 

II,326ff. 
Rum,   Romanism,  and   Rebellion,   II, 

97  ff. 
Russell,  "Bull  Run,"  on  N.  Y.  "Sun," 

I,  170  ff. 
Russo-Japanese     War,     II,     304     ff.; 

peace  negotiations,  II,  305  ff.;  peace 

signed,  II,  313 

Saint-Gaudens,  Augustus,  II,  379 

St.  Louis  "Democrat,"  offer  to  Reid 

of,  1,  104 
Sala,  George  Augustus,  II,  73 
San  Domingo,  I,  188,  189;  scheme  for 

annexation  of,  I,  189,  190,  191 
San  Francisco,  Reid's  story  of,  I,  85 


Sargent,  John  S.,  II,  162 

"Scholar  in  Politics,"  Reid's  address, 
1,256 

Schurz,   Carl,   I,   278;    Liberal  move- 
ment started  by,  I,  205;    campaign 
of  1872  and,  I,  210,  216-220;    1873 
conditions    and,     I,    278;     Sumner 
speech  of,   I,  279;    1875  conditions 
and,    I,   319,    321;     1876   campaign 
and,  I,  330,  336,  344;    Reid's  criti- 
cism of,  I,  389,  390;    1879  army  bill 
and,  II,  4;   Garfield  and,  II,  36,  43; 
at  dinner  to  Reid,  II,  171;  Spanish- 
American  War  and,  II,  225 
Letter  from,  I,  217 
Letter  from  quoted,  I,  319 
Letter  to,  I,  344 

Scrihner's  Monthly,  Reid's  lectures  in, 

1,237 
Seaver,  W^m.  A.,  I,  233;  letter  from,  I, 

234 
Sedan,  battle  of,  reported  in  Tribune, 

I,  175,  176 

Senate  Currency  Bill,  I,  319 

Seward,  Wm.  H.,  secretary  of  state,  I, 
114;  Tribune  criticism  of,  I,  151; 
anti-slavery  movement  and,  II,  140; 
Lincoln's  cabinet,  II,  213 

Shaw,  H.  W.,  "Gabble"  despatch 
translated  by,  I,  401 

Shepherd,  "Boss,"  Reid  sued  for  libel 
by,  I,  316,  317 

Sheridan,  General  Philip  H.,  I,  100; 
Reid's  meeting  with,  I,  121;  in 
Reid's  book,  I,  127 

Sherman,  General,  I,  85,  86,  88,  100; 
Lincoln's  policy  and,  I,  120,  121; 
in  Reid's  book  "Ohio  in  the  War," 
I,  127;  Tribune  on,  II,  9,  10;  Stan- 
ton's relations  with,  II,  130;  Reid's 
description  of,  II,  337;  Adams's  de- 
scription of,  II,  337;  Saint-Gaudens's 
statue  of,  II,  379 

Sherman,  Isaac,  I,  228 

Sherman,  John,  election  to  Senate  of, 
I,  64;  currency  speech  of,  I,  259, 
260;  resumption  policy  of,  I,  326, 
380-382;  Hayes  administration  and, 

I,  380,  381,  382;  in  cabinet,  I,  380, 
388;  1880  candidacy  of,  II,  13-17, 
19  ff.;  Conkling  and,  II,  45;  accom- 
plishment of  as  secretary  of  trea- 
sury,  II,   53;     1884   campaign  and, 

II,  91,  95".    1888  campaign  and,  II, 


470 


INDEX 


112;  McKinley  Tariff  Bill  and,  II, 
149;  1892  campaign  and,  II,  177; 
Reid  and,  II,  194;  secretary  of  state, 
II,  223;  retirement  of,  II,  226;  death 
of,  II,  273  - 
Letter  to,  I,  380 
Letter  from,  II,  14 

Shiloh,  battle  of,  I,  84-89,  98,  100; 
Reid's  description  of,  II,  336,  337 

Sickles,  General,  at  Gettysburg,  I,  94 

Simmons,  Franklin,  Lafayette  monu- 
ment and,  II,  131 

Simon,  Jules,  II,  162 

Smalley,  E.  V.,  I,  136,  137;  letters 
from,  I,  387,  388 

Smalley,  George  W.,  at  Antietam,  I', 
70;  in  London,  I,  168  ff.;  London 
correspondent,  I,  168-170,  309; 
Franco-Prussian   War  reported   by, 

I,  172-177;  Blaine  interviewed  by, 

II,  114;    "Anglo-American    Mem- 
ories," I,  169;  II,  247 

Letters  from,  I,  148,  149,  169,  173, 
174,  176,  177 

Letters  from  quoted,  II,  439 

Letters  to,  I,  170,  171;  II,  247,  248 

Letters  to  quoted,  I,  242,  301 
Smith,  Charles  Stewart,  II,  128,  171 
Smith,   Wm.   Henry,    1872   campaign 

and,  I,  214,  215;   Illinois  senatorship 

and,  I,  361;    Hayes  criticised  by,  I, 

388;  II,  285 

Letter  from,  I,  215 

Letter  to  quoted,  I,  361 
"Some  Consequences  of  the  Treaty  of 

Paris,"  Reid's,  II,  254,  255 
Sotomayor,  Due  de,  II,  219 
South  Africa.     (See  Transvaal) 
South  Carolina,  Grantism  in,  I,  318; 

1876  election  in,  I,  357,  359;  cipher 

despatches,  I,  412,  416 
South  Charleston,  Ohio,  Reid  teaches 

at,  I,  23,  24,  29;   II,  104 
Spain,  Cuban  insurrection  and,  I,  261; 

Virginius    affair    and,    I,    261     ff.; 

American    war    with,    II,    219-225; 

peace  terms  with,  II,  225,  226;  peace 

negotiations  with,  II,  226  ff. 
Spanish-American  Peace  Commission, 

II,  215;  peDBonnel  of,  II,  226,  227, 

230;  work  of,  II,  228-253 
Spuller,  M.,  Reid  received  by,  II,  125, 

I30»     131;     question    of    American 

pork    and,     II,     136-138;     cabinet 


crisis  and,  II,  144,  147,  148;  retire- 
ment of,  II,  148,  149;  at  farewell 
dinner  to  Reid,  II,  167,  168;  Reid's 
acquaintance  with,  II,  162 

Stanley,  Lyulph,  II,  74 

Stanton,  Edwin,  secretary  of  war,  I, 
70,  90,  114;   on  Sherman,  II,  130 

Stanwood,  II,  291 

Stearns,  George  L.,  the  Nation  and, 
I,  137 

Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence,  ballad  of, 
I,  40;  Gettysburg  poem  of,  I,  96; 
Reid's  early  friendship  with,  I,  105; 
in  Washington,  I,  105;  at  Tribune 
anniversary,  I,  161 
Letters  to,  I,  96,  97 
Letters  to  quoted,  II,  385 

Sternburg,  Speck  von,  Morocco  crisis 
and,  II,  327,  328,  330 

Stevens,  Alfred,  II,  378 

Stevens,  Thaddeus,  Reid's  friendship 
with,  I,  105;  death  of,  I,  130,  131; 
Reid's  tribute  to,  I,  131-135 

Stevenson,  E.  A.,  Democratic  nomina- 
tion of  (1892),  II,  181 

Stillman,  W.  J.,  Tribune  correspondent 
from  Greece,  I,  168 

Stoddard,  Mrs.  R.  H.,  I,  272 

Stoddard,  Richard  Henry,  on  Tribune, 
I,  157;  letter  from,  I,  157 

"Student's  Manual,  The,"  I,  17 

Sumner,  Charles,  tribute  to  37th  Con- 
gress of,  I,  loi ;  confiscation  act  and, 
I,  loi;  Reid's  friendship  with,  I, 
105  ff.;  Tribune  supported  by,  I, 
188;  Grant's  quarrel  with,  I,  189; 
San  Domingo  affair  and,  I,  189-192; 
Motley's  appointment  and,  I,  193; 
campaign  of  1892  and,  I,  204-206; 
letters  from,  I,  191,  193,  194,  206; 
letter  to,  I,  191,  192 

Swettenham,  Governor,  of  Jamaica,  II, 
365,  366 

Swinburne,  Algernon  Charles,  Greeley's 
appreciation  of,  I,  153 

Swing,  David,  at  Miami,  I,  15,  16 

Taft,  Mrs.  Wm.  H.,  quotations  from 
letters  to,  II,  402,  403,  404,  405,  406, 
407,  408,  411,  412,  420,  431,  432,  441 

Taft,  Wm.  H.,  II,  325;  nomination  of, 
n,  390.  391;  election  of,  II,  39i; 
Reid  retained  by,  II,  394;  Chinese 
railways  and,   II,  400;    arbitration 


INDEX 


471 


treaty   and,    II,    426,    427;     Reid's 
death  and,  II,  450 
laine,  M.,  Lafayette  monument  and, 

II,  131 

Tammany  Hall,  exposures  regarding, 
I,  151,  152,  154,  187,  188 

Tariff  Commission,  in  Arthur's  admin- 
istration, II,  81,  82,  83 

Taylor,  Bayard,  on  Tribune,  I,  156, 
306;  editorship  of  Tribune  and,  I, 
247;  minister  to  Germany,  I,  365; 
death  of,  I,  365;    Reid's  dinner  for, 

1,397 

Quotation  from  letter  to,  I,  247 

Thirty-seventh  Congress,  Sumner's 
tribute  to,  I,  loi;  Reid  as  clerk  to, 
I,  104;  plotting  in,  I,  106,  107,  108- 
III ;  great  bills  of,  I,  112 

Tilden,  Samuel  J.,  Reid's  friendship 
with,  I,  166,  235;  campaign  of  1872 
and,  I,  227;  campaign  of  1874  and, 
I,  283,  287,  289,  290;  gubernatorial 
nomination  of,  I,  285;  gubernatorial 
election  of,  I,  291,  292;  Tammany 
overthrown  by,  I,  154,  287;  recon- 
struction policies  of,  I,  294,  296,  297, 
298;  Reid's  support  of,  I,  322,  323, 
324;  Presidential  nomination  of,  I, 
324,  325;  1876  campaign  and,  I,  338, 
343  ff..  352,  354;  election  disputed 
by,  I,  355.  396  ff.;  Reid's  inter- 
course with,  I,  397  ff.;  cipher  de- 
spatches and,  I,  399  ff.,  410,  413,  415, 
419  ff.;    withdrawal  of  in  1880,  II, 

31 

Letters  from,  I,  290,  297  ff. 

Letter  to,  I,  296  ff. 

Quotation  from  letter  to,  I,  320 

Telegram  to,  I,  401 
Tirard,  Pierre  Emmanuel,  question  of 

American   pork   and,    II,    136,    137; 

cabinet  crisis  and,  II,  144  ff.;  retire- 
ment of,  II,  148;  Reid's  acquaintance 

with,  II,  162 
Toole,  J.  H.,  II,  73 
Townsend,    George    Alfred,    Sherman 

article  by,  II,  9 
Transvaal,  English  in,  II,  257;  war  in, 

11,269 
Treaty  of  Washington,  I,  187 
Trevelyan,  Sir  George  Otto,   II,  335 

ff.,  385.  422 

Quotations  from  letters  to,  II,  336, 
359 


Twain,  Mark,  Reid's  friendship  with, 

I,  157,  248;  "Gilded  Age"  and,  I, 
272  ff.;  Oxford  degree  given  to,  II, 
380  ff. 

Quotations  from  letters,  I,  157,  248, 
380  ff. 

Letters  from,  I,  274  ff. 
Tweed,  Tribune  on,  I,  151  ff.,  154,  187, 

188 
Tweeddale,  Lady,  II,  314 
"Twenty  Years  in  Congress,"  Blaine, 

II.  91 

Union  League  Club,  Reid  member  of, 

I,  235 
Union  Square  in  1870,  I,  231 
University     of     Birmingham,     Reid's 

speech  at,  I,  47  ff. 
University  of  City  of  New  York,  Reid's 

lectures  at,  I,  236  ff. 
Upham,  A.  H.,  I,  15 

Vallandigham,  Clement  L.,  nomination 
of,  I,  92,  113;  in  Congress,  I,  iii; 
beating  given  to,  I,  11 1 ;  defeat  of,  I, 

113 

Van  Duser,  A.  T.,  II,  354 

Vicksburg,  Grant's  success  at,  I,  100 

Victoria,  Queen,  Sixtieth  Anniversary 
Jubilee,  II,  215  ff.;  death  of,  II,  279 

Vignaud,  Henry,  II,  127 

Villa-Urittia,  Don  Wenceslao  R.  de, 
Spanish-American  Peace  Commis- 
sioner, II,  227;  in  England,  II,  350 

Vtrginius,  I,  261  ff. 

Von  Stumm,  II,  349 

Wade,  Benjamin  P.,  I,  105 

Wallace,  General  Lew,  "Memoirs'*  of, 

I,  85;  at  battle  of  Shiloh,  I,  85,  88; 

publication  of  first  work  of,  I,  272; 

in  Turkey,  II,  158 
Walsh,  .Arthur,  II,  362 
Ward,  J.  Q.  A.,  Reid's  friendship  with, 

I,  272;    statue  of  Greeley  by,   II, 

139,  141 
Ward,  John,  marriage  of  Jean  Reid  to, 

II,  362;  career  of,  II,  363 
Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  1872  cam- 
paign and,  I,  214,  221;  re  Tribune 
editorship,  I,  247;  "Gilded  Age" 
and,  I,  272  ff.;  Hay  on,  II,  86;  on 
Spanish-American  War,  II,  264 
Letters  from,  I,  247,  273;  II,  264 


472 


INDEX 


Warner,  Wlllard,  on  Sherman,  II,  9 
Washburne,  Elihu  B.,  1876  candidacy 

of.  I.  336 
Washington  Square  in  1870,  I,  231 
Watterson,  Henry,  I,  143,  146;  1872 
campaign  and,  I,  208,  210  ff.,  219 
ff.,  222,  225,  227,  243;  re  Tribune, 
I,  240;  1873  political  situation  and, 
I,  276;  Third  Term  issue  and,  I, 
284,  299;  on  1876  election  dispute, 
I,  355i  357;    Reid's  friendship  with, 

I,  372;  II,  78;  1884  election  and,  II, 
99;  on  diplomatic  service,  II,  343  ff. 
Letters  from,  I,  219,  220,  240,  268, 

269,  299 
Quotations  from  letters  from,  I,  284, 

372 
Letters  to,  I,  222,  299 
Quotations  from  letters  to,  I,  240, 

309,  344 

Weed,  Smith  M.,  cipher  despatches 
and,  I,  416  ff.,  421 

Weed,  Thurlow,  I,  235;  Third  Term 
issue  and,  I,  286;  1875  political 
situation  and,  I,  320;  1876  campaign 
and,    I,   336;    cabinet-making  and, 

II,  51  ff.;  letter  to,  I,  286 

Wells,  David  A.,  1872  campaign  and,  I, 
215  ff.,  221;  Tribune  and,  1,267;  1873 
political  situation  and,  I,  277  ff.;  quo- 
tation from  letter  from,  I,  267 

Wemyss,  Earl  of,  II,  314 

Wheeler,  Wm.  A.,  vice-presidential 
nomination  of,  I,  342;  campaign  and, 

1,354 

Whistler,  James  McNeill,  "Gentle  Art 
of  Making  Enemies,"  published  by, 
II,  131  ff.;  II,  379 

White,  Andrew  D.,  German  ministry 
given  to,  I,  367;  on  Garfield,  II,  29 

White,  Holt,  Franco-Prussian  War  re- 
ported by,  I,  173,  176;  Treaty  of 
Washington  reported  by,  I,  187;  im- 
prisonment of,  I,  187  ff. 

White,  Horace,  I,  143;  1872  campaign 
and,  I,  209  ff.,  213  ff.,  218,  227;  Reid 
and,  I,  248;  letter  from,  I,  213;  quo- 
tation from  letter  from,  I,  226 

White,  Stanford,  II,  379 

Whitelaw,  General  James,  I,  7,  8,  10 

Whitman,  Walt,  in  Washington,  1, 106; 
letter  from,  I,  312 

Whitney,  Mrs.  Payne,  II,  308 


Whitney,  W.  C,  1876  election  and,  I, 
356;  N.  Y.  Senatorship  and,  II,  100; 
cabinet  appointment  of,  II,  108  ff.; 
letters  from,  I,  356;  II,  100,  109;  quo- 
tations from  letters  from,  I,  267;  II, 
108;  letter  to,  II,  109 

Wilhelm  II,  Emperor,  II,  258;  Morocco 
crisis  and,  II,  326  ff.;  London  "Tele- 
graph," interview  with,  II,  348  ff.; 
Tweedmouth,  letter  of,  II,  369;  sec- 
ond Hague  Conference  and,  II,  375, 
377;  character  of,  II,  375  ff. 

Wilkinson,  S.,  quotations  from  letters 
to,  I,  207,  227 

Williams,  General  Seth,  I,  93 

Wilson,  Woodrow,  II,  226 

Windom,  William,  secretary  of  the 
treasury,  II,  54;  removal  of,  II,  79; 
Harrison's  appointment  of,  II,  121 

Winter,  William,  Fechter's  acting  criti- 
cised by,  I,  156  ff. 

Witherspoon,  John,  I,  8 

Wolf,  Drummond,  II,  73 

Woolley,  C.  W.,  cipher  despatches  and, 
I,  414,  421 

Woolsey,  President,  quotation  from 
letter  from,  II,  288;  quotation  from 
letter  to,  II,  301,  302 

Wrest  Park,  Reids  at,  II,  313;  anec- 
dotes of  life  at,  II,  359  ff. 

Xenia  'News,  Reid's  purchase  of,  I,  29 
ff.;  character  of,  I,  32;  Reid's  work 
on,  32  ff.;  Republicanism  of,  I,  38- 
44;  on  John  Brown,  I,  45  ff.;  Lin- 
coln supported  by,  I,  47  ff.,  51  ff.;  on 
Lincoln's  nomination,  1, 54  ff.;  Reid's 
surrender  of,  I,  56 

Xenia,  Ohio,  Reid  born  at,  I,  3;  railroad 
built  through,  I,  3;  early  conditions 
in,  I,  7  ff.;  Reid  farm  in,  I,  8  ff.,  12; 
second  generation  in,  I,  21;  Gavin 
Reid  in,  I,  22;  Reid's  speech  in,  I,  23; 
the  press  in,  1,31;  negro  question  in, 

I,  40  ff.;  Lincoln  in,  I,  50;  Republi- 
canism in,  I,  50;  announcement  of 
Lincoln's  nomination  in,  I,  55 

Yale  University,  Reid's  addresses  at, 

II,  270 

Young,  John  Russell,  I,  140  ff.;  charac- 
ter of,  I,  146  ff.;  resignation  of,  I, 
148;  Dana's  hatred  of,  I,  240;  I,  258 


8542 


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