The triumph of the Democrats in Maine in the September election, 1880, had a most depressing effect upon the Republicans and an equally exhilarating one upon the Democrats. The paralyzing effect of the simple utterances in popular elections almost makes one think that every candidate should follow Matthew Quay's famous advice to his candidate for governor: "Beaver, keep your mouth shut."In the campaign when General Winfield Scott ran for the presidency, he began an important communication by stating that he would answer as soon as he had taken a hasty plate of soup. That "hasty plate of soup" appeared in cartoons, was pictured on walls, etc., in every form of ridicule, and was one of the chief elements of his defeat.
When towards the close of the canvass Garfield had succeeded in making the tariff the leading issue, General Hancock was asked what were his views on the tariff. (You must remember that the general was a soldier and had never been in politics.) The general answered: "The tariff was a purely local issue in Pennsylvania."The whole country burst into a gale of laughter, and Hancock's campaign had a crack which was never mended.
There never were two more picturesque opponents than General Garfield and General Hancock. Hancock was the idol of the Army of the Potomac, and everybody remembered McClellan's despatch after one of the bloodiest battles of the Peninsula campaign: "Hancock was superb to-day." He was an exceedingly handsome man and one of the finest figures in uniform in the whole country.
General Garfield also presented a very fine appearance. He was a large man, well-proportioned, and with very engaging manners.
He also had an unusual faculty for attractive public addresses, not only on politics, but many subjects, especially education and patriotism. I never can forget when the news of Lincoln's assassination reached New York. The angry and dangerous crowd which surged up and down Broadway and through Wall Street threatened to wreck the banking and business houses which were supposed to be sympathetic with the Confederates.
Garfield suddenly appeared on the balcony of the Custom House in Wall Street and succeeded in stilling the crowd. With a voice that reached up to Trinity Church he urged calmness in thought and action, deprecated any violence, and then, in an impassioned appeal to hopefulness notwithstanding the tragedy, exclaimed impulsively: "God reigns and the Republic still lives."I was requested by some friends to visit General Garfield and see how he felt on the political situation, which during the campaign of 1880 did not look hopeful. I took the next train, spent the day with him, and was back in New York the following day.
When I left the train at Cleveland in the morning the newsboys pushed at me a Cleveland Democratic daily, with a rooster's picture covering the whole front page, and the announcement that the Democrats had carried Maine. The belief was universal then that "as Maine goes so goes the Union," and whichever party carried that State in the September election, the country would follow in the presidential contest in November.
I took the next train to Mentor, the residence of General Garfield.
I found at the station a score or more of country wagons and carriages waiting for passengers. I said to the farmers: "Will any of you take me up to General Garfield's residence?" One of them answered: "We will all take you up this morning, but if you had come yesterday you would have had to wait your turn."It was a startling instance of the variableness of public opinion.
Delegations from everywhere, on their way to extend greetings to the candidate, had read the morning papers and turned back, deciding not to go.
I found Garfield struggling bravely to overcome the depression which he felt. He was in close touch with the situation everywhere, and discussed it with discrimination and hopefulness.
The most affecting incident occurred while I was talking with him.
His mother passed through the room and, patting him on the back, said: "James, the neighbors think it is all right; they are raising a banner at the corner."Two old soldier friends came in, and the noonday dinner was a rare intellectual feast. The general was a brilliant conversationalist. His mind turned first to the accidents of careers. He asked me if there was not a time in my early struggles when if Providence had offered a modest certainty I would not have exchanged the whole future for it, and then continued:
"There was a period in my early struggles as a teacher when, if I had been offered the principalship of an endowed academy, with an adequate salary, with the condition that I must devote myself to its interests and abandon everything else, I am quite sure I would have accepted."Of course, the hopeful application of this incident to the Maine defeat was that, no such offer having been made or accepted, he had made a glorious career in the army, rising to the head of the General Staff, and for twenty years had been the leading figure in the House of Representatives, and was now a recently elected United States senator and chosen candidate for president.
Then he turned to the instances where victory had been plucked from defeat in battles. After citing many instances he gave a word picture of the Battle of Chickamauga which was the finest thing of the kind I have ever heard or ever read.
