For a number of years, instead of taking my usual vacation in travel or at some resort, I spent a few weeks in the fall in the political canvass as a speaker. In the canvass of 1868 1 was associated with Senator Roscoe Conkling, who desired an assistant, as the mass meetings usually wanted at least two and probably three hours of speaking, and he limited himself to an hour.
General Grant was at the height of his popularity and the audiences were enormous. As we had to speak every day and sometimes several times a day, Mr. Conkling notified the committees that he would not speak out of doors, and that they must in all cases provide a hall.
When we arrived at Lockport, N. Y., the chairman of the committee, Burt Van Horn, who was the congressman from the district, told the senator that at least twenty thousand people from the town, and others coming from the country on excursion trains, had filled the Fair Grounds. Conkling became very angry and told the congressman that he knew perfectly well the conditions under which he came to Lockport, and that he would not speak at the Fair Grounds. A compromise was finally effected by which the senator was to appear upon the platform, the audience be informed that he would speak in the Opera House, and I was to be left to take care of the crowd. The departure of the senator from the grounds was very dramatic. He was enthusiastically applauded and a band preceded his carriage.
For some reason I never had such a success as in addressing that audience. Commencing with a story, which was new and effective, I continued for two hours without apparently losing an auditor.
Upon my return to the hotel I found the senator very indignant.
He said that he had gone to the Opera House with the committee;that, of course, no meeting had been advertised there, but a band had been placed on the balcony to play, as if it were a dime museum attraction inside; that a few farmers' wives had straggled in to have an opportunity to partake from their baskets their luncheons, and that he had left the Opera House and returned to the hotel. The committee coming in and narrating what had occurred at the Fair Grounds, did not help his imperious temper.
The committee begged for a large meeting, which was to be held in the evening, but Conkling refused and ordered me to do the same, and we left on the first train. The cordial relations which had existed up to that time were somehow severed and he became very hostile.
General Grant, as president, of course, never had had experience or opportunity to know anything of practical politics. It was said that prior to his election he had never voted but once, and that was before the war, when he voted the Democratic ticket for James Buchanan.
All the senators, representatives, and public men who began to press around him, seeking the appointment to office of their friends, were unknown to him personalIy. He decided rapidly whom among them he could trust, and once having arrived at that conclusion, his decision was irrevocable. He would stand by a friend, without regard to its effect upon himself, to the last ditch.
Of course, each of the two United States senators, Conkling and Fenton, wanted his exclusive favor. It is impossible to conceive of two men so totally different in every characteristic. Grant liked Conkling as much as he disliked Fenton. The result was that he transferred the federal patronage of the State to Senator Conkling.
Conkling was a born leader, very autocratic and dictatorial. He immediately began to remove Fenton officials and to replace them with members of his own organization. As there was no civil service at that time and public officers were necessarily active politicians, Senator Conkling in a few years destroyed the organization which Fenton had built up as governor, and became master of the Republican party in the State.
The test came at the State convention at Saratoga. Senator Conkling at that time had become hostile to me, why I do not know, nor could his friends, who were most of them mine also, find out.
He directed that I must not be elected a delegate to the convention.
The collector of the port of New York, in order to make that decree effective, filled my district in Westchester County with appointees from the Custom House.
Patronage, when its control is subject to a popular vote, is a boomerang. The appointment of a citizen in a town arouses the anger of many others who think they are more deserving.
I appealed to the farmers with the simple question whether old Westchester should be controlled by federal authority in a purely State matter of their own. The result of the appeal was overwhelming, and when the district convention met, the Custom House did not have a single delegate.
The leader of the Custom House crowd came to me and said: "This is a matter of bread-and-butter and living with us. It is nothing to you. These delegates are against us and for you at the convention. Now, we have devised a plan to save our lives. It is that the three delegates elected shall all be friends of yours.
You shall apparently be defeated. A resolution will be passed that if either delegate fails to attend or resigns, the other two may fill the vacancy. One of these will resign when the convention meets and you will be substituted in his place. In the meantime we will send out through the Associated Press that you have been defeated." I did not have the heart to see these poor fellows dismissed from their employment, and I assented to the proposition.
When we arrived at the convention Governor Cornell, then State chairman, called to order. I arose to make a motion, when he announced: "You, sir, are not a member of this convention." My credentials, however, under the arrangement made in Westchester, convinced him that he was misinformed. The Conkling side selected for their chairman Andrew D. White, and the other side selected me. Upon careful canvass of the votes we had a clear majority.
