Memories

CLAUDE
BOWERS
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Marry
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"I sine
^erybody
will .:.<> oook. He
. . it LSI able
public
men
_^ne
ration. His book makes ab-
sorbing reading,
and it will
give
read-
ers ideas they haven't had before."
CLAUDE BOWERS
historian,
politician,
newspaperman
and
diplomat
wrote these
memoirs
just
before his death in
1957.
They
make a
fascinating
chronicle of
events,
ideas and
people
in the first half
of the twentieth
century.
Air. Bowers describes four different as-
pects
of American
history.
First is the
turn-of-the-century
Indiana in which
Bowers
grew up,
in a
lusty political
world
dominated
by
William
Jennings Bryan,
Albert
J.
Beveridge
and
Eugene
V
Debs,
all of whom Bowers knew
intimately.
Sec-
j
ond is the New York
newspaper
world of
the
19205,
when Bowers was a
reporter
and columnist for the old New York
World of
Cobb,
Swope, Stallings
and
Krock. Third is the
story
of the rebirth
of the Democratic
party during
the
19305
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^*C<**C<*C<>fC<*C<*C^^
V
1
I
1 MY LIFE
I
I
.
S
I
The Memoirs
|
I i
%
of
I
*
CLAUDE BOWERS
I
1
I
I
SIMON AND SCHUSTER
NEW YORK
i
i
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
INCLUDING THE RIGHT OF REPRODUCTION
IN TVHOLE OR IN PART IN ANY FORM
COPYRIGHT
1962
BY PATRICIA BO\VERS
PUBLISHED BY SIMON AND
SCHUSTER,
INC.
ROCKEFELLER
CENTER,
630 FIFTH AVENUE
YORK:
20,
N. Y.
FIRST PRINTING
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NU2VIBER:
6214275
MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
BY H. TVOLFF BOOK 2VXFG.
CO.,
NEV^
YORK,
N.Y.
Contents
i Hoosier Town in the
Eighties
i
ii The Golden
Age
in
Indianapolis
13
in Two
Poets,
a President and a Senator
27
iv Education the Hard
Way
34
v A
Plunge
into Politics
49
vi
Washington, 1911-1917:
Unwritten
History
66
vii
War,
Politics and the
League
of Nations
91
viii Under the Gold Dome
107
DC
My
Jefferson
Year
1 2
5
x The Dance on the
Rumbling
Volcano
140
xi Memories of Theodore Dreiser
153
xii Behind the Scenes in
1928 173
xin Politics Turns Putrid
192
xiv The Year of the
Bursting
Bubble 208
xv The
Deepening
Gloom
220
xvi
Gloomy
Years and
Light
Shafts in the Darkness
235
xvii The Revolution of
1932 249
xviii The
Embassy
in
Spain
265
xix The Rooseveltian Years
285
xx
My
Fourteen Years in Chile
304
xxi
Postscript: Diary Passages,
edited
by
Patricia Bowers
320
Index
337
CHAPTER I
Hoosier Town in the
Eighties
THERE HAS ALWAYS BEEN a
disposition
in some
quarters
to dismiss
the Middle West as drab and
uninteresting,
and
yet
I think the Mid-
westerner
especially typifies
the American
way
of life. The
early
settlers were men of
endurance,
enterprise
and
courage.
Some left
the well-ordered life of the East to seek their fortunes in the wil-
derness;
others came from the
South,
men of
meager
means,
too
proud
and
independent
to
accept
the status
assigned
them
by
the
slaveowning aristocracy.
These
qualities
of
courage, pride,
endur-
ance and
independence
were the
predominant
characteristics of
the
Midwesterner,
and I think
they
still are. Because Gilbert Ches-
terton was a wise
man,
when he came to America to learn for
himself about American life he did not
pitch
his tent in crowded
cities in the
East,
but settled down for a
sojourn
in a small town
in Indiana. Fortunate I think the American whose
boyhood days
are
spent
in such a
community.
I was one of the fortunate.
I do not remember
Westfield,
Hamilton
County,
Indiana,
the
place
of
my
birth,
since
my parents
left there in
my babyhood,
shortly
after the death of
my only
sister a week before I
appeared
upon
the scene. The little town was inhabited
mostly by
Quakers,
whose kindness at the time of the domestic
tragedy
made an in-
delible
impression
on
my parents.
But Westfield now had sad
associations,
and
they
moved to
Jolietville
soon after I was born.
I have no recollection of the short time we
spent
there,
though
I am told that it was in
Jolietville
that I became a Democrat. I
was
being
shown off in
my
father's store one
day during
the Presi-
dential
campaign
of 1880. 1 was two
years
old and when the
loung-
ers teased me
by cheering
for
Garfield,
the
Republican
candidate,
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
I at once met the
challenge
with a
"Naw, naw,
rah for Hancock."
My politics
came
early
and I have been a
partisan
ever since.
Most of
my
first ten
years
were
spent
in
Whitestown,
a small
town in Boone
County,
where
everyone, including
the
poorest,
lived in abundance.
My paternal grandfather, Christopher
Bowers,
was one of the
pioneers
who,
many years
before,
had cleared the
wilderness,
drained the
swamps, bridged
the
streams,
felled the
forest and
given
the fields to cultivation. Most of the old
pioneers
still lived near
Whitestown,
and
my grandfather's
farm was on
the
edge
of the town. The
only
industries in the town were a flour
mill and a
sawmill;
the latter had seen its best
days
with the
passing
of the
surrounding
forests. It was a
purely agricultural region.
I
recall it now as rather
primitive, though differing
not at all from
most small towns of the time and
place.
The streets were
unpaved,
as were the
sidewalks,
and in winter and after rains in summer the
pedestrian depended
on
planks
to
protect
him from the mud. In
the
night
he was fortunate if the
plank
did not slide in the slime
and
deposit
him in the muck. There were no street
lamps
of
any
sort,
of
course,
and a lantern was
necessary equipment
in
every
household;
he who owned one more ornate than others' was
very
proud.
The
only
entertainment was found in the Lutheran and
Methodist churches. Since
my
father's
people
were Lutherans and
my
mother's
Methodists,
I attended the
Sunday
schools of both.
In the winter the stores served as clubs where men fresh from
the
farms,
in work clothes stained
by
the
soil,
gathered
about the
big
base-burner stove for
gossip
and the discussion of controver-
sial
political
and
religious subjects. Always
convenient was a to-
bacco box filled with sawdust to serve as a
cuspidor,
and it was
amazing
with what
dexterity
the tobacco chewer could hit the box
from a fantastic distance. As in the old coffeehouses of
prejour-
nalism
days
in
London,
these
loungers
about the stove disseminated
the news of the
town,
the birth of
babies,
the illnesses of old
men,
the amorous adventures of the
young. Everyone
knew
everybody
in town and all about
them,
and it was the kind of
friendly, neigh-
borly community
where the women flocked to the aid of the sick.
In these
days
of
telephones,
automobiles, radios,
television and
planes,
the isolation of these small towns of the i88os seems incred-
ible. The
people
were thrown
entirely
on their own resources for
entertainment.
Lebanon,
the
county
seat,
was
eight
miles
away
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
and he who made the
journey
in less than an hour was criticized
for
cruelty
to his horse.
Indianapolis,
but
twenty
miles
away,
seemed remote.
Every morning
and
evening
when the train came
in the station
platform
was crowded with curious
townsmen,
for
there was sheer romance in the
thought
that the
passengers peering
through
the windows were bound for far
pkces. Many
met the
train to
get
the
Indianapolis papers,
which were read
literally
from
the first
page
to the
last,
and then the news was discussed with ani-
mation about the stove in the stores. Since it was a Democratic
community,
most
people
read the
Indianapolis
Sentinel,
though
a
few
Republicans
slunk
away
with the
Journal
under their arms. In
the
evening
all read the News.
The houses were comfortable but
simple.
The front
room,
or
parlor,
was used on
Sundays
and
special
occasions
only;
the rest
of the time it was
kept
closed and curtained to
protect
the
carpet
from the sun. Most houses had an
organ
and
everyone
would
sing,
but the
songs, usually
from the
hymnbooks,
were sad and reeked
with reminders of the
brevity
of life. I found them
depressing
and
would
escape
to the orchard. I have never cared for
hymns
since,
though my
father had an excellent voice and I can still remember
him
singing.
The winters
surely
were
longer
in the
Eighties. By
the first of
December the
ground
was covered with
snow,
and no one
thought
of
shoveling
it into
wagons
and
hauling
it
away.
The wind
swept
it into
drifts,
and when the sidewalks were beaten down
by
the
feet of
pedestrians
one walked
along
an avenue of snow
rising
two
or three feet
high
on either
side,
and thus it remained
throughout
the winter. In time it hardened and
glistened
in the sun. Then the
people got
out their
sleighs
and I can still hear the
tinkling
bells on
the harness as
they
drove
through
the town and out into the coun-
try.
The
boys
with their sleds raced
boisterously
over the white
surface,
made
snowmen,
and built forts from which
they waged
snowball battles for months.
Only
in
April,
when the
spring
thaws
began
and the snow turned to
slush,
and rivulets of ice water
crept
across the sidewalks and into one's
shoes,
did one realize that snow
has its evil side.
The town had its
"characters,"
some vivid in
my memory
after
more than half a
century.
Dave
Trout,
the harness
maker,
who
3
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
carried a cane because one
leg
was shorter than the
other,
amused
the townsmen
by posing
as a Mormon. He knew the Mormon
Bible
by
heart,
and he was
equally
familiar with the Old and New
Testaments. He had no vices I know of
beyond
a
tongue
that could
bite like a
viper.
He loved
polemics
and was a natural
debater,
and
he
challenged opponents
on
subjects
of their
choosing.
So wide was
his
reading,
so varied his
knowledge,
that he
invariably prevailed.
Many
times in
early
childhood I hovered on the
edge
of a crowd
gathered
about him as he sat in front of his
shop
with his chair
tilted
against
the
wall,
and marveled at the ease with which he
pul-
verized
anyone
who
challenged
him on
politics
or
religionthough
he favored
religion
as a
subject.
He had a
biting
wit,
a keen sense
of humor and a sarcastic
tongue.
When he was driven into a corner
for want of mere
facts,
he
opened
his batteries of ridicule on his
opponent,
while the crowd shouted with
laughter
and
slapped
one
another on the shoulder in sheer
delight.
It was he who
organized
a men's
debating society,
which met at intervals at
night
in the
schoolhouse. The
principal
orators were the Lutheran
preacher,
the harness
maker,
the doctor and the
teacher,
and
spectators
would fill the schoolhouse to
enjoy
the verbal frolics.
Another town character was an old
colonel,
of
slight
build,
with
a short
gray
beard,
who was never seen out of the faded blue uni-
form in which he had
fought
for the
preservation
of the Union.
He had a
good
mind and considerable
education,
and I
suspect
it
was his weakness for drink that so lowered his morale that he
seemed content to eke out a
living by providing
meals and fur-
nished rooms for stranded
traveling
salesmen.
Usually
he was
quiet
and seemed sad and
morose,
but
liquor
worked a
transformation,
and it was then that his mind and
imagination
were most astonish-
ing. Always
in his inebriation he relived his
fighting days, "fought
all his battles o'er
again,
and thrice he routed all his foes and thrice
he slew the slain." He had
fought
in the battle of
Shiloh,
and in his
cups
he relived and
refought
it,
describing
it with a vividness and
eloquence
that would have done credit to Tacitus. These exhibi-
tions were reserved for
night,
and when he
appeared
downtown
after dark the
young
rowdies knew
they
could
pull
the
bung
out
of the barrel of
oratory by merely mentioning
Shiloh.
Instantly
he
would launch into a
description,
his
usually
sad
eyes flashing,
his
voice
ringing,
and
genuine eloquence
would flow like a mountain
4
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
torrent from his
lips.
When he seemed on the
point
of
running
down,
a
sepulchral
voice would
softly
murmur from the
shadows,
"Shiloh,"
and the orator was off on a fresh start.
Some of
my
most
pleasing
memories center in the shoemaker's
tiny shop,
with its smells of
leather,
of wood
burning
in the little
stove,
and of smoke
curling
from the corncob
pipe
that was
always
in the bearded old shoemaker's mouth when he worked. It was
with him that I tried out an
eight-year-old's opinions
about
pol-
itics,
for the old man was also a Democrat. He would listen with
chuckles and
inject
some
pungent
observations of his own.
Mostly
alone,
he had time to think and he was well informed. It was in
just
such a
shop
that
Lloyd George got
his
training
in
polemics.
With real affection I recall a
very
old
couple, scarcely
ever seen
outside their own
house,
which was level with the street and in the
tiny
front room of which
they
sold hard
candy
to the children.
They
were seldom seen even in this room until a
youngster ap-
peared
with his
pennies.
On the
opening
of the door a bell
rang
which summoned one or the other from the interior of the house.
Usually
it was the old
lady,
a
very
sweet old
lady
in a
bonnet,
who
entered to minister to the needs of the children. She
greeted
them
with an
ingratiating
smile and waited with infinite
patience
as
they
deliberated on their choice of sweets and counted out their
pennies.
The old
couple's profits
must have been
meager,
but
they
seemed
very happy
and contented.
Best of all I remember
my grandfather, Christopher
Bowers,
known to the
community
as "Uncle
Chris,"
who came to America
in his
very early
manhood from the
neighborhood
of
Frankfurt,
Germany,
more than a
century ago,
one of the
many
Germans who
at that time abandoned their native land in search of
greater
free-
dom and a release from
military
rule. He landed in Charleston and
moved westward to
Tennessee,
but his resources were limited
and he could not submit to the humiliation of the social status of
the
non-slaveowning
farmers; so,
having
married,
he turned
north,
crossed the Ohio River and
proceeded
in a covered
wagon
to In-
diana,
where he found land and
opportunity.
He had taken
posses-
sion of
heavily
timbered land
desperately
in need of
draining.
He
and his
wife,
a woman of
strong,
even
domineering
character,
had
twelve
children,
but
childbearing
did not interfere with the near-
5
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
masculine
work that fell to the lot of
pioneer
women. I heard
my
grandfather
tell of the trials and tribulations of those
primitive
days.
When the men went to the
field,
with
every probability
of
an attack of malaria because of the
swamps, they always
carried a
pocketful
of
quinine
and,
instead of a
jug
of
water,
a
jug
of whis-
key,
and when
they
felt the "shakes"
coming
on
they
would lick
loose
quinine
from their hands and wash it down with
pure
whiskey
from the
jug.
My grandfather's
house was burned in
my
childhood,
and I
saw it
go up
in flames. It was a
large
house,
to accommodate twelve
children. A wide hall ran
through
it to
permit
a free circulation
of
cooling
air. A
stairway
ascended from the
hall,
and the
many
grandchildren
amused themselves
sliding
down the banisters when
no one was
looking.
On
Sundays
and
holidays
the children and
grandchildren gath-
ered for a
family
dinner,
which
by present
standards resembled a
barbecue,
with
chicken, beef,
spareribs, pork,
all the
vegetables
in
season,
hot
biscuits,
with various
spreads,
the milk
oozing
from the
butter fresh from the
churn,
and all
topped
off with two kinds of
pie
and cake.
Superabundance
was not unusual
among
the Hoosier
farmers of the
Eighties,
but
my grandfather
was a robust trencher-
man and
probably
offered more than most.
He was
slender,
wiry,
his face
smooth-shaven,
his
twinkling eyes
denoting
a love of fun. He was a
just
and honest man and so re-
garded by
the entire
region.
He was a convinced
Democrat, but,
finding controversy
distasteful,
he
usually kept
his
politics
and
religion
to himself. It was a bit different
during
the Civil War
(which
he
always thought
would have been
prevented
if
Stephen
A.
Douglas,
for whom he had
voted,
had been
elected);
he fol-
lowed the line of Thomas A. Hendricks and Daniel W.
Voorhees,
and he did not
escape
some mild
persecution
from
Indianapolis.
In those
days
the
neighbors
came to
help
when fanners
threshed,
and
my
most
graphic
memories of
my grandfather's place
is of
these
threshings.
It was then the custom to furnish real
banquets
for the
threshers,
and for some
days my
aunts,
who were excellent
cooks,
were
feverishly
active in
preparation.
The tables
literally
groaned
beneath the
weight
of food. Since the farm was on the
edge
of the town and
my grandfather's
hospitality
was well
known,
6
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
the merchants closed their stores at noon to
join
the threshers at the
dinner table. The loafers of the town
joined
the
procession
and no
one resented the intrusion. The
consumption
of food was enormous
and the waste would seem
culpable today.
We small
boys, eager
to
assist,
were
kept busy running
back and forth to the
threshing
field with cold water for the
workers,
our
only
reward
being
an
invitation to the "second table"
though my
aunts hid
away enough
of the chicken drumsticks for us.
My
father,
Lewis
Bowers,
greatly
resembled
my grandfather
in
temperament.
I have never known in
my
life a sweeter human
being;
he was loved
by
all who knew him. His
generosity
was
extreme,
and not a few took
advantage
of it. The
pathetic
death
of
my four-year-old
sister, Gertrude,
who in her
dying
moments
tried to console
him,
haunted him
throughout
his life. He never
fully
recovered from the blow.
My
mother,
Juliet
Bowers,
was
perhaps
a
stronger
character,
more
ambitious,
and I am indebted to her for the innumerable
sacrifices she made for me in our darker
days
a little later. She
lived into her
sixty-second year
and died in
Washington.
As I have
said,
the
community
was
overwhelmingly
Democratic,
and the town seethed and bubbled with
politics throughout
the
year.
The few
Republicans,
forced to
unite,
made
up
in fervor and
fierceness what
they
lacked in
numbers,
as is usual with harassed
minorities. I had a narrow
escape
from contamination once. The
Republicans
all but seduced
me,
a
nine-year-old boy,
with the offer
of the tenor drum in the
Republican
band,
but
my
father heard of
the dire
conspiracy
and
yanked
me out without
ceremony.
I recall
clearly
the Presidential
campaign
of
1888,
when the Re-
publicans
nominated Harrison of Indiana
against
Cleveland. It was
the custom in those
days
for the two
parties
to
stage great
demon-
strations in the
fairground
in
Lebanon,
with
distinguished
orators
on the
platform.
In
every township
and little town in the
county
the
young boys
and
girls
were
packed
into
wagons gaily
dec-
orated with
flags
and
bunting
for these occasions. The
congestion
on the roads was such that often the
long procession
would be
forced to
stop
for several minutes to
permit
the
parking
of the
wagons
in the
fairground
miles
away.
The
juvenile politicians
re-
7
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
joiced
in these
delays,
since
they
could count
confidently
on the
farm women of the faith
hurrying
to the
wagons
with
huge
bas-
kets filled with cakes and fruit. That
year
we
sang
a
song
whose
meaning
is a
mystery
to me
today.
All
along
the line we chanted
with hoarse voices:
"Ha,
ha
y ha,
what a
fool
I see
Standing
on the
platform of free whiskey"
Cleveland was
being
attacked as a
free-trader,
and
presumably
this was
supposed
to be a
devastating
retort to Harrison.
The
fairground
was
always packed
with men and
women,
and
Voorhees was
usually
the orator. And what an orator!
Tall,
mag-
nificently
built,
with a handsome
head,
luminous hazel
eyes,
a voice
of
melody,
and a marvelous command of
language,
he lashed the
partisans
into a
frenzy
of enthusiasm. Four
years
earlier,
in the first
Cleveland
campaign,
when I was
wearing
a Cleveland-Hendricks
cap,
I was introduced to Voorhees
by my
father,
and when he laid
his hand on
my
head I felt I had been anointed.
Strange
how some isolated incidents
linger vividly
in the mem-
ory!
I recall such an incident in the
campaign
of
1888,
the second
Cleveland
campaign,
when his
running
mate was the
great
states-
man Senator Allen G.
Thurman,
who was
popularly
associated
with the red bandana handkerchief. I had
joined
the relatives on
a visit to the farm of an aunt whose husband was
going
to a
rally
in
Shelbyville,
miles
away,
which Thurman was to address. An
excited and enthusiastic
group
had
gathered
in the
barnyard.
The
horse was hitched to the
buggy, ready
for the
journey,
chickens
were
clucking,
roosters were
crowing,
and in the
pasture
cows
were
mooing.
At
length my
uncle
got
into the
buggy,
and
when,
on
driving through
the
gate,
he took out a red bandana and waved
it we could see that the
country
was saved.
For some
inexplicable
reason,
during
that
campaign
both
par-
ties in Whitestown conceived the idea of
presenting
a
play
with
local talent. I even remember the names of the absurd
plays,
as well
as the
performances.
The Democrats
gravely presented
Lula the
Pauper,
and the
Republicans
All That Glitters Is Not Gold. I
remember it so well because of the distress of the
Republicans
over
the
stage fright
of one of their
artists,
the son of a well-to-do
8
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
farmer,
who on the
approach
of the ordeal of a
public appearance
became so
panic-stricken
that he announced his withdrawal a few
days
before the
performance.
It would have wrecked the
play,
but,
more
distressing,
it would have made the
Republican minority
the
laughingstock
of the
community.
The father of the
boy
remon-
strated and
gave
orders,
but the intimidated actor refused to
go
on.
Of course this was common
knowledge;
it was the sole
topic
of
conversation in the
stores,
the
churches,
the streets and the
homes,
and all the Democrats were
laughing
and the
Republicans cursing.
But
politics
was serious in those
days,
and when the irate father
threatened to disinherit the
boy
if he failed and meant it the un-
happy youth
screwed his
courage
to the
sticking point
and tear-
fully
did his
duty.
But
my family
was
politically
divided
against
itself.
My
mother's
family
were
originally Republicans.
Her father had
joined
the Re-
publican Party
on its
formation,
and in 1860 he was the
party's
nominee for the State Senate. When he was killed in the battle of
Missionary Ridge
his was the first
body
to be taken back for burial
in Boone
County.
He had had a
premonition
that he would not
survive the
battle,
and I have a letter to this effect written the
night
before with a
pencil
on soiled
wrapping paper.
Because he was ill
at the
time,
his
commanding
officer had
urged
him not to
go
into
action,
but he wrote that his failure to
fight
in what threatened
to be a fierce
engagement
would be
charged
to cowardice
by
his
political
enemies at home. Years
later,
a
camp
of the Sons of Vet-
erans was named after him. At
twilight
on the
day
of his
funeral,
his oldest son shouldered his father's musket and hurried off down
the
country
road to take his
place
in the
Army.
It is not unnatural
that
my
mother's
family
were
strong Republicans.
In summer in the i88os I
usually spent
three weeks on
my
ma-
ternal
grandfather's
farm on the
county
line between Boone and
Hamilton
counties,
near
Big Springs,
a
tiny place
with one
general
store. There were no children in the immediate
neighborhood,
and
farms in those
days
were
really
isolated. Forced on
my
own re-
sources for
amusement,
I followed the hired man at the
plow,
but
mostly
I relied on the books in the house. Most of these were
biog-
raphies
of
Republican
leaders,
though
one was of Thomas A. Hen-
dricks,
a concession to a Hoosier Vice-President.
9
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
It was on one of these visits that I was almost terrorized from
my
Democratic
moorings.
I was taken to
Eagletown
to hear a
campaign speech by Corporal
Tanner,
one of the most obnoxious
wavers of the
bloody
shirt. I was
seriously
disturbed when I heard
him
say,
"In
Michigan,
where it's
cold,
they're
almost all
Republi-
cans;
in
Indiana,
where it's a little
wanner,
there are a few more
Democrats;
in
Kentucky,
where it's still
warmer,
there are more
Democrats;
in
Mississippi,
where it's
very
warm,
they're
almost all
Democrats;
and in
hell,
which is
hot,
they're
all Democrats."
I knew
my politics
well
enough
to know that the
geographical
estimate of
party strength
was
correct,
and to a small
boy
it seemed
logical
that the last
might
follow. I
scarcely slept
that
night.
I was
not much worried about
myself,
for I was
young enough
to
change
my politics
and
escape
the eternal
fires,
but I
kept picturing my
father and
grandfather writhing
in the flames. This
bloody-shirt
variety
of
speech,
a leftover from the worst
days
of Reconstruc-
tion,
was heard well into the
Nineties;
it was
thought
an
adequate
substitute for
argument.
The farm life of that time would seem
unbearably dreary today.
Those were not
merely
the
horse-and-buggy days.
There were no
telephones
in the
farmhouses,
and of course no radios to
carry
news
and entertainment. There was no rural
delivery;
the
only
news-
papers
were the
weekly county journal
and an edition of a
city
paper
once a
week,
and few took this. The horses were needed
for farm
work,
and when
they
were harnessed to a
buggy
it meant
only
a visit to some
village
not far
away.
But once a
year
the residents of the small towns and
farms,
in-
cluding
all the
children,
made
merry
at the
county
fair in Lebanon.
The farm families
usually
went in
large wagons,
and
great
baskets
of food were taken
along
for a feast on the
fairground.
This meant
that for some
days
the women had been
busily engaged
in the
kitchen,
determined that none other could offer more or better
food. At
noon,
white tablecloths were
spread
on the
grass;
so
gen-
eral was this custom that it seemed the entire
fairground
was cov-
ered with
spotless
linen. The families sat on the
ground
about the
cloth and
literally
stuffed themselves with
chicken,
hard-boiled
eggs, pies
and cakes. It was a
gala
occasion for the
youngsters,
since
peddlers mingled
with the
throngs offering many-colored
balloons,
10
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
and
groups gathered
about the
taffy
vendors,
watching
them
pull
the
taffy
from a hook fastened to a tree. Prizes were offered for the
best
needlework,
the best
pies
and
cakes,
and the
disgusted
children
were
dragged away by
their mothers to see if the blue ribbon had
been
given
to their exhibits. More
interesting
was the visit with the
fathers to the stables to see the horses that were to
compete
on the
track,
and if these races were not
memorable,
all
things
are
relative,
and no one was the less excited because no Maud S was on the track
that
day.
These
days
of
my
first decade of life made a
lasting impression
on me.
There,
in and around
Whitestown,
I
began
to learn some-
thing
about human
nature,
to
appreciate
the
dignity
of labor in the
fields,
and to sense the instinctive
feelings
and
prejudices
of the
average
man. About the stores on winter
days,
when the
typical
Midwesterners of their time shot the tobacco-box
cuspidors
from
incredible distances and
angles,
discussed the
crops
and the
varying
fortunes of their
neighbors,
and,
with animation and
intelligence,
debated measures
pending
in
Congress,
I came to know a little
about America. If sometimes their views were
wrong
and fre-
quently,
of
course,
they
were these were at the moment the views
of the
average
American.
It was in these
days
that I found
my
two
greatest
interests in
life,
politics
and
history.
I read and reread a school
history
book,
which
was all the more
fascinating
because of the
biographical
sketches
in the footnotes. A
full-page picture
of
Calhoun,
with his
rearing
hair,
burning eyes
and intense
look,
delighted
rne,
and he
entered,
and has since
remained,
in
my gallery
of the
great
Americans.
On the
day
Harrison was
inaugurated
President we moved to
Lebanon for a
sojourn
of a
year
and a half. The
county
seat then
had a
population
of less than four thousand.
My
interest there
centered in the
courthouse,
an old brick
building
erected in the
time of Franklin Pierce. The courtroom fascinated
me,
and I
haunted
it,
listening
to the verbal combats of the
lawyers.
The
leader of the bar was Samuel M.
Ralston,
later to become Indiana's
much-loved
governor
and United States Senator and to refuse the
Presidential nomination in
1924,
as we shall see. I associate him with
the first serious
biography
I ever
read,
a
cheap
edition of
Jenkins'
ii
HOOSIER TOWN IN THE EIGHTIES
biography
of
Calhoun,
which I still treasure.
My
mother
thought
it too
heavy
for a
boy
of
eleven,
but Ralston
urged
her to let me
have it. He was to become one of
my
most cherished friends.
The life I have described is a
part
of the American
past
that will
never return. For me it ended in
1891,
when we moved to In-
dianapolis.
12
CHAPTER
The Golden
Age
in
Indianapolis
WHEN WE SETTLED in
Indianapolis
in
1891
it had a
population
of
from
ninety
to a hundred thousand. Aside from its
size,
it differed
from the
average
Indiana
county
seat
mainly
in that it had been
planned,
as was
Washington.
The streets are
arranged
in a
gridiron
pattern,
cut
diagonally by
four
long
avenues
radiating
from the
Circle,
the
plaza
in the heart of the business district.
During
the
greater part
of the
18905
the center of the Circle was enclosed
by
a
high
wooden
fence,
behind which the Soldiers' and Sailors' Mon-
ument was
slowly rising
to its ultimate
height
of
284
feet. The
chairman of the Monument Commission was the father of a friend
of
mine,
and when the shaft was almost
completed
I was
permitted
to walk to the
top.
This was a
distinction,
since few were allowed
behind the fence.
Transportation
was
by
little horse-drawn
streetcars,
all
converg-
ing
at the transfer station which was
nothing
more than an aban-
doned streetcar at the corner of
Washington
and Illinois streets.
The cars were without
conductors,
and the
passengers
were
sup-
posed
to
drop
their fares into a slot
inside,
which connected with
the
money
box beside the driver
up
front.
Many
rimes I was to
see the car
stopped
between streets for the driver
sharply
to re-
mind a
tricky passenger
that he had
neglected
to
deposit
his nickel.
Around this time the first electric streetcar
appeared, going up
Massachusetts Avenue to
College
Avenue. It was the
only
decent
way
to travel on Massachusetts
Avenue,
which was
unpaved
and
often
deep
in mud.
On the
ground
floor of Tomlinson's
Hall,
on Delaware
Street,
was the
market,
where the butchers had their stalls and where
farmers
brought
their
produce
fresh on market
mornings.
All
13
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
housewives,
from
high
to
low,
did their own
marketing,
the more
prosperous driving
to the market with a servant to
carry
their bas-
kets to the
carriage.
On market
mornings
one would almost cer-
tainly
meet most of one's
acquaintances
there.
The hall
above,
the
largest
in the
city,
was the scene of
political
rallies and state conventions all
through
the Nineties. In that hall I
heard the
greatest
American orators of the time. There
many
times
I heard
Bryan's moving eloquence,
and Bourke Cockran thunder-
ing against
"free silver" and
imperialism
with a brilliance that
would have been notable in the St.
Stephen's
of the
days
of
Fox,
Pitt and Sheridan.
There, too,
I listened to the
polished periods
of
William C. P.
Breckinridge,
the
"silver-tongued
orator of the Blue
Grass,"
to the wit and humor of
Chauncey
M.
Depew,
and to the
thrilling oratory
of Albert
J.
Beveridge
that could have been set
to music.
The
city
had the charm of a
large country
town. There was
nothing
then
beyond
Sixteenth Street. The three most fashionable
streets were
Meridian,
Pennsylvania
and
Delaware,
all of them
tree-lined,
with their fine old
houses,
most of them
brick,
built in
the
days
when
people
demanded
spaciousness.
These homes were
usually
set back from the street in wide lawns shaded
by
tall forest
trees,
and on summer afternoons
passers-by
could see the members
of the households
sitting
in
rocking
chairs far back in the
grounds,
the women with their
sewing
or
knitting,
the men with their news-
papers.
The autonomous
community
of Woodruff Place had been
fantastically
conceived
twenty years
before
eighty
suburban
acres,
with wide drives in the center of which were
park strips
for flow-
ers,
grass,
fountains,
fancy
urns and bad
statuary.
In this
sylvan
re-
treat Booth
Tarkington
was to
place
The
Magnificent
Ambersons.
The
country-town
touch of the
proud
little
capital
could be
seen
especially
on
Saturday nights,
when the stores
stayed open
and the streets downtown were
thronged
with
people
bent on
buy-
ing,
or
merely
on
mingling
with their
neighbors,
and when a band
gave
concerts from the
balcony
of the
leading
store. All in
all,
it
was a
comfortable,
homey community,
with no
pushing
or
shoving,
where the
people
lived normal lives and where businessmen went
home for lunch and in the
evening
found time and inclination to
read the News and to stroll across
velvety
lawns to their
neighbors'
to
exchange
views on what
they
read.
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
In those
days
it was the custom of the
greatest
artists of the
stage
to close their New York
engagements
in
early spring
and
gallantly
fare forth across the continent. In
my boyhood
in
Indianapolis
I
saw all the
great
actors and actresses in all the
great plays
at the
English
Theater on the Circle. This had been built in 1880 and had
opened
with Lawrence Barrett in
Hamlet,
followed
by
Sarah Bern-
hardt in Camille. The
Indianapolitans
were enthusiastic devotees
of the
play.
When a brilliant artist was to
appear,
it was usual to
find the
play
itself on the
reading
tables of the homes before it
was
given
on the
stage. Outstanding
new
plays
like Rostand's
Cyrano
de
Eergerac
created real excitement. When Mansfield
ap-
peared
in
Indianapolis during
his first season in the
role,
there was
an intense
competition
for seats. It was
winter, but,
in
spite
of
sleet,
rain and a
biting
wind,
by
late afternoon of the
day
before the
tickets were to
go
on sale there was
akeady
a line of
people
stretch-
ing
from the box office on the Circle to Meridian Street and for a
block
up
that
thoroughfare.
Some of those who stood
shivering
in
the storm
throughout
that bitter
night
suffered the
penalty
of
pneu-
monia,
and I know of one who died from the effects of the
night's
hardships.
We
boys
went to the
gallery, entering through
an
alley
that was
packed
back to Meridian
Street,
and since
gallery
seats
could not be
reserved,
the
congestion
in the
alley
was dense. All
who availed themselves of the
gallery
seats were not
boys,
but I
am sure that the
great proportion
of the
galleryites
carried to the
play
a finer
background
for
appreciation
than was
generally
found
in the
pit
and the boxes.
Ours was a
churchgoing
town,
and I am afraid there was some-
thing puritanical
and
prudish
in its stern resentment of the coarse
or
suggestive,
and its definition of the indecent would seem ridicu-
lous
today.
I recall the reaction when Sadie
Martinot,
a French
actress,
appeared
in a
comedy
called The Turtle. It was under-
stood to be
immoral,
and the
press editorially urged
the
people
to
show their
disapproval by staying
home. Paxton Hibben and I
went to the Circle
and,
having
made sure that no
respectable person
saw
us,
sneaked in and found seats in the
pit.
But when the theater
began
to
fill,
we noted with amusement that the most staid of the
city's
matrons were
arriving, looking
a bit flustered as
they glanced
about and found
friends,
equally
embarrassed. We were
delighted
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
when a woman who was a friend of Pax's mother found her seat
to be beside him and blushed
prettily.
When the
play
was
over,
we
were astonished to find the
carriages
of the most fashionable in In-
dianapolis congesting
the Circle.
Now,
The Turtle was
really
inane
and,
judged by present
stand-
ards,
positively puritanic.
The most "immoral" scene was that in
which the
naughty lady
of the
play
disrobed behind a screen and
hung
her
lingerie
on it in
sight
of the horrified and
delighted
audience. We observed that the more sedate ladies
pretended
not
to
look,
but out of the corner of their
eyes they
missed
nothing.
But
unfortunately
for their
pose,
the
boys
in the
gallery, by
their
obscene
screams,
put special emphasis
on the dreadful scene.
In Anna Held's first American season she took
Indianapolis by
storm,
though
one of our foremost citizens was moved to wrath
when the little
actress,
her
protruding
breasts none too
completely
covered,
leaned far over into the box where he sat with his
wife,
and with outstretched arms and
languishing
looks,
sang:
"Oh,
won't
you
come and
play
im% me?
Tve
got
such a nice little
'way
nviz me!"
It was this
appearance
of Anna Held's that introduced me to the
awesome
mysteries
of the
stage
door. Pax Hibben had
laboriously
wrought
a sonnet in French
expressing
his adoration and
asking
for an
autographed photograph,
and had sent it to her
private
car.
That afternoon a
messenger
with a
package
from Miss Held
ap-
peared
at the Hibben
home,
requesting payment
for
delivery,
but
the
family
was out and a servant refused it. In the
evening
when
Pax learned of the
tragedy
he was beside himself with
rage
and
demanded the immediate
discharge
of the servant. To
placate
him
and save the
servant,
his mother
helped
him write an
explanatory
note in
French,
and Pax and I found our
way
to the
stage
door
and,
by
means of a ten-cent
cigar,
bribed the doorman to deliver it. To
our
joy
he returned with an invitation to
go backstage,
and we
soon found ourselves
standing
beside the little charmer in the
wings,
not a little embarrassed
by
her state of undress. Pale and
trembly,
the infatuated Pax
poured
forth his
explanation
in a French no
Frenchwoman could have
understood,
and the
smiling lady replied
in an
English
never before heard on land or sea. We had
got
no-
16
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
where when Miss HelcTs cue called her to the
stage,
and the
pic-
ture never was delivered.
I
always
remember with affection the
gallery
of the
English
Theater,
which seems to this
day
a
place
of
magic.
From there I
looked down on
Bernhardt,
on
Mansfield,
on
Irving
and
Terry
in
The Merchant
of
Venice and The
Bells,
on
Modjeska
in Macbeth
more than
once,
on Ada Rehan at her
best,
on Mrs. Fiske in her
famous roles. I recall
vividly,
as
though
the scene
actually
were
before
me,
Maude Adams
frisking
like a
sprite
over the moonlit
stage
in The Little
Minister,
Sothern and
Julia
Marlowe
playing
their famous
Shakespearean
roles,
and the latter in When
Knight-
hood Was in Flower. The thrill of the
night
I saw Nat Goodwin
and Maxine Eliot in Nathan Hale abides.
John
Drew,
the
perfect
gentleman,
was
always
a
delight, though
I doubt that
Rosemary
would seem so sweet and
charming
in this
scoffing age.
Nothing
stands out more
impressively
in
my memory
of the
Indianapolis
of the Nineties than the
general appreciation
of fine
speaking
and the
respect
for
political
leaders. This was before the
totalitarian,
fascists and Communists
taught
the
people
to sneer
at
politicians,
without whom
democracy
cannot work.
This was the home of President Harrison. I first saw him
emerg-
ing
from the railroad station with his
daughter
on his
arm,
and fol-
lowed
by
the members of his Cabinet with their
wives,
when he
brought
home for burial the wife of his
youth,
who had died in
the White House. The next time I saw him was on his return after
his defeat in
1892,
when he was
greeted
in the rotunda of the State
House
by
his old friends and
neighbors.
Later I was to have an
amusing personal experience
with him.
In those
days,
men of distinction in
Indianapolis
dressed the
part, wearing
Prince Albert coats and
high
silk hats. One of these
was Albert G.
Porter,
who had a
distinguished
career as
governor,
as
Congressman
and as minister to
Italy.
I remember him after his
retirement. He wore a
carefully
trimmed beard like Harrison's and
he had a
courtly
manner and a
friendly
twinkle in his
eye.
I recall
my
astonishment when I saw him
lifting
his
high
hat to a
ragged
Negro
in the street.
But more
impressive
and
thrilling
to me was another
governor,
Isaac
Pusey Gray,
a
really superior person.
In
1892
the
opposition
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
of the
mugwumps
of the East to
having
a
"professional politician"
on the ticket
prevented
his nomination for Vice-President. This
was
strange
in the
light
of his record. He had
begun
life and held
office as a
Republican,
but in
1872, disgusted
with the
corruption
of the administration of Grant
(who
was not a
"professional poli-
tician"),
he
supported Greeley.
He held a
commanding position
at
the bar and
practiced
before the United States
Supreme
Court in
his
early
thirties. As
president pro
tern of the State Senate he
played
a historic
part
in
securing
the ratification of the Fourteenth Amend-
ment,
which without the vote of
Indiana,
the last state to
ratify,
would have failed. Within two
years
after he left the
Republican
Party
the Democrats elected him lieutenant
governor,
and in
1884
he was elected
governor.
That he was a man of unusual
qualities
was evidenced
by
his re-
fusal of the United States
Senatorship
in
1887,
when he was chosen
by
the
Legislature,
because he felt in honor bound to serve out his
term as
governor.
President Cleveland's first
diplomatic appoint-
ment in his second term was that of
Gray
as minister to Mexico.
There he died two
years
later,
and President Diaz and all his min-
isters
accompanied
the casket to the train. I remember his
flag-
draped
casket in the hearse as it was borne from the train to the
Capitol,
where the
body
was to lie in state.
Like Harrison and
Porter,
he
invariably
wore a Prince Albert
coat and a
high
silk
hat;
the Democratic club which bore his name
made an
impressive
show
parading
at rallies in
gray
uniforms and
gray top
hats. I saw him often on the
street,
his demeanor serious
and
dignified,
and once as a
boy
I had the
thrilling experience
of
finding myself
seated beside him at a soda fountain. He had ordered
a lemon
phosphate
and I a chocolate
soda,
but the near
presence
of
the
great
man so confused me that when the
clerk,
by
mistake,
switched our
drinks,
I
began
to drink the
phosphate
before I could
be
stopped,
and I remember the look of
disgust
in
Gray's eyes.
He was a
truly
able
man,
a man of the most
positive
and
rugged
character,
of
unquestioned integrity,
of
great
native
ability,
and he
would have made a
strong
President. Now that the clamor of the
mugwumps
is
stilled,
the
Encyclopedia of
American
Biography
concludes that he
"represented
much that was best in the
public
life of his time."
18
THE GOLDEN AGE IN
INDIANAPOLIS
I
always
think of the
Indianapolis
of the Nineties as the
spring-
time of the
city.
The
Harrisons,
Grays
and Porters were of the
past,
but in those
years
the
community
had a number of
younger
men of unusual
promise
around whose
personalities
and achieve-
ments
public
interest revolved. None of these
intrigued
and fasci-
nated me more than two
young Republican
orators,
Albert
J.
Beveridge
and
John
L.
Griffiths,
between whom there was a
polite
rivalry.
Beveridge
was the more
spectacular
and dramatic as an
orator,
and
people enjoyed
his
rolling periods
and brilliant
delivery
as
they
would the art of an actor. He was
slender, handsome,
supremely
self-confident and blessed with a
memory
so retentive that he could
prepare long speeches
with the infinite care of an artist and com-
mit them in two
readings.
He once told me that he had a
photo-
graphic memory.
No one in the audience could
suspect
from his
manner that the
speech
was not
spontaneous.
Frequently
in those
days
I was at his house on Delaware Street
with his
brother-in-law,
George Langsdale,
one of
my
school
friends. Whenever
Beveridge
was
working
on a
speech
in the
up-
stairs front room he used as a
study,
we were shushed to silence. I
thought
I was
touching
the hem of
history
when,
after his
speech
against
Governor
Altgeld
in
Chicago
in
1896,
which
gave
him a
national
reputation, Langsdale
and I scoured the town for
Chicago
papers.
The
night
he delivered his
imperialistic
"March of the
Flag"
speech
in Tomlinsons
Hall,
during
his 1
898
campaign
for the .United
States
Senatorship,
I was
there,
and I can see and hear him
vividly
to this
day:
virile,
arrogant
in his
self-assurance,
his voice
ringing
clear as a
bugle
to the frenzied
applause
of the
packed
auditorium.
Years later we were to become close confidential
friends,
after he
left the Senate and had written his
great biography
of Marshall. It
was to fall to me to write his own
biography.
In later life I have often meditated on the career of
John
L. Grif-
fiths, who,
with rare
gifts,
was never to realize his
capacities.
He
was short and
corpulent,
with a double
chin,
the
complexion
of
a
schoolgirl,
mild,
amused blue
eyes,
and the
expression
of a cherub.
His voice was a
silvery
tenor,
and his tone in
delivery
was
just
a
bit
higher
than the conversational. He was more intellectual than
dramatic,
and his
speeches
had a
literary
flavor. When at
length
he
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
turned his back on Indiana
politics,
he made a
great impression
on
Theodore Roosevelt in a
speech
in Buffalo and was sent as consul
to
Liverpool.
Soon thereafter he was made consul
general
in Lon-
don,
where his
speeches
attracted wide attention. His lecture on
Hawthorne at the
University
of
Liverpool,
his
speech
at the an-
nual Dr. Samuel
Johnson
dinner in the home town of that
gusty
literary tyrant,
and that at the
unveiling
of the Harrison monu-
ment in
Indianapolis
have been
preserved
in a volume of his
speeches,
but,
this
aside,
he has left
nothing
behind him. Harrison
was fond of his
company,
and on his death Griffiths was selected to
write his
biography.
Had he been
temperamentally capable
of sus-
tained work and some
drudgery
he could have
produced
a
biog-
raphy
of charm and brilliance. But he did
nothing,
and
years
later
I learned that
important papers given
him for has work had dis-
appeared.
A
charming
conversationalist,
Griffiths numbered
among
his in-
timates men and women in the
political, literary
and theatrical cir-
cles of
London,
and he is said to have
inspired
Lord Charnwood
to write his
biography
of Lincoln. He was
brilliant,
he had a
genius
for
friendship,
but
nothing
availed to command
recognition
from
his
party,
whose favors were
jealously guarded
by
rivals. He was
still in London in
1914
when he died from a heart attack while
riding
in
Hyde
Park.
At that time I haunted the criminal
court,
since there was an
epidemic
of murders
involving prominent
men,
mostly
crimes of
passion
or at least
involving
women. Two
great
trial
lawyers
fasci-
nated me with their forensic
eloquence.
John
S. Duncan and
Henry
N.
Spaan
were
masters,
and
they
were
usually engaged
in
all the most dramatic trials. Duncan was
powerful
in
argument
and
in the
analysis
of
evidence,
but
Spaan
knew how to
appeal
to the
emotions. These murder trials attracted wide attention and the
newspapers reported
them at
length, including
the
speeches.
In
appearance, Spaan
was
impressive.
Of medium
height,
slender,
with
iron-gray
hair worn in a
pompadour,
a
slight grayish
mus-
tache and a slender face
reflecting every
emotion,
he so dramatized
himself in the courtroom that the
jury
followed his
every
move-
ment with keenest interest. To hear him was like
listening
to a
great
actor. His
cross-examinations were
penetrating
and devastat-
20
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
ing
to a witness who was
lying.
His
closing argument
to the
jury
was
always superb.
Everything
was
grist
that came to
Spaan's
mill. I recall
vividly
standing
for a
day
and a half in a courtroom
packed
to
capacity
listening
to his
closing speech
in defense of a German
immigrant
girl charged
with
having poisoned
the wife and children of her
employer
on the
assumption
that he
might marry
her. The hus-
band,
to avoid undeserved
suspicion
of
connivance,
had
employed
Duncan as
private prosecutor.
The accused in cross-examination
by
Duncan had been asked her movements on All Souls'
Day.
She
said she had
gone
to the Catholic
cemetery
to take flowers. Did
she know
anyone
buried in the
cemetery?
She did not. Then
why
had she
gone?
Because she had
always
done so with her mother in
the old
country
and,
being
homesick for her
mother,
she had
gone
because she felt it would
please
her. Duncan
hastily passed
on to another line of
questioning.
But the
exchange
had not been lost on
Spaan.
In re-examination
he asked her how she could afFord to
buy
flowers.
Timidly
she re-
plied
that she had
plucked
a few wild flowers in the
country.
None
of this had
anything
to do with the
case,
but when
Spaan
made his
final
appeal
to the
jury
he
spoke
for
twenty
minutes on the inci-
dent,
leaning against
the
judge's
rostrum,
speaking
in a
low,
inti-
mate tone choked with
compassion, psychologically analyzing
the
girl's
reason and her
feeling,
and soon from all
parts
of the crowded
room came the sobs of
women,
and there were tears in the
eyes
of
the
jurors. Having
created this
atmosphere, Spaan
stood a moment
in silence. One could hear the
ticking
of the clock on the wall.
Then with a
startlingly quick change
he turned to a denunciation
of witnesses for the
prosecution,
his voice
rising shrilly
as he ad-
vanced
slowly
on the
jury,
his slender frame
quivering
with
indig-
nation,
and he reached the climax
only
when he could touch the
front row. The effect was electric. Such was his method in des-
perate
cases,
and most of his were
desperate.
Many years
later,
when he was
growing
old,
he became an ar-
dent admirer of Woodrow Wilson and
supporter
of the
League
of
Nations,
and he threw himself into the
fight
with all his
eloquence
aflame. One time
during
this
period
it fell to me as chairman of a
political meeting
at Fort
Wayne
to introduce
him,
and I saw and
21
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
talked with him for the first time at the hotel before
going
to the
theater. He was amazed when I recalled to him
many
incidents in
his famous trials that he himself had
long forgotten.
Thereafter we
were friends and
correspondents
until his
death,
when I was in
Spain.
This was a
period
of
literary
achievement in Indiana. General
Lew
Wallace,
author of Ben-Hur and The Prince
o~f
India,
was still
living
and a familiar
figure
on the streets of
Indianapolis, though
his
home was in Crawfordsville. He was a rather small
man,
invariably
dressed with meticulous
care,
and he walked with a
military
bear-
ing.
Once or twice I had the
privilege
of a
long
conversation with
him,
and
my boyish timidity
faded
instantly
in the warmth of his
amiability
and humor.
But it was
James
Whitcomb
Riley
who was
really
loved and re-
vered. Innumerable times I saw his
trim,
immaculately garbed fig-
ure
strolling nonchalantly, leisurely along
the
street,
with all
passers-
by turning
back to look at him with smiles of affection. He then
lived a life of
ease,
without
hurry
or
worry,
with
royalties flowing
in
beyond
his needs. He lived at
522
Lockerbie
Street,
in a two-
and-a-half
-story
brick house in the best Victorian tradition of archi-
tecture. Lockerbie was a short street that
gave
the
impression
of
standing
a little aloof from those around
it,
and he wrote a charm-
ing poem
in
appreciation
of it.
He was
happy
in his
publisher,
Bobbs-Merrill. On a
balcony
in
the rear of their retail store on
Washington
Street a table was re-
served for
him,
hard
by
the
railing.
There he was often found
bending
over his
desk,
and customers below would look
up
with
something
of awe
upon
the
great
man in the throes of
composition,
but I have no doubt that on these visits he was more concerned
with the business end of
poetry.
He is known as the
poet
of the
children,
but
among
these he had decided
preferences
and
preju-
dices. He did not care for the Little Lord
Fauntleroys
with
scrup-
ulously
scrubbed faces so much as for the
impudent, dirty-faced
street
gamins,
the
newsboys,
the
bootblacks,
and little ruffians bent
on mischief.
But even then Wallace and
Riley belonged
to the
past,
and I
think of the
Indianapolis
of the Nineties as the
literary spring
when
young
trees were
budding
and
leafing, promising
to blossom. The
22
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
young Indianapolitans
of
my boyhood
were
especially intrigued
by
the
younger
novelists
just emerging.
In those
days
before the
publication
of The Gentleman
-from
Indiana there was much
gossip
about Booth
Tarkington,
and it was
critical. He had
graduated
from Princeton and
gone
home,
and to
outward
seeming
he was
squandering
his
talents,
if indeed he had
any,
in frivolous
living.
Was he not found almost
every night
at
some
silly party? Clearly
he was
doing nothing.
He showed no
interest in
any
trade or
profession,
and the
backyard gossips
clacked
and clucked about the
youth
without ambition who
stayed up
late
at
parties
and
slept
far into the
day.
It was not until later that it
was known that after the
parties
he sat down to write until dawn.
He was
writing
fiction,
sending
it to
magazines
and book
publish-
ers,
and the
rejection slips poured
in to the
ivy-clad
brick
Tarking-
ton home on
Pennsylvania
Street.
Then, too,
the
gossips
were concerned about the
young
man's
morals,
for did
they
not
say
he drank? We
boys,
not without some
relish and
envy,
heard of his fantastic
friendship
with a
queer
character who drove a horse-drawn cab. The tale was told that
once near dawn
Tarkington, very high,
hailed the cab for the
jour-
ney
home and
promptly put
his foot
through
the window. When
the irate
cabby
remonstrated he was told to "think
nothing
of
it,"
to have the cab
repaired
and to send in the bill. And
thereafter,
so
the
gossips
said,
the incident was
repeated
with some
regularity,
and the
cabby,
who came to love his
passenger, thought nothing
of it at all.
At
length,
toward the end of the
Nineties,
a
publisher
discovered
Tarkington's
talent
through
the cleverness and devotion of the
writer's sister. The
gossips
heard that the
sister,
indignant
over
the monotonous arrival of
rejection slips,
went to New York and
bearded
McClure,
the
publisher,
in his
den,
with the accusation
that the
manuscript
of the
rejected
novel had not been read. The
publisher politely
summoned the reader for her. Had he
really
read the
manuscript?
she asked. He insisted that he had. The
lady
quoted
a
long passage.
He did not like it? The
smiling
reader re-
plied
that he did not. The
lady quoted
another,
and still another.
Did he remember them? The
reply implied
that he remembered
them too well.
Then,
turning
to the
publisher,
she
said,
"I knew
he hadn't read it. Not one of those
passages
is in the
manuscript*
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
I
improvised
them as I went
along."
The
publisher
ordered the
manuscript
sent to him
personally,
and The Gentleman
pom
In-
diana was
accepted,
on condition that it be
accompanied
with
another
storyand
the other
story
was Monsieur
Beaucaire,
which
was to be an even
greater
success.
The
publication
of these novels was taken as a
triumph
for the
town. How
delightful
the
spirit
of those
days
when a
speech by
Beveridge
in
Chicago
and a novel
by
another
young
man of the
community
set all the
tongues
to enthusiastic
wagging!
I well re-
member how
everyone glowed
with
pride,
as over a
personal
triumph,
and
paid homage
to the "indolent
young
man" who
would not take a
job. Tarkington
was on his
way.
Once
only,
and that was
very early,
did he
momentarily
turn
aside from his vocation:
when,
to his
neighbors'
amusement,
he
announced his
candidacy
for the
Legislature. Everyone
assumed
the
truth,
that he had no
political
ambition and
merely sought
ex-
perience
and color for a
political
novel. His
campaign
was directed
by
Fred
Joss,
a
young political
leader.
Joss
insisted that
Tarkington
take a
buggy
ride into the
poorer
section to meet the
People,
and
he
suggested
that the nominee take
cigars along
for distribution.
When
they
started on the drive
Joss
asked if he had the
cigars.
He had under the seat. At
length they
drew
up
to the curb beside
some
disreputable-looking loungers
who were
basking
in the
sun,
and he was introduced.
Tarkington passed
out the
cigars,
and
Joss
never was so embarrassed in his life. The
cigars
were
slender,
and
about four inches
long.
As
they
drove
away,
he turned
indignantly
on the
young
candidate and
cried,
"My
God,
where did
you get
those
cigars? They're
awful!" A bit
hurt,
Tarkington
assured him
that
they
were
expensive
Havanas
bought
at the
University
Club.
"For God's
sake,
dump
them,"
said
Joss.
"They're
so
tiny
these
people
will think
you've
cheated them. Get those
big long
ones
that sell for a nickel and make
yourself popular."
Thus
Tarkington
learned about
campaigning.
He was
elected,
and he served one term with no other distinction than that of
giv-
ing
the most
epicurean
dinners his
colleagues
had ever known. The
political
novel was
written,
but it added
nothing
to his
reputation.
About the same time another
Indianapolis
man
published
a novel
that had a
great vogue
and became a best seller. Some
years
later
I formed a warm
friendship
with this
author,
but at the time he
THE GOLDEN AGE IN INDIANAPOLIS
emerged
as a novelist I knew him
merely by sight.
He was Mere-
dith Nicholson of the
Indianapolis
News,
who had written a small
volume of verse that I found
occasionally
on the tables of friends
to
whom,
probably,
he had
given
complimentary copies.
He was
a handsome
young
man, tall, slender,
graceful, courtly, eager
for
life,
bubbling
with humor. There was some astonishment when he
flashed
upon
the town with his novel The House
of
a Thousand
Candles. It
appealed
to the
popular
taste of the time and had an
enormous
sale,
and
again Indianapolis
buzzed with acclaim and ex-
tended itself with
pride.
I was one of the
many
curious who made
a
pilgrimage
to the old-fashioned houseon Central
Avenue,
I
think which
figured
in the
gossip
as the house of the thousand
candles.
I was
working temporarily
in the Bobbs-Merrill
publishing
house
when it issued its first
sensationally
successful
novel,
When
Knight-
hood Was in Flower. No
publisher
ever did a more
perfect job
of
publicity,
and I had a
part, though
a
purely
mechanical
one,
in this.
Before
publication, inspired press reports
announced that a rare
old
manuscript
had been found and would soon
appear.
These
press
stories were
clipped by
the hundreds and sent to all book-
shops.
Then followed another news
story announcing
that the dis-
coverer of the
manuscript
was Charles
Major,
a
lawyer
of
Shelby-
ville. Then followed
personality
stories about the author. When
the book
appeared,
the enthusiastic reviews were sent in stacks to
bookstores
everywhere.
The demand for the novel reached such
proportions
that it was difficult to fill the
orders,
and
I,
in the law
division,
volunteered to assist the overburdened
packing depart-
ment,
packing
thousands of these books in
huge
boxes,
nailing
the
boxes
down,
discovering
and
developing
muscles in
putting
them
on trucks and
running
them
up
a
hand-operated
elevator to the
alley
for the
drays.
How thrilled we all were when the brilliant
and
dynamic
Bobbs returned from a
journey
with the announce-
ment that he had
arranged
for
Julia
Marlowe to
appear
in a drama-
tized version of the
story!
Only
once did I see Charles
Major.
He visited the store one
day,
and all the
employees,
in awed
silence,
craned their necks to see
the
very
handsome authorhe was
tall,
well
built,
with a
large,
attractive,
smooth-shaven
pink
face as he walked with the stride
of an athlete to the office in the rear.
TWO
POETS,
A PRESIDENT AND A SENATOR
When we arrived at the
house,
a somber servant who
might
have
been a funeral director ushered us into the
drawing
room
small,
dark,
overcrowded with
souvenirs,
among
them a sword
hanging
over the entrance to another room. We found seats and waited.
After a while we heard
quick steps
on the
stairs,
and in a mo-
ment the
great
man
appeared,
stiff,
coldly dignified,
without the
semblance of a smile of welcome. He was
short,
stout without
being
fat,
with hair and beard almost white and
eyes penetrating
and
strangely
cold and
unresponsive.
He seemed old but not tired
or worn. His face and forehead had a network of
tiny
wrinkles
that were
superficial
rather than
deep.
Harrison shook hands in the businesslike manner of a man with
no time to waste. Then he took a chair
by
a window
opening
on
the
grounds
and sat
looking
at
us,
silent as a Buddha in marble.
Clearly
it was
up
to us. It was not an
auspicious beginning
for two
boys.
The moment we submitted our
plan,
he
suggested
a
difficulty
in
a
very
low voice. We were
ready
with an
answer,
but he sat as
though
indifferent to the
replies, gazing
with
brooding eyes
out the
window. After a while we were convinced that while we were
answering
one of the
objections
he was
meditating
another. Under
such
treatment,
all awe of a former President
gave place
to resent-
ment,
and I am afraid that
finally
our answers became a bit rude.
At
length
we took our
departure,
Harrison
going
with us to the
door,
but without
having
made a definite
promise.
We stormed down Delaware Street
exhausting
our
puny
vo-
cabulary
of
vituperation upon
the
great
man's head. At the Deni-
son Hotel corner we met
Beveridge,
who asked how we had made
out. We
exploded
with denunciations.
Beveridge
seemed
puzzled.
"How
long
were
you
there?" he asked.
"About
forty
minutes."
"Then
go right
back and fall on
your
knees and thank
him,"
he
said. "If
you
had been United States
Senators,
he would have
given
you
but five."
Even so his treatment of us rankled.
Later,
when the
poet
Joa-
quin
Miller lectured in the interest of our
project,
James
Whit-
comb
Riley,
who
managed
the
event,
gave
us two tickets with
instructions to take them
personally
to Harrison and invite him
to attend. This time we didn't even
get
into the
drawing
room,
for
28
TWO
POETS,
A PRESIDENT AND A SENATOR
Harrison came
running
down the stairs and met us in the hall. To
our
amazement,
his face was wreathed in smiles.
Taking
the
tickets,
he said
pointedly,
as we were afterward to
recall,
"I shall be there
if nothing happens"
When we
glanced
over the audience that
night
we were not much
surprised,
or even
annoyed,
to note his
absence. We
expected
the worst of Harrison. But the next
morning
we found in the
papers
that
something
had
"happened"
that
night
his
daughter
Elizabeth was born.
In time we realized that he had been
having gentle
fun with us
in a
friendly spirit. Frequently, during
the remainder of his
life,
I met him on Delaware Street
walking slowly
and
leading
the
baby
Elizabeth
by
the
hand,
and he
always
smiled
genially
in
recogni-
tion,
lifting
his
high
hat in salutation.
I came in time to
appreciate
his
really great qualities,
his
dignity
and
integrity,
his
great intelligence
and
independence,
and to con-
clude that in sheer brain
power
no more than five or six Presidents
have been his
equal.
I heard him twice on the
platform.
His
speeches
were sound and
serious,
and his close
reasoning
was
possibly
above
the
appreciation
of the multitude. I heard
that,
cool as he was out-
wardly,
his knees trembled when he rose to
speak,
and that he had
said that if this didn't
happen
he knew the
speech
would be a fail-
ure. He never
sought
a Presidential nomination after his defeat in
1892,
due
partly
to the Homestead
strike,
partly
to the
disloyalty
of
Republican
leaders who had found him not "amenable to rea-
son" in the matter of
patronage
and too
unyielding
where
prin-
ciple
was involved.
Unquestionably,
until his retirement he was
cold and aloof.
During
the
gubernatorial
race in
1872,
when he was
running
against
"Blue
Jeans" Williams,
a dirt
farmer,
his enemies described
him as a snobbish
aristocrat,
and because he wore
gloves
in
driving
to his
appointments
he was called "Kid Glove Harrison." The
rep-
utation then
given
him
clung
to him to the end of his
days.
Then,
after
leaving
the
Presidency,
he did not endear himself to the
dominant
wing
of his
party
with his
speeches
on the
obligations
of
great
wealth and
against
die
hysteria
of
imperialism.
Unlike other
former
Presidents,
he returned to the
practice
of law. His most
famous case was the
boundary dispute
between Venezuela and
Great
Britain,
in which he
represented
Venezuela before the tri-
bunal of arbitration in Paris. He worked on the case for two
years,
29
TWO
POETS,
A PRESIDENT AND A SENATOR
and his
argument, consuming twenty-five
hours,
was so
powerful
that before it was finished the
lawyer
for the Crown warned the
Prime
Minister,
Lord
Salisbury,
to
prepare
for defeat.
We Americans are
always clamoring
for a President and leaders
capable
of
withstanding
the
importunities
of
petty politicians
and
with the
courage
of their convictions
regardless
of the effect on
their
personal
fortunes. We had such a man in Harrison and that
is one reason he was defeated for re-election.
But the
great
event of these months of
preparation
for
rivalry
with Lord
Brougham
was the visit of
Joaquin
Miller,
"the Poet of
the Sierras." We had written him in California
asking
for a
poem,
and he had
responded
from
Cincinnati,
where the letter had fol-
lowed him with a
stirring poem,
"Cuba
Libre,"
and a
long,
almost
indecipherable
letter
solemnly urging
that we call our
magazine
The
Cornfield.
We were
disgusted. Why,
in heaven's
name,
The
Cornfield?
We were reminded that there was a Cornhill
Magazine
in
England
and that Indiana was the center of the corn belt. But we
decided to find some
way
to
spare
the
magazine
this
indignity.
More to our satisfaction was his offer to lecture in
Indianapolis
and contribute the
proceeds
to the
magazine
fund. As a
youth
many years
before in the
days
of the
gold
rush to
California,
he
had
put
his
pack
on his
back,
turned
away
from his native Indiana
and taken the
long
trail. In all the
intervening years
he had never
visited his native heath.
Now,
an old
man,
he wanted to
return,
and this lecture would offer the
opportunity.
He made one condi-
tion
only
that his friend
James
WTiitcomb
Riley preside
and intro-
duce him. In due time he would send his
secretary,
Harr
Wagner,
to assist with the
plans.
Elated that we were to
sponsor
the
homecoming
of the
poet,
we
called on all the
newspapers
for
appropriate
editorials,
and
they
all
responded magnificently.
When we asked the
Speaker
of the In-
diana House of
Representatives
for
permission
to sell tickets on the
floor he said he would do better than that he would
arrange
a
joint
session with the Senate and do the
poet
the honor of
asking
him to address it.
Meanwhile we were
frequently calling
on
Riley
at his desk on
the
balcony
at
Bobbs-Merrill,
where we found him
working
like
a
schoolboy
on his
speech
of introduction. I can still see the
neat,
30
TWO
POETS,
A PRESIDENT AND A SENATOR
beautiful,
tiny writing
of the
manuscript.
We had rented
Plymouth
Church for the
lecture,
since this historic edifice was somehow
associated with
literary
and intellectual events. We had
obligated
ourselves to
pay
nine dollars for
it,
and this worried us a bit.
But we heard no more from Miller. Two
days
before the
day
of
the lecture Harr
Wagner
arrived with the
promise
that the
poet
would
appear
the
following day.
But he did not arrive. We went
to meet
every
train that
day,
but he did not
appear.
We
appealed
to
Wagner
to
telegraph
him.
"No
use,"
said
Wagner.
"He wouldn't
open
the
telegram.
One
night
when he was about to lecture he was handed a death tele-
gram
and it ruined his lecture and he has
paid
no attention to tele-
grams
since."
That nine-dollar
obligation weighed upon
us like the national
debt!
The next
day Riley joined
us in a
trudge
to the station. He was
impeccably
attired,
as
usual,
and had a little red flower in his but-
tonhole. We stood in the door of the station with a
sickening
fear
as the train drew in. At
length,
in the midst of the crowd
emerging
from the
gate,
we saw a
very
tall,
bearded man
wearing
a slouch
hat and
waving
a
carpet bag vigorously,
to the evident
annoyance
of his
neighbors.
It was the Poet of the Sierras. He was
wearing
boots
which,
though
his trousers covered
them,
were
clearly
out-
lined
beneath,
and he looked like a rustic from the ranch
country.
Impulsively
he threw his arms around
Riley's
neck. The two
poets
offered a
great
contrast:
Riley
short and
slight,
Miller tall and
burly; Riley
a veritable fashion
plate,
Miller almost a caricature of
a
rustic;
Riley
cool,
quiet, dignified,
Miller boisterous as a storm
in the mountains.
As we walked our
guest up
Illinois Street to the
Claypool, trudg-
ing along
without a
word,
Miller
again
threw his arms around
Riley
with the
exclamation, "Jim
Riley,
I love
you
more than
any
man
on earth!"
This broke the
silence,
and
Wagner
announced that the
Legisla-
ture had invited the
poet
to address a
joint
session.
Miller
stopped
in his
tracks,
an
expression
of consternation on
his face.
"Now,
Wagner, you
know that all
my
biled shirts are in
the trunk we sent ahead."
"Never
mind,"
said
Riley.
"It's
just barely possible
that we
may
3*
TWO
POETS,
A PRESIDENT AND A SENATOR
be able to
persuade
some merchant to take
your money
for a shirt
and collar."
Miller was still, in a boisterous mood as we entered the
hotel,
and he
approached
the
supercilious
clerk
waving
his
carpet bag
vigorously.
"Do
you
think
you
can furnish bed and board for a man like
me?" he asked.
The clerk seemed in some doubt as he
surveyed
the
rough
man
before
him,
but when his
eyes
fell on
Riley, faultlessly groomed,
he softened and
agreed
to furnish bed and board. We
accompanied
Miller to his
room,
where his first act was to
open
the
carpet bag,
extract a
picture
of a beautiful
girl
and
place
it on the mantel. It
was a
portrait
of his
daughter.
The
homecoming
lecture of the
poet
was a brilliant success.
The church was
packed,
with the Governor and the
Legislature
in attendance.
Riley's
introduction was a beautiful
prose poem.
Miller's lecture was
really
blank
verse,
and
charming.
Later when
the
complete
works of Miller were
published, Riley's speech
was
used as the introduction.
But even the success of the lecture failed to save the
magazine
from burial. We had
cautiously guarded
our
secret,
since Har-
rison's critical attitude had
discouraged
us as to the wisdom of the
venture. We sneaked to a
job-printing
office to
get
an estimate on
the first
issue,
and the
price appalled
us. The idea of
soliciting
advertisements had not occurred to
us,
since that would have
seemed
sordid, commercial,
unworthy
of the
dignity
of the
project.
We asked no
advice,
and all that was left of this adventure of two
foolish
boys
was the
Riley
Introduction to the
complete
works of
Joaquin
Miller. But we had the consolation of
knowing
that we had
sponsored
the
homecoming
of a Hoosier
poet,
and that seemed
glory enough.
If Harrison had failed
us,
another statesman to whom we
applied
for
literary
alms did not. David
Turpie
had
just
retired from the
United States Senate after
eighteen years
and was
living quietly
on Tennessee Street in a house filled with
books, and, unabashed,
we knocked on his door.
Though
we had never seen
him,
we had
heard that he was a
great
statesman and
jurist
who
spoke
a classic
English
that was
scarcely
matched in the Senate. We had heard
TWO
POETS,
A PRESIDENT AND A SENATOR
that when
Henry
Cabot
Lodge
entered the Senate a bit
preten-
tiously
and his
colleagues thought
a bit of
hazing might
cut him
down to
size,
Turpie,
a master of
satire,
had been
assigned
the
task,
because he could do it so
beautifully.
The door was
opened by Turpie
himself,
a
smiling
bearded old
man with a scholar's
stoop.
We did not know that he suffered from
palsy,
and while we were
explaining
our
project
we were almost
silenced when his head shook as
though
he were
dismissing
our
magazine.
But he listened with evident interest and ended
by prom-
ising
to write an article on one of the books of the Bible.
After his defeat in
1898,
Turpie
was asked to write the memoirs
of his
long public
service,
which
began
before the Civil War. His
Sketches
of My
O
t
vm Times was written
delightfully
and con-
densed with his characteristic
modesty
into a short book. His
friendship
for
Voorhees,
with whom he served in the
Senate,
is
expressed
in the most beautiful and
illuminating
tribute ever
paid
to that
great
man,
in which he referred
especially
to Voorhees'
long fight
for the
building
of the
Congressional Library.
Turpie
was
primarily
a statesman of the noblest mold. He had
lofty
ideas of the
dignity
and
responsibility
of the Senate.
Later,
as a
reporter,
I called
upon
him for his
opinion
of a Senate action
that we knew he
disapproved.
He said he
preferred
to be
silent,
because he
thought
it would be indelicate for him to criticize his
recent
colleagues.
He seemed to me like a Roman senator of the
best
days
of the
Republic.
In these
feverish,
hurrying days
of more
shouting
than
thinking,
one seldom hears him mentioned. Too bad!
He set a Senatorial standard too seldom matched. One of the com-
pensations
of the two
boys
who failed to establish another Edin-
burgh
Review was the
privilege
of
talking
with
Turpie.
33
CHAPTER IV
Education the Hard
Way
MY HAPPIEST MEMORIES of those
days
cluster around the
long
brick
building
on
Pennsylvania
Street,
between
Michigan
and
North,
known as the
Shortridge High
School It had a
faculty
of
extraordinary
men and
women,
and the student
body represented
every
social and financial station a
thoroughly
democratic institu-
tion. The
daughters
of the
wealthy passed
from
Shortridge
to Vas-
sar,
Smith and
Bryn
Mawr,
and the sons to
Harvard,
Yale and
Princeton.
In one member of the
faculty,
Laura
Donnan,
I found one of
the
greatest
women I have ever
known,
who had a decisive effect
on
my
life. After more than half a
century
those who came under
her influence
speak
of her with
admiration,
appreciation
and affec-
tion. Her
specialty
was civil
government,
and
everyone
but the
dullest
emerged
from her classroom with the keenest and most
lasting understanding
of the
meaning
and
obligations
of
citizenship.
She did more to make
citizens,
and to make them
fundamentally
American,
with a reverence for American institutions and the
American
way
of
life,
than
anyone
else I have ever known. She
adhered to the
Jeffersonian
theory
that the truth is best served in
the arbitrament of debate. If she were
living today
I am sure she
would devote less time to
showing
that the totalitarian
philosophy
is
wrong
than to
proving
that the
philosophy
of
democracy
is
right
-she would
give
more time to the
positives
than to the
negatives.
She was
vigorous
and vivid in her
teaching,
and her
voice,
though
ordinarily
warm and
pleasant,
had at times a
booming quality
which made her somewhat formidable
though
not less feminine.
One
instinctively
felt that she was not
only
a
teacher,
she was a
Personality.
In her classes she
encouraged argument,
and,
since she
34
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
had
powerful
convictions and some
prejudices,
the student
trying
to
curry
favor and
escape
her sarcasm
by simulating agreement
had her
contempt. Having
stout convictions of
my
own in
opposi-
tion to some of
hers,
I blurted out
precisely
what I
thought,
and,
to
my
amazement at
first,
I could see that she was
immensely
pleased.
She believed in a robust discussion of controversial sub-
jects.
She would have
despised
the now
growing
trend toward
mildness and
conformity
in
thinking.
It was this mutual
spirit
of
combat and
independence
that made us the closest of friends.
Her interests were unusual for a woman of her
day.
In her
girl-
hood
during
the Civil War she had
frequented
the State
House,
which was a block from her
home,
and had listened to the
impas-
sioned discussions of the wartime
legislators.
She had read law
under the direction of President
Harrison,
had lectured on consti-
tutional kw at the Law School and had written an excellent class
book on our fundamental law.
The old
family
home where she and two unmarried sisters still
lived would have seemed
quite
in
place
in the Concord of
Emerson,
Alcott and Hawthorne. A frame
house,
plainly
and
comfortably
furnished,
it had a
library
rich in the volumes that live on. I recall
busts of Emerson and
Lincoln,
whom she loved.
Being
an indi-
vidualist,
she refused to measure her conduct
by
the
tape
of fashion.
Because she did her own
marketing
and found it irksome to
carry
the
packages,
she
bought
a
boy's toy wagon,
and her friends smiled
and
strangers
stared when
they
saw this woman in her
plain gray
tailored suit
nonchalantly drawing
it
along
the sidewalks. In de-
bates and oratorical contests she was our drillmaster and
manager,
and woe to the
boy
who
caught
a cold on the eve of a
contest,
since she forced him to take her favorite
remedy,
hot
pepper
in
capsules, standing sternly by
to see them down. To this
day
I never
see
pepper
on the table without
thinking
of her.
My prospects
were dark
during my
school
days,
and her faith
in me was a torch. Our close
friendship
continued
throughout
her
life. When I delivered the
keynote
address at the
1928
Democratic
national convention in
Houston,
a
reporter
went to this robust Re-
publican
for her
comment,
and she
paid
me her
highest compli-
ment: "He has
always
had the
courage
of his
convictions,
and we
can use more like that
today."
After her death former students
placed
a bust of her
by
Laura
35
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
Richards in the new
Shortridge High
School
building
as a
memorial
to a
truly great
woman who made an indelible
impression
on the
thinking
of a
great community.
Throughout my Shortridge days
I
averaged
three hours a
day
in the
reading
room of the
public library
in the old
building
at
Pennsylvania
and Ohio
streets,
and later in the one at Meridian and
Ohio. This was
my university,
and I was the sole member of the
faculty.
I would send for a
book,
usually
a
history
or
biography,
and,
finding
references to other
books,
I would send for them
too,
and soon
my
table would be covered with
books,
to the clear an-
noyance
of the attendant. I read
biographies
of almost
every
Amer-
ican statesman from
Jefferson
and Hamilton to Elaine and Conk-
ling,
and of
English
statesmen from the
days
of
Walpole
down
through
Chatham, Pitt, Burke, Cobden,
Gladstone and
Disraeli,
and ever since then I have been as
keenly
interested in
English
politics
as in that of
my
own
country.
A desire for firsthand in-
formation,
especially
about the American
scene,
led me to
go
through
the
newspapers
of the
periods
concerned,
and thus I
formed a
proper appreciation
of the value of
newspapers
as a source
in
history.
The
greatest ally
of the historian is
curiosity.
It was at this time that I found hidden
away
on a back shelf in
the
public library
a
copy
of Goodrich's British
Eloquence,
with the
major speeches
of
Chatham, Fox, Pitt,
Burke and the Irish orators
Sheridan,
John
Philpot
Curran and
Henry
Grattan. These im-
pressed
me as literature on
fire,
and
every speech
was read and
analyzed
in an
eager
search for the art of the orators. In a
boyish
diary
of those
days, recently
discovered
among
old
papers,
are ear-
nest notations on the
progress
of this
study.
I was
especially
fasci-
nated
by
the
oratory
of
Curran,
the
incomparable genius
of the
Irish bar.
"Tonight
finished
John
Philpot
Curran,"
records the
diary.
"How
graceful
and beautiful are his
speeches!
How vivid
and
stirring
his word
pictures!
How much
burning indignation
he
can
put
into a sentence!
"
I
thought
then,
and still
think,
that Curran
was one of the
supreme
orators in the
English tongue, perhaps
in
sheer
genius
the
greatest.
Soon I was to have
my judgment
fortified
by
that of one of the
great
masters of the art.
Taking
the
study
of the orators
seriously,
I
sought
the advice
of the
living
masters. Robert G.
Ingersoll
had charmed me with
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
his
artistry,
and I had the
audacity
to
appeal
to him for advice.
His
reply delighted
me,
since he
pronounced
Curran the most fin-
ished of the British orators. I have that
letter,
written from his
home on Madison Avenue in New
York,
before me now. "If
you
wish to know the
English language
in its
strength
and
beauty,
read
Shakespeare,"
he wrote. "He is the master. All other writers are
fragmentary compared
with him.
Study Shakespeare."
And then
the sentence that
pleased
me; "I think Curran was a
greater
orator
than
Chatham,
Fox or Burke."
When the "Gold
Bug"
National Democratic
Party
convention
met in
Indianapolis
in
1896
a friend and I
pounced
on the orators.
The
"silver-tongued
orator of the Blue
Grass,"
Colonel William
C. P.
Breckinridge,
all
courtly grace,
received us in his hotel
room,
apologizing profusely
for its
disorder,
and entertained us for an
hour. He
thought
our own Senator
Turpie
a master in the use of
the
English language.
"If,
fifty years
from
now,"
he
said,
"some-
one submits to
competent
critics a
speech
of
Turpie's
and one of
Henry
Cabot
Lodge's
with the statement that one was
by
an East-
ern
literary
man and the other
by
a Western
lawyer, they
would
report
the
speech
of
Turpie
as that of the Eastern
Eterary
man
and that of
Lodge
as
by
the Western
lawyer."
Later on his return
to
Lexington
he wrote a
long
letter of minute advice.
Of more
lasting
value to me was the call on William
Everett,
son of the
accomplished
Edward,
educated at Harvard and at
Trinity College,
Oxford. He had studied law but had abandoned
it for the
pulpit. Being
a natural
teacher,
he had
accepted
the
direction of the Adams
Academy
in
Quincy,
Massachusetts,
at the
request
of a
dying
friend. When
Henry
Cabot
Lodge
was elected
to the
Senate,
Everett succeeded him in the
House,
though
he was a
Democrat and not a resident of the district. One term sufficed.
Later
Champ
Clark,
who was
Speaker
of the House for
eight years,
told me that Everett was the
greatest
scholar ever to sit in die House
and that he amazed his
colleagues during drowsy
debates
by
read-
ing
the Greek classics in the
original.
After the
meeting
in Indian-
apolis
he wrote me
frequently
and at
length
on
my reading.
In
pursuit
of an education I found much to
my advantage by
haunting
the law offices of Frank B. Burke and
Henry
Warrum,
men of much brilliance and
eloquence.
Burke was a
rugged
char-
acter,
Irish to his
finger tips,
with the
spontaneous eloquence
of his
37
EDUCATION
THE HARD WAY
race. Warrum had a brilliant mind and wide
culture;
the
library
in his home was a treasure house.
During
his last
twenty years
he
was the
attorney
for the United Mine
Workers,
and in his
frequent
appearances
before Senatorial committees he
impressed
the
Sena-
tors as a
really great
constitutional
lawyer.
These men contributed to
my
education. Their minds were so
active that
they
were in
frequent
verbal combat in the office
over
matters remote from their work. One of the most
exciting
and elo-
quent
debates I have ever heard was between them when I was the
sole
auditor,
my presence
overlooked. The
dispute grew
out of
Warrum's assertion that the
bloodletting
of the French
Revolution
was
unnecessary;
Burke
disagreed,
and the debate was on. Had
they
been
fighting
for a client's life
they
could not have been more
excited or intense.
They paced
the room as
they
talked. Both had
made intensive studies of the French
Revolution,
and the debate
was a historical treat. That
day
for an hour and a half I listened to
passages
of
eloquence equal
to
any
I have ever heard.
In
Irvington,
a
charming
suburb of
Indianapolis
in
my boyhood,
I knew an old statesman
through
whom I felt I contacted
Webster,
Clay
and Prentiss. This was
George
W.
Julian,
who had
played
a
conspicuous part
in
politics many years
before. A militant aboli-
tionist,
he was the nominee for Vice-President on the Free Soil
ticket.
During
the Civil War he was a member of the House Com-
mittee on the Conduct of the
War,
which was a source of
annoy-
ance to Lincoln. Because he was a
thoroughly
honest
man,
the
corruption during
the Grant administration and the
inauguration
of the
system
of
privilege
had driven him to
support Greeley
in
1872,
and this led him
ultimately
into the Democratic
Party, though
actually
he remained an
independent throughout
his life.
Occasionally
I made
pilgrimages
to the brick house in
Irvington,
where I
always
found the tall old man stretched full
length
on a
sofa in his
study. Though
he was
physically
feeble,
his mind was as
alert,
keen and brilliant as
ever,
and he would talk to me about
politics
for an hour and more. I found these conversations with
Julian
always fascinating,
because I directed them to the
Forties,
Fifties and Sixties of the nineteenth
century. Being
an
uncompro-
mising
abolitionist,
he looked
upon Henry Clay
as a
"trimmer,"
and,
while
conceding
Webster's
eloquence,
he had "no admiration
for his character." But his
pet
aversion was
Garfield,
and the old
38
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
man,
prone
on the
davenport, grew
vehement in
discussing
him.
I was shocked to hear him
say
that Garfield was
responsible
for his
own death because as a candidate he had lavished
promises
of
pre-
ferment
right
and
left,
perfectly
conscious of his
inability
to fulfill
them all.
This,
thought
Julian,
had acted on the sick mind of the
assassin and
brought
on the
tragedy.
In
truth, Julian
had an honest
man's abhorrence of the
politicians
of that
period
of land
grabs,
the
Credit Mobilier and the
system
of
privilege.
Mypolitical
education came in the
preparation
of
my speech
in a
state oratorical contest in which I
represented Shortridge.
With
the
paternal
and maternal branches of
my family sharply
divided,
I was confused as to
my allegiance,
but I had formed a
great
ad-
miration for Alexander
Hamilton,
whom I took as
my subject.
As
I waded
through
the ten volumes of his works edited
by Henry
Cabot
Lodge, my
consternation
grew.
It was all too clear that all
my
instincts were
opposed
to the
philosophy
of
my
hero. I was
shocked to find that he scorned
democracy
and
honestly thought
that
only through
a
partnership
between the
moneyed aristocracy
and
government
could
governmental stability
be assured. Too late
to
change
the
subject
and make the
necessary
research on
another,
I confined
my
oration on Hamilton to the
part
he
played
in
bring-
ing
about the ratification of the
Constitution,
in which he had little
faith.
However,
I won the contest.
Then,
finding myself
wander-
ing
in the no man's land of
politics,
I turned
desperately
to the
many
volumes of
Jefferson's
works,
and when I finished it was
clear to me that I was a
Jeffersonian.
Wishing
to convince
myself
of
my political
conversion
by
putting my impressions
of the
clashing philosophies
of
Jefferson
and Hamilton in
writing,
I wrote two articles for the
Jeffersonian
Democrat,
an obscure
magazine, assuring
the editor that I
expected
no
compensation.
I
got
none. But the articles were
printed.
Soon thereafter I was asked to
speak
for the
young
Democrats
at a
political banquet
in
Lebanon,
because
my
two
grandfathers
had been
pioneers
in the
county.
The
speech
must have been
ag-
gressive,
if
crude,
for when it was finished Governor
Ralston,
pre-
siding,
asked all who
thought
"the
boy"
could be elected to Con-
gress
from the
Indianapolis
district to
stand,
and the audience rose
and
cheered;
of course
they
all understood the
spirit
of the
sugges-
39
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
tion,
since
they
knew I was
barely
old
enough
to vote. But the
correspondents
of
Indianapolis papers, knowing
that were
my age
given
there would be no
story, ignored
this detail and
gave
the
incident a sensational
play.
The
party
leaders in
Indianapolis
were
astounded,
since Ralston was
high
in the
party hierarchy,
and
they
scurried about to learn the
identity
of the
interloper.
One
reporter
appealed
to Senator
Kern,
who said that he had never seen me but
that he had read two articles of mine and
they
were
"crackerjacks."
It was this
boyish speech
and this
reply
of Kern's that introduced
me into
newspaper
work.
At that
moment,
Jacob
Piatt
Dunn,
the sole editorial writer on
the
Indianapolis
Sentinel,
the
organ
of the Indiana
Democracy,
was much distressed because of his
inability
to find a substitute to
permit
of his occasional
meandering
in the woods beside a stream
with hook and line.
Reading
the interview with
Kern,
he sent for
the
magazine,
and after he had read the articles he invited the
author to his home. He
pumped
me on
politics
and
history,
and
while I
thought
from his whimsical
expression,
and a
disturbing
gleam
in his
eye,
that he found much
lacking,
he ended
by asking
me to take his
place
on the
paper during
his
fishing
excursions.
Thus in
my twenty-first year
I became an editorial writer while
Dunn sat on the bank of a stream with his
pipe
in his mouth and
his line in the water. Soon thereafter he was
appointed city comp-
troller,
and I
got
his editorial
job
with the
understanding
that if the
Democrats won the
city
election I would
remain,
otherwise he
would return.
This was the
day
of the
frankly partisan newspaper.
The Indian-
apolis
Journal,
the
Republican organ,
was owned and edited
by
John
C.
New,
who had been American consul
general
in London
during
the Harrison
administration,
and the Democratic Sentinel
was owned and edited
by
Samuel M.
Morse,
who had been consul
general
in Paris
during
the second Cleveland administration. These
papers
did not
pretend
to
political impartiality,
and their news
stories,
while
colored,
deceived no one. With
papers representing
both
parties,
the
public
had the
advantage
of a
debate,
so
impor-
tant in a
democracy.
The fact that in most
metropolitan
centers we now have a one-
party press
deserves more meditation than it receives. The
scrap-
ping
of the New York World left the nation without a
crusading
40
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
liberal
paper
with a national circulation. In
Indianapolis
there have
been
nothing
but
papers
of one
political persuasion
since the
liqui-
dation of the Sentinel at the turn of the
century.
When I was in
Spain
I had an
interesting
conversation with Salvador de Madari-
aga,
the brilliant
professor, diplomat
and
historian,
and I was im-
pressed by
his
pessimism
over the future of
democracy.
It was
based on the fact that the mass media of communication were
pass-
ing
into the
possession
of one school of
thought
and one economic
group.
The Sentinel had been a robust
party paper
for more than
sixty
years,
but in
my
time its
popularity
was at a low ebb. Morse was
an able man whose
powerful
editorials on the tariff had attracted
the attention of Cleveland. The transformation of his
political
character
began during
his
stay
in
Paris,
when Americans of wealth
and social
prestige expressed
astonishment that a man of such intel-
ligence
and charm should be affiliated with the
party
of
Bryan
and
the common herd. This tickled his
vanity,
and he returned to In-
dianapolis
an
ultraconservative,
if not a
reactionary.
This,
reflected
in his
paper,
was not lost
upon
the
Democrats,
who
began
to doubt
the
authenticity
of his
party loyalty.
He now seldom wrote an
editorial,
and when he did it was off
key.
His
vanity
was often
amusing.
One
day George Gray
Barnard,
the
sculptor,
came to
the Sentinel with a letter of introduction to
Morse, whom,
he told
me,
he had never met. Morse was absent at the time and on his
return I was
beginning
to tell him that Barnard had been to see
him when he broke in
"George
here? We were
great pals
in
Paris!" I didn't dare mention the letter of introduction.
My
sanctum at the Sentinel was in a back room with an
uninspir-
ing
view of an
alley,
and it seldom felt the touch of the
janitor's
broom.
My
editorials were written with a lead
pencil
and were
ardent
enough,
I'm sure. I would take them to Morse for his
ap-
proval,
and after
reading
them and
chuckling
he would
usually say,
"Well,
I don't know
exactly
what
you're trying
to
say,
but
they
sound all
right,
so send them down." I was so naive at the time that
I
accepted
this as a
compliment,
but
when,
quite early,
he made
me a
present
of a
dictionary
I was not so sure.
When
Bryan,
renominated in
1900,
was notified in
Indianapolis,
Morse's interest was so
slight
that he
assigned
me,
a mere
boy,
to
write the editorial comment in the
party organ.
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
My reading
of the works of
Jefferson
and Hamilton had made
me a
Jeffersonian,
but
my
education in
contemporary politics
be-
gan
in
1896.
Never had
Indianapolis
or the nation seethed with
such frenzied excitement as
during
the memorable
campaign
of
that
year.
That
incomparably appealing
crusader William
Jennings
Bryan
had
appeared
in the
political
firmament,
a star of the first
magnitude, shedding
an unaccustomed
light
on the
political
and
economic evils of the
time,
and
awakening
a
drowsing people
to the
realization that
government
and its
policies
are the business of
every
citizen,
that small selfish
groups
have no divine
right
to
exploit
and
oppress
the masses
through
the misuse of the instrumentalities of
the
state,
and that
democracy,
as conceived
by
Jefferson,
was
being
undermined. From the close of the Civil War men had been Demo-
crats and
Republicans pulling
for their
team,
with not much con-
sideration of what it was all about.
The
country
in
1896
was still
steeped
in the
gloom
of the de-
pression
of
1893.
Grover Cleveland was President for the second
time. He had made a valiant
though
futile
fight
for tariff reform
and had
caught
the
fancy
of the reformers
by treating
the civil
service
seriously.
He was
honest,
sincere and
courageous,
within
the framework of the economic and
political system
in
vogue
for
many years.
Yet at this time farms redeemed from the wilderness
by
die sweat of the
pioneers
were
falling
under the hammer of the
auctioneer because the farmer could not make
enough
to
pay
his
taxes;
the
products
the farmer
bought
were
artificially
raised in
price by
the
tariff,
which enriched the manufacturers at his ex-
pense,
while for his own
products
he had to take what he could
get
in the
open
market. Labor had no
rights
that the
employer
was
bound to
respect.
The Pullman strike had been
put
down
by
fed-
eral
troops,
and
"government by injunction"
had become a live
issue;
the fact that the
Attorney
General who had advised the use
of the federal
troops,
Richard
Olney,
was a railroad
lawyer
did
not make the act more
acceptable.
Millions of workers were idle
in the
streets,
and
Coxey
with his absurd but
pathetic army
of the
unemployed
had marched on
Washington.
With a Democratic
Administration in
power,
an
overwhelming repudiation
of the
party
at the
polls
in the Presidential election seemed inevitable.
The Democrats met in convention in
Chicago
in an
atmosphere
42
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
of black
depression.
Then came a
miracle, when,
with
something
akin to
magic,
a
young
man of
thirty-six
aroused the masses to
unprecedented heights
of enthusiasm in a
speech
that was to make
history.
The "Cross of Gold" oration was an alarm
clock,
and the
common man awoke to the fact that he had a vital interest in the
election.
A
boy
in
high
school at the
time,
I remember
sitting
on the back
steps
of
my
house the next
morning reading
the
speech
in the Sen-
tinel. It thrilled me
through
and
through.
I knew
nothing
about the
money question,
but this
great
oration went far
beyond any
one
issue. It
was,
in its
general
tone and
content,
the submission to the
people
of the
paramount
issue of
democracy
and human
rights.
It
marked the
beginning
of a crusade that was to
go
on without se-
rious
interruption,
with minor
parts
of the
program adopted
kter
by
Theodore Roosevelt and
by
Woodrow
Wilson,
reaching
its cli-
max in the
policies
of Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Certainly
that
speech,
followed
by Bryan's
nomination,
put dynamite
into the
campaign.
For the first time since the
days
of
Jackson
and Lincoln the
partisans
began
to think in terms of
policies
and
principles,
and not so much of
the
triumph
of their team.
Party
lines were blurred.
On all street corners in the business section of
Indianapolis great
crowds of excited
partisans congested
the
sidewalks, listening pas-
sionately,
or with
amusement,
to the amateur debaters. The excite-
ment had the force of
hysteria,
and this
hysteria
reached down to
the
schoolboys. My
friend
Langsdale
the brother-in-law of Bev-
eridge
and I rose at four in the
morning
to
carry papers,
and since
our routes crossed at various
points,
and we were not in
agreement
on how to save the
country,
we
always paused
to continue the dis-
pute,
our voices
rising
to a
shout,
as windows flew
up
and
indig-
nant householders in
nightshirts
leaned out to curse us and order us
away.
I can never
forget my
first view of
Bryan.
He arrived in Indian-
apolis
in the
morning,
and it was announced
that he would
speak
from a
platform
outside the State House in the afternoon. The
grounds
were
packed
to suffocation. Then out
through
a window
stepped
the
young
crusader.
Nothing
could have been more satis-
fying
to the
eye.
He was
remarkably
handsome in a virile
sense,
and his
glance
over the
huge throng
was
magnetic,
his
eye piercing
and
yet
warm with emotion. His voice was
strong,
mellow and ex-
43
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
pressive
of the
sincerity
of the
man,
passionately
earnest. One
could feel the emotional
response
of the crowd.
That
night
he
spoke
in Tomlinson's Hall. Hours before the
doors were
opened,
thousands had
gathered
in the
street,
reaching
far back. As time
passed,
with the doors still
closed,
the
pressure
of the crowd became almost unbearable.
Many
women fainted.
When the doors
finally
were thrown
open
the thousands
pressed
forward,
threatening
to crush those nearest the door. I was
among
these,
and had I not worked
myself up,
held
up by my neighbors,
my
feet not
touching
the
ground,
I would have been
suffocated;
it was thus that I was
swept
into the hall.
Bryan's speech
that
night
was a
godsend
to the amateur
debaters;
it munitioned their
argu-
ments.
From that hour I
thought
in terms of
politics.
I felt little enthusiasm for the war with
Spain,
and its aftermath
of
imperialism
shocked me.
(That war,
as we now
know,
was un-
necessary.
The
diplomatic correspondence
I was to read in the
embassy
in Madrid bears
painful proof
that we forced the war.
The
sinking
of the Maine
certainly
was not the work of the
Span-
iards.
Just
why
we were so insistent on war remains a
mystery.)
The
victory
of
Dewey
in Manila
Bay
was
loudly
celebrated in
Indianapolis;
Richard
Harding
Davis was
thrilling
us with a de-
scription
of
Teddy
Roosevelt
charging up
San
Juan
Hill. Some
Democrats were
complaining
that
Bryan
and his
regiment
were not
permitted
to reach Cuba lest to his
glamour
as an orator be added
that of a
soldier,
but our
easy triumph
over an ancient nation had
its effect on our national
adolescence,
and the
young, especially,
responded jubilantly
to
Beveridge's thrilling speech
in Tomlinson's
Hall,
lyrical
in its call to
carry
the
flag
over mountains and seas
to the domination of the world.
No other Presidential election has meant so much to me as that
of
1900,
because of its emotional
appeal.
I was fresh from the
study
of
Jefferson
and the fundamentals of
Americanism,
and the idea
that we should
plunge
into a career of
imperialism
seemed treason
to our
principles.
I was
young enough
to
really
feel it and be hurt.
Bryan
was renominated and he made his
speech
of
acceptance
in
Military
Park,
Indianapolis,
where I
joined
the
throng.
It was a
hot
day
and the odor of the
sweating
multitude was
unpleasant,
44
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
but
Bryan
never made a
greater speech.
It was a brilliant and
pow-
erful restatement of the elemental
principles
of the
Republic,
and
parts
were
beautifully phrased.
I recall that when his
glasses
be-
came moist he turned to a
tall,
gray-mustached
man on the
plat-
form and borrowed his. This man was Adlai E.
Stevenson,
Vice-
President under Cleveland and
Bryan's running
mate that
year.
Fifty years
later,
his
grandson
would
delight
America and
Europe
with
political speeches
of rare
eloquence.
But even more
impressive
to me that
year
was the
tempestuous
oration
against imperialism
that I heard Bourke Cockran deliver in
Tomlinson's Hall in
support
of the
Bryan
he had
opposed
four
years
before. In his
generation Bryan
alone
approached
him as an
orator. Their methods were
entirely
different.
Bryan's eloquence
was
primarily
of,
and
to,
the heart. It was natural
eloquence,
like
that of Patrick
Henry.
The
phrasing
was almost Biblical in its
simplicity.
But Cockran was the conscious artist. Had he lived in
the
golden days
of
parliamentary eloquence
in the British House
of
Commons,
he would have
yielded nothing
to
Pitt, Fox,
Burke
and Sheridan.
Indeed,
his
style
was
strongly suggestive
of that of
the
greatest
orators of that time. In diction and
delivery,
he was
the
supreme
artist. I can still see him in action that
night
and hear
his
rolling golden
sentences and their
thrilling
climaxes as he beat
upon
his chest or
slapped
his
thigh.
In that
campaign
he
spoke
from
the heart and out of the richness of his brilliant mind.
My
first disillusionment came in that
campaign.
It coincided
with
my
first
appearance
on the
stump
in
Neidlinger's
Hall in
Whitestown,
the town where I had
spent
the first ten
years
of
my
life.
People packed
the hall to see and hear the home-town
boy.
My
talk was confined to the one issue of
imperialism,
and since I
felt all I
said,
I have no doubt it was
unnecessarily
vehement. The
attention was
perfect,
the
proverbial pin
could have been heard
to
drop,
but I was
disappointed
when
my
most earnest
passages
were heard in silence. It was not until afterward when I walked
away
with the
village
blacksmith that I
began
to understand. "It
was a
good speech,"
he said
timidly
(and,
I'm
sure,
with
many
reservations),
"but I think the
boys
would've liked it better if
you'd gone
into the
price
of corn and
hogs."
Thus
my
education
in
campaigning began.
I remember
my depression
at the realiza-
45
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
tion that
perhaps
idealism and abstract
principles
are hard to im-
press
on an
average
audience,
and that even the liberties and inde-
pendence
of
peoples
mean less to
many
than the
price
of corn and
hogs.
However,
I
clung tenaciously
to the
speech
and delivered
it in a number of small towns.
The second defeat of
Bryan
and the
triumph
of
imperialism
de-
pressed
me more. Never had a candidate been received with such
continuous ovations from millions from coast to
coast,
and while
cheers are not
votes,
they
bear a relation to them. I still
suspect
that
but for the
intimidation,
coercion and
corruption, Bryan
would
have won. It was
something
new,
since the
days
of Andrew
Jack-
son,
to threaten workers with the loss of their
jobs
unless
they
voted as
they
were told. Intimidation was
commonplace
in the
campaigns
of
1896
and
1900.
Slips
in the
pay envelopes
of
factory
workers informed them that should
Bryan
be elected
they
need
not return to
work;
if
McKinley
won,
they
would still have their
jobs.
Under the clever direction of Mark Hanna the
greatest
cam-
paign
fund in
history up
to that time was raised for
McKinley;
but
the Democrats could raise little
money,
because
they
had
nothing
to sell to the
people
who had it. It was to take some
years
of cru-
sading by Bryan
to make it clear
that,
under our form of
govern-
ment, intimidation,
coercion and
corruption
are tantamount to
treason.
The
plunge
into
campaigning
in
1900
had whetted
my appetite
for
politics
and that of
my
friend Frank P. Baker
(who
later be-
came a
judge),
but we observed with
dismay
that the Democratic
leaders were not
impressed
with our value to the
party. Something
had to be done about
it,
so we decided to
organize
a state
banquet
at
Franklin,
to invite the
party
leaders,
and to
put
ourselves on the
program
to tickle the ears of breathless listeners with our elo-
quence. Being
on the Sentinel at the
time,
I
gave
the
banquet great
publicity.
There was much
speculation
as to its
significance,
and
the
politicians
flocked from the river to the
lake,
agog
with curi-
osity.
The
Taggart organization suspected
it to be a trick of the
opposition;
the
opposition
was sure it was a
scurvy plot
of the
organization.
The result was such an influx of the curious that the
hall could not
begin
to accommodate all those
clamoring
for ad-
mission. We had
John
W.
Kern,
the future
Senator,
and other
46
EDUCATION THE HAED WAY
leaders as
background
for our
appearance,
and,
more to the
point,
Baker and I
spoke
to our own satisfaction.
Encouraged
now,
we
hastily arranged
another
meeting,
in the
old Masonic Hall in
Indianapolis,
and
again
we summoned the
bored leaders to serve as our
background. Unhappily,
the
reporter
who covered the
meeting
had a sense of
humor,
and in his
story
we
read that
Taggart
had
appeared
to
"pull
the
bung
out of the barrel
of
oratory
and then made his
escape'
7
;
that
Henry
Warrum "shifted
his tobacco from one cheek to another and waded
in,"
though
in
fact he did not chew
tobacco;
that I was a
"dreamy-eyed young
man with a soulful look" who "attacked the British Redcoats and
the Boer War and administered
hatpin jabs
at the
money power."
The
young
man who
spoke
for the Law School had been
"pat-
terned
by
nature as a funeral director" and in "a sad
sepulchral
voice" had
"expressed grave
fears for the future of the
Republic."
Nothing
daunted
by
this
rebuff,
we took it on ourselves to ar-
range
a
great banquet
in Tomlinson's Hall with a
speaker
of some
distinction from outside the
state,
and we selected
Mayor
David
Rose of
Milwaukee,
who was an excellent orator with some
polish.
We sent the invitation to
Mayor
Rose without
consulting Taggart
or
any
of the
leaders, and,
on its
acceptance, Taggart,
with evident
disreHsh,
was forced to
co-operate.
It was Rose who made the scan-
dal. Unknown to
us,
he was hostile to
Bryan
in a
day
when
Bryan
was an idol in
Indiana,
and his
speech
left no doubt of his
hostility.
Seated at one of the tables was the venerable
Judge
David
Gooding,
whose life had touched the
Jackson
period
and who had
patterned
his
speeches accordingly throughout
his life. He was therefore
known for his abuse of the
enemy.
Soon after Rose
began
his anti-
Bryan
discourse
every eye
was turned on the
tall,
powerful figure
of the venerable
Gooding,
his face suffused with
fury,
as he
sprang
to his feet and stalked down the aisle
pounding
the floor with
his cane and
exclaiming loudly, "By
God,
this is treason!" This did
not sweeten the
temper
of the irritated
Taggart,
since
many
would
suppose
not
only
that he had selected Rose as the
speaker,
but that
he
approved
of the
anti-Bryan
tone of the
speech.
So our method
of
forcing recognition
from the bosses
backfired,
and I was defi-
nitely
on
Taggart's
blacklist for several
years.
But the
audacity
of the two
young
men in a
hurry
did attract
attention. At that time I
spoke
with such
rapidity
that for some
47
EDUCATION THE HARD WAY
years
thereafter I was
designated
"the
Gatling-gun
orator of the
Wabash"!
To make
my prospects
in
Indianapolis
even
darker,
my
eco-
nomic situation was
gloomy.
I had set
my
heart on law as a
pro-
fession,
but I could not afford the
necessary study
of some
years
followed
by
the usual starvation
period
of the
young lawyer.
The
momentary glamour
of
my Shortridge days
was
fading
out,
most
of
my
friends were now at
Yale,
Harvard or
Princeton,
and I was
in the
depths
of
depression, ready
to abandon all
my boyhood
ambitions with the sad reflection that "the
thoughts
of
youth
are
long, long thoughts."
Humiliated
by my position,
I was
eager
to
leave
Indianapolis
when I noticed an advertisement for a
newspa-
perman
on the Terre Haute Gazette. In
making application
I
gave
John
W. Kern as a reference. With such a
sponsor
a favorable
reply
was almost certain. It
came,
but when it did I was more de-
pressed
than elated. I had never been in Terre Haute and I knew
not a
single person
there. Had
anyone suggested
when I took the
train for the
city
on the Wabash in
January
1903
that within
eight-
een months after
my
arrival I would be nominated for
Congress by
the
Democrats,
it would have seemed a bad
joke.
48
CHAPTER V
A
Plunge
into Politics
I WALKED from the station in Terre Haute that cold
January day
with the uncontrollable
feeling
that I was in a
community
of
strangers.
Nevertheless,
the town had
many
historical associations
for me. Its
name,
French for
"high
land," was,
I
knew,
a
heritage
from the
days
when the whole
territory
had
belonged
to
France;
it was thus that French traders and
Jesuit
missionaries had referred
to the site in the
early eighteenth century.
Three miles
up
the beau-
tiful
Wabash,
the river lined with
sycamore
trees and
sung
so senti-
mentally by
Paul
Dresser,
was the site of the fort built
by
William
Henry
Harrison in 181 1 as a
protection against
the Indians. Terre
Haute had
produced
more than its share of
distinguished
men and
women. The house in which
Secretary
Usher of Lincoln's Cabinet
had lived still stood on Ohio Street. Richard W.
Thompson,
Secre-
tary
of the
Navy
in the
Hayes
Cabinet,
had died
only
a little while
before
my
arrival. But to me the sentimental
appeal
of the town
was in the fact that it had been the home of Daniel W.
Voorhees,
whom I had idolized from
early
childhood,
and I went in search
of the house where he had lived in the
days
of his
early triumphs.
In his
day
most of the best houses were on the
riverfront,
and from
the windows one could look across the Wabash to where "the can-
dle
lights
were
gleaming."
But fashion had moved from the river
now,
and
though
the solid brick house where Voorhees had lived
was still
there,
I found that it had been converted into a
bawdy-
house.
In a small house on a
slight
elevation across from the
jail
Theo-
dore Dreiser and his brother
Paul,
who
by
now had become the
songwriter
Paul
Dresser,
had lived in
abject poverty
in their
early
youth.
The Dreiser
family
was still the
subject
of familiar
gossip
49
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
in
my
time. Here in Terre Haute lived
Eugene
V.
Debs, and,
in
girlhood,
some famous
womenJanet
Scudder,
the
sculptress;
Amelia Kiissner
Coudert,
the miniature
painter;
Alice
Fischer,
the
actress;
and Rose
Melville,
the
original
"Sis
Hopkins"
of the
plays.
Alice Fischer
really
loved the
town,
occasionally visiting
her
family
there,
and I
vividly
recall one afternoon when she
delighted
me
with her
rollicking
reminiscences of her
girlhood.
In
talking
she
gushed, sparkled,
roared with
laughter.
Her
loyalties
were of the
heart. When a friend of hers referred to Debs as a
Socialist,
Alice
flared. "Don't be
stupid,"
she said. "Gene is not a Socialist. He's
from Terre Haute. Am I a Socialist because I come from Terre
Haute?" she asked
triumphantly.
Such was her
logic
where her
loyalties
were involved.
If I entered the town a
stranger
I was not
long
to remain
one,
for the Terre Hauteans combined the
qualities
of the
generous
West with those of the
hospitable
South.
They
had no reticence
among strangers,
whom
they quickly
drew in. The
big lobby
of the
old Terre Haute House was a veritable club where
any evening
one could find a
goodly assembly
of
leading
citizens
lolling
in the
big
black leather chairs in
gossip
or
disputation.
The
population
included all sorts. There were numerous rich men
among
the brew-
ers,
distillers and coal
operators,
but
they
were democratic in their
social relations. The
large
labor
population employed
in factories
and
neighboring
mines exerted an
abiding
influence on the social
thinking
of the
community.
I was astonished
by
this at
first,
hav-
ing
come from
Indianapolis,
where labor unions were then anath-
ema. I often marveled
why
a
city
so
ideally
situated for industrial
purposes
as Terre Haute was should not have had a more
rapid
growth
as an industrial center. Here was coal in abundance almost
at the furnace
door,
an
ample
water
supply,
and railroads
running
east and west and north and south. I was told elsewhere that the
reputation
of the
city
as a labor union town had tended to divert
manufacturers to other fields.
The Terre Haute Gazette was a
family paper,
owned and edited
by
the Ball
brothers,
men of sound
ability
and character. It was an
old-fashioned
paper
with a
high
ethical
standard, but,
refusing
to
unionize,
it
steadily
lost in circulation. When the
profits
had
ap-
proached
zero it was sold and
merged
with the
Tribune,
and I left
to
go
to the Star as an editorial writer.
50
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
It was in these
days
that I received
my
education about labor
unions. The
process
of
making
the
periodic
contracts between
miners and
operators
was this: The miners met in their convention
and decided what
they
would
ask;
the
operators
met in theirs and
agreed
on what
they
would concede or
refuse;
and then miners
and
operators
met
together
for the
struggle.
I attended these meet-
ings,
and the more I saw the
greater my
admiration for the miners
grew.
The
operators
were no match for them in
debate,
and eventu-
ally
the
operators
had to
employ
as
secretary
and
spokesman
a
former head of the United Mine
Workers,
Phil
Penna,
a Welshman
with
great facility
in
speech
who understood the
language
and the
psychology
of the coal
diggers. Many
times I saw an
operator
so
bungle
his case that while he was
blundering along
half a dozen
scarred miners were on the
edge
of their chairs
awaiting
an
oppor-
tunity
to tear him to
pieces. Instantly
Penna would
spring
to the
defense and direct the withdrawal. He
usually began
with a witti-
cism that
brought laughter,
and then
deftly
he would cover the
retreat. I found that these miners were students of
economics,
and
natural debaters. At these
joint meetings
the
contracts,
for stated
periods,
were made and
signed;
in those
days
such contracts were
scrupulously
observed.
My
first
year
in Terre Haute remains a
pleasant memory.
It was
a new
experience.
I lived on South Fifth
Street,
in a little room
heated
by
a small
stove,
and on winter
mornings,
I often had to
break
through
ice in the
pitcher
to wash and shave before
tramping
ankle
deep
in snow to Mrs. Collins'
boardinghouse
on Third Street
for breakfast. The meals there were delicious and abundant and
cost three dollars a week.
Alas,
the
good
old
days!
I had
put
aside all
thoughts
of
politics,
cultivated no
politicians,
and was
happy
in
my
isolation. It was then that I
yielded
to the
natural ambition of
many
honest Hoosier lads to write a novel. At
night, by
the dim
light
of a
smoking
kerosene
lamp, hovering
close
to the stove to
keep
warm,
I sat
writing
what,
of
course,
was to be
the
great
American novel.
Inevitably,
it was to be a
political yarn.
The hero was
patterned
after Tom
Taggart,
the heroine after a
charming
and clever
girl
I knew in
Indianapolis,
who,
after more
than
fifty years,
is still
my
friend. The
manuscript
was sent to
Lippincott.
To
my
astonishment,
when it was returned it was not
with the usual curt
rejection slip
but with a
long
letter to the effect
5
1
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
that the man in the
story
was "a distinct creation" but that the
woman was not
quite
real. I was
urged
to rewrite the
story
and
re-create the
lady
with more usual traits. Since I had created the
fictional
lady meticulously
after the real
one,
this
puzzled
me no
end. But before I could sit down to the
rewriting
of the tale some-
thing happened
to
change
the course of
my
life back to its earlier
trend.
The most famous Terre Hautean of the time was
Eugene
V.
Debs,
leader of the Socialist
Party,
and one
day
I went in search
of him for a feature
story. Looking
for his
home,
I was confused
to find
myself
in a
prosperous neighborhood
with
large,
com-
fortable houses. I had assumed I would find him
living
in a
shack
in some
outlying
district of vice and
squalor,
this
being my
con-
ception
of a Socialist. When at
length
I found
myself
in front of
a two-and-a-half
-story
frame house set in
grounds
with well-tended
flower
beds,
I was
positive
I had made a mistake. I
glanced
at
my
memorandum.
Yes,
this was the address. Still
incredulous,
I ascended
the
steps
and
rang
the bell.
I
expected
to be confronted with a
dour-faced,
rough, scowling
man in shirt
sleeves,
probably
unshaven since
this,
again,
was
my
idea of a Socialist. The door
opened,
and I was
facing
a
tall,
slender
man in a
smoking jacket,
with a
pipe
in one hand and a book in the
other,
and on his face one of the sweetest smiles I have ever seen.
This,
I
realized,
was Debs.
He led me into a
library
lined with books to the
ceiling.
I studied
this man who was a monster to those who did not know
him,
and
noted his fine
head,
his
long strong
neck,
his
deep-blue eyes
that
beamed with benevolence and
yet
were keen and
penetrating,
and
the smile that seemed so childlike and
pure
in its
sincerity.
I found
it
impossible
to reconcile what I saw with what I had heard about
him from those who had never seen him. He could have been
taken for a
physician,
a
lawyer
or a
professor,
for his features had
the refinement of the intellectual. One could even
imagine
him in
clerical
garb,
a
parish priest
of the more tender
sort,
and
picture
him
passing
in and out of the
lowly
houses of his flock on errands
of kindness and
mercy.
For two hours we sat and chatted.
My
mission was such that I
could draw him out on his life and
thinking
without
indelicacy.
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
In a reminiscent
mood,
he talked
nostalgically
of his
youth.
His
parents,
revered
by
him,
were Alsatians who had had to
struggle
for a
living
when
they
came to America. His
boyish hunger
for
knowledge
had led him into the Occidental
Literary
Club,
before
which he read
papers
and
engaged
in
debates,
thus
unwittingly
preparing
himself for the
rough-and-tumble
of the
hustings.
He
was still a
boy
when he conceived the idea of
introducing
James
Whitcomb
Riley,
then at the
beginning
of his career on the
plat-
form,
to a Terre Haute audience. The
poet
was then
scarcely
known in the
community,
and I
gathered
that the
boy
had been
bitterly disappointed by
the size of the
audience,
but
captivated by
the
poet.
That was the
beginning
of a
lifelong friendship
matched
by
that between Debs and
Eugene
Field. It was
Riley
who said that
"God was feelin'
mighty good
when he made Gene
Debs,
and he
didn't have
anything
else to do all
day."
Later
Riley
was to write:
Go search the earth
-from
end to end
And 'where's a better all-round
friend
Than
Eugene
Debs? a man that stands
And
jest
holds out in his two hands
As warm a heart as ever beat
Betwixt here and the
Mercy
Seat!
That
day
Debs recalled with
boyish delight
and
laughter
his
brief excursion into the drama in
early youth.
A
group
of the
very-
young proposed
to storm the
stage
with their own version of
Uncle Tonis Cabin. It was a
disappointment
to Debs that his com-
panions thought
him
especially
fitted for the role of advance
agent,
because of his
ingratiating personality.
Alice
Fischer,
later a woman
of such
imposing
stature that it was difficult to find a suitable role
for
her,
appeared
as Little
Eva,
and
John
E. Lamb
(who
was to
become a brilliant
lawyer,
orator and
political
leader),
being large
and
muscular,
undertook the
unpleasant
role of Simon
Legree.
The
play
amused the
neighbors,
and,
full of
confidence,
Debs fared
forth
among
the small towns of eastern Illinois
preparing
the vil-
lagers
for an artistic treat.
Unhappily
the rustics were not
amused,
and
soon,
after
being
stranded in a
village,
the
thespians hilariously
found their
way
back home.
That
day
Debs also described an
experience
he had had with a
distinguished
conservative club in Boston soon after his release
53
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
Unhappily
his life was a series of battles. His enemies were
made in
large
measure
by
his intolerance of bores and his
impatience
with
the
pretensions
of
mediocrity.
His acid wit and his
scorching
sar-
casm embittered
many
who would have
preferred
to be his
friends.
I am sure he did not realize how
deeply
he
wounded,
since often
it was his irresistible sense of the ridiculous that led him into
ironic
comments in a
spirit
of
fun,
without
realizing
the effect on his vic-
tims. In social contacts and in conversation he was
charming.
In his
home and in his office on
Sunday mornings,
when his close friends
usually gathered,
it was a treat to listen to his observations on
people
and
politics
and to hear his chuckle.
As a
political
leader he was
masterful,
uncannily
resourceful,
and
unerring
in
timing
and in
judgment.
He
began
his
professional
career as a brilliant criminal
lawyer.
He was a
genius
in
courtroom
strategy.
His
eloquence
was irresistible with most
juries. During
one
bitterly
contested and
very prolonged
murder
trial,
with a mob
clamoring
for his client's
life,
he walked the floor at
night
without
sleep
for
days,
and
though
the trial ended with the
acquittal
of his
client it resulted in his nervous
collapse.
Thereafter he abandoned
criminal
practice
to confine himself to civil and
corporation
law,
a field in which he had an
equally
brilliant career.
In
1903
when I first went to Terre Haute I carried a letter of
introduction to Lamb from
Kern,
but after a
glance
at the
scrawny,
unpromising youth
that I was he received me with a
cold,
distant
courtesy
that
discouraged
me from
seeing
him
again
until a
year
later,
when he sent for me.
This summons had a novel
background.
The annual Terre Haute
Jackson
Club
banquet
was
important
in state
politics.
I had been
in Terre Haute
just
one
year,
remote from
politics,
when an In-
dianapolis
Democratic leader who declined an invitation to
speak
at the
banquet suggested
that there was a
young
man in Terre
Haute who would do
"quite
as well."
My speech
made a favorable
impression,
and the leaders of the
Congressional
district's seven
counties,
who
followed,
proposed my
nomination for
Congress.
No one would have
thought
of
selecting
a candidate without the
approval
of
Lamb,
who was then in Cuba. When on his return
he heard of the
suggestion,
he
arranged
to have me
speak
at the
Saint Patrick's
Day banquet
so that he could hear me.
During my
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
speech
I noticed with some satisfaction that Lamb seemed moved.
The next
morning
I was summoned to his office.
"How would
you
like the nomination for
Congress?
"
he asked.
I admitted that I would like it.
"Very
well,"
he said. "There's
hardly any possibility
of a Demo-
cratic
victory
this fall" it was the
year
of the
Teddy
Roosevelt
landslide "but
you're
a
young
man and can afford the sacrifice.
By making
a
speaking campaign
in all seven counties
you'll help
the local tickets and
put
the
party
under
obligation
to
you
in the
future. I
suppose you
have no
money.
We'll take care of that."
And
so,
when
scarcely
the constitutional
age
to hold the office
if
elected,
I was nominated for
Congress
in the courthouse in Mar-
tinsville.
It was evident from the
beginning
that the Democrats had no
chance at all in the
campaign
of
1904.
The
party
bosses had con-
ceived the idea of
doing
a
right-about-face
and
nominating
a
pro-
nounced conservative for President a
repudiation
of
Bryan,
still
the idol of the rank and file. Alton B.
Parker,
a New York
jurist,
able and
honest,
was nominated at the St. Louis convention over
the
protest
of
Bryan,
whose
moving speech
as dawn was
breaking
was one of the most remarkable of his career. To make matters
worse,
after his nomination Parker was
persuaded by
foolish ad-
visers to
telegraph
the convention that he would refuse if it did
not
accept
his
repudiation
of
Bryan's policies,
and the convention
acceded to his wishes. In
my
first
speech
as a candidate that
year,
when I mentioned the name of Parker the silence was so
impressive
that I did not mention it
again.
My Congressional
district
comprised
seven counties:
Vigo,
Ver-
million and
Clay,
which had a
large mining
and industrial
popula-
tion,
and
Parke, Putnam,
Hendricks and
Morgan,
which were en-
tirely agricultural.
The
memory
of that
campaign
is still
pleasant
and vivid. For seven weeks I
spoke every
afternoon and
evening,
going
into
every township
of the seven counties. And
since,
for
financial
reasons,
I had to
keep my newspaper job,
I would sit
down each
night
after the last
meeting
and write
usually
beside a
kerosene
lamp
in a
country
hotel room
nonpolitical
editorials for
the Star.
57
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
In those
days
candidates
campaigned
in rural areas
by
horse and
buggy.
We set out from the
county
seats in a cavalcade of
buggies
the first of
every
week,
sleeping
wherever the
night meeting might
be held.
During
the
day
the
procession
would move
slowly through
the
countryside, pausing
at each farmhouse to solicit the farmer's
vote
personally.
If he was
working
in a distant field some of our
party
would
join
him at his work and others would talk to the
farmer's wife or
daughter,
and if he was at the churn the candidate
would take his turn. The elector would be
quizzed discreetly
about
the other
candidates,
and the information as to
preference
and
prejudice
would be
passed
on to the
person
affected. The
practical
jokers
took
advantage
of this
system
to
play upon
the morbid fears
of the oversensitive
candidate,
who would be
solemnly
warned of
imaginary grievances against
him, and,
smothered in
gloom,
he
would suffer until
evening,
when his fears would be lifted with
the truth.
Nothing
could have been more
pleasant
than these drives
through
the
countryside
when the forests were
flaming
with red and
gold
and the odors of the fall were sweet. In the
evening
we could count
on a
country
dinner at the farmhouse of one of the
faithful,
where
we would be surfeited with fried
chicken,
cream
gravy, spareribs,
yeast
biscuits,
pie
and cake. After
eating
we would draw
up
our
chairs before the
blazing
hearth until time to
go
to the
evening
meeting
at some
neighboring
town. When there was no such
town,
the
meeting
would be in some
country
schoolhouse,
and as we
ap-
proached
we would see the
flaming
torches and hear the fife and
drum. The room would be
packed
with farmers in their work
clothes,
and these
meetings
were the most intimate of
all,
since the
speaker
could reach over and touch the shoulders of those in the
front row.
Usually
the
country
hotels offered a comfortable
bed
and
good
fare,
but some of the
roosting places
were
primitive
be-
yond compare.
One
morning
I woke to find
my
bedcover under
three inches of snow that had drifted in
through
a broken window-
pane.
In Hendricks and
Morgan
counties,
both
overwhelmingly
Re-
publican,
little
encouragement
and scant
courtesy
could be ex-
pected.
In these I had to take the
week-long journey
alone or
accompanied only by
a driver from the
livery
stable. In
Morgan
it was
particularly depressing.
One
evening
I drove into a small
58
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
town in this
county
and found there were fewer than ten Demo-
crats in the
township.
I was told that we had been refused a hall
for the
speech.
I
suggested
a vacant store.
No,
the owner had
indignantly
refused its use. I was
staying
at a
pleasant
little hotel
with a
porch
in
front;
when I
proposed speaking
from the
porch
mine host
protested
with such vehemence that he seemed on the
verge
of a stroke.
Thoroughly disgusted
and
angry,
I told the
cringing
Democrats to have a
goods
box set in front of the
lighted
window of a store and I would
speak
from there. The
suggestion
clearly
alarmed
my
little flock of the
faithful,
but it was so ar-
ranged.
I
spoke
almost an
hour,
facing
a crowd that extended back
into the blackness. When I
closed,
my
audience
gave
three cheers
for
my opponent.
Later I learned the secret of the fears of
my
few
supporters. Many years
before,
Thomas A.
Hendricks,
later Gov-
ernor,
Senator and
Vice-President,
had been stoned from the town
when he
attempted
to make a Democratic
speech,
and the threat
was made that
any
Democrat
presuming
to
speak
there would be
given
similar treatment. I had not heard of the
incident,
but the
crowd,
assuming
that I
had,
formed a better
opinion
of
my
valor
than I deserved.
Defeated,
as I
expected,
in the
Republican
landslide of
1904,
I
was
unanimously
renominated in the
park
at Rockville in
1906,
and
again
for seven weeks I made the rounds. As late as the after-
noon after the
election,
the
Republican
State Committee conceded
my
election,
the Associated Press announced
it,
and I was
deluged
with
congratulations.
It was fortunate that I
opposed
the
suggestion
that we hold a
celebration,
for I was
eventually
defeated
by
returns
that came in almost
twenty-four
hours after the
closing
of the
polls,
though
there was no
convincing
reason
given
for the
delay.
The
1906
campaign brought
me into
personal
contact with
Bryan,
and I had an
interesting glimpse
of his alertness. He was
touring
the state in a
special
train,
speaking briefly
in numerous
towns
during
the
day
and
closing
with a
large meeting
in some
city
in the
evening.
He had
spoken early
in the
day
in
Brazil,
where
I
joined
his train to
accompany
him to Terre
Haute,
and then he
had retired to his
drawing
room for a
massage
and a
change
of
underclothes,
as was his custom. Often he
slept
for ten or fifteen
minutes between
towns,
since he could
sleep
at will and awaken
59
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
when he wished. After his rubdown I was
sitting
beside him with
a
copy
of the Cincinnati
Enquirer
on
my lap. Glancing
at
it,
he
caught
the headline of the
report
of a
speech by
Senator
Beveridge
in which that orator had called him a "dreamer."
Bryan
smiled
and
murmured,
"
'The dreamer lives
forever,
but the doer dies in
a
day.'
"
Then,
taking
the
paper
in his
hand,
he told me the
story
of
Joseph
the
dreamer,
who went into the land of the
stranger
and
"got
the corn." This flashed
upon
him as a
reply
to
Beveridge's
taunt,
and he
incorporated
the Biblical
story
into his
speech
that
night;
it was one of his
happiest
retorts to his foes.
That
campaign
was the last in which I was to
figure
as a candi-
date,
but
every
two
years
until I left Indiana I made
speeches
for
a month or so in
every campaign.
My
next contact with
Bryan
was in Nebraska in
1908 when,
as
a
delegate,
I was en route to the national convention at Denver
with Kern and Lamb. We
stopped
in Lincoln on a
rainy morning,
and
Bryan
drove in from his farm to have us to lunch. He was
lighthearted
and
gay.
At the convention he was
easily
nominated.
In the
ensuing campaign
I learned
something
more of
Bryan's
system
for
preserving
his health and
conserving
his
strength.
He
spoke
one afternoon to a
huge
crowd in the
ballpark
in Terre
Haute for an hour and a half. That
evening
we were to dine at
Lamb's,
and I left the
meeting
with
Bryan
and Lamb in the latter's
little electric
runabout,
sitting facing
the Commoner. As the car
was
slowly creeping through
the
throng
on the
grounds,
with fer-
vent
partisans crowding
about
it,
Bryan
seemed
suddenly very
tired,
and his hands
hung limply
over the side of the car. When
his admirers
grasped
them there was no
responding clasp
from
him,
and he looked old. I was
alarmed,
for he had the
appearance
of a
man on the
verge
of a
collapse.
But the moment we
emerged
from
the
grounds,
he
straightened
in his
seat;
the transformation was
astonishing.
Then I realized that he had the rare
capacity
of relax-
ing utterly
in the midst of a crowd. He had been
resting!
That
night
at dinner he was
very
hoarse, but,
because the
factory
owners had refused
permission
for their
employees
to hear the
speech
in the
afternoon,
a last-minute
plan
was made for a fifteen-
minute
speech
from the
steps
of the courthouse after dinner. Hand-
bills were
speedily printed
and
scattered;
it was not
thought proba-
60
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
ble, however,
that
many people
would be reached. But when we
emerged
on the courthouse
steps, having
entered the
building by
another
door,
we were startled: before
us,
a
huge
crowd was
packed solidly
from the
steps
to the
buildings
across the street and
for a block in both directions. "I cannot
disappoint
this
crowd,
5 '
I
heard
Bryan say,
and he
began
to
speak.
His voice was
husky
for a
minute;
then it became as clear as a clarion and he
spoke
for almost
an hour. But what interested me most was the
carrying power
of
that voice. I was
standing
beside him and it seemed to me that his
tone was
entirely
conversational,
and
yet
I noticed that
every
word
reached those on the outskirts of the crowd a block
away.
It was that
year,
too,
that I learned
something
about the cun-
ning
of Uncle
Joe Cannon,
Republican Speaker
of the House and
one of the most
picturesque figures
of his rime. He had incurred
the resentment of the
temperance people,
and for the first time in
years
he felt it
necessary
to
campaign
in his own Illinois district.
When I was sent on a
speaking
tour into the
district,
I was
puzzled
to hear Democrats
making sympathetic
comments on the old war-
rior and his
campaign.
With the best
opportunity
in
years
to defeat
him,
this was
disconcerting,
and I asked the reason for so much
compassion.
In almost tender tones one of the Democrats
replied
that Cannon was an old and feeble man and that it was too bad that
in his
closing days
he should be
subjected
to the
rigors
of a cam-
paign.
I knew
that,
en
route,
he had
stopped
in
Indianapolis
to
attend a dinner at the Marion Club and had
stayed
till an hour
when some of the other diners were
just
about under the table.
I asked
why
he was
thought
feeble.
"Well/'
I was
told,
"when he
spoke
in thus hall last
night
he was so weak that
they
had to
help
him down the
aisle,
and he asked
permission
to
speak
seated."
Hoping
to overcome this unseasonable
sympathy,
I
suggested
that
he
probably
was
strong enough
to
give
the Democrats a
trouncing.
"No,
that's the unusual
part
about
it,"
I was told. This was soon
after
Bryan
had toured
Europe
and been wined and dined
(or,
rather, dined,
since he did not
drink)
by
the statesmen there. "No
doubt,"
continued the tender
Democrat,
"being
old and
feeble,
he
has lost his
wallop.
He said in a weak voice that
every
time he
picked up
a
paper
and noticed that a
prime
minister had accorded
Bryan high
distinction in
Europe,
he exclaimed to
himself,
'Thank
God he's an American.'
"
I could find no
way
to combat
this,
and
61
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
I have no doubt that for
every temperance Republican
vote
Can-
non
lost,
he
gained
a Democratic
sympathy
vote.
The
night
of the
election,
when the
Republican triumph
was
assured,
the Elks club in
Danville,
his
home,
paraded
to the house
of the "feeble old
man,"
who
placed
himself at the head of the
procession
and did a
jig
dance all the
way
to the
clubhouse;
and
at
midnight
he took the train to New York to attend a dinner in
honor of
James
S.
Sherman,
the Vice-President-elect. No one knew
better when to
play
the lion and when to
play
the fox.
That
year,
1908,
also marked the
beginning
of
my long
friend-
ship
with Thomas R.
Marshall,
later Vice-President for
eight years
through
the Wilson
regime.
While
Bryan
had lost
Indiana,
the
Democrats had elected a
governor
and a
majority
in the
Legislature
on the
local-option
issue which
injected
Prohibition into
politics.
Thus Marshall entered
upon
his
interesting
career. Little known
outside his own
district,
he had been nominated for
governor
as a
compromise
candidate when the
struggle
between the
organization
and the
anti-organization
forces threatened to create a feud. Be-
cause in the
early stages
of the state convention few
thought
his
nomination
possible,
there was no
feeling against
him in
any quar-
ter.
When,
like most
delegates,
I called at his
headquarters,
I found
a
slightly
built man with a
big
mustache
(not
closely cropped,
as in
his
Washington days)
and humorous
eyes
who amused callers with
his
whimsicality
and
gave
the
impression
of
being
a modest man
capable
of
poking
fun at himself while
paying compliments
to his
opponents.
His visitors left his room with a
kindly feeling
for an
old-fashioned Democrat. Thus it was that in the end the
organiza-
tion forces
dumped
their votes into Marshall's
lap.
But the real drama in state
politics
came after the election: the
defeat of Kern for the United States
Senatorship.
With a Demo-
cratic
majority
in the
Legislature,
it was assumed
by
the rank and
file that he would be elected.
(This
was before the Seventeenth
Amendment,
and Senators were still chosen
by
the state
legisla-
tures.)
He had made
many
sacrifices for the
party,
and he had
just
been the Democratic nominee for
Vice-PresidentBryan's running
mate in the
1908
campaign.
But the state
campaign
on the issue of
county option
had
given
the
brewery
and
distillery
interests a
pow-
erful influence in the
Legislature,
and its
obligations, supported by
62
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
the
machine,
were
elsewhere,
so Kern was defeated. When the
result was
announced and
Kern,
looking
crushed,
was
leaving
the
State
House,
Lamb who had also been a candidate for the nomina-
tion before the Democratic
legislators'
caucus said to
me, "Lord,
how he would
enjoy
a drink!" Kern had not touched
liquor
for
many years.
Another Senator was to be elected in
1910 (Beveridge's
second
term was about to
expire)
and Lamb was
again
a candidate for the
nomination. He was too consummate a
politician
not to know that
in a
legislators'
caucus,
with the
organization
hostile to
him,
as it
now
was,
he would
inevitably
lose. One
day
he called me to his
office and outlined his
plan.
He
proposed
that the state convention
should make the
nomination,
pledging
all the
party's legislative
candidates to the election of the nominee. He knew that the re-
sentment of
many
over the defeat of Kern would
rally
them to the
support
of the
plan.
But,
as he knew and
said,
were it known that
the
plan originated
with a candidate it would make much less of
an
appeal.
Governor Marshall was an excellent
governor
and was
very popular,
and Lamb
planned
to
persuade
Marshall to
sponsor
the
plan,
which would be known as "the Governor's
plan."
He
hoped
to convince Marshall that this would attract national atten-
tion,
as indeed it
did, and,
if
successful,
would
put
him forward
conspicuously
as the
champion
of the rank and file
against
the
bosses. He counted on the Governor's
pride
and
ambition,
and with
reason. Thus "the Governor's
plan,"
in truth Lamb's
plan,
was
announced.
The
bitterly
hostile reaction of the
organization
caused Marshall
some
concern,
and he showed
signs
of
wavering.
Lamb called me
to his office. "Marshall is
weakening,"
he
said,
"and we must do
something
to bolster him
up. Bryan
arrives in New York from
South America the first of next week and I want him to
telegraph
Marshall his enthusiastic endorsement of the
plan
and
give
it to the
press.
I can't
go
to New York without
attracting
attention and
defeating my purpose.
I want
you
to
go
and see
Bryan, explain
the
situation,
and ask him to send the
telegram."
I did not
go,
since
another
way
was found to reach
Bryan
with the
message.
His tele-
gram
created
something
of a sensation
among
the
Hoosiers,
and the
effect on Marshall's morale was excellent.
Thus the Indiana Democratic convention of
1910
made
history
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
and
anticipated
the
popular
election of Senators. The
excitement
was intense and
feeling
ran
high.
The
opposition,
under the
clever
leadership
of
Taggart,
marshaled its forces for the
fight.
The
lobby
of the Denison House buzzed and throbbed.
Living
and
working
with
Lamb,
as I was
doing,
was a
nerve-racking experience.
He be-
lieved that the one
hope
of
victory
would be in
rallying
the
outside
counties
against
the
organization
in the
capital,
which he intended to
attack. He even
proposed
to attack
Taggart,
and I was unable to dis-
suade him. He
expected
to be hooted and
jeered
and he
hoped
that
the
mobbing by
the
Indianapolis delegates
would be resented
by
the
outside counties. The moment he mentioned
Taggart's
name the
storm of hisses and
jeers
broke.
Through
the
pandemonium
Lamb
stood
smiling
and
silent,
getting
in a word in the
infrequent
lulls.
Marshall,
on the
platform,
was
pale
and nervous. But on the roll
call the
plan
carried.
I watched this mad scene with Meredith
Nicholson,
the
novelist,
who,
indicating
an
opposite
box in which were Mrs.
Lamb,
Mrs.
Kern and Mrs.
Marshall, commented,
"There's the real drama-
more than on the floor." For in the end it was Kern who was chosen
as the nominee for Senator.
The sensational
triumph
of "the Governor's
plan" gave
Marshall
a national
reputation
as a
popular
leader of
progressive
forces and
led to his
becoming
a candidate for the Democratic Presidential
nomination at the
1912
convention at
Baltimore,
which
finally
chose him as Woodrow Wilson's
running
mate.
(The
uncannily
clever
Taggart
assumed the
leadership
of the Marshall forces at the
Baltimore convention and made the most of his candidate's
triumph
over the bosses of whom
Taggart
himself had been
one.)
Thus the
net result of Lamb's
strategy
was that Kern went to the Senate
where he later became the Wilson Administration's floor leader
and Marshall became Vice-President. The sole reward Lamb re-
ceived was the offer of the
embassy
in
Mexico,
which he was not to
enjoy,
since it was
thought
wise to
postpone
his
appearance
in
Mexico until conditions cleared
up
there,
and
during
the interval
he died.
The Senatorial election of
1910
was more than
ordinarily
ex-
citing,
with
Kern,
a veteran
campaigner, pitted against
the
eloquent
Beveridge.
While
campaigning
I found abundant evidence that the
Republican
enemies of
Beveridge
banded
together
for his defeat.
64
A PLUNGE INTO POLITICS
Years
later,
I was to write
biographies
of both
Beveridge
and Kern.
Soon after the
election,
Kern asked me to serve as his
secretary.
This offer
provided
an
easy
release from a
municipal
office which
did not interest
me,
and I
accepted
with the mental reservation
that I would serve one
year
for the
experience
and then
resign.
But,
for reasons that will
appear,
I was to continue with Kern
through-
out his term.
CHAPTER VI
Washington,
1911-1917:
Unwritten
History
THE WASHINGTON I KNEW from
1911
to
1917,
a
city
of
leisurely
tradition,
has
passed
into
history.
The First World War was to
change
the tone and
tempo
of the town.
During my
residence
there the
people
lived rather
quietly
and moved about as
though
time were of little
consequence.
The downtown section was
really
lonely
at
night. Pennsylvania
Avenue was a drab reminder of the
years
before the Civil
War,
the architecture of the
buildings
com-
monplace
to hideous unless one could visualize the
past
on which
these structures had looked.
Strolling along
the
avenue,
one saw the
identical
buildings
that
Clay
and Webster
knew,
now worn and
shabby
with time and weather. The National
Hotel,
a
four-story
brick structure
painted
white and
turning yellow,
was still
open
to
guests
as in the
days
when
Clay
died within its walls and Bu-
chanan was a
guest
the
night
before his
inauguration.
Hancock's
retained its old
quarters
in a little
two-story
brick
building,
with its
sawdust-floored bar that had been a favorite of
Clay
and Webster.
It was
still
famous for its chicken
dinners,
Southern
style,
but
any-
one
wishing
to
partake
had to reserve one of the tables the
day
before. The colored
waiters,
old and
dignified, might
have come
down from the 1
8405.
Nearer the
Treasury,
Shoemaker's
Bar,
also with a sawdust
floor,
and with old
prints
and
posters
on the
walls,
remained a favorite
meeting place
for
statesmen,
as in the
days
when
Stephen
A.
Doug-
las
spent
too much time there. It was also a favorite of
newspaper-
men,
and when its ornate and
unique
beer
mugs began
to be taken
as souvenirs the
proprietor
took to
painting
three telltale words
66
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
on the bottom of the
mugs.
A
story
was told that when Prince
Henry
of
Germany
was a
guest
at the White House
during
the
Teddy
Roosevelt administration the President
thought
it would be
nice to have a beer
party.
It was a last-minute
thought,
and be-
cause the
party
would be a failure without old steins Archie Butt
suggested borrowing
some from the famous saloon. All would
have
gone
well but for the fact that when the steins were lifted
to hoch the Kaiser one could read on the bottom that
they
had been
"STOLEN FROM SHOEMAKER'S."
Harvey's
was still on
Pennsylvania
Avenue,
where it had been
generations
before when statesmen in search of a
good game
or
fish dinner with choice wine ate and drank there while
planning
historic
legislation.
To me the most
fascinating spot
in
Washington
was
Lafayette
Square, facing
the White House and dominated
by
Jackson
on his
rearing
stallion,
for all around the
square
were houses associated
with
many
of the
great figures
and events in our
history.
The old
Arlington
Hotel was torn down
during my Washington days,
and
the Belasco Theater stood on the site of the house in which the
murderous assault was made on William H. Seward the
night
of
Lincoln's
assassination,
but otherwise most of the houses of ante-
bellum
days
remained. The Cosmos Club
occupied
the house in
which
Dolley
Madison held court
years
after her husband's death.
The Cameron
house,
where the
Taylors
had lived and whence on
a
blustery, rainy day
President William
Henry
Harrison had
walked across the
park
to his death from
pneumonia,
still stood.
Across the
square
was the house from whose windows the beautiful
Italian wife of Daniel E. Sickles
gave
the
signal
to her
lover,
who
was shot in the
square by
her
outraged
husband,
resulting
in one
of the most sensational murder trials in our
history.
But the house that
intrigued
me most was the Decatur
house,
where the wife of the naval hero
played
on the
harpsichord
and
whence at dawn one
day
her husband sallied forth to his rendez-
vous with death on the field of
honor;
in which
Fox,
the British
minister,
slept by day
that he
might
be fresh for the card table with
our celebrities
by night;
in which
Clay
lived,
mourning
his defeat
for the
Presidency;
and where Martin Van
Buren,
when in
Jack-
son's
Cabinet,
had a window cut so that he could see Old
Hickory's
signals
from the White
House,
and
pretty Peggy
Eaton came for
67
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
comfort and advice
during
her bitter battle with the
snobs.
Diag-
onally
across the street was the Corcoran
house,
where
Webster
lived and at whose
table,
over wine and
walnuts,
he and
Ashburton
negotiated
the
treaty
which bears their names.
Alas,
this
house
has
been demolished to make
way
for the
uninspiring
building
of the
Chamber of
Commerce,
and it seemed
probable
that the
Decatur
house would suffer the same fate
until,
years
later,
it was
given
to
the nation. One wonders
why
those
charged
with the
planning
of
the
city
have not
thought
it worth while to
preserve
these
historic
houses.
When I went to
Washington
I was
engaged
to
Sybil McCaslin,
a beautiful
girl
from
Indianapolis
whom I had been
earnestly
court-
ing
for several
years.
After our
marriage
our first
quarters
in Wash-
ington
were in an
apartment
on G
Street,
within a stone's
throw of
that monstrous mountain of
masonry
that then housed the
State,
War and
Navy departments.
The next
year
we had more attractive
quarters
in the Cliffbourne on Calvert
Street,
in a
pleasant neigh-
borhood,
with the windows
looking
out on Rock Creek Park.
Though
we have
always thought
of the Cliffbourne as our Wash-
ington
home,
our last
year
found us in the Prince Karl on K
Street,
a staid old
apartment
house without much
charm,
but convenient.
During
these
years
our favorite walks were
through
the historic
streets of old
Georgetown,
not then
fashionable,
and
through
the
Virginia
and
Maryland countryside.
Looking
back on
my
six
years
in
Washington,
I am convinced
that those
years
marked the
beginning
of a new and more
pro-
gressive period
in our
history.
There had been a break in the
long
sordid tradition
during
Theodore Roosevelt's
administration,
but
that of his
successor, Taft,
returned to the old
policies
and
princi-
ples
on which we had
operated
since the middle of the i86os. The
high
tide of
privilege
was reached with the
Payne-
Aldrich Tariff
of
1909.
In the dissension that it stirred
up,
the domination of the
Republican Party by
Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Is-
land and the
big-corporation
interests was
challenged
and the old
order
began
to creak and crack. Then came the break between
Roosevelt and
Taft; later,
in
1911,
there was even a rift between
Taft and the
Republican
Old
Guard,
over his
support
of the Cana-
dian
reciprocity agreement,
which
they opposed bitterly.
Mean-
68
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
while the electorate had been aroused
by
the tariff and
by
some
investigations
through
which the Democrats were
beginning
to
pry
into dark
government
recesses. In the elections of
1910
some
of the stoutest
champions
of reaction in the Senate had been re-
tired and
replaced by
more
progressive
men,
and the
Republicans
had lost the House. In
1912,
with the
Republicans split
wide
open,
Woodrow Wilson was elected President and the Democrats
gained
control of the Senate.
And,
to add
immeasurably
to the
advantage
of the
Democrats,
they
had an enormous
superiority
in the caliber
of their Senate leaders and in their notable effectiveness in debate.
I
spent
much time in the Senate
studying my
favorites. For some
years
Senator
Joseph
W.
Bailey
of Texas had dominated the Demo-
cratic
minority
like an overseer. It had been an ultraconservative
and
reactionary minority, easily impressed by
the
domineering,
extraordinarily
able and
eloquent Bailey. They
followed him as
meekly
as the bull follows the steer. He even looked the
part
of the
overseer.
Tall,
powerfully
built,
with a handsome head and fea-
tures,
he carried himself like a
conqueror.
His
eloquence
was both
powerful
and
persuasive.
His
speeches
were
phrased
in the best
English
and were
fairly
well knit in
logic, though
he was
prone
to
draw on his
imagination
for
history
when
required
to make his
point.
His voice was
melodious,
and when he finished his
perora-
tion his tones
lingered
in the chamber like the echo of chimes in
a cathedral.
The election of
1910
introduced new faces on the Democratic
side,
and most of these were able men of
strong
liberal and
pro-
gressive
tendencies. No
longer
was
Bailey
able to
speak
ex
cathedra,
without a
challenge.
I am sure I was
present
when he suffered the
humiliation that made
private
life more attractive to him than his
seat in the Senate.
Bailey
was
contending,
in a tariff
debate,
that no Democratic
statesman had ever favored free
imports
on raw materials. He
spoke
with
great
force and
confidence,
due to his
previous
suc-
cesses in
substituting
stout assertions for
history.
He
challenged
anyone
to
produce
a name in contradiction. He
paused.
Silence,
as
usual. He reiterated his
challenge
and sat down.
A small
man,
slightly stooped,
rose
slowly
and
began speaking
in a soft Southern drawl:
John
Sharp
Williams of
Mississippi.
Wil-
liams had certain cultural
advantages
over even
Henry
Cabot
69
WASHINGTON, 1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
Lodge, habitually
referred to as "the scholar in
politics."
In
youth
he had taken the
grand
tour,
studying
in
Germany,
lingering
long
and
understandingly
in France and
England.
His clothes
sometimes
suggested
the need of a
valet,
but his
English
never the need of a
grammarian
or rhetorician. There was
nothing pretentious
in his
eloquence.
He offered no
purple patches,
but when his
emotions
were aroused he was
movingly eloquent.
His wit was
biting
and his
humor irresistible. He could
cripple
an
opponent
with a
sentence.
Williams
began
his
reply
to
Bailey
with an
expression
of his
profound
admiration and affection for the Texan. Then he ac-
cepted Bailey's challenge. Citing
dates and
occasions,
he called the
roll of a
string
of Democratic statesmen who had favored free im-
ports
of raw materials.
Bailey
flushed and was
clearly
flustered.
When Williams sat down the Texan
sprang
to his feet and
angrily
replied
with more "facts" from
history. Observing
that the Missis-
sippian
was
taking
notes,
he became
angrier
and laid himself wide
open by
more loose assertions.
Up
rose Williams
nonchalantly
to
reiterate his admiration and
affection,
and then in a bored drawl
to
pulverize
the
object
of his adoration.
Bailey,
red in the
face,
rose
again,
so infuriated
by
this
mutiny
that he said the
opposite
of what he
meant,
despite
his
mastery
of the
language;
Williams,
saying
in his sweetest tones that he loved his
colleague
too
dearly
to
permit
the mistake to
go
into the
record,
corrected him. This ex-
change
lasted for a
long
time. When it
finally
ended,
everyone
in
the crowded chamber was
persuaded
that
Bailey
had lost his con-
trol of the
minority.
And
when,
after the election of
1912,
the
militantly progressive
Senator Kern
displaced
Senator Tom
Martin,
the ultraconservative
Virginian,
from his
long-held position
of Democratic floor
leader,
it became
crystal
clear that the Democratic
Party
now the
majority
party
in the Senate was
experiencing
a rebirth and
rejuvenation.
The new Democratic Senators of
1910
and
1912
greatly
sur-
passed
the Old Guard
Republicans
as orators and debaters. There
was no one
among
the Old Guard
comparable
in debate to Ollie
James
of
Kentucky,
Thomas
J.
Walsh of
Montana, James
A. Reed
of Missouri and
James
Hamilton Lewis of Illinois. I never missed
an
opportunity
to hear these men. The most
precise
mind was
70
WASHINGTON,
IpII-Ipiy:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
that of
Walsh,
the most
devastating
debaters and orators were
Reed and
James,
the most finished artist was Lewis.
I had heard of Walsh before his election to the Senate. On the
homeward
journey
from the Denver
convention,
John
E.
Lamb,
who had served on the
platform
committee,
told me he had
just
met on that committee the keenest mind he had ever known. "His
name is Tom
Walsh,"
he said.
"Keep your eye
on him." With this
in mind I observed Walsh
closely.
There was little in the
appear-
ance of this smallish man with the
heavy, drooping
mustache of a
poker player
of
Bloody
Gulchfor it was of this
variety
when he
entered the Senate to arouse
high expectations.
He was on the
Committee on
Privileges
and
Elections,
which numbered
among
its
members some of the
greatest lawyers
in the Senate. I was
secretary
of the
committee,
and in its
meetings
I
caught
the
meaning
of what
Lamb had said. The members would be
mulling
over a measure
that involved some intricate
legal difficulty, talking incessantly
without
reaching
a
solution,
and Walsh would sit in
silence,
looking
down. At
length
he would
straighten
in his
chair,
lean
forward,
fix his
gimletlike eyes
on his
colleagues
and in one or two
precisely spoken
sentences
suggest
the
wording
that ended the dis-
cussion. His masterful conduct of the
Teapot
Dome
investigation
rendered a historic
public
service. In time I came to know him well
and to find that
despite
his cold exterior he had a warm heart and
no little sentiment.
Senator Reed was also a
great lawyer,
a master of courtroom
strategy.
Tall,
powerfully
built,
with the features of a natural
commander,
the voice of a trained
orator,
the art of a consummate
actor,
he was tremendous in
debate,
and few cared to cross swords
with him. He aroused the emotions with the
greatest
ease. His
vituperative
force was
incomparable.
He lived on combat. He
loved
controversy,
and his mind worked with
magical rapidity.
OUie
James
was more the
popular
tribune. More than six feet
tall and
large
in
proportion,
with an immense head and a
smoothly
shaven face that reflected
every feeling,
and with a
powerful
voice
that could absorb all other
sounds,
he would have been a com-
manding figure
in
any legislative assembly.
In cold
print
his
speeches
lacked
finish,
but he relied on
force,
and his
delivery
accentuated the
power
of his
argument.
In debate he rode the
7
1
WASHINGTON,
Ipll-lpiy:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
whirlwind to direct the
storm,
overwhelming
his
opponent
with
ridicule when unable to combat him with
logic.
I
always
felt
sorry
for his victims.
James
Hamilton Lewis was the
opposite
of Ollie
James.
He was
a small man with a reddish
beard,
and he was
always impeccably
dressed.
Scarcely
a
vest-pocket
edition of the monumental Ken-
tuckian in
size,
he was even more
dangerous
than the other in com-
bat. He was a master of subtle
irony
and a brilliant
rhetorician;
he
could astonish and fascinate with the
beauty
of his
phrasing.
Ever
and anon a
deadly
witticism would flash like a
sword,
leaving
his
victim
bleeding.
In
many ways
he
approached genius. During
the
long
filibuster on the
shipping
bill of the Wilson
Administration,
when one vote or two would determine its
fate,
Senator Kern was
on the anxious seat lest some Democrat be absent when needed.
When he received a note from Lewis
announcing
he was on his
way
south on the orders of his
physician,
Kern,
doubting
the truth
of the
excuse,
wired him to return or he would be denounced in the
party
caucus. A
day
later,
when Elihu Root was
making
his fare-
well
Tory speech,
the door
opened
and Lewis entered. It was evi-
dent that he was
really
ill.
Kern,
wanting
to make amends and re-
calling
that Lewis was
always eager
to cross swords with
Root,
whispered
to him that he
might
make a short
reply.
Lewis had no
opportunity
to consult sources or to make
notes,
but he rose the
moment Root sat
down,
and never have I heard a more clever
speech
or one more beautiful in
phrasing.
The
peroration particu-
larly impressed
me,
for it was
inspired by
an incident in the cham-
ber after Lewis
rose,
and
yet
its
literary
flavor was such that it was
difficult to believe that it had not been
carefully
written and
pol-
ished beforehand. No other member of the Senate could have
ap-
proached
it. His was almost a freak mind. Men smiled at his f
op~
pishness
and his
vanity,
but no one doubted his
ability,
and if he
was a
prima
donna he
belonged
in the front rank of the artists.
There were able men on the
Republican
side of the
Senate, but,
unhappily
for the Old
Guard,
the ablest of their
speakers
and de-
baters were the
progressives
with more in common with the Dem-
ocrats on fundamental issues. These had
split
the
party
on the
Payne-Aldrich
bill a short time before. For
years,
Senator Robert
M. La Follette had been a thorn in the side of the faithful. He was
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
a
great
statesman,
a tireless
crusader,
a militant
liberal,
an
enemy
of
privilege.
His
speeches
were treatises crammed with
indisputable
facts. The Old Guard
usually
manifested its
contempt by marching
like
sulking schoolboys
into the cloakrooms when he
spoke,
but
this
only
amused
him,
since he was
speaking primarily
to
people
outside the chamber.
Many
times when some Senator was
taking
liberties with the truth I saw the
expression
of
mingled
amusement
and distaste on the face of La Follette as he sat with his hands on
the arms of his chair as
though
about to
spring
to his feet.
Jo
David-
son
caught
him thus in the statue now in
Statuary
Hall in the
Cap-
itol. I had the honor of
speaking
at its
unveiling
some
years
later.
La Follette was a crusader for the common
man,
and he
fought
with a battle ax. No bosses could deter or divert him and all hell
could not intimidate him.
The Old Guard could not
depend
on La Follette. Nor could it
depend upon
Senator
Borah,
a brilliant orator and
supreme
debater.
He was a
vigorous
black-haired man with
strong
features and a
pleasant deep
voice,
and no one
looking
down from the
gallery
could fail to notice him. He was
powerful
and
persuasive
in
debate,
and there was
something
Websterian in his looks and manner in
action. The first
impression
he
gave
was one of
audacity
and cour-
age;
but too often it was observed that he lacked the
courage
or
the inclination to
carry through.
He would march
gallantly up
to
the
enemy's guns
and seem about to take them
by
storm,
and
then,
mysrifyingly,
he would wheel around and march back
again.
Thus
he met with the little
group
of
Republican
rebels that
opposed
the
Payne-AIdrich
bill,
participated
in their discussions and seemed in
accord with
them,
but on the final roll
call,
when the others voted
as
they
had talked in the
conferences,
Borah voted for the measure.
Was it
timidity, expediency
or
just party regularity?
No one can
say positively,
but he incurred the
displeasure
of the Old Guard
without
winning
the confidence of the dissenters. A New York
publisher
once asked me to write a book on this
phase
of his char-
acter,
but I
personally
liked
Borah,
and he had written a
friendly
review of
my
Jefferson
and Hamilton for the New
Republic,
and
my
heart would not have been in the
job.
The actual leader of the Old Guard was Boise Penrose of Penn-
sylvania,
a
political
boss of an
unsavory type
who had absolute
faith in the
power
and virtue of
money.
In debate he had the of-
73
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
fensive manner of a
bully.
He was
ruthless,
unscrupulous, arrogant
and
lacking
in finesse. His utter
contempt
for the
rights
of the
masses was so
transparent
in his
speeches
that
they
did his cause
more harm than
good.
The occasional combats between the enor-
mous,
domineering
Penrose and the
slight,
almost frail
John
Sharp
Williams were
among
the most
enjoyable spectacles
the Senate
offered. It was a battle between an awkward mastiff and a small
thoroughbred.
There was no bad blood between these men. Pen-
rose
appreciated
the brilliant
qualities
of his
opponent,
and if Wil-
liams abhorred the
principles
of the
Pennsylvanian,
he
respected
the brutal frankness with which
they
were avowed. But in a con-
test of wit Penrose was at a
disadvantage.
His blows were
crude,
like those of a
bludgeon,
and Williams came back with
brilliantly
poised rapier
thrusts;
the
awkwardly swung bludgeon
did not often
make
contact,
while the
rapier
cut the
big
man to
pieces.
Almost as
reactionary
as
Penrose,
though
on an
infinitely higher
plane,
was Elihu
Root,
who had rendered
distinguished
service in
the Cabinet but whose Senatorial career did not add an inch to his
stature in
history.
He wandered in and out of the
chamber,
con-
tributing
little,
if
anything,
to constructive
statesmanship,
and he
seldom
spoke.
His few
speeches
were those of a
lawyer addressing
a
court,
without the
slightest pretense
to
eloquence,
but
closely
reasoned and
highly sophisticated.
While he was
speaking
his fea-
tures did not relax their
customary
lines of
severity
and his brow
was
corrugated
with
thought.
He was
precise
in his
diction,
and I
was fascinated with his occasional hesitations when he was
clearly
searching
his
vocabulary
for the exact word. His voice was not
pleasant,
but his
reputation
assured him a most
respectful
attention.
Whatever
may
have been Root's manner in the
cloakroom,
his
manner on the floor
implied
unbearable boredom and distaste for
his
colleaguesfor
most of them. He sat near
Henry
Cabot
Lodge,
and
by
their manner the two
gave
the
impression
of
holding
them-
selves aloof from their inferiors.
They symbolized
the old aristoc-
racy
of the defunct Federalist
Party
which,
for all its
brilliance,
never
spoke
the
language
of the common man.
Root offered
little,
but he
protested vigorously against
all
pro-
gressive legislation.
In his farewell
speech,
which I
heard,
he seemed
pessimistic
because the income tax
imposed
a
hardship
on the
great
corporations;
because railroad
legislation
for the
protection
of the
74
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
shippers imposed
a
hardship
on the
railroads;
because the Federal
Reserve
System
would undermine the financial foundations of the
American
system.
He had a
great legal
mind,
but he
clearly
be-
longed
to an
age
that was
passing,
and I have no doubt he retired
to
private
life with satisfaction.
These were
halcyon days
for the Democrats in the
process
of
rejuvenating
their
party,
while the
Republicans
were
pessimistic
and
depressed.
The Democrats could
contemplate any
verbal battle
without
uneasiness,
and
investigating
committees were
prying
into
questionable proceedings
and
finding political gold.
I would have
but a faint recollection of the
investigation
into the
Lawrence,
Massachusetts,
textile strike but for the
memory
of one man who
fascinated me. The
lawyer representing
the strikers was unim-
pressive
in size but had a most
arresting
face,
very
serious and with
brows lined with concentration. Because of the
deeply
seamed
brow he bore some resemblance to the
portraits
of Rufus
Choate,
another
superb lawyer
of Boston. He was modest in his
manner,
but this rather little man dominated the scene. He was Louis Bran-
deis,
soon thereafter to
begin
a brilliant career as Associate
Justice
of the
Supreme
Court. The
delay
of the Senate in
confirming
Wil-
son's
appointment
of Brandeis was ascribed to
religious prejudice,
but the real reason was his liberal
point
of view. Years later I found
him to have a rich sense of humor and a love for a
laugh.
Out of the
hearings
on the
money
trust one scene alone is
graph-
ically
recalled.
J.
Pierpont Morgan
the elder was on the stand. He
was an old man and he seemed
strangely shy
and nervous. I had ob-
served him with astonishment because of his enormous nose with its
reddish
glow
and its hills and
valleys.
The
lawyer
for the commit-
tee was the famous Louis
Untermyer,
tall, slender,
elegant,
with an
almost sinister
suavity
in his manner of
questioning.
Just
as
Morgan
took the
stand,
I had noticed an old man with white hair enter and
find a seat close
by
and
directly facing Morgan.
It was
Joseph
H.
Choate,
leader of the American
bar,
former ambassador to
Eng-
land and
long
the
legal
adviser of the banker. He looked like a
saintly bishop grown
old in
grace.
I wondered if he was there to
guide
his client with
sign language.
I watched him
closely through-
out,
but I did not see the movement of an
eyebrow
or a
finger.
Many years
later,
I sat with
Untermyer
in his stateroom on an
75
WASHINGTON, 1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
Atlantic liner and recalled the incident to him. He
gave
me his ver-
sion of that
day.
"It was clear that
Morgan
was
frightened,"
he
said,
"and I
questioned
him in the most
kindly
manner
possible,
but
when he could not recall the name of his most famous
partner
I
knew there was
something wrong,
and I
suggested
a recess. I called
in
Morgan's lawyers,
a small
army
of
them,
and told them that
they
might
reassure
him,
since I knew he had not been the active director
of the
company
for some
time;
that the
only
reason I had sum-
moned him was that were he not called the
public
would
get
a
wrong impression. They
admitted that he was nervous and not
well,
and
they
seemed
very grateful.
It was a mistake. When Mor-
gan
died in
Italy
soon
afterward,
I was
roundly
abused for
having
driven him to his death
by my
brutal examination."
When I saw this brilliant man for the last
time,
his condition was
similar to that of
Morgan.
I was home on leave from
Spain
and
at his
request
I had driven to his casdelike house on the Hudson
to see him. I found him in a
lofty
room,
stretched out on a sofa talk-
ing
with his
granddaughter,
who rose and left.
Having
been sum-
moned,
I was a bit
puzzled by
his
nonchalant,
almost
unfriendly
reception.
At
length
when I mentioned
Spain
he amazed me
by
asking
if I had ever been there. I told him I had been there some
time as ambassador.
"No, no,"
he said
sharply.
"I know the am-
bassador to
Spain
well. Claude Bowers is the ambassador to
Spain."
When I told him I was Claude Bowers he was embarrassed and
found excuses for his failure to
recognize
me. Two or three months
later he was dead.
The Senatorial
investigation
that
impressed
me most was that
into conditions in the West
Virginia
coal
fields,
where the miners
lived under feudalistic
conditions,
miserably underpaid
in non-
union
mines,
brutally
treated,
shamelessly exploited,
and denied the
right
to collective
bargaining.
The Paint Creek settlement had
been invaded
by gunmen
and
gangsters thoroughly equipped
as a
private army,
under the hired
leadership
of the notorious Ernest
Gaujot.
These men
swaggered
with drunken
irresponsibility
into
the cabins of the
miners,
often
committing
crimes.
Just
before the
Republicans
lost the Senate the United Mine
Workers had asked Senator Borah to
present
a resolution
calling
for an
investigation,
and he had
passed
it on to Senator Kern when
76
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
the Democrats took over. Kern
presented
it
perfunctorily,
having
no idea of its
importance,
but he was startled
by
the flood of tele-
grams
from men
high
in industrial and financial
circles,
urging
him
not to
press
the resolution. One
day
a
personal
friend
high
in the
organization
of a
great banking
firm in New York called him
long
distance to
appeal
to him "as a friend." I noticed Kern's
indignant
expression
as he
rang
off with the
words,
"I'll see
you
in hell first."
Clearly
the resolution had some
importance.
At this time I called
Kern's attention to a small
newspaper
item about Mother
Jones,
be-
loved of the
miners,
who had been arrested in the
region
and was
awaiting
trial
by
a
court-martial,
though
the civil courts were
open.
I
suggested
that it was incredible that an old woman of her
celebrity
was to be tried without
attracting
more notice in the
press.
"Yes,"
Kern
said,
"there's
something
here that stinks."
That
day
he called
up
the
resolution,
with
pointed
observations
on the arrest of Mother
Jones.
Governor
Haywood
of West Vir-
ginia thereupon
issued a statement to the effect that the old woman
was "detained but in no sense
confined,"
and that she was
enjoying
life "in a
pleasant
boardinghouse"
with a
private family.
The next
day
a
copy
of the Cincinnati Post was
secretly
tossed
through
an
open
window of the miserable miner's hut where the
old woman was "detained." Thus she learned of the battle in the
Senate. The
friendly
miner who was forced to be her
jailer
com-
municated with her from the
cellar,
by
means of notes in a tin can
attached to a
string
from a hole in the floor of the
prisoner's
room.
She wrote a
telegram
to Kern with instructions for the miner to
file it some miles
away,
since if filed in town it would be
suppressed.
Kern read it to the Senate:
"From out of the
military prison
walls where I have been forced to
pass my eighty-first
milestone of
life,
I
plead
with
you
for the honor of
the nation. I send
you groans
and tears of
men,
women and children as I
have heard them in this
state,
and I
beg you
to force an
investigation.
Children
yet
unborn will rise and bless
you."
This
telegram finally
attracted attention to events behind the
iron curtain of the
mining region.
The Governor
hastily
ordered
Mother
Jones's
release,
but she refused his condition that she should
not leave the
state,
and a few
days
later she
appeared
in
Washington.
I knew
something
of this woman's tumultuous life: she had lived
77
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
for months in the desolate mountain and
mining region
of West
Virginia organizing
the half-starved
miners,
living
in their wretched
cabins and on their
meager
fare. I knew that in the
great
anthracite
strike she had marched at the head of the miners to meet the sol-
diers;
that she had been
swept emotionally
into her militant career
by
the Pullman
strike;
that
despite
her
age
she had
gone
into the
mining region
of Colorado and
harangued
miners on mountainsides
in zero
weather,
had been driven hither and
yon by private
armies
and had been
pricked by bayonets
into an
icy
stream and com-
pelled
to hold her skirts
up
to her waist as she waded.
The
day
she walked into Kern's office I could
scarcely
believe
that she could be the firebrand of whom I had
heard,
so
grand-
motherly
did she look. Her
eyes,
however,
were
keen,
penetrating
and
sparkling,
and her voice was
rough
and
heavy
from
speaking
outdoors in winter weather. For some
days
this woman of more
than
eighty tramped
the marble corridors of the Senate Office
Building, personally giving
Senators the benefit of her
knowledge
of conditions.
Occasionally
she came to
my
office for a brief rest.
She astonished me
by
the
moderation,
the
fairness,
even the tol-
eration,
of her estimate of men.
Learning
that she had seen Senator
Penrose,
I asked her
opinion
of
him,
expecting
an
explosion.
He
was not
really
as bad as he
thought
himself,
she
said,
speaking
as
one would of an
erring
child. "One must
always
allow for a man's
background,
his
environment,
his contacts and his sources of infor-
mation. I have no doubt he
honestly
believes in the ideas he
rep-
resents. He has never known the
seamy
and
tragic
side of life. So
with
many
of the reactionaries. I do not hate them I understand
and I
pity
them."
Footsore but
undaunted,
she made the rounds of all the
Senators,
and the resolution was
adopted
after a bitter debate.
This,
I
think,
was the first clear-cut
victory
ever won in the Senate
by
labor.
Five
years
later she called on me in Fort
Wayne. Though
she
was now more than
eighty-six,
the
intervening years
had not vis-
ibly
weakened her
physically
and her
spirit
flamed as
always.
At
lunch she seemed to find
something missing.
I asked if she would
like
something
to
drink,
and her face
brightened. "May
I have a
stein of beer?" she
asked,
adding,
"I find that when I'm
very
tired
beer is a restorative." She went on to
speak
of her bad
reputation.
No,
she was not a drunkard. She had never been drunk in her life.
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
Beer when she was
tired,
a bit of
whiskey
when she had
spoken
in
the sleet on a frozen
mountainside. And
profane?
Yes,
at times she
was
profane,
but
always
in
public,
and when
necessary
to lift the
miners from their
apathy.
"One must
adjust
one's
language
to one's
audience,"
she said. "Men
working
on starvation
wages, living
in
miserable
huts,
facing
death
daily
in
poorly equipped
mines,
are
apt
to be
profane,
and when
necessary
I
speak
their
language/'
When
I asked her
why
she did not write her
autobiography
the
supersti-
tion of the Irish
peasant
came out.
No, no,
she wouldn't think of
such a
thing.
Didn't I know that
people
died soon after
writing
their
autobiographies?
"I'm
only eighty-six
and I'm not
ready
to
die."
The
part
that Senator Kern had
played
in William
Jennings
Bryan's strategy
at the
1912
Baltimore convention which ulti-
mately
resulted in the nomination of Woodrow Wilson makes an
interesting
footnote to
history.
The National Committee had
designated
Alton B. Parker as the
temporary
chairman and
keynote speaker,
and
Bryan
was con-
vinced that this foreshadowed a
reactionary platf
orm and nominee.
He
immediately
announced his
opposition
and his intention to
nominate one of three men
instead,
and one of these was Kern.
Though
he was devoted to
Bryan, nothing
could have been more
embarrassing
to
Kern,
for he was
personally
fond of Parker and
had toured
Europe
with him the
year
before. It would also
put
him in conflict with the
greater part
of the Indiana
delegation.
The
night
before the convention
opened
I sat with him in the
hotel while friends made
separate
visits to
Bryan
in an effort to
dissuade him from
nominating
Kern as
temporary
chairman. Each
returned to
report
a stern and
chilly reception
and no success. At
length
Kern went himself.
"You
agree,
John,
that the
designation
of Parker indicates a
reactionary setup
in the convention?"
Bryan
asked. And Kern
agreed.
"And that the convention has been
packed
to some extent with
delegates eager
to meet the demands of the bosses?
"
Kern
agreed.
"And that the rank and file of the
party throughout
the
country
is not in
sympathy
with these
plans?" Again
Kern
agreed.
"Then,"
continued
Bryan,
"the rank and file must be
put
on no-
79
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
TJTSTWRITTEN HISTORY
tice of what is
planned,
and it must be done the moment the
gavel
falls,
and the issue must be made on a
comparatively unimportant
matter to
give
time for the reaction of the rank and file to reach
the convention before
irreparable
harm is done."
Agreeing
to
this,
Kern
urged
that
Bryan's
own name be sub-
mitted as die substitute for Parker.
"No,"
said
Bryan.
"I must make the
speech
and make the issue.
I cannot nominate
myself.
I must
speak,
and I shall be insulted and
booed,
and that will be news with color that will attract national
attention,
and the rank and file will reach the inevitable conclusion.
No, John,
I shall
put you
in
nomination,
and
you'll
have to do what
you
think
proper."
When Kern left
Bryan
that
night
he was much
depressed,
and
ill as well. He did not
sleep,
and
sitting
on the
edge
of his
bed,
he
made his
plans,
which he
kept
to himself.
The next
day Bryan
made his
speech
and was booed as he had
hoped.
He closed
by nominating
Kern.
Kern took the
platform.
As he
passed Bryan
he did not even
glance
at him. He
began
with a
plea
for
harmony
and
party
soli-
darity.
Then,
referring
to Parker in terms of
respect
and
affection,
he said that he and Parker could sit down at a table and in ten
minutes
agree upon
a chairman
satisfactory
to all. He
appealed
to
Parker,
sitting
with the New York
delegation,
to
agree.
Parker
said
nothing.
Then Kern
appealed
to
Murphy,
the
Tammany
chief,
"who holds the New York
delegation
in the hollow of his
hand,"
to
permit
Parker to
respond. Murphy, grimly chewing gum,
did
not bat an
eyelash.
After a moment of dramatic
silence,
Kern
continued,
"If there
is to be no
response,
if this is to be a contest between the
people
and the
powers,
the cause to which I subscribe is so
great
a cause
that I am not fit to be its leader. If
my proposition
for
harmony
is
to be
ignored,
and this
deplorable
battle is to
go
on,
there is
only
one man fit to lead the hosts of
progress,
and that is the man who
has been in the forefront for sixteen
years,
the
great
American
tribune,
William
Jennings Bryan.
If
you
will have
nothing
else,
if
that must be the
issue,
then the leader must be
worthy
of the
cause,
and that leader must be William
Jennings Bryan."
Sick and
ashen-hued,
Kern was led from the
platform,
and
again
he
passed Bryan
without a
glance.
The
latter,
according
to his ad-
80
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
mission to me in a
letter,
had had no intimation of what Kern
would do. It was not a
prearranged plan,
but had it been it could
not have been more effective. That
night
when Kern entered
Bryan's
room the Commoner rushed to him
beaming
and,
throw-
ing
his arms about
him, said,
"How did
you
ever think of it? That
was the smartest
thing you
ever did."
Of course
Bryan
was
defeated,
but the rank and file had been
given
dramatic notice and
delegates
were
deluged
with
indignant
telegrams
from home. As a
result,
Ollie
James
was made
permanent
chairman and Kern chairman of the
platform
committee. The vic-
tory
of the
progressives
was
complete
and
Bryan
had achieved it
with the aid of Kern. Other
things
were to
happen
later to deter-
mine the Presidential
nomination,
but the
speeches
of
Bryan
and
the act of Kern in the
beginning,
with the
response
of the rank and
file,
had
put
the fear of the Lord into the
delegates,
and the
plan
for a
reactionary platform
and a
reactionary
candidate was made
impossible.
It was at the Baltimore convention that I first saw Cardinal Gib-
bons: a
slight,
frail
creature,
looking
almost ethereal as he walked
down the center aisle to
open
the convention with
prayer;
and soon
thereafter I met him
personally
under unusual circumstances.
My
fascination with the
genius
of
John Philpot
Curran and the
other
great
Irish orators had led me to make
many speeches
on
them and had culminated in
my writing my
first book. Senator
O'Gorman was interested and
suggested
that it
might
be advan-
tageous
to submit the
manuscript
to Cardinal Gibbons.
Seeing
no
reason
why
I should bother the
seventy-nine-year-old
prelate,
I
tried to avoid the
meeting,
but when O'Gorman saw
Monsignor
Russell of the
Washington
Cathedral
and
arranged
the
meeting,
there was no
escape.
I went to Baltimore with fear and
trembling,
much concerned over what a
meeting
with a cardinal entailed.
Thus
early
I
began
to stumble over
protocol.
At the Cardinal's
house the door was
opened by
a small
boy,
who ushered me into the
reception
room and said he would in-
form the Cardinal.
As I sat down to
wait,
my
back to the door
into the
hall,
I heard the
boy running up
the stairs. I was
struggling
with the
problem
of how to
begin
the conversation
when I heard
rapid steps coming
down
again,
and,
with a frown of
annoyance
81
WASHINGTON,
Ipl 1-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
on
my
face,
I turned to see what the
boy
had to
say.
To
my
horror,
I saw Cardinal Gibbons
already
before me. He saw at a
glance
that he had
caught
me
unaware, and,
noting my
confusion,
he be-
gan fluttering
about
arranging
chairs to
give
me time to recover.
This almost feminine tact endeared him to me from the start. Then
he sat down
facing
me
and,
in familiar
fashion,
began
to talk about
his
boyhood
in Ireland. I was
impressed by
the
expression
of his
keen Irish
eyes.
Seen in the
convention,
he had seemed a
saint; now,
with his
pleasant
voice,
his manner sweet and
charming,
he seemed
no less
so,
but those
eyes
denoted also a wise
man,
a dominant
leader and a statesman. While he
appeared
a man who loved his
fellow men and knew
tenderness,
it was
quite
as clear that in
any
battle for his faith he could be a warrior.
At
length
he
said,
"When do
you
want this introduction?" It
had not occurred to me as
possible
that he would write an intro-
duction to
my
book, but,
hiding my
astonishment,
I set a date.
"Very
well,"
he said. "Send me the
manuscript
and
you
shall
have it."
Thus it carne to
pass
that Cardinal Gibbons wrote the introduc-
tion to
my
first
book,
The Irish Orators. I left him with the
feeling
that all the labor of research and
writing
had been
richly
rewarded
by
the
privilege
of
meeting
this
truly great
man,
whose
memory
will
always
be cherished in America
regardless
of differences in
creed.
And now a footnote to Irish
history
on the Easter Rebellion in
Dublin
during
the First World
War,
and its
repercussions
here.
When the
Englishman
Sir
Roger
Casement was arrested in Ire-
land
by
the British for
complicity
in the Irish Easter Week
rising
in
1916,
it was a
foregone
conclusion that his
trial,
which followed
immediately,
would result in his condemnation for treason. Amer-
ican
sympathy
for him was
high
this was before we entered the
warand Senator Martine of New
Jersey,
whose heart was as
big
as his
judgment
was
bad,
offered a resolution in the Senate
asking
clemency,
but couched in
scarcely diplomatic language.
It was sent
to the
Foreign
Relations Committee for revision. In view of the
certainty
that there would be other
arrests,
the resolution was re-
framed to ask
clemency
for
"political prisoners"
without a direct
reference to Casement. It
passed
the Senate late on
Saturday
eve-
82
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
ning,
I think. As I
recall,
the execution was set for
Tuesday,
in
London. On
Wednesday
the
press reported
that the resolution had
been delivered that
day
a
day
after the execution. This
seeming
delay,
which
appeared
on the surface to have been
calculated,
cre-
ated consternation
among
the Administration Senators and
indig-
nation
among
the Irish. Senator Kern instructed me to ascertain
just
what had caused the
delay.
I found that the resolution had been sent to the White House on
Saturday night.
Then I went to the State
Department
to see Frank
Polk,
Under
Secretary
of State. When he heard the
object
of
my
visit,
he closed and locked the door and
said,
"This is
dynamite.
When the resolution
passed
the Senate I knew its
engrossment
would make it reach us
late,
and I also knew the
importance
of hav-
ing
it reach London
promptly.
So on
Sunday morning
I
put
the
code room to
work,
and on
Sunday
afternoon it was sent. That
very night
it was delivered in London to the
proper
officials. So
you
see we took
extraordinary precautions
to see that it was deliv-
ered in
ample
time before the
day
set for the execution. On Mon-
day morning
Sir Cecil
Spring-Rice,
the British
ambassador,
came
in with London's
answer,
to the effect that Casement was not con-
sidered a
political prisoner.
Of course this was a
quibble,
but if we
were to announce to the
press
that the resolution had been deliv-
ered in time and that that answer had been
given,
the Irish would
say
that the Martine resolution had been
changed
to make it
easy
to
deny
the
plea
for
clemency.
So we're damned either
way,
and
the best
policy
is to
say nothing."
Sir Cecil had left with Polk
photostatic copies
of
alleged
extracts
from Casement's
diary indicating
that the
prisoner
was a homo-
sexual. He had been condemned for treason and the
only purpose
in
distributing
these
photostatic copies
of
alleged
extracts from the
diary
was to create
prejudice against
the
prisoner,
on behalf of
whom such
distinguished Englishmen
as William
Archer,
Arnold
Bennett,
Gilbert K.
Chesterton, John Galsworthy
and Israel
Zang-
will had
pleaded
for
clemency.
Casement has been dead for
forty
years,
but the
authenticity
of the
diary
extracts is still
being bitterly
challenged.
An Irish
poet put
his
protest
in verse:
Afraid they might
be beaten
Before
the bench
of time,
83
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
They
turned a trick
by -forgery
And blackened his
good
name.
At the time of the
trial, however,
a
young
Irish
sculptor,
know-
ing
of
my
interest in the Irish
question,
had warned me that word
had
gone
down the line to be cautious about
Casement;
and soon
I was to learn from one of the leaders of the Irish movement in
the United States that
they
had been distrustful of Casement for a
very
definite reason.
My
book on the Irish orators had
brought
me into contact with
John
Devoy,
editor of the Gaelic
American^
a
great
Fenian and the
head of the Irish militants here.
During my
conversation with Polk
he said that our
government
knew
Devoy
had been involved in the
Easter Week
rising,
but
that,
while he would be
permitted
to fret
awhile
knowing
that his involvement was known
nothing
could
be done to him. Some time after this I was invited to a dinner in
New York at the home of the
daughter
of O'Donovan
Rossa,
the
Irish
patriot
whose funeral in Dublin a little while before had been
the occasion of a
great
demonstration there. At this dinner I found
John
Devoy.
After dinner we were
placed
in a room
alone,
and we
had a talk that I shall
always
remember for its drama.
Devoy,
then a
very
old
man,
was still of herculean
frame,
broad
of
shoulders,
with a thick chest
partly
concealed
by
a beard. His
entire life had been
given
to the
fight
for Irish
independence.
That
night
he told me a
story
I believe has never been
printed
before.
"Roger
Casement came to New York after the war
began,"
he
said,
"and asked to be sent to Berlin as an
agent
of the Irish here.
We knew him as a
poet,
a
highly
cultivated man and a
great
British
consul. Soon we had reason to doubt his
judgment.
At
length
we
got
him off our hands
by sending
him to
Germany, hoping
to for-
get
him. But the man was unbalanced. One
day
I was shocked to
receive a letter half an inch
thick,
written in
huge script
on
page
after
page, setting
forth the most fantastic ideas
imaginable.
Of
course it had been read
by
the British
agents.
I wrote him
pointing
out the
absurdity
of his
action, but,
undiscouraged,
he continued
to send me letter after letter in the
open
mail.
"Meanwhile,
one
day
a
young
Irish
girl, just
arrived
by steerage,
came to see me with a letter from Padhraic
Pearse,
Plunkett and the
other brilliant
young
leaders of the
rising
of Easter Week. It said
84
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
that,
while
unprepared
for
action,
they
had learned that the
govern-
ment was about to disarm the Irish
Volunteers,
and since this was
intolerable
they
had decided on Easter Week as the time for the
rising. They
asked me to send
money
and arms. This amazed me.
These men had brilliant minds. I could send
money,
but how could
men of their
intelligence
conceive it
possible
for me to send them
arms?
Then,
not
wanting
them to
go up against
the
guns
unarmed,
I worried about
it,
until it occurred to me as
possible
that
Germany
could
get
some arms to them. I took it
up
with the German em-
bassy
in New York.
They agreed
at
length
to furnish some arms
and
ammunition,
and I
informed Pearse.
"Then another Irish
girl
came with a letter
asking
that the de-
livery
be made at a
specified spot,
and between three consecutive
dates. I could understand the
significance
of the
place
of
delivery,
but the dates meant
nothing special
to me. I sent this note to the
embassy.
"A few
days
later another
girl
came with another letter instruct-
ing
that under no circumstances should the
delivery
be made be-
fore the last of the three
days given.
But
by
this time the boat with
the arms was at
sea,
and it had no wireless facilities.
Nothing
could
be done.
"It was at this
point
that Casement came into the
picture.
He
was in a
hospital
in
Germany
and he had heard that the Germans
were
sending
arms to Ireland.
Assuming
that the
young
men in
Ireland
thought
that he had made
adequate arrangements,
and
greatly
concerned,
he
begged
that he be sent to Ireland in a sub-
marine to head off a
premature rising.
Some distance from shore he
was
put
in a
collapsible
boat,
which
actually collapsed,
and Case-
ment,
who was not
strong,
walked in water to his shoulders. Found
by
one of the Irish
patriots,
he was
put
in an old ruined
house,
and
the Irishman went off in search of a
conveyance
to take him to
Dublin. Casement's
groans
attracted the attention of an officer who
happened
to be
passing,
and he was arrested. He asked to see a
priest,
to whom he
explained
his
mission,
and the
priest agreed
to
get
a letter to the
revolutionary
leaders in the
capital.
When it
arrived it caused confusion. Because of it the
rising
was called off
everywhere
but in
Dublin,
where the leaders
thought
the
arrange-
ments had
gone
too far to be canceled. That was
why
the
rising
was confined to Dublin. Casement had committed a
grave
blunder
85
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
and would suffer in
reputation
but for the fact
that,
blunder
though
he
did,
he
gave
his life to the cause."
This
story,
all the more dramatic because
simply
told,
by
a
very-
old man who had seen another dream
shattered,
was of the
very
essence of drama.
Devoy's
involvement,
as indicated
by
Polk,
had
become known
through
a raid on the German
embassy
in New
York,
where letters were found
bearing
the notation "Submitted
by
John
Devoy."
This,
of
course,
was before we entered the
war,
and treason was not involved.
Another footnote to
history, concerning Bryan's resignation
as
Wilson's
Secretary
of State:
Washington
was a
diplomatic battleground
to determine the
position
of the United States in the First World War. The
city
was
swarming
with secret
agents
and
propagandists
of
Germany
and
Britain. The
prevailing
sentiment in
Congress
was one of
sympathy
with the Allies but of
opposition
to our
participation
in the war.
The climax came
dramatically
in the
opposing
views of Wilson
and
Bryan, resulting
in the latter's
resignation
from the Cabinet.
The record of
Bryan's
state of mind on the eve of his
resignation
has
never,
so far as I
know,
been
fully put
in
print.
Some
years
after
the
events,
William Gibbs
McAdoo,
then
Secretary
of the Treas-
ury,
told me a
story
which throws a
strong light
on the character
of
Bryan.
One
day
when McAdoo was
entertaining guests
at
luncheon,
Bryan stopped
in on his
way
home. He was
pale
and
clearly
distressed and nervous. He had confidence in the
friendship
of
McAdoo,
none whatever in that of most of his other
colleagues
in the Cabinet. He had
stopped
to tell McAdoo that he could no
longer
continue in his
post, holding
the views he
did,
and that he
intended to
resign.
McAdoo
begged
him to do
nothing
until
they
could talk it
over,
and he made an
engagement
at
Bryan's
home
after lunch.
There he found the Commoner in mental
anguish.
McAdoo
pleaded
with him to reconsider his
decision,
assuring
him of Wil-
son's affection and
warning
him that his
resignation
would be mis-
understood and resented
by
the
public.
But
Bryan
was adamant.
He
respected
the
position
of
Wilson,
but he could not share it
with a clear
conscience,
since he
thought
it would lead to war.
McAdoo then asked if he could talk with Mrs.
Bryan
alone. The
86
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
Commoner retired to another
room,
and McAdoo
begged
Mrs.
Bryan
to exert her influence to dissuade her husband. "I'm afraid
it will
destroy
him
politically,"
he said.
Mrs.
Bryan replied
that she
thought
it
probable,
and that
Bryan
had a full realization of the
probable political repercussions.
"But
you
know
William,"
she said.
When
Bryan
re-entered the
room,
McAdoo made a final
appeal
and then
said,
"You're
distressed,
nervous and
depressed.
I want
you
to
promise
to take the weekend to think it over and
get
some
rest.
Spend
the weekend with Blair Lee at Silver
Springs,
and
give
the matter
your prayerful
consideration."
Bryan agreed.
He went to Silver
Springs
and
spent
most of the
rime
walking
alone,
but he returned convinced that he owed it to
his conscience to stand
firmly
on his decision.
This is an incident in
history necessary
to an
understanding
of
the character of a
very great
human
being. Bryan's resignation
had
the
political repercussions
he had
expected.
This is not remarkable
in view of the
passions
of the
time,
but it is remarkable that we
have waited for a
quarter
of a
century
for a
just
and
intelligent
in-
terpretation
of
Bryan by
the historians.
The nation was now
marching
with
long
strides toward war.
My
first definite indication that Wilson was
preparing
for war came
with the return of Senator Kern from the White
House,
whither
he had been summoned
along
with Senator William
J. Stone,
chair-
man of the Senate
Foreign
Relations
Committee,
and
Representa-
tive
Henry
Flood,
who held the
corresponding position
in the
House. Kern returned
pale,
tired and worried. "It's
terrible,"
he said.
Feeling
was now
running high
and
tempers
were on
edge.
One
day
I heard Senator
Stone,
who
opposed
war,
speaking
with such
indiscreet bitterness that the Senate lost its
dignity.
Insults and
threats were hurled
about,
and for a moment it seemed that Stone
might
be
physically
attacked on the floor. When his fellow Senator
from
Missouri, James
A.
Reed,
rose to
speak
in a
conciliatory
tone
to cairn the
storm,
it was clear that sentiment
against Germany
was
at
high
tide,
since Reed
usually
counterattacked and seldom
ap-
peased.
John
W. Kern's term in the Senate ended in
1917,
following
his
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
defeat for re-election. The debt the Wilson Administration owed
Kern has never been
properly acknowledged,
and
probably
never
will be now. He was the Administration's floor leader in the Senate
during
the four
years
of its
greatest
constructive
achievement.
Among
the Democrats in the Senate were several so
intensely
in-
dividualistic or ultraconservative that almost
invariably
some were
off the reservation at some
stage
of the
legislative proceedings,
and
it was Kern's delicate function to conciliate them and
compromise
their differences. His
personal popularity
with his fellow Senators
contributed
mightily
to the
passage
of several
highly
controversial
measures.
This,
I am
sure,
would be
acknowledged by
his col-
leagues.
So
pressing,
continuous and arduous were his
duties,
so
constantly, day
and
night,
was he
engaged
in conferences and
caucuses,
that
during
these four fruitful
years
for the Administra-
tion he often did not
appear
at the office for
days
at a
time,
and the
responsibility
of
making day-to-day
decisions fell to me.
During
the
enervating days
of
Washington
summers Kern was
tied to his
post, constantly
on
guard,
with a notebook in his hand
telling
him where the absentee Administration Senators could be
found in case of an unheralded roll call or some other
emergency.
Not a few of these
gentlemen
were ornamental Senators who de-
serted the
stuffy
chamber for the ball
park
and for the horse races
in
Maryland,
while
Kern,
then on the
shady
side of his
sixties,
had
no diversion or
relaxation;
but the vital
importance
of his work was
not
appreciated by
the
press.
A desired measure would be
pending
which could
pass
or fail
by
a narrow
margin,
with some Democrats
holding
out
against
it,
and
with Kern
pleading
and
arguing day
and
night,
until,
out of defer-
ence to him in numerous
instances,
the rebellious ones would
succumb to his
pleading.
("Oh, well,"
I once heard Senator Reed
of Missouri
say,
"if
you
feel so
strongly
about it I'll vote for the
damn
bill.")
When at
length enough
votes had been
pledged
to
assure the bill's
passage,
often
through
Kern's
tact,
diplomacy, pop-
ularity
and
patience,
and the
day
was set for the full-dress debate
before the roll call
then,
when the
galleries
were
packed
and the
drama was at its
height,
the absentee Senators flocked in from the
race track and the ball field to deliver
showy speeches
that tickled
the visitors and
impressed
the news
correspondents.
Kern never
spoke
on these
occasions,
and he knew them to be
dangerous,
for
88
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
the orators
might say something
to create
resentment and
upset
the
apple
cart. The
spectacular
debate determined
nothing
in such a
case;
through
Kern's
diplomacy
the issue had
already
been settled
in the conferences while the Senators now in the
limelight
were
enjoying
their freedom.
The bill would
pass,
the
people
in the
galleries
would assume the
victory
to be due to the
orators,
and the
press, finding copy
and
color in the discourses of these
speakers
fresh from the race
track,
would feature them. Because Kern was not an
exhibitionist, but,
on the
contrary,
was averse to self
-advertising,
was even
secretive,
he
got
no credit from the
public.
I doubt that Woodrow Wilson
had a
proper appreciation
of his
deep
indebtedness to the self-
sacrificing
statesman and clever
politician
who had not
figured
in
the drama of the
full-fledged
debate. But I have no doubt that Kern
literally
killed himself
during
these four
years,
for he died a few
months after he left the Senate.
Kern's defeat for re-election in
1916
meant I was to leave Wash-
ington,
and it was
high
time. Two
years
would have been
valuable,
but the status then of a
private secretary
of a
Senator,
even
though
the latter was his
party's
floor
leader,
was not
impressive
and cer-
tainly
not
profitable
in
any
sense. It was
largely
because of the
feeling
that I was
wasting
time that I decided to write The Irish
Orators. I wrote it at
night
in our office. When I left
Washington
I felt I had
nothing
to show for this
period
but this book. I was a
bit worried over
my audacity
in
writing
the book at
all,
and I was
not certain it would not be frowned
upon by
Senator
Kern,
who
knew
nothing
about the
writing
or even the
publication
until
Champ
Clark,
Speaker
of the
House,
told him about it. I learned
this from a letter to me from the
Speaker.
It
surprised
and
delighted
me,
and I still cherish the
letter,
the first I ever received about a
book of mine. He wrote:
Two or three
days ago
I went down to the
dining
room for break-
fast,
sleepy
headed and
sleepy eyed.
I had sat
up
all
night reading your
book on the Irish Orators. I told Senator Kern to tell
you
that in
my
judgment
it is one of the most
interesting
books that has been written
in this
country
in a
quarter
of a
century.
As evidence of
my
belief I state
that I sat
up nearly
two whole
nights reading
it. Your book will have an
honored
place
in
my library.
89
WASHINGTON,
1911-1917:
UNWRITTEN HISTORY
A few
days
later he had me as his
guest
of honor at a
Speaker's
luncheon,
where he
repeated
to the
guests
what he had
written
to me.
A
day
or two after
that,
when I was on the floor of the
Senate,
Vice-President Marshall sent me a note from the rostrum:
Not until a few
days ago
did I have the
opportunity
to
begin reading
your
book and let me
say
at the outset that I did not
stop reading
until I
had finished it. You have
certainly
demonstrated that to teach
history
in connection with the actions and utterances of
great
men is more at-
tractive and also more instructive than in the usual
way.
I have learned
more of Irish
history
of the last two hundred
years by
the
perusal
of
your
book than I had from all the literature on the
subject
that I had
read before.
These
encouraging
letters more than
anything
else turned
my
ambition toward the
writing
of
history.
Before the
expiration
of Kern's term I was offered the
editorship
of the Fort
Wayne
Journal-Gazette,
at that time the foremost
Democratic
paper
in
Indiana,
and
so,
without
regret,
I left Wash-
ington
and turned back to
my
native state.
90
CHAPTER VII
War,
Politics and the
League
of Nations
FORT WAYNE was then a
thriving
industrial
city
with no little
charm. We found an old brick house on West
Berry
Street,
around
which cluster all the memories of this Hoosier interlude. I retain
a sentimental attachment to this house with its French windows
looking
out
upon
the lawn and the tree-lined street. I had
scarcely
any
social
life,
my
entire time
being
divided between the office and
my
home.
My position
on the
Journal-Gazette
was that of editorial
writer,
but since I selected
my
own
subjects
and treated them in
my
own
way
without
consultation,
it was more
nearly
that of an
editor in chief. The
complete independence
accorded me made the
work
interesting
and
agreeable.
On the first
Sunday
after
my
ar-
rival I
voluntarily
wrote two columns of reminiscences and ob-
servations on the
Washington
scene and its
actors,
under the
cap-
tion
"Cabbages
and
Kings,"
and the
popularity
of the
experiment
was such that I was unable to discontinue the feature
during my
six
years
with the
paper.
This,
together
with the editorials on
Sundays,
took
up
the entire
page
of seven columns. I
suspect
that
this feature on the
personalities
and activities of the actors in Wash-
ington
from
1911
to the end of
1917
is more
complete
than
any
that will
appear
hereafter,
but it did not occur to me to
publish
the
collection in book form.
Our war with
Germany began
a few
days
after I assumed
my
duties. Thereafter
almost all
my
editorial leaders dealt with
phases
of the war
and, later,
with the
League
of
Nations,
which we
vig-
orously supported
against
the
unscrupulous propaganda
and mis-
representations
of its
partisan
enemies.
9
1
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
To
my surprise,
I was
plunged
into
politics
almost
immediately
on
my
return to Indiana. In the state convention of
1918
I was
chairman of the
platform
committee,
which would not be
worth
mentioning
had not President Wilson
played
a
part.
It was one
of the earliest of the state conventions of that
year,
and Colonel
Hollister of the Democratic National Committee
placed
in
my
hands certain resolutions
dealing mostly
with
postwar policies
which Wilson wished
incorporated
in the
platform
as a model for
other conventions that would follow. Particular
pains
were to be
taken,
he
explained,
that no intimation should be
given
as to the
source of these
resolutions,
and this would be difficult. I took into
my
confidence
only
one member of the
committee,
who was to
move the unanimous
adoption
of each of these resolutions without
discussion when
they
were read. Once when the committee showed
a
disposition
to
question
the
resolution,
I was forced to
say
that it
came from a
"very high
source" and that I
hoped
it would not be
questioned. Clearly
the members
understood,
and all the resolu-
tions
brought
from
Washington
were included.
This was the
year
of the
deadly
flu
epidemic,
when
people
were
dying
like flies in
autumn,
and the
beginning
of the
speaking
cam-
paign
was
postponed
from week to week. When it did
open
the
week before the
election,
it was
grotesque.
I
spoke
but
once,
in
Angola,
and the scene was both
amusing
and
ghastly.
I faced an
audience that wore
masks,
presenting
a most ludicrous
appearance.
That
year
Wilson lost the House
through
what some
thought
a
blunder in
urging
the election of a Democratic
Congress.
Had he
asked for the election of a
Congress
that would
support
the Ad-
ministration on all war
issues,
the critics would have us
believe,
the
result would have been different. The
appeal
for the election of
Democrats
certainly
drew the
party
line,
but it had been drawn
before. His enemies were infuriated
by
Wilson's international
pres-
tige,
and we were
moving
toward that bitter
hysteria
of blind
partisanship
that was to
put
the United States in
opposition
to the
League
of Nations. I doubt that the result of the election would
have been different had Wilson not made his
partisan appeal.
In the state convention that
year
the leaders offered me the nom-
ination for
secretary
of
state,
which was the head of the
ticket,
but
that
position
made no
appeal
to
me,
and I declined.
9
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WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
Unexpectedly,
I had a more
important
role in the state conven-
tion of
1920.
Vice-President Marshall was
designated temporary
chairman to make the
keynote speech,
and Governor Ralston was
to be the
permanent
chairman and to discuss state issues. When
the
manuscript
of Marshall's
speech
was read
by
the
party
leaders,
they
were
disappointed by
the rather bromidic
praise
of the Wilson
Administration and the
League
of Nations. The Vice-President
was a
conservative,
and also it was common
knowledge
that Mar-
shall felt he had not been accorded
proper recognition by
the Pres-
ident. I am sure there was some
justification
for his resentment.
While we were
engaged
in a
great
war he had not been invited
to sit in the
meetings
of the
Cabinet,
and he felt he did not
enjoy
the
intimacy
with the President to which his
position
entitled him.
Even
so,
it had been assumed that his
keynote speech
would
warmly
praise
the President and the
League
of Nations Covenant.
From a conference of the
party
leaders in
Indianapolis,
Gover-
nor Ralston
telephoned
me to ask that I make the
speech
that fell
to him as
permanent
chairman,
and that instead of
confining my
speech
to state
issues,
as was
customary,
I devote the
greater part
to national
issues,
the Wilson Administration and the
League.
Ralston would take over as
permanent
chairman at the conclusion
of
my speech.
It was not a
pleasant
task that was
assigned
me. I had
a real and
abiding
affection for Tom
Marshall,
who had left the
Senate to sit beside me at
my
mother's
funeral,
and who had al-
ways
been a friend. I was not at all sure he had been treated with
proper
consideration. But
my feeling
for Wilson and the
League
was
paramount.
I had known Marshall well for twelve
years.
He had a likable
personality
and was rich in
whimsy
and wit. His familiar conversa-
tion,
which
sparkled
and
glowed,
was
always
clever. He had some-
thing
of the eternal
boy
in him which reminded me of Barrie's Sen-
timental
Tommy
and Peter Pan. Grass-roots common sense illumi-
nated
by
wit and humor that was Marshall. He was
popular
on
the
platform
as a humorist before he was
thought
of as a
statesman,
but he uttered
many
serious
thoughts
in
jest.
His tone was conver-
sational and familiar. He talked and did not
rant,
and
though
he
was less
eloquent
than instructive and
amusing,
there was in his
speeches
much
homey
sentiment to reach the heart.
During
his
93
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
eight years
in
Washington
he and his
charming
wife won the hearts
of
Washington society by
their
simplicity,
their freedom
from
pose
and their interest in
people.
His
drollery
and wit made him an
ideal table
companion,
and he was
constantly quoted
in the
capital
Unquestionably,
the state convention heard Marshall's
speech
with uneasiness and
disappointment. My speech,
with its ardent
praise
of the Administration and the
League,
followed his and was
warmly applauded
and
by
none more
warmly
than
by
Marshall.
When I sat down beside him at the close he leaned
over,
placed
his hand on
my
knee and
said, "Claude,
I've tried to
help
the Pres-
ident,
but he wouldn't let me." To
my
embarrassment,
I
realized
that he knew
my speech
was intended to
put
in what he had left
out,
but if he felt
any
resentment he never showed
it,
and our
friendship
continued until his death.
In that
year's campaign
I
spoke
with him in Fort
Wayne,
and
two
years
later we were on the same
platform
in Richmond.
While he
spoke
with his usual
cleverness,
his
speeches
lacked the
fervor and conviction which had come to be
expected
of him.
Had Wilson retired when
incapacitated by
illness,
Marshall would
have become
President;
I believe Wilson's failure to
step
down
rankled in the breast of the Vice-President.
The
1920
national convention in San Francisco lacked the cour-
age
to make the
League
of Nations the
issue,
though
this was done
by
Governor
James
M.
Cox,
the Presidential
nominee,
during
a
call on Wilson
by
Cox and Franklin D.
Roosevelt,
his
running
mate,
as related in another
chapter.
Foes of Prohibition would have
preferred
to make Prohibition the issue. Years later in an editorial
in the New York
Evening
World I was to
say
that Wilson
actually
sent a wet
plank
to San Francisco for
incorporation
in the
plat-
form. This assertion was based on a statement in
Joe
Tumulty's
book on Wilson after Wilson's death. The editorial aroused the
curiosity
of Senator Carter
Glass,
who wrote me a
sharp
denial,
setting
forth the facts as he knew them. In his letter he said that
"one man" did
strongly urge
on Wilson the
sending
of such a
plank.
Wilson,
he
added,
certainly
was
opposed
to Prohibition
and had vetoed the Volstead
Act,
but it seemed
improbable
that
he would have subordinated the
League
to Prohibition.
Saying
that
94
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
he was
withholding
an article for the Atlantic
Monthly pending
a
reply
to his
inquiry,
Senator Glass went on:
I was well aware in
1920
that a certain
person
was
urging
Mr. Wilson
to send such a
declaration to the San Francisco
Convention,
but it is
incredible to me that
any
such
thing
was
done,
and I am
writing
to ask
you
to
give
me
your authority
for the statement that it was done.
At the
very
earnest
personal request
of Mr. Wilson I was made chair-
man of the Committee of Resolutions of the San Francisco Convention.
I went from the White House to the train for San Francisco after an
hour's
discussion of the
proposed party platform,
the
great part
of
which I had
already
drafted.
I have reason to assume that Mr. Wilson would have
given
me
any
such draft of a
proposed provision
had he decided to ask its
incorpora-
tion in the
platform.
So far from
doing
this,
he
distinctly agreed
with
me that such a
thing
would be
extremely
unwise.
As chairman of both the sub-committee and the full Committee on
Platform I know
perfectly
well that
nobody assuming
to
speak
for Mr.
Wilson
presented any
such
proposition.
Hence I am interested to have
you
tell
me,
before the
publication
of the article I have
prepared, why
and how
you
reached the conclusion so
positively
stated in
your
editorial.
I had no recollection of the
editorial,
but an
investigation
dis-
closed the source of the claim. It is worth
noting
that the date of
Senator Glass's interest and his letter was
September
4, 1928,
when
his
party
had made Prohibition an issue in the
campaign.
But in
1920
the
ground
swell
against
Prohibition had not
developed,
though opposition
was
developing.
I had
given
him
my
reason for
not
injecting
such a controversial
subject
in
my keynote speech
in
1928,
and he
agreed
with
my reasoning.
He
added, "Smith,
if
elected,
as I
frankly
told him in
Albany,
could do no more about
altering
the
Eighteenth
Amendment than
my
barn cat."
It was
during my
Fort
Wayne days
that
my
intimate
friendship
with Senator
Beveridge began. During my boyhood
I had seen him
occasionally
in his
home,
but for almost
twenty years
I had seen
him
only
on the
platform
or in the street. He went to Fort
Wayne
to
speak
at a memorial
meeting
for Theodore
Roosevelt,
and after
the
meeting
he invited me to his room at the
Anthony
Hotel,
where
95
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
he talked for two hours. He was in
high good
humor,
for he had
just
finished his brilliant
biography
of
John
Marshall. That
night
it was evident to me that he was
eager
to return to the Senate. This
would mean a
primary fight
for the nomination
against
the
Repub-
lican
incumbent,
but he had no doubt of
victory
in the
primary.
He was not so sure about the election. He knew that his old ene-
mies would be
gunning
for
him,
but he was
tempted
to
try.
A little later he
telegraphed
me that he was
speaking
on Marshall
in
Plymouth
the next
night
and would like to see me there. I
went,
and,
sitting
on the
edge
of the bed in his room in the
hotel,
he told
me he had reached a decision he would
fight
for the
Republican
nomination and
gamble
on the election.
Despite
our radical differ-
ences in
politics,
this confidential
relationship
was to continue until
his death.
During
the
primary fight
he
spoke
in Fort
Wayne
and I found
him in the midst of his
milling supporters
in the
lobby
of the An-
thony.
He drew me into the
elevator,
took me to his room and
denied himself to visitors. He was in a hilarious mood. In our
conversation,
mention was made of the
deadly
feud between Wil-
son and Senator
Lodge,
and I
suggested
that the latter's hatred of
Wilson stemmed from the
parallel
careers of the two men. Both
had been
professors; Lodge,
as the editor of a
magazine,
had
Wilson as a
contributor,
and the editor had a
supercilious
attitude
toward the
contributor;
both were
historians;
and Wilson had
passed Lodge
in the race and had become President and a world
figure directing
a world war. I
suggested
that the hatred of
Lodge
smacked of academic
jealousy. Beveridge
was
washing
his face after
shaving,
and,
with water
running
down his
cheeks,
he turned and
said,
"By George,
I believe
you
have hit it."
His
speech
that
night
was the last
political speech
I was to hear
him make. It was
entirely
different in
phrasing
and
delivery
from
his method in his
early period.
The
Beveridge
of the "March of the
Flag" speech
was no more. He
spoke conversationally,
as
though
chatting
with his
audience,
cleverly
and
brilliantly,
but without
the dramatization of which he was a master in his
younger years.
He was nominated in the
primary.
That
year
I
might
have had the Democratic Senatorial nomina-
tion. I had
spoken
at the Democratic state
banquet
at the
Claypool
96
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
in
Indianapolis,
with Cordell
Hull,
then the national
chairman,
as
the
principal speaker.
The
party
leaders
expected
from Hull a
sound,
statesmanlike
speech packed
with solid
meat,
but
they
could
not count on him for a
fighting speech
that would send the
party
workers back home in militant
mood,
and I was asked to
supply
that need.
That
night
I had a
dangerous
cold.
My
voice was a
croak,
and
when I talked there was a
disconcerting
crackle in
my
ears.
By
sucking
a lemon while the others ate I
managed
to clear
my
voice.
In his
memoirs,
Cordell Hull refers to
my speech
as "red hot and
eloquent"
and as
having
"attracted wide attention." In
truth,
the
reception
of the
speech
was such that
immediately
afterward there
was some
canvassing
on the
feasibility
of
nominating
me for the
Senate.
However,
I was
very
tired and almost
ill, and,
more de-
cisive,
the
organization
was
bringing pressure
on Governor Ralston
to take the nomination. I had no hint then of his reluctance to take
it,
and
my
intimate
friendship
with him from
boyhood
would have
made a contest with him
repugnant,
as well as absurd.
During
the
two
previous
summers
my
wife and I had been
guests
of the Ral-
stons at their beautiful
country
house,
Hoosier
Home,
near Indian-
apolis.
I mention this incident because of the aftermath. Soon after his
nomination Ralston wrote me that he had
just
heard that had he
not been a candidate I would have
been,
and that had he received
the
slightest
intimation he would have refused the nomination
and
supported
me,
since it was
against
his
judgment
to abandon a lucra-
tive law
practice
at his
age.
During
the
campaign,
which resulted in his
election,
I
spent
a
night
at Hoosier Home between
speaking engagements
and was
awakened at dawn
by
voices in an
adjoining
room. It was Ralston
going
over his
speech
for the
day
with Mrs.
Ralston,
his best critic
and adviser. That
campaign
was
unique
in
my experience,
since the
opposing
candidates,
Beveridge
and
Ralston,
were
my
close friends
and both had honored me with their confidence.
Fortunately
for
Beveridge,
I
think,
he was defeated
by
hostile
factions in his own
party.
He turned at once to the
writing
of a
biography
of Lincoln in the
grand
manner of the Marshall book.
When I saw him soon after the election his defeat
had been
put
97
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
behind him and he was
aglow
with his usual enthusiasm over his
delving
into Lincoln source material.
Though
in his sixtieth
year,
he seemed like a man in his
mid-forties,
and his
boyish
exuberance
had abated not a bit.
One
day
he wrote me that he had valuable Lincoln material un-
der
heavy
insurance in his
house,
and that if I would run over to
Indianapolis
he would show me
something
that would "knock
your eye
out." I took the next interurban.
He showed
me, first,
a
copy
of the
Sangamon Journal,
the old
Springfield,
Illinois,
Republican organ, announcing
that on the
Saturday night
before the Senatorial election
(in 1858)
Lincoln
would address his fellow citizens of
Springfield
in "the effort of
his life" and answer the "lies" of the
campaign.
He then showed
me the
Journal
of the
Monday morning following
the
meeting.
Numerous men had
spoken
and the entire front
page
was filled
with the
speeches,
but Lincoln's was dismissed in a few lines at the
bottom of the
page.
It
appeared
that "the Hon. A. Lincoln also
spoke"
but that
owing
to "lack of
space"
it was
impossible
to
print
his
speech.
"And what do
you
think of that?" asked
Beveridge.
"Hamlet with Hamlet left
out,"
I
replied.
He then showed me Lincoln's notes for the
speech.
The
headings
were numbered
points
on which he
proposed
to
touch,
and
among
these was the notation that he was "not
opposed
to the
fugitive
slave law."
It was
Beveridge's theory
that
night
that
Douglas
had forced
Lincoln in the debates into a more extreme
position
on
slavery
than
the Illinois leaders
thought
wise. This had not been bad in the
abolition
strongholds,
but the
Republicans
around
Springfield
were
old-line
Whigs
who had no
sympathy
with the abolitionists and
only
an academic interest in
slavery. They
were alarmed lest Lin-
coln's
speech
defeat the state
ticket,
and
they
had litde confidence
in Lincoln's election. The
meeting
at
Springfield
on the
verge
of
the election the
following Tuesday
offered an
opportunity
to reas-
sure the more conservative
Republicans
there;
and since the
speech
could not be
printed
because of "lack of
space,"
the abolitionists
elsewhere would not know that Lincoln had
qualified
what he had
implied
earlier in the
campaign.
That
night Beveridge
was
swamped
with
manuscripts, papers
98
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
and
books,
and he was
using
a
magnifying glass
to
spare
his
eyes.
For five
years
he was to work
unceasingly
on the Lincoln
biogra-
phy.
What he would have done with the
Springfield speech
is con-
jectural,
for his hand was
stayed by
death
just
as he was
finishing
with the debates.
My
interest in the Irish overtook me a little
disconcertingly
in
Fort
Wayne
when the Irish leader Eamon De
Valera,
who had
escaped
the
vigilance
of the British
police
and reached the United
States as a stoker on a
steamer,
visited the
city
to make a
speech.
On his arrival in New
York, John
Devoy
and
Judge
Daniel F.
Cohalen,
the brilliant but autocratic Irish-American
leader,
took
him in tow with a view to
using
him
against
Wilson and the
League
of Nations. At
any
rate,
his
speeches
were critical of Wilson and
not at all calculated to advance the cause of the
League,
then under
attack
by
the
Republicans.
Cohalen had
organized
the Friends of
Irish
Freedom,
which
many
Irish
joined
with no realization of its
political significance.
Because of
my
Irish Orators and
my
well-
known
partiality
for the
Irish,
the branch of this
organization
in
Fort
Wayne
was
very friendly
with
me,
and I was asked to make
one of a committee to
go
to a
neighboring
town to meet De Valera
and escort him to the
city. Having
learned of the tone of his
speeches
and not
relishing
the
idea,
I made an excuse. That
evening,
however,
after his
arrival,
I was invited to a small dinner in his
honor
preceding
the
meeting
he was to
address,
and this I
accepted.
I was
disappointed
in De Valera. He
impressed
me as
conspicu-
ously
non-Irish. Tall and
gaunt, funereally
somber,
apparently
without a bit of Irish
humor,
he sat at the table
looking
down at
his
plate
without a smile and with
scarcely
a word to the man be-
side him. I missed the
wit,
the
humor,
the conversational brilliance
and
eloquence
of the
Currans, Grattans,
O'Connells and
Meaghers
with whom I had associated Irish
leadership.
He was
accompanied
by Harry
Boland,
a
clever,
scintillating young
Irish
patriot
who
did
embody my concept
of the Irishman.
I was seated on the
platform
that
night
before De Valera
spoke
when Dan
Callahan,
a well-known
lawyer,
a
leading
Democrat
and a
supporter
of the
League,
came to me with a flushed face.
"What do
you
think that damn fellow wants?" he asked. "He
gave
a
typed
resolution to Pat
Breen,
the
chairman,
and asked him to
99
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
have it introduced. Without
reading
it,
Pat
gave
it to me to
intro-
duce." It was
against
the Wilson
policy
and it
paid
tribute to the
two
Republican
Senators from Indiana who were
against
the
League.
"I told Pat I would see them all in hell
first," Callahan
concluded.
A little
later,
Callahan came back with Charles
Niezer,
a
banker,
who had
agreed
to serve as the chairman of the
reception
commit-
tee with the
understanding
that American
politics
would not be
introduced. The two asked me to
accompany
them below the
stage,
where the local Friends of Irish Freedom were in session. Niezer
reminded the
president
of the
group
about the conditions under
which he had
accepted
the
chairmanship
of the
committee,
and he
warned that if
anyone
introduced the resolution he would either
denounce it or
ostentatiously
leave the
platform
and the hall. There
was embarrassment and
consternation,
for I am sure the Irish were
no more
prepared
for such a resolution than Callahan or Niezer.
The result was that the resolution was not introduced.
After the
meeting,
Callahan and I went to his office to
celebrate,
and then to the
Anthony
Hotel in search of Niezer. We were told
that he was with "the President in his room." We knocked on the
door and entered. Someone
said,
"Here
they
are now."
The local Irish were
sitting
in embarrassed silence around the
walls. De Valera was
standing
with his back to the footboard of
the
bed,
expostulating angrily
with
Niezer,
who stood
facing
him.
The coldness of De Valera had
disappeared
and he was in a
rage.
He was far from silent now. His face was flushed.
Niezer retained his
poise
and
temper, confining
his
interrup-
tions to De Valera's flow of infuriated
eloquence
to one
phrase:
"That
may
be all
right
for
you,
Mr.
President,
but we are Amer-
icans."
The climax came when De Valera burst forth with a statement
that shook the Irish around the wall:
"My
one
purpose
in
making
this tour is to have that resolution
adopted,
and had I known it
would not be
adopted
here I would not have come to Fort
Wayne."
In all other
meetings
addressed
by
De Valera the resolution was
adopted.
Years
later,
M.
J. MacManus,
in his
biography
of De
Valera,
said that the
purpose
of the tour was to create sentiment
for the
recognition
of the Irish
Republic,
and that the Irish leader
favored the
League
of Nations and understood
why
it was
impos-
100
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
sible for Wilson to
recognize
the
republic
at that time.
Perhaps,
but such was not the
impression
left in Fort
Wayne.
Later I was to meet De Valera at some small dinners in New
York where he talked more
freely, though
still without much wit
or
humor,
and the bad
impression
I had formed of him at the first
meeting
was
largely wiped
out.
Another Fort
Wayne
incident in the
days
of the First World
War: It was at this time that I saw and heard
Eugene
V. Debs for
the last time. This was
just
two weeks before his arrest in Cleve-
land and his
imprisonment
in Atlanta. He
was,
of
course,
a
pacifist.
Unknown to him and unnoticed in the rear of the
hall,
I followed
his
speech curiously
to see how he would
manage.
The audience
was
composed
almost
entirely
of Socialists. Debs was
speaking
con-
versationally,
and,
while he denounced war as a means of
settling
international
disputes,
his denunciation was concentrated on the
military clique
of
Germany
as
responsible
for the war. This was
precisely
what all
speakers
at
meetings
to sell bonds and raise
money
for the war were
doing.
We also denounced war and in-
sisted that this war was to end war.
After he
closed,
I went to the
platform
to
greet
him as an old
friend. He seemed
pleased,
and the next
morning
he
spent
an hour
in
my
office
discussing
the
progress
of the war and
talking
about
mutual friends in Terre Haute. He did not utter a word to which
the most
supersensitive patriot
could take
exception.
It seemed to
me at the time
that,
with the realization that his
every
word would
be
microscopically
examined
by
secret
agents,
he had
prepared
his
speech
with meticulous care. As he
proceeded
eastward,
speaking
in various towns in
Ohio,
I followed his
speeches
as
reported
in
the
papers
of these
towns;
they
followed
precisely
the line of the
harmless
speech
I had heard.
Consequently
I was shocked
by
his
arrest in Cleveland. I am afraid that he was arrested because he
would not
publicly
renounce the tenets of his
political
faith,
and
that his arrest was a blot on the fine record of the Administration.
He was not a traitor. He was not a revolutionist. He
was, rather,
an evolutionist. He had no faith in force. He was an
idealist,
a
poet
and an honest man.
In
prison
he was beloved
by prisoners
and
keepers
alike,
and
when,
after the
war,
many people
interceded for his
release,
Presi-
101
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
dent
Harding
sent instructions to the warden to send Debs unac-
companied
to
Washington
on his
agreement
to return to
prison
afterward. No
higher compliment
was ever
paid
a man.
Harding
was
enormously impressed by
Debs's
personality
and
conversation,
his lack of bitterness and his
transparent honesty,
and
shortly
there-
after he was released. But the
prison years
had told
heavily
on him.
He died five
years
later,
in
1926.
It was the
encouragement
of
Beveridge
that led me
seriously
into
the
writing
of
political history.
I had
long
been
collecting
material
for a book in
justification
of
Jackson's
"Kitchen Cabinet." There
was a
tendency, by people ignorant
of
politics
and unaware of the
fact that
political parties
and
politicians
are an
indispensable part
of the democratic
process,
to belittle and
malign
Amos
Kendall,
Frank P. Blair and Isaac Hill and their relations with the colorful
figure
in the White House. The
very
conservative school of his-
torians had been
condescending
toward
Jackson
himself and his
overdue crusade
against
the
embryo plutocracy
that was then as-
suming threatening proportions.
Jefferson's
election in 1800 had
definitely
determined that ours should be a democratic
republic,
but with the
passing
of the
years
the
people
had lost
sight
of fun-
damental
principles,
and
plutocracy
had been
slowly
but
surely
making progress.
When Senators and
Congressmen
snubbed the
levees of the President of the United States to flock to the levees
of the
president
of the national
bank,
only
the blind could have
been
ignorant
of its
significance. Jefferson
had
triumphed
for de-
mocracy
in
1800;
it was the historical mission of
Jackson
to re-
awaken the democratic fervor.
With the
money power
of his
day arrogant
and
active,
using
money,
credit control and intimidation as
weapons,
Jackson's
cru-
sade called for a
close,
systematic organization
to
direct,
drill and
munition the
masses,
and foremost
among practical politicians
qualified
for the work were
Kendall,
Blair and Hill.
Following
the
"Era of Good
Feeling"-which
was
everything
but that-the coun-
try
was
tending
toward
personal government
and a
personality
cult,
not based on well-defined
principles,
and it was the mission
of
Jackson
to create a
government by parties.
Beveridge agreed
with
my
estimate of the Kitchen
Cabinet,
but
he
urged
me to extend the
scope
and include the
party struggles
of
102
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
the
Jackson
period,
to make the book a
political history
of the re-
gime.
Absorbed with
political history
all
my
life,
I had found most
political
histories
lacking
in
something
I
thought important
back-
ground;
there was too little of the
personalities
and motives of the
leaders,
too much of a
disposition
to
accept
an official document as
conclusive without
inquiring
into its
political
antecedents. It seemed
to me that it was not
enough
to know that the
people
had reacted
to this or that measure in this or that
way,
but that it was
vitally
important
to know on what
information,
correct or
incorrect,
the
people
had
acted,
and to know
something
more of the
atmosphere
in which
they
moved.
I had in mind William Gobbet's
Porcupine's
Gazette,
which re-
sorted to the methods of
yellow journalism
as
early
as
1798
and
printed
sensational falsehoods to influence
public opinion
in
sup-
port
of the Alien and Sedition Laws when the fervor of the fanatics
was
dwindling.
Under scarecrow headlines it announced that a
French
army
had landed in South Carolina and was
marching
on
Philadelphia, burning
houses,
raping
women and
kidnaping
chil-
dren. Of course no French
army
had landed or had
thought
of
landing,
but this scandalous lie had its eifect. Fear lashed
many
into a
frenzy,
and mobs fared forth to attack
Jeffersonians
and
wreck
Jeffersonian
newspapers.
Because it was a lie old-school his-
torians
thought
the
Porcupine story
beneath the
dignity
of
history,
and,
while
they
noted the action of the
mob,
they ignored
the rea-
son for the action. Lies have
played
a
conspicuous part
in determin-
ing
the action of
peoples,
and these lies are an essential
part
of
history. Nothing
that has determined the action of
peoples
is be-
neath the
dignity
of
history.
In a
tiny, dusty
room on the
ground
floor of the
Journal-Gazette,
writing
to suit
myself
and without serious concern about a
pub-
lisher,
I wrote The
Party
Battles
of
the
Jackson
Period after the
paper
had been
put
to bed. When
finished,
the
manuscript
was a
length
that would
require
two volumes.
Beveridge
insisted that I
submit it to his
publishers,
the
Houghton
Mifflin
people,
and I
sent it on
hopefully,
but without much confidence in its
accept-
ance.
Very
soon
Beveridge
wrote me that the
manuscript
had been
sent to Dr. William E.
Dodd,
head of the
department
of American
history
at
Chicago University,
and that this was fortunate since
Dodd was one of the liberals
among
the historians. Soon thereafter
103
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
he wrote
again, saying
that Dodd's
report
was
"positively
enthusi-
astic." Then came a letter from Ferris
Greenslet,
editor of the
pub-
lishing
house,
accepting
the book but
urging
that it be
condensed
to one volume. Dodd was
opposed
to the
reduction,
but I
accepted
Greenslet's
advice,
much to
my
later
regret.
I learned at this time the
importance
of a title to a book. In
correspondence
with the
publisher
I had referred to the
manuscript
descriptively
as
"party
battles of the
Jackson
period"
with no
thought
of
using
it as the title. It smacked too much of a
cold,
dull
study
of
political technique.
But the book had
already
been
copy-
righted
as The
Party
Battles
of
the
Jackson
Period and the
pub-
lishers
thought
the title was "as
good
as
any."
An incident disil-
lusioned them as to that. The
Chautauqua corporation
then dis-
tributed
annually
to its members books of
fiction,
biography
and
history,
and its
agent,
in search of a
history,
called on
Houghton
Mifflin at their New York office. The
Jackson
book was offered.
Looking
at the
title,
the
agent
shook his head. He was asked to
take a
copy
and
glance
over it en route to Boston and throw it out
the window if he found it dull. On his arrival in Boston he went
to
Houghton
Mifflin and ordered five thousand
copies.
The title
gave
no
inkling
of the human side and the drama. No matter what
the
text,
my
advice to
young
historians is to
give
serious
thought
to the title.
I was not
prepared
for the flood of
good
reviews that
poured
in
from Boston to San
Francisco,
but I was
delighted by
the
special
approval
of the elements I had
thought lacking
in most
political
histories. Nicholas Roosevelt in the New York Herald Tribune
thought
it
"history
as it should be written." The New York Times
cited the success of
Lytton Strachey
in
"applying psychological
methods and
insight
to the
writing
of
biography"
and concluded
that I had
"subjected
a whole
political period
... to
psychologi-
cal treatment."
Beveridge
in the
Indianapolis
Star wrote that "al-
though
he deals with the established facts he does so in the manner
of the dramatist and the result is as
fascinating
as a novel
by
Du-
mas." The Boston Herald
recognized my purpose
in
saying
that
"in the colorful
background
that most historians have
ignored
he
gives
a
very humanizing
illumination of an era
unique
in our
politi-
cal
history."
One
letter,
from
James
M.
Beck,
then Solicitor General of the
104
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
United
States,
gave
me
special pleasure
and resulted in a warm
friendship. Although
I admired Beck's
ability,
brilliance and elo-
quence,
he had become
my pet
aversion because of his attacks on
Woodrow
Wilson,
and when the
press
announced that he was un-
der consideration for the
embassy
in London I wrote a
thoroughly
nasty
editorial. Ten
days
later a letter came from the "Office of the
Solicitor
General," and,
having
no doubt it was an
excoriation,
I
invited
my colleagues
on the
paper
to
enjoy
it. It was a letter in
warm
praise
of
my
book. That was the
beginning
of a close friend-
ship
with Beck which continued until his death. I have often re-
flected on the number of
men,
once
pet
aversions of
mine,
who
became cherished friends on closer
acquaintance.
It is an illustration
of the ancient truth that one cannot hate a man one knows.
It is a matter of some
pride
to me that all
my
books on American
history
have
changed opinions
on men and measures. In a later
letter,
Beck wrote me that
Party
Battles had
changed
his
opinion
as to the
propriety
of
Jackson's
vigorous
action toward the French
on the
spoliation
claims. "I had
always thought,"
he wrote me
(November
24, 1923),
"that in the
embroglio
with
France, Jackson
had acted rather
boorishly;
but
your
book convinces me that his
attitude and manners were those of a
dignified
and
courageous
American President and that the attack
upon
him
by
the Great
Triumvirate
[Clay,
Webster and
Calhoun]
in the Senate was
petty
and
ignoble."
Later I was
puzzled
to find
Beck,
a
distinguished Republican,
leaning strongly
in fundamentals toward the
Jeff
ersonian
concept
of
politics.
In his review of
my
Jefferson
and
Hamilton,
I was
astonished to
note,
his sole criticism was that I had made Hamilton
out to be a
greater
man than he was. When I
expressed my surprise
to
John
W. Davis he
gave
me an
explanation
of Beck's
career,
which he described as "a
tragedy."
"He was a brilliant
young
Democrat in
Pennsylvania
with un-
usual
power
as an
orator,"
Davis
said,
"and he was looked
upon
as
the fair-haired
boy
of the
Democracy
of that state. Cleveland had
appointed
him district
attorney,
and
when,
in
1896,
Cleveland left
his
party
on the
money
issue,
Beck in
loyalty
to his chief did like-
wise,
but instead of
going
with the Gold Democrats he went all the
way
over to the
Republicans.
The
Republicans
were
jubilant
and
generous
in their
praise,
and Beck remained with them. But he was
105
WAR,
POLITICS AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS
never accorded the
recognition
his
ability
deserved,
since his
dedi-
cation to
Republican
elemental
principles
was
suspect.
He was
made Solicitor General under
Coolidge
and made a
brilliant rec-
ord,
and toward the
twilight
of his
days
he was sent to the
House
of
Representatives.
The truth is that Beck was a convinced
Jeffer-
sonian. Had he remained where he
belonged
he would have had a
more brilliant
career,
and
I,
who knew
him,
had the
feeling
that he
was not
happy
over his shift."
The
publication
of The
Party
Battles
of
the
Jackson
Period was
to
change
the course of
my
life
again,
because of the
favorable
impression
it had made on Frank
Cobb,
the brilliant editor of the
New York World. He had
spoken
of it in
complimentary
terms to
Arthur
Krock,
then with the
World,
who knew
me,
and Krock
told Cobb I was
writing
editorials for the Fort
Wayne
Journal-
Gazette. At this time an editorial writer was needed on the
Evening
World. I learned later from Herbert
Bayard Swope
that for some
weeks the editorial
page
of the
Journal-Gazette
was read
by Ralph
Pulitzer,
Swope
and Cobb. Soon I was asked to meet Krock in
Indianapolis,
and I was invited to
join
the World.
An
acceptance
meant a definitive
separation
from
Indiana,
where
I was
known,
and a final abandonment of all
political
activities.
It was not an
easy
decision to make. Sentiment
argued
on one side
and common sense on the
other,
and in the end common sense
pre-
vailed. But it was with much sadness and
many misgivings
that I
broke with old associations and went to New York. The final shove
toward this decision was
given by Beveridge,
to whom I had
ap-
pealed
for advice. "I have
thought your
matter over as well as I
can and
my
first
judgment
is confirmed that
you ought
to take the
New York
offer,"
he wrote. "Of course it means a radical and
definitive
change
in
your
life and there are a
good many
reasons
pro
and con. But
weighing
these,
it seems to me that the balance is
decidedly
for the New York venture. But whatever
you
do,
good
luck and God bless
you."
106
CHAPTER VIII
Under the Gold Dome
THE NEW YORK World had
already
known national
prestige,
and
also
degradation,
when
Joseph
Pulitzer,
a
journalistic genius
of the
first
order,
took
possession
and
again
raised it to the
heights
as a
militant crusader for liberalism. The Pulitzer
Building,
where it
was
published,
was a
showplace
of the town at the time of its erec-
tion,
and tourists
paid
fees for admission to the
tower,
which rose
to the then sensational
height
of fourteen stories. The tower's
golden
dome loomed
impressively
on the vision of
passengers
on
incoming
steamers,
and Pulitzer was
enormously proud
of it. This
pride
in the
tower,
where the editorial writers
worked,
amused
Henry
Watterson,
a
friendly
rival,
who
suggested
that Pulitzer
bore holes in the tower "to let the darkness out."
My
room was on the
top
floor of the
tower,
looking
down on
the
City
Hall entrance and
park,
and from its
balcony
I witnessed
some
spectacular
scenes the
hysterical
welcome to
Lindbergh,
the
less
impressive reception
of
Queen
Marie of
Romania,
the
noisy
greeting
of a swimmer who had braved the
English
Channel,
and
the
sadly
silent
reception
of Madame
Curie,
who was not a
flyer,
a
swimmer or a
queen,
but
merely
a
genius
who,
with her
husband,
had served mankind. Later I moved to another room in the Pulitzer
Building
where there were two
impressive
desks,
one ornate and of
mahogany,
the other of California rose
wood;
I wondered at the
serenity
of the
room,
since one desk had
belonged
to
Joseph
Pu-
litzer and the other to William
Randolph
Hearst,
who had once
occupied
an
elaborately
furnished office in the Pulitzer
Building.
The World staff at that time could
not,
I am
sure,
have been
surpassed,
if
equaled.
Frank
Cobb,
who alone
among journalists
had
enjoyed
the absolute confidence of Woodrow
Wilson,
and
107
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
whose brilliance as an editorial writer was
unequaled,
was
on his
deathbed when I reached New York. Few of the staff that had
served under the
great
Pulitzer remained.
John Heaton,
old and
gray
but with the
pink complexion
of a
schoolgirl,
carried on the
old
tradition,
and for him I had a
great
affection. The others were
recruited
later,
and most of these who were not then famous
were
about to become so.
The brilliant career of Walter
Lippmann
had
begun
when he
was a star on the New
Republic.
He was then a handsome
young
man with
luminous,
intelligent eyes.
On the World he wrote his
editorials in
microscopic script
with a
pen. They
were
lucid,
logical,
perfectly phrased
in
impeccable literary style.
When on the New
Republic
he had been the idol of the militant
young
liberals. He
had
thought
himself a Socialist
during
his Harvard
days,
but he had
begun
to take on the
pale
cast of relative
conservatism,
and
many
of his erstwhile admirers had become his most severe critics. He
had written some notable books and he was
becoming something
of a
political philosopher.
Darting
hither and
yon
about the
tower,
an
enlivening figure,
bubbling
with
energy
and
enthusiasm,
his
bright eyes beaming
from behind his
glasses,
was
tall,
slender
Charley
Merz. He was of
Midwest
origin,
and he too had had his initiation on the New Re-
public.
His editorials were based on meticulous research and were
dependable.
When the World folded
up
he went to the New York
Times,
where the
qualities
so manifest on the World
led,
after a
short
time,
to his selection for the
very important post
of editor
in chief.
Rushing tempestuously
in and out of the various
offices,
usually
minus a
coat,
and
talking incessantly
and
brilliantly
in a
booming
voice was the closest adviser of
Ralph
Pulitzer,
Herbert
Bayard
Swope,
whose
reportorial
brilliance had made him famous. He was
the most
scintillating
conversationalist I have ever known.
Arthur
Krock,
an old friend from the
days
when I was Kern's
secretary,
was Pulitzer's assistant. He had been trained in his
pro-
fession under the
eye
of
Henry
Watterson,
and I had known him
as the
Washington correspondent
of the Louisville
Courier-Jour-
nal. Later he was to have a
distinguished
career as the head of the
Washington
Bureau of the New York Times.
Sometimes,
though
not often in the
daytime,
a
gargantuan figure,
108
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
a
towering
mountain of
gross
flesh,
could be seen and heard in the
tower,
speaking
in a
thin,
high-pitched
voice that was
shocking
because of its contrast with the
huge physical proportions
of the
speaker.
This was Alexander
Woollcott,
the drama
critic,
a
prime
favorite with the
players.
His criticisms were
always
brilliant and
sometimes caustic. His book While Rome Burns had infinite
charm. His
reputation
as a wit and
genius may
have been a bit
exaggerated,
but he could be
immensely amusing
even
when,
as
usual,
he was
studiedly
rude. He
appears
full
length
in the
play
The Man Who Came to
Dinner,
which was
patterned
after him
with a touch of malice that did not
prevent
him from
acting
in
the title role.
Almost as
huge
in bulk was
Heywood
Broun,
whose
column,
avidly
read
by
liberals and
intellectuals,
had the
journalistic
merit
of
calling
forth either
rapturous applause
or
indignant
hisses. He
was the
enfant
terrible of the staff and often a source of
annoyance
to the
shy Ralph
Pulitzer and the
cautious,
more conservative
Lipp-
mann. When he went out on the
warpath
with
paint
and feathers
against
President Lowell of
Harvard,
who had advised
against
the
commutation of the death sentence of Sacco and
Vanzetti,
and
referred to Harvard as
"Hangman's
House,"
he
narrowly escaped
cancellation of his contract. Another columnist who was a
prime
favorite in those
days
was Franklin P. Adams
(P.P.A.),
who con-
ducted "The
Conning
Tower,"
in which
appeared
clever
para-
graphs
and
poems
of his own and of contributors.
Moving quietly,
almost
silently, certainly
unostentatiously,
about
the tower was Maxwell
Anderson,
who interested me
greatly.
He
had then written two successful
plays,
one of them
Saturday's
Chil-
dren. I
got
the
impression
that his ambition was
lofty
but
purely
literary,
and that he
regarded
his
job
as an economic
necessity
rather than as a
pleasure.
Serious and dedicated to his ambition as
a
dramatist,
he was too
busy
to
join
the frolics of
Broun, F.P.A.,
Woollcott and Laurence
Stallings
at the famous
Algonquin
dining
table.
(At
that time
stenographers
strained their
budgets
to lunch
at the
Algonquin
and see their favorite columnists in the
flesh.)
I noticed that Anderson
spent
much time with
Stallings,
who con-
ducted the book
page.
This
young
man had left a
leg
in
Argonne
Forest and was
articulately
bitter over his
experience
with the
Marines. Almost
daily
he
appeared
with Anderson at the editorial
109
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
round table in the World
restaurant,
and the latter sat in
silence
with an amused
expression, listening
to
Stallings'
interminable
talk.
In those
days Stallings
was
promising
a book
page
that would be
unique,
but he never was to
get
around to it. The secret of the
association of these
wholly
different men was out when we
learned
that
they
had written a war
play,
What Price
Glory?
On the
open-
ing night
I
thought
it would fail because of the
sulphurous pro-
fanity put
into the mouths of the
Marines,
but the
public
was in the
mood for it and the
play
had an enormous success. This had no
noticeable effect on
Anderson,
who had written successful
plays
before and would
go
on to write others of
great literary
merit,
and
he went about with his usual
modesty,
but
Stallings
became a bit
exalted and lost interest in the book
page.
When he came to me
for information on the dress of men in the
days
of
Jackson
I learned
that he and Maxwell were
collaborating
on a
play
about Old
Hickory.
It was a dismal
failure,
and this ended the collaboration
of the two.
Stallings
was soon
displaced by Harry
Hansen as
literary
editor.
Hansen was tall and
slender,
with a
scholarly expression,
and was
as
quiet
as his
predecessor
was boisterous. He had
distinguished
himself as a critic on the
Chicago
News and as the author of Mid-
west Portraits. As a reviewer he was more concerned with
setting
forth the merits or demerits of a book than with
exhibiting
his own
cleverness.
On
my
floor of the tower was the studio of Rollin
Kirby,
one of
the most brilliant
political
cartoonists America has
produced,
more
subtle and a finer artist than
Nasby
of
generations
before. Inti-
mately
familiar with the
political
scene and with
literature,
he had
a rare
capacity
for satirical
interpretation,
and time and
again
he
received the Pulitzer Prize. It was a treat to watch
him,
seated be-
fore a
big
wooden
easel,
creating
cartoons more
powerful
than a
thousand
arguments.
He alone
conceived,
as well as
drew,
his mas-
terpieces,
and one of the saddest results of the
scrapping
of the
World was that it
deprived
him of the
proper
medium for his
genius.
Not
long
after
my appearance
in the tower we were
joined by
James
M.
Cain,
who wrote editorials in the
lighter
vein,
for he had
a sense of humor not
easy
to associate with The Postman
Always
no
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
Rings
Twice and other novels of his with their
unsavory
characters
and
tough dialogue.
It was under the
gold
dome that
my friendship
with Allan Nev-
ins
began.
At intervals he
joined
the staff.
Serious,
intensely
earnest
and a hard
worker,
he
gave
the
impression
that at that time he sel-
dom
played.
He told me that he
aspired
to a chair in American
history
at some
university,
an ambition realized when he became a
professor
at
Columbia,
where he was later head of the
history
de-
partment.
It was after his World
days
that he wrote numerous bi-
ographies
and histories that have made him one of the most distin-
guished
historians of our time.
I shared a suite in the tower with Harold
Pollard,
who
super-
vised the editorial
policy
of the
Evening
World. Slim and
always
immaculately
dressed,
he had been the favorite
secretary
of
Joseph
Pulitzer and had been with him on his
yacht
one
day
when his em-
ployer
startled him
by saying,
"How
suddenly
it
got
dark!"
though
it was still
daylight.
Pulitzer had become blind. Pollard re-
mained with Pulitzer on the
yacht,
where the
publisher
lived dur-
ing
the
years
of his affliction until his death.
Having previously
been dramatic critic on the New York
Times,
it was his
duty
in
the
assignment
of
jobs among
the several secretaries to
keep
the
blind
genius
informed as to new
plays
and books. These
reports
never aroused Pulitzer's
ire,
as did those of the secretaries
reporting
politics
and
finance,
and Pollard became the favorite. One
night
at
dinner, Ireland,
another
secretary,
remarked that he was
writing
a
play.
Pulitzer,
much
interested,
asked what he was
calling
it. "I
thought,"
said
Ireland,
"of
calling
it 'The
Importance
of
Being
Pollard.'
"
I found Pollard's reminiscences of Pulitzer
always
fasci-
nating.
Such were the men of the World
certainly
a
goodly company
beneath the
gold
dome.
I soon found that the
World,
an
independent-Democratic
paper,
put
most stress on
independence,
and that its association
with the
Democratic
Party
was due
entirely
to its militant
liberalism,
which
almost
always arrayed
it with the
party
of
Jefferson
whom
Pulitzer revered. Some remark of mine at the round table in the res-
taurant drew from
Heaton,
staring
at me with sincere
wonder,
the
in
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
question,
"Do
you really
take
your politics seriously?"
I am
afraid
I
did,
and do. I am sure that
democracy
will
ultimately
and
inevi-
tably
fail if the
people
cease to take their
politics seriously.
I was to learn much about the rocks and shoals of
American
politics
in the Democratic national convention in Madison
Square
Garden in
1924.
All the
portents
of reason
pointed
to a
Democratic
year.
It was notorious that the
Harding
Administration had con-
tributed
nothing
to
public
confidence in those in
power,
and
though Harding
had
died,
the
personnel
of the Administration had
not
greatly changed.
The
corruption
of the time was
appalling.
In
1923
the Presidential
aspirations
of William Gibbs
McAdoo
had seemed certain of fulfillment. He had
distinguished
himself
brilliantly
in the
performance
of multitudinous and
vitally impor-
tant duties under Wilson
during
the war. In the
early
summer of
that
year
I was asked
by
McAdoo to meet him in
Chicago.
I had
not met him before. I
thought
his
personality pleasing
and
impres-
sive.
Tall, thin,
graceful
in
bearing,
he was
youthful
in
spirit
and
manner,
though
he was then almost
sixty.
His
deep-set eyes,
some-
times
quizzical, thoughtful
and
humorous,
sometimes
sad,
suggested
those of Lincoln. These
eyes,
and the arch of his
brows,
gave
him
a
striking appearance.
"I see the Ku Klux Klan is out for
you
in
Texas,"
I said.
"Yes,"
he
replied,
"and
against
me in Indiana."
He then
explained
the
hostility
of the Hoosier Klansmen as
being
caused
by
a
story
that he had had a
picture
of the
Pope stamped
on
some silver certificates when
Secretary
of the
Treasury.
I told him
I had heard the
story
but had not seen the certificates.
Taking
one
from his
pocket,
he
pointed
to the
tiny
head of a man in the corner
wearing
a
cap presumably popular
in the
days
of Columbus which
the
overly
credulous
might
be
persuaded
was the
cap
of the
Pope.
"The
funny thing
about
it,"
he
said,
"is that this is a reissue of
a certificate issued first in 1862 which
proves
that Lincoln was a
tool of the
Pope,
too."
I did not know him well
enough
to
inquire
into the
charge
that
he was the candidate of the Klan. A little
later,
Dixon Williams
of
Chicago
called on me at Fort
Wayne
to ask me to look after
McAdoo's interests in Indiana.
Nothing
could have been more
stupid,
since
my
services to the
party
had been
through
voice and
pen,
and I was
utterly ignorant
of the rudiments of
organization.
112
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
Then, too,
something
else made
acceptance impossible.
There was
a
disposition
in Indiana to
urge
the claims of Senator Ralston to the
nomination,
and he had been
my
friend from
my
childhood. With
Ralston as a
candidate,
McAdoo could
expect nothing
from In-
diana.
I
suggested
that McAdoo should talk with
Taggart,
the
powerful,
popular
leader of the
organization,
and this advice was
taken. Their conference at French Lick resulted in an
agreement
that McAdoo would not contest in
Indiana,
but that he would be
urged
on the Indiana
delegates
to the national convention as second
choice. I was then asked to undertake the task of
seeing
that the
agreement
was carried
out,
but that autumn I moved to New York
and
my personal
association with the McAdoo movement ended
many
months before the convention.
In New York that winter and
spring
there
appeared
to be no
probability
that Governor Al Smith would be a
candidate,
but I
found an undercurrent of bitter
hostility
to McAdoo. His inde-
pendent
distribution of
patronage
in New York under Wilson
had aroused the
animosity
of
Tammany
Hall. No
spot
in America
could have been more
dangerous
to McAdoo's
candidacy
than
New York
City,
but when the solemn assurance was
given
that the
New York
press
would accord fair
treatment, McAdoo,
who could
have vetoed the selection of New York as the convention
city,
agreed.
It was a
grave
blunder.
In the months
intervening
between
my
arrival and the
opening
of the convention
McAdoo was in New York several
times,
and
each time I lunched
with him in his room at the Vanderbilt Hotel.
In
May
he showed the tremendous
strain of the
campaign.
He was
noticeably
thinner,
his face almost
peaked,
albeit there was fire in
his
eyes
and
nothing
in his manner to denote weariness. He said
nothing
about
Al Smith other than that he could not be nominated.
He
thought
if Ralston
ran the effort would kill him. He was bitter
only against
Senator
Oscar W. Underwood of
Alabama,
whom he
charged
with
putting
the Klan
tag
on his
candidacy.
"Do
you
think I
ought
to
say any
more about the Klan?" he
asked while
mixing
his salad. He was
willing
to
join
all the can-
didates
in a common
statement
on the
Klan,
he
said,
but he
objected
to
being
singled
out.
"Why
isn't Smith asked to state where he
stands?"
113
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
Dumfounded
by
the
question,
I concluded that he was
mentally
more tired than I had
thought.
Later,
on the eve of the
convention,
I called at his
headquarters
in the Vanderbilt to see Colonel
Hollister,
and as I was
leaving
McAdoo
appeared
in the hall and called me back. He led the
way
to a room where one
light
was
burning.
There were dark
rings
under his
eyes,
and
during
the hour I was with him he
yawned
re-
peatedly
from
sleeplessness. Stretching
himself out
comfortably
in
his
chair,
he talked about the Klan
tag
attached to
him,
and he
offered an
interesting explanation.
In
1912
Wilson's
candidacy
in
Texas had been
managed by
Cato Sells and Tom
Love,
who had
been
remarkably
astute in
organizing
the
state,
and McAdoo had
enlisted their
support
for himself. It was not until
they
had
organ-
ized Texas
thoroughly
for
him,
he
said,
that he learned of Sells's
connection with the
Klan,
which was then
powerful.
He said that
to have dismissed him at that
juncture
would have been to con-
centrate the Klansmen
against
him
everywhere.
Confident that
night
of
winning,
he was
interesting
himself in a
running
mate. At one
time,
he
said,
he had
thought
of
Smith,
but
the
suggestion
had
brought
in
alarming
verification of the
deadly
danger
of a
religious
feud when some fanatics warned him
that,
if
elected,
he would be assassinated to make
way
for a Catholic Pres-
ident! "There's no
point
in
attempting
to reason with a
fanatic,"
he said.
It was five
days
later,
during
the
convention,
that I saw him
again,
and
again
without
design.
With
Sybil, my
wife,
I was mak-
ing
the rounds of the
headquarters
of the candidates.
By
accident
I met him in the
hall,
and he asked me into a
private
room
dimly
and
depressingly lighted by
a
single lamp
on a table. He still looked
tired,
but there was
fight
and
anger
in his
eyes
because of the treat-
ment he was
receiving
from the New York
press.
He was
bitter,
too,
against
the
city's reception
committees,
which he
denounced,
quite accurately,
as anti-McAdoo
propagandists.
In
angry
tones he
said that
attempts
were
being
made to seduce his
delegates
with
gin
and
whiskey,
and he named three or four of his men who had
been
stupidly
drunk since
reaching
the
city.
It was the last time
I was to see him before his defeat.
Unknown to the
general public
to this
hour,
the most dramatic
114
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
figure
in that convention was Senator Ralston. I was close to his
Waldorf-Astoria
headquarters,
where Tom
Taggart
was in
charge.
Delegates
were
constantly going
in and
out,
and the moment a
visitor arrived a colored servant of
Taggart's appeared
as if
by
magic
with a
cool,
sparkling
Scotch and soda on a silver
tray.
These were the
days
of Prohibition and
Taggart
was a most
perfect
host. I have never known a man of such charm and
magnetism
as
this
genial
Irish leader.
Handsome,
always smiling,
in
perpetual
motion,
gracious
and
graceful
in his
bearing,
ever
seeking oppor-
tunities to bestow a
favor,
never bitter even to his
political
foes,
greatly
admired
by
them,
his
pleasing personality
as well as his
rare
organizing ability
had maintained him in the
unquestioned
leadership
of his
party
in Indiana for more than
thirty years.
His
supreme
ambition was to
cap
his career as leader with the nomina-
tion of a Hoosier for President. In the Madison
Square
Garden
convention he felt the hour had struck.
My
own heart
naturally
was with
Ralston,
who had
carefully
concealed his concern over his health from the
public.
When I
was still in Fort
Wayne
he had
telephoned
to ask me to substitute
for him as a
speaker
in Ohio because his
physician
had forbidden
him to
go.
Later,
one
night
at Hoosier
Home,
I learned that his
kidneys
were affected and that he had been
put
on a diet.
Nothing
could have been more
annoying
to this robust
trencherman,
who
amazed me when I was a
guest
at his
country
home
by
the
enormity
of his breakfasts hot biscuits with much
butter,
ham and
eggs,
cereal drowned in thick
cream,
and three
large cups
of coffee. He
was
heavy
(he
bore a
striking
resemblance to Grover
Cleveland)
and the
reducing process
was to be
hurried;
and this had a bad
effect on his heart.
Ralston ranked
high among
trial and
corporation lawyers
of the
state. His
political speeches
were
always pitched
on a
high plane,
without
vituperation
or
trickery,
and if not
eloquent they
were
powerful
in the
marshaling
of facts. No one ever
questioned
his sin-
cerity
and
certainly
not his
honesty
or
ability.
His
modesty
added
to hi
popularity.
A staunch
organization
man,
he was in line for
the
highest
honors and he was nominated and elected
governor.
I
treasure his inscribed
photograph
with the
grossly exaggerated
words,
"With
gratitude
for what
you
did to make me Governor of
Indiana." His tenure disclosed
great
administrative
ability.
It was
"5
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
not marred
by petty partisanship
and he concentrated on
public
service. No
governor
has ever been more
popular
or
more
ad-
mired,
appreciated
and loved. It was much
against
his
judgment
that he was later nominated for Senator
against
Beveridge
and
elected.
Among
his
colleagues
in the Senate he was
greatly admired,
and leaders like Carter Glass
thought
him an ideal
Presidential
choice for
1924.
But when
plans
were made to have him
endorsed
by
the Indiana state convention he was as much distressed as
jubilant.
The latter
part
of March
1924,
Sybil
and I were weekend
guests
of the Ralstons in
Washington.
He looked better than in Novem-
ber,
but with the loss of
forty pounds
he had been so
weakened
that he was in doubt whether he should
permit
the state
convention
to launch his
candidacy.
We sat
up
until
one-thirty
in the
morning
discussing
what he should do. He realized the
possibility
of his nom-
ination in the event of a deadlock and was
keenly
conscious of
his condition. Most of his
physicians opposed
his
candidacy,
but
one of them
thought
he
might,
with
discretion,
go through
the
campaign.
I could
only suggest
that in the event of his nomination
he could avoid the
customary
continental tour and could receive
delegations
at Hoosier
Home,
as Harrison had done in 1888 and
Harding
in
1920.
He
thought
he
might
make
major speeches
in
New York and
Chicago.
It was the last time I was to see
him,
for he
clung
to the old-
fashioned sense of
dignity
which
precluded
the
personal appear-
ance of candidates in the convention. Later I learned that his moods
were variable. One
day
he would think it "foolish to be
thinking
of the
Presidency
when I have to take medicine to
keep
alive,"
and
the next he would be
discussing
a
possible running
mate. Such was
the
tragic
situation of Ralston when the convention met. Mean-
while
Taggart,
with his usual finesse and
resourcefulness,
was
working cunningly
undercover,
in secret conferences with national
leaders,
and he
frequently
called on me to
prepare
statements for
the
press.
We now come to unwritten
history, certainly
a footnote to his-
tory:
the
story
of a man who refused the Presidential nomination
when it was his for the
asking.
The bitter feud of Smith and
McAdoo had made the nomination of either
impossible,
and the
prolonged balloting
had found not a few
delegates
short of
money.
116
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
On
July
7,
Taggart
called me to the Waldorf. He was
preparing
to make a drive for Ralston and asked me to
prepare
a statement
for the
purpose.
I wrote it in accordance with some
suggestions.
Among
these was a
description
of Ralston as a "conservative
pro-
gressive."
When Senator Pat Harrison of
Mississippi
read it he
urged
the
striking
out of the word "conservative."
I did not know at the time that
Taggart
had a
promise
from
McAdoo. The next
day
the drive
began,
and when the convention
adjourned
in the afternoon Ralston's vote had been increased
by-
two
hundred,
with
every
indication
considering
the
agreements
made with numerous leadersthat at the
night
session he would
be nominated. McAdoo had
agreed
to release to Ralston all his dele-
gates, except
those of
California,
and
this,
with the
pledges
of other
leaders,
would account for about six hundred votes. With the con-
vention worn
out,
and with
many delegates
forced to borrow
money
to
pay
hotel
bills,
that much of a
spurt
would have ended
the contest.
Now for the real drama of the convention behind the curtain.
That
night
I went to the Prince
George
Hotel,
headquarters
of the
Hoosiers,
to
accompany
them to the Garden. As I entered the
lobby
I was accosted
by
an Indiana
delegate
with the
startling
news
that late in the afternoon Ralston had
telephoned Taggart,
thanked
him for what he had done and said that he could not take the
nomination.
Taggart, boyishly happy
a moment
before,
was
stunned.
"Do
you
mean it?" he asked.
"Yes,
I mean it."
"Then I wish
you
would send me a
telegram
to that
effect,"
said
Taggart.
The
telegram
had been
received, and,
to
protect
himself from
the
charge
of bad
faith,
Taggart
had summoned all the leaders
who had
agreed
to
go
to
Ralston,
read it to them and released them
from their
pledge.
At the Prince
George, Taggart
asked me to sit
in on the state caucus he had called. When it was called to
order,
Taggart
walked over to a
piano
in a corner of the
room,
backed
up
against
it,
related
simply
what had
happened,
and read the tele-
gram.
He was
bitterly disappointed,
and in
reading
the
telegram
his voice broke. It was to be
Taggart's
last convention.
That Ralston sorrowed more over
Taggart's disappointment
117
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
than over his own was manifest in a
very long
letter he
wrote
me
on
August
4,
in which he said:
I would not be human ... if I did not admit to
you
that the
course
I took was not
easily
determined
upon.
While I do not assume to be
stronger
or better balanced than the
average
man,
yet
I feel that
there
are few men who would have taken the course I did on what
seemed
to be almost conclusive evidence of
my approaching
nomination. I shall
therefore,
in a
way, always regret
that I could not see
my way
clear to
court the
nomination,
and the
sting
of this
regret
will increase in se-
verity
as the
years
come and
go. Really
the
thing
I most
profoundly
regret
is the
disappointment my
final decision
brought
to
my
friends . . .
my uncompromising
friend of a
quarter
of a
century,
Senator
Taggart,
who
was,
and
is,
of course
incapable
of
having
a
disloyal thought
to-
ward me.
Taggart
has
long
been
distinguished
for his brilliant leader-
ship
of
men,
but he never
displayed
it to
greater advantage
than in this
instance and he never made a finer
impression upon
the
country
than
he did in the exercise of his
generalship
in the New York Convention.
The reasons for his decision were noble:
For reasons I will some
day explain,
I felt that I owed it to
myself,
to
my family,
to
my party
and to
my country
not to allow the nomina-
tion to come to me.
Feeling
this,
and
being
both a
party
man and a
patriot,
I could take no other course than I did.
This unwritten
history may
not be
"history
in the
grand
man-
ner,"
but it reveals the human side of
political history,
without
which it would be
deadly
dull.
Many years ago
William H. Craw-
ford,
a most
distinguished
statesman,
while stricken and in his
bed,
passionately persisted
in his ambition for the
Presidency.
Ralston
perhaps
was the more unselfish
patriot.
In less than a
year
he was
dead.
We must now return to the
convention,
where the Democratic
Party
was
committing
suicide. Underwood's
charge against
Mc-
Adoo had
injected
a
religious
issue into
politics,
and Smith's can-
didacy
accentuated it. At a time when the Democrats were in a
position
to
challenge Republican special-interest policies
and to
crucify
the
opposition
on the live issue of
corruption,
the
delegates
met with the
religious
issue
uppermost
in their
minds,
with the
118
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
enemy press vigorously fanning
the flames of
religious
hates,
with
leaders
subordinating
both
party
and
country
to their
personal
am-
bitions. Under the wise and
patriotic leadership
of Cordell
Hull,
the national
chairman,
everything humanly possible
had been done
to assure a
campaign
for
progressive principles
and for
purging
the
public
service of
corruption.
The choice as chairman of Senator
Thomas
J. Walsh,
whose
inquisitorial genius
had
exposed
the Tea-
pot
Dome oil
scandal,
had this in view. But
throughout
the con-
vention the streets were flooded with
newspapers diverting
atten-
tion to a
religious quarrel.
It was in an
atmosphere
of insensate hate
that the convention met.
My
first view of the sad
spectacle
was
during
a mob scene. Frank-
lin D. Roosevelt had finished his
speech nominating
Smith when I
arrived. The scene
beggars description.
A mob
composed mostly
of
young
men and
boys
had taken
possession
of the floor and was
endlessly parading up
and down in the aisles with a
band,
shouting
hoarsely,
and to this horrid confusion mechanical devices contrib-
uted not a little. Sirens from the fire
department
had been
put
to
work in the hall. A few
boys
with voices of limited
range
could
have continued the noise for
days. Finally,
when the
galleries
re-
sembled those of the French Convention in the
period
of the Revo-
lution,
Senator
Walsh,
finding
it
impossible
to restore
something
of
the
dignity
of a deliberative
body, expressed
his
willingness
to
entertain a motion to
adjourn
the convention to another
city.
Roosevelt,
standing
on the
platform, holding
on to the
railing,
was
appealing
to the crowd to
stop
the
disgraceful
scene,
and he suc-
ceeded for a
moment,
but a little later hell broke loose
again.
A
demonstration of voices and
marching delegates
would have been
a deserved tribute to Al
Smith,
but this actual
occupation
of the
floor
by
a reckless mob determined to rule or ruin
put
the demon-
stration
beyond
the
pale.
The
experiment
was based on a false
psychology.
It was
thought
it would
sweep
the
delegates
off their
feet;
instead it
outraged
them,
for the convention itself had been
degraded.
This mob
spirit
was to dominate the
galleries throughout
the
many days necessary
to
destroy
the
possibility
of a Democratic
victory.
The next mob scene
came,
as was
expected,
in the
fight
over the
platform plank
on the Klan. Those who
thought
it a sufficient
repudiation
of the Klan to reiterate the
Jeffersonian
position
on re-
119
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
ligious liberty
and toleration were denounced as
Klansmen.
The
Republicans,
whose
platform
had not mentioned the
Klan at
all,
were free to
play
both ends
against
the middle.
One
day
after a
prolonged struggle
in the committee on
resolu-
tions,
Homer S.
Cumrnings
was
recognized
to
explain
to the
con-
vention the committee's
delay
in
making
a
report.
He was a
tall,
fine-looking
man,
but he
sagged
from exhaustion as he
made his
frank and honest statement. There was sheer drama in his
descrip-
tion of the scene in the
early morning
when the
committee,
unable
to
agree,
had
adjourned
for a few hours. Someone had
recited the
Lord's
Prayer,
and others had
joined. Bryan
had asked for
divine
guidance. Referring
to the
controversy, Cummings
said,
"We be-
gan
to wonder what would
happen
if the issue were thrown into
the
convention,
we
began
to think of the future of the
Democratic
Party."
But all too few were
thinking
about that.
At
length
the
fight
was forced to the floor in the debate on the
platform,
which did not mention the Klan
by
name but left no
doubt of the
party's
attitude toward
religious
intolerance. The
Garden was
packed.
The
very
air was electric and ominous.
Bainbridge Colby
was the chief
spokesman
for the
minority
in-
sisting
on a
specific
denunciation of the Klan
by
name. A man of
striking appearance,
he was a fine
orator,
careful in his
diction,
perfect
in his
enunciation,
a bit satiric and
brilliant,
and he
pleased
the
galleries.
Bryan
closed for the
majority report
in one of his
greatest
speeches.
It was to be his farewell bow to Democratic conventions
after
eighteen years.
He was ridiculed and abused for this
speech.
I heard it. It was
magnificent.
It was the one
speech
free from
hate. No man ever won a better
right
to a
respectful hearing.
There was not one
drop
of
religious bigotry
in his blood. Time and
again
he had demonstrated his
complete
freedom from
religious
prejudice.
As
Secretary
of State he had
regularly
attended the
famous breakfasts after the Pan-American Mass. He was a friend
of Cardinal Gibbons. But none of this counted in his favor with
the
mob,
which was there to hoot and
jeer,
determined that he
should not be heard.
For some time
Bryan's
health had been
failing.
He had lost
weight,
and his
great
frame seemed to
droop. Age
had
stamped
its
lines
upon
his face. But time and
again
he awed the mob into silence
120
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
by
the wisdom and
nobility
of his utterance. His tribute to the
Catholic Church as an institution that had withstood the assaults
of centuries and did not
depend
for life on a resolution of a
politi-
cal convention
brought
a
momentary
hush.
Bryan
did more to in-
flame the Klan
against
him than
any
other
speaker,
but this made
no
impression
on the intolerants. Toward the close there was a
touch of
pathos
in his
observation,
which was to
prove prophetic,
that this
might
be his last
convention,
and the mob
brutally
broke
into
applause. Turning blazing eyes
toward the
galleries,
he re-
torted,
"Don't be too certain I
may change my
mind." The mob
had the
grace
to
laugh.
The roll call was dramatic. The
majority
resolution won
by
a
margin
of one
vote,
and that was the death warrant of the
party
in
1924.
The next
day,
in
talking
with
Josephus
Daniels,
who loved
Bryan,
I realized how
deeply
the
religious
issue had cut. In the
committee he had voted for a
specific naming
of the Klan. "The
truth
is,"
said
Daniels,
"I felt so
strongly
I should have taken the
floor and
spoken
in favor of the
minority report,
but I found it
painful
even to vote
against Bryan."
The
damage, deadly
and
certain,
had been
done, but,
as
though
the convention were determined to
destroy
the
party's prospects
completely,
there was to be
prolonged balloting
ahead on the
nomination. The contest had become
disreputable. "My
God,"
Theodore Dreiser wrote
me,
"is this the
meaning
of
Democracy?"
The
Republicans
were
laughing.
The
press
was
pouring
oil on the
flames. Thus hate
grew. Something might
have been saved from
the wreck had both McAdoo and Smith withdrawn with a
plea
of
harmony,
but neither would
budge
an inch.
That
night
I had
my
last
close-up
contact with
Bryan.
How
changed
he was from the
handsome, virile,
dynamic figure
that had
stepped
out of the window of the State House in
Indianapolis
in
1896!
That
night
he came
up
the aisle
fanning
himself with a
palm
leaf
fan,
looking
worn and sick and much thinner than I had ever
seen him. He made a
tragic picture.
He who in the darkest
days
had rehabilitated and
galvanized
a
great party bordering
on col-
lapse
and had made
possible
the nomination of
Wilson;
who for
more than a
generation
had been surrounded
by
idolaters in
every
national
convention,
walked
alone,
almost
ignored.
It seemed an
121
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
unpardonable
affront to a
great
crusader whose work was
done. As
he
approached
our
delegation,
I rose to shake his hand
and con-
gratulate
him on his
fight
to
keep religion
out of
politics.
He
smiled
and seemed startled
by
the
novelty,
and as he
passed
on
down the
aisle he looked
back,
still
smiling.
Up
until now even historians have failed to do remote
justice
to
Bryan.
When
writing
an editorial about him on his
death I was
astonished to find
Ralph
Pulitzer concerned lest I make a com-
plimentary
comment on this man who had made
history
for a
quarter
of a
century.
For the first and
only
time
during my
work
on the World he summoned me to his office. I
suggested
that a man
who for more than
twenty years
had been a famous national
figure,
who had three times led the
party
of
Jefferson
and
Jackson,
had
been
openly
credited
by
Woodrow Wilson with
having kept
the
cause of the
people
alive and active in dark
days,
and had
pioneered
for constitutional reforms that at first had been denounced and
then
accepted,
could not
lightly
be dismissed with an editorial
shrug.
It was clear that
Ralph
was a bit
jumpy
about
it,
but the
editorial
appeared
as written.
Now back to the convention.
When,
too
late,
McAdoo and
Smith released their
delegates,
the contest in which no one was
greatly
interested now had simmered down to
John
W. Davis
and Oscar W.
Underwood,
both conservatives. With Smith no
longer
a
contender,
the
galleries
were all but deserted. The con-
vention hall was like a
sepulcher. Everyone
was
dispirited,
dis-
gusted,
for no one now
thought
the
party
had a chance. I was with
the Indiana
delegation
at this
stage,
when
Taggart
said to a lieu-
tenant,
"Let's end it who shall it be?" "Toss a
coin,"
was the
cynical reply,
and on the
tossing
of a coin the Indiana
delegation
went to Davis.
Taggart
moved the nomination
by
acclamation and
this was done with a few
ghastly
cheers.
It is a
pity
that so
splendid
and able a man as Davis should have
been
put
forward as a sacrifice into an
impossible
situation. His
brilliant
intellect,
his rare charm of
manner,
his
polished, thought-
ful
oratory
deserved a better
opportunity.
In his mental
processes
he bore a resemblance to Woodrow Wilson.
On the
opening
of the national
headquarters
at the
Murray
Hill
Hotel in New
York,
before a real
organization
could be
perfected,
122
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
Davis,
who had liked
my
book on
Jackson,
asked
Ralph
Pulitzer
to release me to
headquarters
to
stop
the absurd stories
being
sent
out from there. This old hotel with
large
rooms and
lofty
ceilings
made
a
mildly
sentimental
appeal
to
Democrats,
for it was here that
Grover Cleveland's
campaigns
had been
planned
and directed.
It
now seemed more like a
mausoleum,
since the soul had fled. It was
in these
depressing
rooms that I first met
John
W. Davis
personally
and fell under the
spell
of his
delightful personality.
Tall,
grace-
ful in
manner,
he was dressed in a
gray
suit. His fine
open
counte-
nance and his
smiling
mild blue
eyes
combined to make him hand-
some. He
began by saying,
his
eyes laughing,
that he wished me to
destroy
the
"Coolidge myth"
and to create a "Davis
myth."
That same
day,
in the room of the
vice-chairman,
I was to note
his abhorrence of theatrics. A dozen
city
Irish of third-rate im-
portance
had been called in to enlist them in
combating
the
preju-
dice that had
already
been created
against
the nominee
among
Irish
Catholics.
These had told the vice-chairman that some of their
people
were cold toward Davis because he had been ambassador
to
England,
and others because
they
resented the defeat of Smith.
Unexpectedly
the door
opened
and Davis
appeared.
Everyone
rose,
the Irishmen lined
up,
and Davis went down the line
shaking
hands
cordially
but with the
dignity
with which he would have
passed
down the line at a
diplomatic reception.
It was a fine
cordiality,
but not the kind these men understood. He should have
punched
them
playfully
in the chest or
slapped
them
vigorously
on the
shoulder. Then he turned and looked at the
visitors,
apparently
a
little
shy
and uncertain what was
expected
of him.
Finally
the vice-chairman
spoke.
"These men are here to
help
elect
you,"
he
said,
almost
accusingly.
Davis smiled and
said,
"Strength
to their arms. We want
every
man in the boat and
every
man with an oar."
There was another
embarrassing pause,
and the vice-chairman
surprised
me with an
impatient
outburst. "Tell them
you
are an
organization
man!" he roared.
Davis admitted he was an
organization
man,
looking
a bit an-
noyed by
the
way
he was
being put
through
his
paces,
and then
turned
quickly
to Mike
Hennessy
of the Boston Globe and en-
gaged
him in conversation.
Clearly
Davis did not
qualify
as a back-
slapping, baby-kissing politician.
His
speeches, pitched
on a
high
123
UNDER THE GOLD DOME
plane,
delivered with
dignity,
without
ranting,
were
addressed al-
most
entirely
to the
thoughtful
minds
and, alas,
all
voters do
not
have
such minds. His
irony, pleasing
to
some,
was
beyond
the
appreciation
of
many. Though
a man of
very strong convictions,
he
gave
no outer exhibition of his
capacity
for wrath. There
was
not the fierce fire of the killer in his
eyes
and he never
pounded
the
table or tore a
passion
to tatters. He had
just
made his
speech
of
acceptance,
a beautiful and brilliant
performance,
and I
jokingly
suggested
that when he
got
out on the
stump
he
might
want to
"slug"
a bit. He smiled
good-naturedly.
"Yes,"
he
said,
"some
others have told me that I must bend over the table."
The
atmosphere
at the
Murray
Hill became
depressing.
There
was much
running
about,
but
apparently
with no fixed destina-
tion.
Groups gathered
about
James
Hamilton
Lewis,
but he was
not
discussing campaign plans.
A member of the finance commit-
tee,
hard
pressed
for
funds,
asked
Joe
Tumulty
how to raise
money.
"Take over the
Mint,"
he
said,
and
everyone laughed.
The effect of the Madison
Square
Garden convention was to
deepen my depression
as to the future of the more liberal
party.
There was
every
reason
why
it should have won in
1924,
but its
chances had been wrecked
by
the clash of
personal
ambitions,
the
vanity
of a few
politicians
and the
injection
of the
religious
issue.
It was
humiliating
to a
Jeffersonian
to feel as I
did,
that this
deadly
issue had been tossed
among
the Democrats to divide
them,
in the
spirit
of the sadist who throws
pennies
into a crowd of street
gamins
to see them claw one another.
It was therefore a relief to turn from the
contemporary
scene to
write
Jefferson
and
Hamilton,
the
history
of a
day
when the
Jeff
er-
sonians
presented
a solid front and knew what it was all about.
124
CHAPTER IX
My Jefferson
Year
IN OCTOBER
1924, McAdoo,
just
returned from his
European
tour
and still sensitive over his
defeat,
asked me to
join
him at the Van-
derbilt Hotel for a walk ordered
by
his doctor. We
tramped
to
Fifth Avenue and
trudged along
to Central Park.
In front of the
University
Club he
stopped
and,
pointing
to the
building,
said with a
grin,
"That
place
is historic. It was there that
Woodrow Wilson offered me the
portfolio
of the
Treasury."
Just
then Bernard Baruch
joined
us,
and after a moment he
pointed
his
finger
at McAdoo and
puzzled
me
by saying,
"Mac,
Bowers is the man to write that book."
McAdoo seemed
embarrassed,
and the
subject
was
dropped.
What the
subject
was I did not know until
just
before Thanks-
giving,
when Baruch
telephoned
me at the World
asking
for a
copy
of The
Party
Battles
of
the
Jackson
Period that
very day.
He then
explained
that
political
friends of Woodrow Wilson had
canvassed the field and decided that I should be chosen to write
the authorized
biography
of the President. Baruch was
going
that
day
to
Washington
to have
Thanksgiving
dinner with Mrs. Wil-
son,
and he was
going
to
urge my
selection
upon
her. He
learned,
however,
that Mrs. Wilson had found
among
the
papers
of her
husband what
appeared
to be a commitment to
Ray
Stannard
Baker. Had I been
designated, my
work would have been cut out
for me for some
years
ahead.
Since the idea had not once occurred to
me,
the
disappointment
was not keen.
Then, too,
I was
already zealously
at work
writing
Jefferson
and Hamilton. That idea had been
germinating
in
my
mind ever since I read
myself
into the
Jeffersonian
fold in
prepar-
ing my boyish
oration on Hamilton in
my Shortridge days.
One
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
day
Governor
James
M.
Cox,
the Democrats' Presidential
nominee
four
years
before,
telephoned
me in Fort
Wayne urging
me to
write a book on
Jefferson. Beveridge's biography
of
Marshall had
followed the line
adopted by
most historians for
forty years,
of
belittling
the
philosopher
of American
democracy
or at least
damn-
ing
him with faint
praise.
Two
generations
had been
brought
up
on adverse
propaganda,
and Cox
thought
it
necessary
directly
to
challenge
this trend. In his
memoirs,
Cox ascribes the
writing
of
Jefferson
and Hamilton to this
telephone
conversation,
but in fact
I had
already begun collecting
material for the book.
For at least two
generations youth
had been fed on the
theory
that
Jefferson
was
primarily responsible
for the Civil War because
of the
Virginia
and
Kentucky
Resolutions framed
by
Jefferson
and
Madison,
that he was a liar and a
hypocrite,
that he was a mere
dreamer and an atheist without
any
sound claim to
statesmanship;
and the climax of this
campaign
of
misrepresentation
had
appeared
in the scurrilous
biography by
Curtis. To me he is the
greatest
of
all
Americans,
the architect of American ideals. The
story
I had
in mind would describe the conflict with Hamilton over funda-
mental
principles,
and I felt I could do full
justice
to
Hamilton,
for
whose
honesty
and
genius
I retained the warm admiration of
my
boyhood.
My
office under the
gold
dome of the World looked down
upon
scenes of the
years
of their Homeric
struggle.
The narrow streets
of this
part
of old New York had
changed
but little.
By walking
the
thoroughfares
known to these
supreme antagonists
of our his-
tory
I
hoped
I would be able to
capture
the
very feeling
of their
times. I found the narrow street near old
Kings College
where
Hamilton the student walked at
twilight, meditating
on his
future;
saw Hamilton's
home,
the
Grange, trying
to visualize it in the
days
of his
greatness. Through
visits to
Philadelphia
I tried to re-create
in
my
mind the town in which these two men
fought
their
battles,
its taverns where in toasts
they
damned their enemies.
Though
it
was not so
important,
I visited the home of
Freneau,
who dedi-
cated his clever
pen
to the
support
of
Jefferson,
and found his
grave,
with his beloved
dog
buried beside him.
Firmly
convinced that there is no more effective source for his-
torians in the
capturing
of the
atmosphere
of other
days
than the
contemporary press,
I
laboriously
turned the
yellowing pages
of
126
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
newspapers
of the
period
from
1789
to 1801 in the Astor
Library,
and
through
them I absorbed the
spirit
of the
past.
The men with
whom I was
dealing
were then as real to me as
my
own
contempo-
raries.
The book was
very
well
reviewed,
not
only by
historians but
also
by leading
statesmen not
given
to the
writing
of
reviews;
and
not
only by
Democrats but
by Republicans
as well. Senator Bev-
eridge
devoted a full
page
in the Boston
Transcript
to a remark-
able review which was released
simultaneously
to the
Indianapolis
Star. Senator Borah contributed a fine review to the New
Republic.
James
M.
Beck,
Solicitor General in the
Coolidge
Administration,
reviewed it for the
Philadelphia
Public
Ledger.
Franklin D. Roose-
velt did the review for the
Evening World,
the
only
book review
he ever wrote.
John
W. Davis wrote the review for the
morning
World and William Gibbs McAdoo for the International Book
Review. Dr. William E. Dodd of the
University
of
Chicago
re-
viewed it for the New York Herald Tribune.
The London
edition,
put
out
by
Constable,
was
elaborately
re-
viewed not
only
in
England
but in the
press
of
India,
Australia and
South
Africa,
and these reviews were as favorable as those in the
United
States,
though papers
in
Bombay
and Calcutta were moved
to
vigorous polemics
as to the relative merits of
Jefferson
and
Hamilton. The book has had a continuous sale now for
thirty-three
years.
In
1948, twenty-three years
after its
publication
in
English,
a German edition was
published
in
Berlin,
and some
years
later
Capelli published
an attractive illustrated Italian edition in
Bologna.
In the
spring following
the
publication,
John Heaton,
the
grand
old man of the World's
staff,
representing
the donor on the Pulitzer
Committee,
told me
confidentially
that
Jefferson
and Hamilton
would receive the
prize.
I knew
nothing
about the Pulitzer
Prizes,
and I
certainly
was
incapable
of
writing history
to conform to the
political
views or
prejudices
of
any
committee. Heaton
explained
that the three historians who advised the committee on
history
and
biography
had
unanimously
recommended the book and had added
significantly,
"No second choice."
Consequently
Heaton was
shocked when the committee
rejected
their unanimous choice.
When four
years
later the historians recommended
my
book The
Tragic
Era and were
again ignored,
it seemed clear that I was on
the blacklist of the committee. Heaton
emotionally
told me what
127
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
had been done the second
time,
but it did not matter. When the
historians were
rejected
the second
time,
Lewis Gannett
reported
in the New York Herald Tribune that the
1930
award
showed a
sharp
division in
judgment
between the historians and the com-
mittee of editors of
metropolitan newspapers
who were all of one
school of
political thought.
The two books were in
complete
har-
mony
with the views for which
Joseph
Pulitzer had
vigorously
fought,
but Pulitzer was dead.
Nothing pleased
me more than the fairness and
generosity
of
Beveridge
in his review of
Jefferson
and
Hamilton,
since the book
was a
challenge
to the
interpretation
of
Jefferson
in his book on
Marshall. Newton D. Baker told me later that
Beveridge
had told
him that had he read
Jefferson
and Hamilton before
writing
his
Marshall he would have
greatly
moderated his tone on
Jefferson.
We had become the warmest of friends. I saw him
invariably
on his visits to New York at
tea,
luncheon or
dinner,
and he never
failed to fascinate me. At this time
Beveridge
was at work on his
biography
of
Lincoln,
and I found him an ardent admirer of
Stephen
A.
Douglas.
One
day,
in
discussing
the effect of a dra-
matic death on
fame,
he
said,
"If Caesar had died
peacefully
in his
bed he would be less
interesting
to
posterity
than
Cicero;
if Lincoln
had not been murdered he would have ran afoul of the same fanat-
icism and
demagogy
that
persecuted
Andrew
Johnson
and would
probably
be an
object
of
controversy
to this
day;
and if Woodrow
Wilson had
dropped
dead on the
platform
while
pleading
for the
League
of
Nations,
the emotional reaction
might
have
changed
the
course of
history."
On one of his visits to New York he found
nothing
in the thea-
ters worth
seeing,
and he amused me with the
suggestion
that I
undertake a
play.
He
thought
some
chapters
of
my
book disclosed
a sense of drama. The idea of
attempting
a
play
seemed absurd to
me,
but I was to have the same idea
urged upon
me
by
Jesse
L.
Lasky
and Warner
Brothers,
apropos
of
my
book on
Jefferson.
At a
meeting
of the directors of the
Jefferson
Foundation,
Lasky
told me that he had
long thought
a
picture
on
Jefferson
was needed
and that he would
speak
to me about it before
leaving
the room.
When I said I was
utterly ignorant
of the art of a
dramatist,
he
replied
that
my part
would be confined to
working
out the
plot
and
128
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
that
experts
in the art would dress it
up.
He
invited me to discuss
it in his
office,
but I did not
respond.
Later Warner Brothers
telephoned
me that
they
were
deluged
with
protests
from
Jeffersonians
because of the snide treatment of
Jefferson
in the
picture
on Hamilton in which
George
Arliss dis-
tinguished
himself. The
picture
was
making money,
its
produc-
tion had been
expensive,
and
they
could not afford to remove it
from the screen.
They thought
the
only way
to
satisfy
the
Jeffer-
sonians would be to
produce
a
play
on
Jefferson,
and
they
wanted
to discuss it with me. I felt that
any
fictionalization
might
reflect
on
my reliability
as a
historian,
so I declined and threw
away
an
opportunity
to make
money.
But for
Jefferson
and Hamilton I
might
never had met Colonel
House,
Wilson's friend and
adviser,
who was a most
interesting
man. I was invited to lunch in
January
1926,
with the
explanation
that he had received a dozen
copies
of
my
book for Christmas and
felt he
ought
to know me.
He was
living simply
in an
apartment
house. A dour Irish maid
admitted me to the
drawing
room and left. Silence. The
ticking
of the clock sounded like the
beating
of an anvil. After a while
the maid
returned,
tiptoeing
or
wearing
rubber
soles,
and started
a wood fire in the
grate.
The
drawing
room was
comfortable,
with
large
sofas,
rugs
and
pictures
and a fine
portrait
of Mrs. House. I
went into the
library,
a small room with books to the
ceiling,
and
there the famous Colonel found me. He too came in
noiselessly,
like a kitten a man of short
stature,
with narrow shoulders and
mild features. His manner
implied timidityand
he was far from
timid as he sat on the
edge
of his chair and
explained
about the
books.
Thereafter I saw him
occasionally
for some
years
until I went
to
Spain,
and
invariably
on New Year's
Day,
when it was his cus-
tom to invite ten or twelve friends to lunch. One was almost cer-
tain to see there Nicholas
Murray
Butler, John
W. Davis and Nor-
man
Davis,
and sometimes there was a
guest
of honor. One
year
it
was Paderewski. When the
great
Pole entered the
room,
wearing
a
flowing
tie,
and in the manner of a
politician gave
each
guest
a
hearty
handshake,
he seemed less formidable than I had
feared,
129
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
and when he directed the conversation into
political
channels I
felt at ease. That
day
he discussed
informally
the
problem
of the
Polish
Corridor,
admitting
that the division of German
territory
was
naturally
resented,
and
suggesting
a solution that seemed fan-
tastic. He
proposed
a tunnel under the
Corridor,
with several rail-
road
tracks,
through
which Polish
goods
for
export
could be con-
veyed
to a
port
that would be
placed exclusively
in
possession
of
the Poles. Thus the
ground
above would remain German
territory.
I
always enjoyed
the conversation of Colonel House. He was
most
partial
to
Clemenceau,
whom he had visited in his
cottage
on
the
Brittany
coast. He had found the
Tiger
stiff and
stubborn at
the
peace
conference,
but more
dependable
than
Lloyd George.
"One
might
have to
struggle
with Clemenceau for hours to
get
an
agreement,"
he
said,
"but once made it could be dismissed as
settled.
But
Lloyd George!
I have known him to
agree
unreservedly
to
some line of action and then
go immediately
into the session and
take the
opposite
line."
Apropos
of the visit
during
the war of Marshal
Joffre
and Vivi-
ani,
the brilliant and
eloquent
French
Premier,
he told an
amusing
story
illustrative of the character of the two men.
Viviani,
who
with all his brilliance was a
peacock
in
vanity,
had been shocked
when he rode
up Broadway
in New York with
Joffre
to find him-
self,
the head of the French
group, ignored,
while the multitude
shouted
lustily
for the Marshal. When the visit was over a
dispute
arose between them as to the time of
departure.
Joffre
was for
taking
the first boat
out,
which would sail
by
the
light
of the
moon,
but
Viviani,
not so hardened to shot and shell and more fearful
of
submarines,
insisted that
they
should not sail until the dark of
the
moon,
and he was the head of the mission.
Later,
when I told this
story
to
McAdoo,
he matched it with
another,
illustrative of the orator.
Just
before the arrival of the
French
mission,
Arthur Balfour of
England
had visited
Washing-
ton,
and Woodrow Wilson had attended the
joint
session of Con-
gress
to hear him. When the President failed to
appear
in
Congress
for the Viviani
speech,
a friend of the
latter,
going
to the French-
man's
room,
found him
pacing
the floor in a state of
hysterical
indignation,
insisting
he had been snubbed and insulted. When
Wilson was
informed,
he
explained
that his
knowledge
of French
was not
perfect
and that Viviani
spoke
with such
lightning rapidity
130
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
it would have been
impossible
to understand him. Of course he
had read Viviani's
speech.
It was
scarcely
an
adequate
excuse,
but
undoubtedly
the real one. To smooth the ruffled feathers of the
peacock,
the President
gave
an elaborate dinner in his honor.
Colonel House was most
interesting
in
discussing
Wilson. The
world then knew of the break in their intimate relations which had
begun
in Paris. The Colonel insisted that he did not have the re-
motest idea how it had come about. He
thought
Wilson had been
dangerously
overworked in
Paris,
where he had insisted on
giving
personal
attention to his voluminous
correspondence
and had de-
clined the Colonel's offer to act as
supersecretary
to
separate
the
wheat from the chaff. He
thought
Wilson's nervous tension
might
have been
responsible
for the
misunderstanding.
However that
may
be,
there can be no doubt that House at one
stage
rendered services
of
great
value to the President.
At this time I was
given
another version of the break between
them. One
evening
I was the
speaker
at a dinner of the Women's
National Democratic Club in
Washington,
when Senator Carter
Glass sat beside me. I had admired him from afar but until that
night
had never seen him. As I was
speaking
I
glanced
at
him,
and
a
sourer,
more
disapproving
expression
I had never seen on mortal
face. It was so
disconcerting
that after several
glances
had revealed
the same
expression
I
resolutely
refused to look. When at the con-
clusion of
my speech
Glass
paid
some warm
compliments
I was the
more astonished. I mentioned
my experience
to Admiral
Gray-
son,
Wilson's friend and
physician,
who
laughed heartily, explain-
ing
that the
expression
that had worried me was habitual with the
Virginia
statesman. Thereafter
we became the best of friends.
It was the next
day,
when I was
lunching
at the
Metropolitan
Club with
Grayson,
Dan
Roper
and
John
Barton
Payne,
that
Gray-
son
gave
me his version of the breach in the relations between Wil-
son and House. He said that in Paris House had
urged upon
the
President a certain line of action or
policy
to which Wilson was
averse.
Immediately
after
this,
Wickham Steed had an article in
the London Times
strongly
favorable to the British line which
House had
urged.
The
morning
it
appeared
the
Colonel,
going
to
the Crillon as
usual,
found the President
engaged
for the
^moment,
and Mrs.
Wilson,
in
greeting
him,
observed
that the President had
13*
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
read with interest "his" article in the London Times since
the
Steed article was
precisely along
the line that House had
urged.
The Colonel said
nothing,
and a little later he left without
seeing
Wilson.
These stories of the
breach,
while
coming
from men close to the
situation and
differing
in
character,
may
have no historic
value,
but
they
can
give
the future the tone and
temper
of the time. Inci-
dentally,
it should be noted that House and
Grayson,
both close
to the
President,
disliked each other.
All
through
1926
my
life seemed to revolve around
Jefferson.
Years
before,
my
wife and I had made a sentimental
journey
to
Monticello,
climbing
the road in a
broiling
sun
up
the hill that
leads
directly by
the
family cemetery
to the house. It seemed de-
serted. With some
difficulty
we attracted the attention of the cus-
todian,
and
through
his kindness we were
permitted
to see the en-
trance
hall,
but no
more,
since Monticello was then the
private
property
of
Congressman
Jefferson
M.
Levy
of New York. The
last
years
of the
great philosopher
had found him in financial diffi-
culties. Too
many
decades of
self-neglect
in the service of his
country,
too
many
reverential
pilgrimages
of
strangers
to be housed
and
fed,
had reduced him to the
necessity
of
selling
his
library,
which was to become the nucleus of the
Congressional Library
of
today.
Soon after his
death,
the
property
on which he had lavished
his tenderest care and the beautiful house he had
designed
and
loved
beyond any
other
spot
on earth were sold to a
stranger,
and
in the
stranger's family
it had remained until the hour I first saw it.
To
many
it seemed discreditable and
disgraceful
that the
property
was not
acquired by
the nation as a
patriotic
shrine.
This
thought
obsessed the beautiful and
charming
wife of Martin
Littleton,
the
distinguished
trial
lawyer
and
orator,
then a member
of
Congress.
(I
have an
unforgettable memory
of her from the
day
of the
unveiling
of the monument to L'Enfant in
Arlington:
Presi-
dent Taft attended and Elihu Root and Ambassador
Jusserand
spoke,
but most memorable to me is the
picture
of a beautiful
woman in a bonnet
leaning against
a
pillar
of the
Arlington
man-
sion. This was Mrs. Littleton. Years later I astonished her
by telling
her I could describe her dress that
day
and astonished her more
by
doing
so.)
She threw herself
impetuously
into the task of
arousing
132
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
Americans to a realization of their
disgraceful neglect
of Monti-
cello,
addressing
small
societies,
importuning
men and
women,
buttonholing
statesmen. She was to
fail,
but not
completely,
since
her crusade made an
impression.
A short time later the Thomas
Jefferson
Memorial Foundation was
formed,
with Stuart G. Gib-
boney
as
president,
and
Levy agreed
to a
sale,
fixing
a handsome
price.
The work of this
organization,
of which I was
governor
and
director,
was to raise the
money.
The
country
was
organized.
Solicitors
scoured the cities for contributions. The children of the
schools contributed their
pennies
and dimes. No one deserves more
credit in this work than Theodore Fred
Kuper,
a
young
New York
lawyer,
who was
literally
a
dynamo
in action. At
length enough
money
was raised to make the
purchase possible.
Finally plans
were made for the
presentation
of Monticello to
the nation on
July
4, 1926,
the one-hundredth
anniversary
of
Jef-
ferson's death and the one-hundred-fiftieth
anniversary
of the Dec-
laration of
Independence.
Our
party
left New York in a
special
car
on the
evening
of
July
2. The next
day
we had an
experience
with
an
amusing
confusion of values. We drove to
Montpelier,
the home
of
Madison,
in an
adjoining county,
to receive an
ungracious
wel-
come from the
housekeeper
of the
mansion,
which then
belonged
to one of the Du Fonts. The
lady
stood
militantly
at the door with
a cold and
condescending expression
that never could have
launched a thousand
ships
nor burned the
topless
towers of Ilium.
A bit
timidly,
as an
approach,
one of the
party inquired
if this
was the home of
James
Madison. The
lady
sniffed
audibly. Clearly
she felt we did not
appreciate
the
importance
of the establishment.
"This is the house of Mr. Du
Pont,"
she
replied loftily,
and we
were
given
short shrift.
On the
way
back,
we ran into a rainstorm and were forced to
break our
journey
in a little
village
noted for
years
for the luscious
fried chicken sold
by
an old
Negro
woman. We sat in the car and
ate
chicken, and,
since I was to
speak
at Monticello at four o'clock
and
hoped something
would
happen
to
prevent
it,
the rain was wel-
come.
But,
unhappily,
we drove into the
grounds
of Monticello at
four
sharp.
Just
then the rain
began again
and those assembled had
to crowd into the entrance
hall,
on which the
gallery
looked down.
Tremendously impressive
to me was the
ceremony Sunday
after-
noon dedicated to
Jefferson's
Statute for
Religious
Freedom. The
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAB.
speakers
included Rabbi Goldenson of
Pittsburgh,
representing
the
Jewish
faith,
Father
Lyons
of
Georgetown University, rep-
resenting
the
Catholics,
and
Bishop Manning
of New
York,
repre-
senting
the Protestants. All faiths were to
join
in
placing
wreaths
on the
grave
of the common benefactor of them all. The
grounds
near the mansion were covered with wreaths. At the
appointed
rime the
procession
was
formed,
headed
by
a
band,
and with the
clerics in the
fore,
followed
by
the
others,
we marched down the
hill to the
unpretentious grave
of the
greatest
of Americans. I was
amused to note the dash with which the rabbi
swung along
to the
music of
"Onward,
Christian Soldiers." After the
placing
of the
wreaths,
we marched back to the mansion for the
speeches, just
as
the rain came down in force to drive us all into the house
again.
The
speakers spoke
from the
gallery,
and the scene was colorful.
The house was almost
dark,
and since the clerics read their
speeches,
light
for their
manuscript
was furnished
by
a candle held
by
an old
white-haired
Negro
who
might
have been one of
Jefferson's
loved
household servants revived for the occasion. I can see him
now,
standing
close to Father
Lyons, holding
the
candle,
with the other
clerics on either
side,
the
flickering
flame
throwing
both
lights
and
shadows on their faces.
Bishop Manning
could not
forget
that
Hamilton is buried in
Trinity
Church
graveyard,
and he
surprised
us
by praising
Hamilton's theories rather than
Jefferson's.
I learned
later that the
bishop
was so concerned over
being
called on to
pay
tribute to the author of the Declaration of
Independence
that he
consulted Dr.
John
Finley
of the New York Times as to the
pro-
priety
of
appearing!
The formal
presentation
to the nation was on
Monday
afternoon
in the
library
of the
University
of
Virginia. Secretary
of State Kel-
logg
read from
manuscript
at some
length,
and he was
noticeably
reserved in his tribute to the
philosopher
of
democracy.
Senator
Walsh
spoke brilliantly
and without notes. It was then that Presi-
dent Alderman of the
university spoke,
in
presenting
me with the
Jefferson
medal for the
writing
of
Jefferson
and Hamilton.
Nicholas
Murray
Butler had told me that Woodrow Wilson
thought
Alderman the
greatest living
American
orator,
and that
day
Felix
Warburg
told me that in his
youth
in New
Orleans,
when Alderman was the head of Tulane
University,
he had often
heard
him,
and that he was the most brilliant orator he had ever
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
heard.
It would have
pleased
Wilson to know that Alderman
was selected to deliver the nation's tribute to him in the official
funeral
oration at the
joint
session of
Congress,
a
very
choice mas-
terpiece.
In
1926
Alderman had been
suffering
for some time with
tuberculosis
of the
throat,
which affected his
voice,
and his
public
appearances
were then rare. That
day
at the
university
he
spoke
from a
manuscript,
which he inscribed and
gave
me on the con-
clusion of his
speech.
I
quote briefly
from his
speech, partly
because it could be taken
as an answer to the
partisan
reticence of
Bishop Manning
and Sec-
retary Kellogg,
but
mostly
because it contained the most treasured
compliment
ever
paid
me,
and touched
precisely
on the reason I
had written
the book:
Jefferson
and Hamilton is a book that will live. There is in it extraor-
dinary vitality
and color. It is free from
passion
and
prejudice.
A
judicial
fairness informs its
pages.
Its sources are varied and
dependable.
Under
the touch of
your imaginative genius,
Mr.
Bowers,
the
epic story
of the
formative
period
marches like a
living procession
of
furiously
contend-
ing
men,
dominated
justly by
the
figure
of Thomas
Jefferson,
so
por-
trayed
that the
gross
caricature of him built
up by
malice and misunder-
standing
fades from
sight,
and there
emerges
a
calm, courteous,
versa-
tile,
patient,
steadfast,
courageous
statesman,
alike a master of
philo-
sophical theory
and statement and a master in
managing
men,
a robust
hater of
ignorance, tyranny
and
intolerance,
an
apostle
of
peace
and
a lover of nature and mankind. ... All honor to Claude
Bowers,
who
has
destroyed
the monstrous
Jefferson
of
passion
and
prejudice,
of
myth
and
fable,
and restored to the vision of his
countrymen
the
myriad-
minded statesman and
philosopher
who
forgot
the titular honors of the
world in the
proud
reflection that he was the author of the Declaration
of
Independence,
the Statute of
Virginia
for
Religious
Freedom,
and
the father of the
University
of
Virginia.
It was this book that
brought
me into
personal
contact with
President
Coolidge.
That
year,
1926, Congress
created the
Jeffer-
son Centennial Commission for the observance of the hundredth
anniversary
of
Jefferson's
death. I was made a member of the com-
mission
by
the
President,
along
with
Henry
Ford,
Felix
Warburg,
Thomas Fortune
Ryan
and President Alderman.
Vice-President
Dawes and Nick
Longworth, Speaker
of the
House,
with the
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
leaders of the two
parries
in House and
Senate,
were the
repre-
sentatives of
Congress.
It was at the initial
meeting
of the commission in the East
Room
of the White House that I had
my
first view of the Yankee
Presi-
dent. We were seated
facing
a small table
against
the wall
when
the President was announced. Then he
appeared
a
slight,
slender
man,
looking
down his
nose,
not even
glancing
to his
right
or left
or
making any sign
of
recognition
to the
Congressional
leaders
who
were his friends. He sat down at the table
and,
without once look-
ing up, began reading
a
telegram
from
Warburg.
Thus far it was
clearly
the silent
Coolidge
of the
gossips.
Then,
having
read the
telegram,
in which
Warburg
offered to contribute
$100,000
to the
Monticello fund if a like amount would be subscribed
by
a Catholic
and a
Protestant,
Coolidge soberly
said,
"I will authorize Senator
Robinson to
notify
Vice-President Dawes that it is the sense of
this
meeting
that he donate a like amount."
Then he
smiled,
and I was fascinated
by
his
smile,
for he smiled
without
opening
his
lips,
and the effect was to
spread
his face and
to narrow his
eyes
almost to a
squint.
Nevertheless,
it
registered
undeniable mirth. After that he
joked
at
intervals,
though
the
jokes
were not
side-splittingly funny.
I noticed that his
ruddy
face was
without a
line,
with
nothing
to indicate the cares of his
high
office.
Having
been made
secretary
of the
commission,
I went to the
table and was introduced. I had often heard that his handshake was
feeble and
flabby,
but the warm and
hearty
handshake I received
convinced me that the
gossip
came from
ignorance
or malice. But
not a word did he
say.
When,
a moment
later,
we went into the
grounds
for a
group picture
and I stood beside
him,
his
uncanny
silence was unbroken. Not a word was
exchanged,
and
yet
the im-
pression
of
cordiality
was there.
It was
my
last view of
Coolidge
until,
some time
later,
on the
invitation of the state of
Tennessee,
I made the
speech
on Andrew
Jackson
at the
unveiling
of his statue in the
Capitol.
Governor
Horton was there to make the
presentation speech
for
Tennessee,
and President
Coolidge
to make the
speech
of
acceptance
on behalf
of the nation. We were to meet in the room of the
Minority
Leader,
just
off
Statuary
Hall,
and on
entering
the room late and
finding
Longworth
and Everett
Sanders,
the President's
secretary,
both
known to
me,
just
inside the
room,
I
joined
them for a chat. When
136
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
I observed
someone
circling
around
us,
I assumed that I had com-
mitted
some error in
protocol. Looking
around,
I found President
Coolidge standing
alone
against
the
wall,
while the others stood in
groups
aside. As I
approached
to
greet
him I was
wondering
what
to
say,
in view of
my previous experience
with his
silence,
but
just
as I shook hands I was drawn
away
to meet some others.
Finally
we filed into
Statuary
Hall and to the
platform impro-
vised for the
ceremony.
There was a
delay
in
starting,
and,
feeling
impelled
to
say something
to the President beside
me,
I remarked
that his last
predecessor
from Massachusetts had made the
greatest
speech
of his life in that hall when it was the House of
Representa-
tives,
in defense of the
foreign policy
of Andrew
Jackson.
There
was a moment's silence. Then he cleared his throat and with a
Yankee drawl
said,
"I well think he
might."
Since it was difficult
to
hang any
further conversation on that
comment,
the conversa-
tion closed. But I had talked to
Coolidge
and he had answered.
Apropos
of this
experience
and the tradition about the
Coolidge
silence,
I asked a Senator who had
spent
a weekend at the White
House if he had found the President a difficult conversationalist.
He said that at meals when there was other
company present
Cool-
idge
seldom said a
word,
but that in the
evening
when alone with
his
guest
he talked
incessantly
and
pleasantly.
"But,"
the Senator
added,
"if I touched on
politics
or
policies
he became as close
as a clam."
After his retirement from
public
life,
when an
organization
with
which I was associated
planned
a distribution of books to
places
throughout
the
country
that had no access to
public
libraries and
I wrote to
Coolidge asking
his
approval
and
co-operation,
I re-
ceived a
reply
from
Northampton,
dated October
23, 1930,
that
sheds some
light
on his
opinion
of books and
reading.
Your
very interesting
letter has been received and I feel certain that
everyone
will
approve your proposal.
It is
probable,
however,
that the
motion
picture
and the radio are sources of education
quite
as
great
as
that
formerly
afforded
by
books. I assume also that
proper
attention will
be
given
to the kind of books. There are a
great many published
now
that do not
appear
to me to be
particularly helpful.
I think I
ought
to add that
my experience
of
being brought up
in the
country
where I came into contact with a
great many people
who never
read books leads me to the conclusion that the harm from lack of books
137
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
can be
overemphasized. Society
as a whole could not exist as we
know
it without a
great many
readers of books but
very many
individuals
can
get along very
well without
reading
books,
especially
if
they
have
access
to
newspapers.
It would be a mistake to assume from all this that Calvin
Coolidge
was a dull man
lacking
in ideas. He himself read
many
books,
and
no doubt he found not a few that he could have done without. And
as to his
silences,
he was rich in Vermont
wisdom,
and his observa-
tions
may
have
taught
him that
very
often silence is
golden.
I am afraid he was a bit
suspicious
about the
reliability
of Demo-
crats in relation to
history.
I was asked
by
the Centennial Commis-
sion to
prepare
the Presidential
proclamation
to be
signed by
Pres-
ident
Coolidge,
and it did
appear
above his
signature
as I wrote it.
I knew he had read
it,
since he
evidently
had not heard that in
Jefferson's
draft of the Ordinance of
1784
on the Northwest Ter-
ritory
he had included a
prohibition
of
slavery
which was
finally
stricken out because of sectional
pressure, though Jefferson
was
unyielding.
One
day
I had a
telephone
call from the White House.
Was I sure that this
prohibition
was included in
Jefferson's
draft?
I
was,
and it remained in the President's
proclamation.
It was as a member of the commission that I first met Vice-
President
Dawes,
whose
picturesque
mannerisms and
reputed pro-
fanity
under
provocation
had created a
general
interest in his
per-
sonality.
A
meeting
had been called in the office of Senator
Royal
S.
Copeland,
one of the
members,
primarily
in the
hope
of devis-
ing ways
and means of
persuading Henry
Ford and Thomas For-
tune
Ryan
to match
Warburg's
offer of
$100,000
for the
purchase
of Monticello. Dawes arrived
late;
the Senate was
preparing
to
adjourn
and there was the usual
jam.
He was
impatient
to
get
the
picture-taking
ordeal over. "Damn
it,
hurry,"
he said. "Must
get
back to the Senate.
Might
be another
tie vote. I
got
hell not
long ago
when I was not on hand to break
the tie for
my
crowd.
They
never mention the
many
times I am
there."
He sauntered into the room with his familiar
underslung pipe
and the usual
bad-boy grin
on his face. When I was introduced
he
said,
"I have never met
you,
but I have
spent
a number of
evenings
with
you" referring
to
Jefferson
and Hamilton.
Sitting
down,
he
138
MY
JEFFERSON
YEAR
grinned,
looked
meditatively
at his
pipe
and
added,
"I will
say
that
you
didn't do a damn
thing
to
my
old
hero,
Hamilton. I would
read some assertion of
yours
and
say
out
loud,
'That's a damn
lie,'
and then I would look down at the citation and find it was from an
actual letter of Hamilton's
published
in his works edited
by Henry-
Cabot
Lodge."
He
gave
his head a shake. "You can't
get away
from
that sort of
thing,"
he added. He
agreed,
however,
that Hamilton
had been
fairly
and
honestly
treated,
not
misrepresented,
and that
he
appeared
in the book as a
great genius.
CHAPTER X
The Dance on the
Rumbling
Volcano
EVERYONE,
especially
the future
victims,
seemed
extraordinarily
happy during
the
years
1926
and
1927.
The stock market was
reaching
new
heights,
and therefore the
country
was considered
"prosperous." Every
semblance of control over the misuse of
wealth and
corporate power
had been
withdrawn,
and robust indi-
vidualism was
paying
enormous dividends to a few. The atmos-
phere
and
psychology
of New York in these
years
bore a
striking
resemblance to those described in accounts of London
just
before
the
bursting
of the
Mississippi
Bubble. Half of the
people
I
knew,
living
in a fool's
paradise,
were
joyously anticipating
riches
through
the
magic
of the stock
market,
which had become
literally
a
gam-
bling
den. The
speculators
were not confined to those with means
who could afford to
gamble
and lose.
They
included a
good portion
of the entire
population. Riding
in the
subway
to Park Row each
morning,
I observed that the
girl stenographers crowding
the
cars,
who had
previously preferred
the
highly spiced
tabloids with their
lurid tales of scandals and
crimes,
had
suddenly
become sober and
intellectual in their taste: the tabloid had
given way
to the NewYork
Times. I was
puzzled by
the
transformation,
but the
mystery
was
solved when I noticed that the
girls
turned at once to the market
page.
These
stenographers
were
playing
the market on their mea-
ger earnings. My
own friends
urged
me to "move with the times'*
and "make a fortune on the
market";
and when I was not
impressed,
they
looked their
disgust
and threatened to let me walk in
my rags
when
they
rolled
by
in their
Rolls-Royce
cars. Not a few of these
friends soon lost all
they
had and went
deeply
into debt. But such
was the
spirit
of the times that those who could not see that the
country
was
prosperous beyond precedent
were frowned
upon
as
140
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
chronic
pessimists,
if not
unpatriotic.
Yet even that
early
the em-
ployment
agencies
were
jammed
with
jobless
men and women
vainly seeking
work.
My
most intimate friend for
many years
was Frank
Oliver,
then
a member of
Congress
from the Bronx. One
evening during
these
abnormal
years
I
stopped
with him for a call on Charles A. Buck-
ley,
his district
leader,
and I was amazed to find a
long
line of un-
fortunate
men and women
stringing
from the leader's door into
the hall. A sorrier
company
I had seldom seen old men
crippled,
old
women with careworn and
frightened
faces,
younger
women
with babies in their arms. We were admitted at once to the
private
room of the
leader,
who heaved a
sigh
of relief since he needed a
few minutes' relaxation before
seeing
more of the crowd and
strug-
gling
with their
problems.
Thus I learned that not
everyone
was
prosperous
and
happy
and
getting
rich in New York.
Incidentally
I learned at that rime
why Tammany
had such a
grip
on the
poor
of the tenements. The scene I had witnessed was
repeated constantly throughout
the
year,
not
just
in election
peri-
ods. A woman with a sick and
helpless
husband had an eviction
order because of
nonpayment
of
rent,
and
money
was furnished to
save the
family
from the
street;
a child was doomed to
lifelong
invalidism unless an
operation
were
performed,
and it was sent to
a
surgeon
and the cost of the
operation guaranteed;
a man with a
family
of
hungry
children was out of
work,
and contacts were
made with some business and the man
got
a
job.
It was this hu-
manitarian service between
campaigns
that made
Tammany strong
with the
poor.
When,
on the eve of an
election,
some
righteous
reformer
appeared
before these unfortunates with a denunciation
of
Tammany
it was
easy
to
imagine
the reaction* "Where were
you
when
my
child was sick?" "Where were
you
when
they
were
about to turn me out into the street?" "Where were
you
when
I needed a
job
to feed
my
children?"
At
any
rate I saw
quite enough
in those
days
to realize that the
prosperity
of the
country
was
artificial,
one-sided and
grossly
exaggerated.
Even
so,
I was
personally
content,
since I was
deep
in research
for The
Tragic Era,
a book on the Reconstruction Period. This
took me to
Lancaster,
Pennsylvania,
the home of that
picturesque
141
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
old fanatic Thad
Stevens,
to visit the brick house where he had
lived
alone,
waited
upon by
a
Negro
woman described
by neigh-
bors as his mistress. Whether she was or not is
immaterial,
though
it was not denied
by
him. I talked with some who had seen
her,
and all
agreed
that she was a
kindly, accommodating
woman
worthy
of
respect.
I was told that when a
painter passed through
the
town,
Stevens had him
paint
her
portrait
on
wood,
and I was
promised
a view of the
picture,
a
promise
which was not re-
deemed.
But I was to hear other
things
about Stevens I had not heard
before.
Joseph
F. Guff
ey,
who would become Senator from Penn-
sylvania
a few
years
later,
had written a friend about
my planned
visit,
requesting
him to act as
my
cicerone. One
day
this friend
took me to a
very
old man who had been
superintendent
of schools
in the
days
of
Stevens,
and on the
way
to his house
my guide
told
me that some time
before,
when
chatting
with the old
man,
he had
been told that
Stevens,
who never
married,
had a
daughter.
The
guide
could not broach the
subject
on our
visit,
but he
hoped
the
old man would tell me what he knew.
Unhappily,
while the latter
talked
freely
of
many things,
the
daughter
was not mentioned.
Directly
from his house we went to call on
Judge
Brown,
also
oldish, and,
to our amazement and
delight,
we were
scarcely
seated
when the
jurist
said,
"Of course
you
know that Stevens had a
daughter."
We
hardly
moved a
muscle,
and the
judge
continued,
"When I was a
very young
law student I was
assigned by
the court
to make a
catalogue
of Stevens'
library.
In
rummaging
about,
I
opened
a
drawer,
and
there,
to
my
astonishment,
I found letters
wrapped
about with a
pink
ribbon. I read them.
They
were from
this
daughter, acknowledging
remittances. I know
people
who
knew the
woman,
and these
say
she was the
image
of her bachelor
father and a
very
talented woman. She married and went West.
I have no idea who her mother
was,
but I
imagine
it was a woman
Thad knew in
Gettysburg
before he moved to Lancaster."
Discoveries such as this diverted
my
interest from the state of
the
country.
One
day
a
large
box was delivered at
my apartment,
and inside I found
enough manuscript
to have filled some volumes.
I had said to Dr.
Andrews,
the Baltimore
historian,
that to
get
the
feel of the
atmosphere
of Reconstruction
days
in the South I would
like to see
family
letters and diaries
kept
at the time
by people
of
142
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
no
political importance,
but that I knew of no
possible way
to find
them. He offered to write to his friend the head of the
Daughters
of the
Confederacy,
who could ask women of the hundreds of
chapters
all over the South to
go
into old
garrets
and trunks in
search of
manuscript.
I was to follow his letter to her with one
of
my
own a few
days
later. She told me
my
letter arrived the
morning
after she had read a
paper
at her
literary
club on
my
Jefferson
and
Hamilton,
and
perhaps
this
helped.
The result was
the
box,
with its scores of intimate
family
letters
reflecting
the fears
and
feelings
of the
time,
and
diaries,
some written
by young girls,
all
throwing
a white
light
on the actual
living
and
thinking
of the
people. Reading
these,
I
really
lived as a
contemporary through
those
tragic days.
Such was
my primary
interest
through
these two
years.
With
greed gone
mad in the market
place,
the
populace
of New York
had their Roman shows to divert them from their worries. Con-
ditions
certainly
were
abnormal,
and the
atmosphere
was
just right
for the
hysterical
acclaim of
Lindbergh
after his
flight
to Paris.
Admirable
though
this achievement
was,
the
popular
reaction
amounted to sheer
hysteria, whipped up by
the
press. Perhaps
the
times were so sordid and
money-mad,
so
crassly
materialistic,
that
the
public
was starved for
something
romantic and
spectacular.
The New York Times devoted
pages
to the
flight,
and
Lindbergh
became the
darling
of the multitude that was
verging
on disaster.
The hero
worship
was so extreme that when Clarence D. Cham-
berlin made his
flight
soon afterward and almost reached
Berlin,
the insolence of the man in
trying
to match our
popular
hero was
greeted
with
growls
from the crowd.
From the World tower I witnessed the
Lindbergh reception
at
City
Hall. The streets near the
park
were
congested
hours before
his
arrival;
the World was forced to close and lock its doors to
prevent
an
invasion,
and I had to sneak into the
building by
the
back
way.
The windows of
surrounding buildings
were
packed,
and not a few
spectators
found
perches
on the roofs. A
military
band entertained the
patiently waiting throng.
And then the hero came. Mounted
police
surrounded his
car,
and the crowd roared its enthusiasm when the bareheaded
youth,
serious and
clearly
astonished,
alighted
and ascended the
steps
to
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
the stand. Fourteen stories
up
came the voice and the words of
Mayor
Walker,
but the words of
Lindbergh
did not climb so
high.
Then,
with the
flyer
seated beside
Mayor
Walker in a
car,
the
pro-
cession moved
up
Fifth Avenue to Central Park while women
fainted and men screamed their adulation.
"The
poor
dear
boy,"
said Pollard's
wife,
Crystal
Herne,
who
was with us in the tower.
"They
should let him
go
to bed."
He had received a
greater
ovation than
Dewey
on his return
from Manila
Bay, greater
than Theodore Roosevelt on his return
from
Africa,
greater
than Woodrow Wilson on his return from
Paris with the Covenant of the
League
of Nations.
Clearly
there
was some confusion as to
values,
but this was
typical
of these two
mad
years
of excitement and false
hopes.
Soon we had another Roman
holiday,
when
Queen
Marie of
Romania was
making
her tour of the
country,
and from
my
win-
dow in the tower I looked down
upon
her
reception.
The rain had
fallen in sheets that
morning
and there was but a
fringe
of the curi-
ous
awaiting
her arrival.
Despite
the
rain,
the show had to
go
on.
First came the
smart-looking
soldiers,
headed
by
the
cavalry,
with
the band
playing
the national anthems of the two countries. Drawn
up
before
City
Hall,
they
stood immobile as statues. At
length,
the
Queen.
To
my surprise
she was received in
silence,
a curious si-
lence. It had been
quite
different when Gertrude Ederle came back
from her
swimming
of the
English
Channel to be received with the
shouts of thousands. But
Queen
Marie had done her
part.
Her mili-
tary entourage
was brilliant with
color,
and on the
balcony
of
City
Hall she stood with her hand on the wet
railing
and smiled and
waved,
though
there was no
response. Mayor
Walker
being
with
her,
the
party
seemed
merry, though
the silence of the crowd must
have been
embarrassing.
Marie was
really regal
in
appearance
and
bearing,
but the charm of which we had heard so much was not
apparent
from the
balcony,
and
really
her nose was much too
large.
And then one
day
came Madame Curie to have her
greeting,
but
not
fifty
onlookers were
waiting
for her. She did not rate a
recep-
tion
comparable
to that of those who flew the sea or swam the
Channel,
and
again
I marveled. We wanted action
comparable
to
the hectic
hurry
on the market. Thus we moved on like children
laughing
too much to hear the
rumbling
of the volcano.
144
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
Franklin D.
Roosevelt,
standing
in the rain in
1944
to
urge
the
fourth election of Robert F.
Wagner
to the
Senate,
paid
him the
perfect
tribute when he said that "he deserves well of
humanity."
It is with some
pride
that I can claim to have had a
part
in his first
election in
1926.
I became
involved,
if behind the
scenes,
under
peculiar
circum-
stances. In
1924,
though
the
Republican
Presidential nominee car-
ried New York
State,
Governor Al Smith was elected for the third
time and his nomination for President in
1928
seemed assured. But
he had one more hurdle ahead. He was
up
for his fourth term in
1926
and in the event of his defeat he would be eliminated. His
friends and followers in New York were
gravely apprehensive.
Not a few
urged
a trade with the
Republicans,
who could have
thrown
enough Republican
votes to Smith in
exchange
for
enough
Democratic
support
to re-elect Senator
James
W. Wadsworth.
Whether such a trade was ever
seriously
considered
by
the leaders
I do not
know,
but such trades were not without
precedent.
Since
party principles
were not involved in the
governorship
and were in
the
Senatorship,
this seemed intolerable to me. I therefore wrote an
editorial in the
Evening
World
calling
attention to the
spread
of
this
gossip throughout
the
country
and the natural reaction of
loyal party
men,
which could reflect
unjustly
on Governor
Smith,
who had no
part
in it. When
nothing happened,
I wrote
another,
stronger
than the
first,
which called forth a statement from
Judge
Olvany,
the
Tammany
chief,
announcing
that of course the
organ-
ization intended to nominate a Senatorial candidate to elect him.
In a third editorial I credited
Olvany
with
sincerity,
but said that
the dissemination of the trade
story
had made such an
impression
that it would be
necessary
for the Democrats to nominate a man
everyone
knew
they
did not wish to sacrifice. Soon thereafter it
was announced that
Wagner,
then
happy
on the State
Supreme
Court
bench,
one of the ablest and most
respected
men in the
party,
would be nominated.
Nothing
could have been more satis-
factory.
He was
able,
absolutely
honorable, liberal,
and
popular.
Soon after this
announcement,
Vincent
Leibel,
law
partner
of
Wagner
and later on the federal
bench,
telephoned
an invitation
to a dinner with
Wagner
at the Manhattan
Club,
with but two
others
present.
That
night
I saw one of the most constructive hu-
manitarians I have ever known.
Wagner
entered the
private
dining
H5
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
room
briskly, putting
aside his coat and cane while
apologizing
for
his tardiness. He was short in
stature,
and his
strength
and
character
were in his then thin brown face
lighted by intelligent
gray-blue
eyes.
He
mingled dignity
with an air of
familiarity.
The secret of
has
popularity
was manifest at a
glance.
His voice was warm and
honest,
and he talked with
fluency
and force. No one could doubt
his
courage
and decision. Born in
Germany,
he had come to New
York with his father as a
child,
and
through
hard work and
family
sacrifices he had secured an education and been admitted to the bar.
The
story
of his
early struggles
was told me
by Wagner
in the
World tower the
morning
after the election. He had served con-
structively
in the
Legislature
and had made a favorable
impression
on citizens of
good
will.
After
coffee,
I listened in silence to the
early part
of the con-
versation.
Wagner
said the leaders had wished the nomination
upon
him without
notice,
and that in the state convention a week later
he would have to make a
speech.
Had he been a
gubernatorial
nom-
inee he would have felt free of
embarrassment,
since he had served
in both branches of the
Legislature
and was
intimately
familiar
with state issues and
problems.
But he had not
given very
intensive
study
to national issues and he was
being precipitated
into a Sena-
torial contest
against
a man who had served twelve
years
in the
Senate,
dealing
with them. He
felt, therefore,
the need of advice
and assistance at the
beginning.
He was in doubt about the World
Court,
since the
League
and all its accessories were still
subjects
of
acrimonious
controversy,
and into the Mexican
problem
a
religious
question
had been
injected.
We had a talk about these
issues,
and I also
suggested
that in the
beginning
he concentrate on Wadsworth's record on
Prohibition,
which was obnoxious to the
greater part
of New York. That
year
Wadsworth,
who had voted to
pass
the Volstead Act over Wilson's
veto,
and had
approved
the successive
platforms
of his
party
that
had avoided the
issue,
was
posing
as a foe of Prohibition. There was
a wide
space
between his
pretensions
and his
record,
and the suc-
cess of
Wagner
would
depend
on the attitude of the liberal ele-
ment.
Wagner
had been
aggressively against
Prohibition from the
beginning,
and I
thought
the issue with Wadsworth was made to
Wagner's
order. In the end I was asked to draft the convention
146
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
speech.
I also wrote a second
speech,
and in this connection I had
it
impressed upon
me that I was in New
York,
not in Indiana.
Leibel,
reading my
draft and
finding
the classic
quotation
"Beware
of the Greeks
bearing gifts," suggested
that
perhaps
it
might
be
stricken out. This was
perfectly satisfactory
to
me,
but I
expressed
curiosity
as to the reason. Leibel
replied
that there were a
great
number of Greeks in New York and
they might
misunderstand.
No doubt he was
right.
At these dinners
my
admiration for
Wagner grew.
He had a
fine
mind,
a
good
heart and
high
ideals of
public
service. He had
an innate
sympathy
with the
working
masses,
then all too rare.
He was
absolutely
clean and honorable. When he was in the State
Senate,
it was understood
by
his law
partners
that a retainer fee of
more than five thousand dollars should not be
accepted
without
consultation with him. One
day
a
great corporation appeared
with
a ten-thousand-dollar retainer fee and was told that
Wagner,
then
in
Albany,
would have to be consulted. On his return for the week-
end,
he said that this
corporation
had
very
able
lawyers regularly
employed
and needed no
legal
advice from
him,
and that the mani-
fest reason for the sudden desire for his services was the fact that
the
corporation
was interested in certain
legislation pending
before
a committee of which he was chairman. "Send the
money
back,"
he concluded. And that attitude was all too rare.
After the first two
speeches, Wagner began
his
speaking
tour in
upstate
New York and within a week he had found his stride and
needed no more assistance.
Whatever
may
have been the attitude of
party
leaders of conse-
quence, many
of the
underlings
continued to talk about Wads-
worth's
hostility
to Prohibition and to
urge
a
bipartisan bargain.
While no
newspaper
attacked
Wagner,
he received editorial
sup-
port
from none
except
the
Evening
World. Three weeks before
the
election,
I
began running
a
daily Wagner
editorial,
aimed di-
rectly
at those who
pretended
to see little difference in the records
of the candidates on Prohibition.
Day by day
these were reminded
of Wadsworth's vote to
pass
the Volstead Act over the President's
veto,
and of his uniform
support
of his
party's platforms. Emphasis
was
placed
on
Wagner's
liberalism and constructive interest in
social and labor
legislation.
No one on the World
interfered,
but
H7
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
no one commented no one but Arthur
Krock,
who said to me one
day
that I was
making
a
"great fight"
for
Wagner
and that he
hoped
he would win.
On election
night
I went to the office to write the
postelection
editorials,
my
mind
wholly
on
Wagner,
and with
many misgivings.
Quite
early
his election was assured. About two in the
morning
the
telephone rang.
It was
Wagner,
who called to thank me for the
little I had done in his
campaign
and that too is much too rare.
The next
morning
he came to
my
office. He was
happy,
but he
seemed embarrassed that his
precipitation
into the
campaign
had
caught
him
unprepared.
He said he intended to
spend
the time in-
tervening
before
taking
his seat in
making
an intensive
study
of all
the national
problems
"so I will never
again
be taken unaware."
How well he did it the record shows. And that
morning
I
got
a
glimpse
into the mind and heart of
Wagner.
"I was born out of this
country,"
he
said,
"and this is the
highest
honor that can ever come
to me. I intend to be
worthy
of the
opportunities
America has
given
me." And then he added
wistfully, "My only regret
is that
my
mother did not live to see
my
election."
This is behind-the-scenes
history
that would mean
nothing
if
Wagner
had meant
nothing
in the Senate.
Serving longer
than
any
other
previous
Senator from New
York,
except
Rufus
King
in the
first
days
of the
Republic,
he rendered more
distinguished
and
constructive service than
any
other Senator of the commonwealth.
No member of the Senate in our
history
has done so much or
fought
so hard for social
justice,
and no New York Senator be-
fore him had such a record of constructive
statesmanship.
He sac-
rificed his life to his sense of civic
duty.
I recall a
day
I
spent
with
Senators
Barkley, Guffey
and
Wagner
in Paris. The
Congressional
session had been a
grueling
one of constant
battle,
like most of
those of the Franklin Roosevelt
regime,
and these Senators were
on vacation.
Wagner
had
just
arrived. He looked
terribly
tired and
worn,
in
desperate
need of rest. That
very day
of his arrival a cable
from Roosevelt
begged
him to return at once to undertake a task
no one else could
perform,
and the next
day
he abandoned his va-
cation and returned to work. Thus he continued until the
end,
when he
collapsed.
I have dwelt on
my
connection with
Wagner's
first
fight
for the
Senate because there is
nothing
in
my
life of which I am
prouder.
148
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
Our intimate
relations,
political
and
personal,
continued
through
the
years,
and at his
request
I
put
him in nomination for his second
term at the state
convention in
1932.
The last time I saw him was
after his election for the fourth time. He
greeted
me
by throwing
up
his hands and
saying
I was "the
greatest prophet
since Biblical
times." He had been worried over the election in
1944
and I had
written him the
prediction
that he would run ahead of Roosevelt
and he did.
Thus
despite my supposition
that
my
removal to New York
would divorce me
completely
from
politics,
I soon found
myself
involved,
though my
activities were in the
wings
or behind the
scenes.
During
these two
years, 1926
and
1927,
the
political pot
was
simmering
in
preparation
for the Presidential
campaign
of
1928.
With the re-election of Al Smith as
governor
in
1926
there
could be no reasonable doubt of his
nomination,
but he had enemies
and rivals who were not
prone
to concede it.
When I dined and
spent
the
evening
with McAdoo in his hotel
room,
I learned that the former
Secretary
of the
Treasury
had
by
no means abandoned his Presidential
aspirations.
I had often lunched
and dined with him in New York and I had no idea that this
par-
ticular dinner had
any political significance, especially
since Mark
Sullivan,
the able
Washington correspondent
of the New York
Herald Tribune and an ardent
personal
friend of Herbert
Hoover,
was one of the
party
of three. McAdoo was to
speak
before the
Ohio State Bar Association the
following
week and I had seen a
copy
of the
speech
he had
prepared.
It was a stout Prohibition
speech, clearly designed
to draw the line between the
drys
of the
West and the South and the wets of the East. It seemed certain
to me that it would
definitively put
him out of the Presidential
race,
since the anti-Prohibition wave was
mounting.
That
night
McAdoo was
looking
fit,
with a
springing step,
a
good
color and
high spirits,
but when I advised
against
a Prohibi-
tion
alignment
there was a
very
noticeable
cooling
of the atmos-
phere. During
the
conversation,
in
developing
the theme that the
liquor
interests were
corrupting,
he told of an
attempt by
a
repre-
sentative of the so-called
liquor
interests to
buy
his influence
just
after he had retired from the Cabinet. He had been offered a
$100,000
retainer to
represent
them before the United States Cir-
149
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
cuit Court and the
Supreme
Court in an
attempt
to have the war-
time Prohibition law declared unconstitutional. "I was
completely
flabbergasted,"
he said. "I had never seen a hundred thousand dol-
lars
[sic].
At
length
I told him that while I
appreciated
the
offer,
I could not take the retainer. He asked
why.
I
said,
'You don't want
to retain
my legal
services,
since I've been out of the
practice
for
years.
You want me because
you
feel that I've built
up
some kind
of
reputation resting
on the confidence of the
people.' 'Certainly,'
said the man.
'Reputation
is
always
considered in a retainer.' 'Pre-
cisely,'
I
said,
'and I don't feel it would be
giving
the
people
a
square
deal for me to
betray
their confidence.'
"
McAdoo men-
tioned the man's name.
It was evident that he wished to be a
candidate,
but he assumed
the attitude of one
soliciting
the
opinion
of others. He said that
Smith's
candidacy
meant wet and
reactionary
domination which
he himself would not
tolerate, but,
he
asked,
why
should he him-
self run?
Thereupon
he called the roll of other
possible
candidates,
and the two other
guests
bowled them
over,
one
by
one.
Then, too,
continued
McAdoo,
where would the
necessary
cam-
paign
fund come from? Sullivan
thought
the Prohibitionists
ought
to raise it. I said but
little,
shocked at the
prospect
of another bitter
contest like that of
1924.
1 did
suggest
that his
strength
was in his
progressive
and not his Prohibition
views,
and at this
point
the at-
mosphere
was
frigid. Knowing
Mark Sullivan's
intimacy
with Her-
bert
Hoover,
destined for the
Republican
nomination,
I had the
feeling
that Mark was less interested in McAdoo's career than in
creating
another schism within the Democratic
Party.
I did not
blame Sullivan at
all,
since he was a
Republican,
but it seemed as-
tonishing
that McAdoo did not
suspect
the
journalist's
interest in
his
candidacy
on a Prohibition
platform.
Toward the close of the
evening
McAdoo looked tired. Then
sixty-four,
he was
extraordinarily
well
preserved,
but it seemed
doubtful that he could stand the bitter
fighting
in another con-
vention.
Two
days
later I saw him
again
at the Hotel Plaza. He was beam-
ing
with satisfaction over the
reception
of his
speech
before the
Ohio Bar
Association,
which the New York Times had
printed
in
full,
more than a
page.
He described his
reception
as
unusually
cordial,
but he was
clearly
disturbed
by
the tone of the Times edi-
150
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
torial,
which said that the
speech
had eliminated him from the
Presidential race.
When I next saw
him,
two months
later,
he seemed disillusioned
as to his Presidential
prospects.
He said he would not lift a
finger
and was not at all sure that he would run. He had a
good
law
prac-
tice and he
thought
it
stupid
to
dissipate
his
energies
in
politics.
He
had
opened
a law office in
Washington,
while
retaining
that in
Los
Angeles.
"This,"
he
said,
"will
give
me an excuse for
spending
half
my
time in
Washington,
where I have friends and the kind
of social life I like."
Five months later he sent me a
copy
of the letter he had written
positively announcing
that he would not be a candidate. The same
day
he
telephoned
to ask
my opinion
of the letter. I told him I
thought
it was wise. He talked
quite happily
about it and as
though
he meant it. He was to remain in
politics
and later to enter the
Senate from
California,
but never
again
was he to
figure
as a can-
didate in a national convention.
But the track had not been
entirely
cleared for Smith. In No-
vember
1927
Senator
James
A. Reed of Missouri asked me to call
upon
him at the Waldorf. I was rather shocked
by
his
appearance.
I recalled him as I had seen him first in
Washington
fourteen
years
before: a
magnificent physical specimen,
with a
fighter's
face,
and
a
genius
in debate
unequaled by any
of his
colleagues.
Now he was
slightly stooped
and his hair was
perfectly
white. His
face,
while
ruddy,
seemed a little shriveled and was much
wrinkled,
and he
appeared
much older than his
years.
Long
before this he had
compromised
his
position
in his
party
because of his feud with Woodrow
Wilson,
but a few
days
before
I saw him he had delivered a brilliant
philippic against
the
Coolidge
Administration at
Sedalia, Missouri,
and he had been endorsed
by
the State Committee
for the Presidential nomination.
That
day
I found a woman
sculptor
at work at a bench on a
bas-relief of the Senator. He had been
posing
all
afternoon,
reading
the while. His fine
profile
lent itself
beautifully
to the work. "I
don't know what she intends to do with
it,"
he
said,
"but I
guess
she
hopes
to sell it." When I
suggested
that it
might
serve as a cam-
paign piece
the next
year
he
laughed,
but said
nothing.
But he did
say
that he had not made his Sedalia
speech
for the
purpose
of
THE DANCE ON THE RUMBLING VOLCANO
launching
a Presidential
campaign.
"If that had been
my
intention
I would have left out the
personalities/'
he
said,
and this seemed
sincere.
Referring
to his endorsement
by
the State
Committee,
he said he could have
stopped
it,
and would have but for the fact
that the committee on two
previous
occasions had read him out of
the
party.
"I
always hoped,"
he
said,
"that one
day they
would
wipe
that
out,
so I let them
go
ahead the other
day."
It seemed incredible that a
politician
as wise as Reed could have
conceived it
possible
that the
party
would so
completely repudiate
Woodrow Wilson as to nominate one of his most virulent enemies.
Even that
day
he talked with unrestrained bitterness
against
the
war President. "If we had elected
Champ
Clark,"
he
said,
"there
would have been no war and the other countries would have let
us alone."
But he was
clearly
a candidate.
Meanwhile,
in New York few doubted the nomination and elec-
tion of Al Smith. There was
nothing
to indicate that a
religious
war of fanaticism would be
waged against
him,
but here and there
one could sense an
opposition
to his nomination. I was not involved
at that
time,
personally
or
emotionally.
The
Tragic Era,
on which
I was at
work,
kept
me
occupied.
I think I was more interested in
Theodore Dreiser in those
years
than in
any
of the
aspiring politi-
cians. It was in his
apartment
that I had contact with men and
women of the
literary
world. I
hardly
knew Carl Van Doren when
he
stopped
at the table where I was
lunching
at the
Players
club to
ask me what I was
writing;
and when I told him I was
working
on The
Tragic
Era he startled me
by saying
that he would take it
for the
Literary
Guild without
seeing
the
manuscript.
He had dis-
cussed The
Party
Battles
of
the
Jackson
Period in
complimentary
terms in a lecture at Columbia
University
before I went to New
York,
and I was to be
deeply
indebted to his
friendship
in
my
lit-
erary
work,
but
among
the writers it was Dreiser with whom I was
on most intimate terms.
Putting
aside the
premonitions
of economic
disaster and the
maneuvering
of
politicians,
we shall now
spend
a
little time with him.
CHAPTER XI
Memories of
Theodore Dreiser
To ME the most
interesting
and
significant
literary figure
in the
New York of the first and
second decades of the
century
was
Theodore
Dreiser. In Terre
Haute,
where he was
born,
I had heard
many
stories about his
family.
That
community
took
great pride
in his
brother, Paul,
whose "On the Banks of the
Wabash,"
writ-
ten in
part by
Theodore,
had been
accepted
as the
regional song.
The
family
had lived in sordid
poverty,
and he himself has recorded
the
pathetic story
of his
boyhood
in an
autobiography.
His
father,
a German
immigrant,
was so obsessed with his
religion
that most
of the little
money
that he made was
given
to the
church,
and to
prevent
her children from
going
barefoot in winter the mother
worked as a scrubwoman in a hotel. For this Theodore was never
to
forgive
his
father. The
family
lived in a small
house,
which is
now
being preserved
as a
memorial,
across the street from the
county jail.
To
my
amazement,
the Terre Hauteans
appeared
to
have little
appreciation
of the
infinitely greater
work of
Theodore,
preferring
the
song
of Paul. Dreiser's Sister
Carrie,
which shocked
the Philistines with a realistic treatment of human
problems
in fic-
tion,
had
probably persuaded
them to
join
in the
silly
crusade
against
him.
On the
appearance
of his novel The Genius and his
autobiogra-
phy,
I had written a review and an editorial in the Fort
Wayne
Journal-Gazette,
and a mutual friend sent him a
copy
of the edi-
torial. He wrote me a note of
appreciation
that
impressed
me as
sincere. "Thank
you very
much for
your
editorial,"
he wrote.
"You write an editorial as
colorfully
as
you
write a book. One mis-
take,
however. Paul and I were born in different houses in Terre
Haute. Our
family
had to
move,
evidently
to
keep
ahead of the
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
rent collector."
When, later,
I sent him
my
review,
he wrote:
"The
same
morning
that
brought your
review of
c
The Genius'
brought
the enclosed from The Times here.
Yes,
I
guess
from several straws
that the wind is
slightly veering
in Indiana. This review of
yours
should do as much as
anythinga
fine
piece
of
writing,
really.
I like it ever so much and I am
obliged
to
you.
... If
you
come
this
way drop
me a line and have dinner with me. I
hope you
do."
I concluded that
despite
his affectation of indifference he was hurt
by
the attitude of his native
state,
and that a
friendly
review from
that
quarter pleased
him. He asked me to
get
in touch with him
if I was ever in New York and
gave
me his address and
telephone
number. It
happened
that within a month I went to the New York
Evening World, and,
being
alone in the hotel one
night,
I called
him on the
telephone.
He said he would be
up immediately.
I was in the
lobby
when he
appeared.
Tall, stout,
with a
large,
roughhewn
face,
he was almost
elephantine
in his
movements,
and
he
impressed
me
instantly
as
coming
from
peasant
stock. I noticed
especially
his
queer
blue
eyes.
His manner was
simplicity
itself.
There was
nothing
of
affectation,
no
pose.
With him was Helen
Richardson,
a beautiful
young
woman with
laughing eyes
and a
perfect complexion,
who later was to become his wife. We sat for
a while on the
balcony overlooking
the
lobby
of the
McAlpin
Hotel and then went to the Prince
George
for sandwiches and
beer. As he talked I noticed his now famous
eccentricity
a never-
ending rolling
and
unrolling
of his handkerchief. He talked
frankly
of the
poverty
of his childhood and the
supercilious
attacks
upon
his work
by
the more
precious
critics.
Though
it was clear that
these had hurt him
deeply,
for he was
extraordinarily
sensitive,
they appeared
that
evening
to amuse
him,
for he chuckled as he
talked.
"I don't read criticisms or
reviews,"
he said. "Even when
they're
intended to be
friendly they
often take a slant that is not
flattering,
so I
pass
them
up."
He
paused,
then smiled and chuckled
again.
"Do
you
know Dr.
Smyth, long literary
editor of the Times'?" he
asked. I knew him as the editor of the International Book
Review,
for which I had written some reviews. "I met him at a sort of book-
men's
dinner,"
Dreiser continued. "I had never met him
before,
and
he came around to
my
chair to tell me how
glad
he was to meet
me,
and that he had been one of
my
most
persistent
boosters. As
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
a matter of
fact,
his
paper
had been one of
my
most severe
critics,
and I told him so. He remonstrated. We had been
drinking
some,
and I was in the mood to be
offensive,
so I filled a water
glass
half
full with
liquor
and said to
him,
'If
you're
a friend of
mine,
you'll
drink this with me.' I had no notion that he would do
it,
for it was
a
deadly potion
and he seemed delicate and not
young.
But he did.
Under
my
direction we
got
him
upstairs
to a room and
got
a doc-
tor. It was some
days
before he was out. I called
up
to see how he
was,
and he answered in a feeble voice that he was all
right.
'No
hard
feelings?
7
1 asked.
'Oh,
not at
all,'
he said. After that we were
friends."
That
evening,
in reminiscent
mood,
he recalled his
experience
as
a callow
reporter
on the New York World. It was in the
days
of
the elder Pulitzer.
Everyone
was
kept
on his toes
by
that
colossus,
and Dreiser recalled that the
city
room was
always throbbing
with
nervous tension.
Every day
cables
poured
in from Pulitzer's
yacht
in the
Mediterranean,
slashing viciously
at some
story
he did not
like and
giving
orders. "I often went home sick at
my
stomach
from nervousness and
worry,"
said
Dreiser,
"though
no one ever
said
anything
to
worry
me."
Finally
he was
discharged
from the
paper.
Soon afterward I visited Dreiser in his
apartment
on West
Eleventh
Street,
in Greenwich
Village.
The block was old-fash-
ioned and
attractive,
and he lived in one of the Rhinelander Gar-
dens
houses,
a
long
row of
three-story
brick houses with
wrought-
iron balconies and
deep
front
yards,
the
property
of the old
aristocratic Rhinelander
family.
Dreiser lived on the
ground
floor
in two rear rooms
large
rooms with the
lofty ceilings
of
spacious
times. I entered
through
his
bedroom,
where a
huge
and
very high
three-quarter
bed first
caught my eye. By
the door was an
antique
walnut
cupboard
with
glass
doors which could be used for either
books or china the
property
of the Rhinelander
family,
left there
in
storage.
Dreiser called attention to
it,
moving
his hand over it
almost
reverently,
for its
beauty appealed
to him.
From the bedroom one entered the
study,
a much
larger
room
with
wide,
high
windows that looked out over a back
yard
where
someone's
washing
was
flapping
on the line. A
bright May
sun-
shine was
pouring
in. In the center of the room was a
long
table
on which he wrote. Beside
it,
on a small
table,
stood a
typewriter
of
155
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
ancient make. On one side wall
hung
the
picture
of a
woman,
and
opposite, against
the
wall,
was a bookshelf made of boxes. Most
of the books were in fresh
jackets, gift copies
from the
authors
or
publishers.
On
top
of the bookshelf stood a coffee
percolator.
On the broad window seat was a stack of
manuscript,
much
marked,
and Dreiser
explained
that he was
writing
An American
Tragedy.
"I call it
that,"
he
said,
"because it could not
happen
in
any
other
country
in the world."
That
day
Dreiser was in the best of
moods,
smiling
and
laugh-
ing heartily,
and
seeming
in excellent
health,
his face
ruddy.
As
always,
he
played incessantly
with his handkerchief as he talked.
I soon learned that he
preferred
almost
any
other
subject
for con-
versation to his own
books,
but I
managed
to draw him out a little
bit on his work.
"I have heard that
you
like Twelve Men better than
any
other
of
your
books,"
I ventured.
He shook his head.
"No,
I like it because of
my portrait
of
Paul,
but I wouldn't
say
that I like it better than
any
other,"
he said.
"Jennie
Gerhardti" I
hinted,
merely
to
get
his estimate.
"No,
I don't like
Jennie
so much. I formed a dislike for it almost
as soon as I had finished it. I wrote it in an emotional mood and
liked it
immensely
in the
process
of
composition,
but almost imme-
diately
afterward I concluded that I had overdrawn
Jennie.
I think
so still."
"I have known some women after whom she
might
have been
drawn,"
I ventured to
say.
"Well" and he
laughed
"I can't
say
that I ever have."
Then,
after a
pause:
"Some
people
think Sister Carrie the best. I like The
Genius best of all. There's more of
myself
in it. I don't know.
I
get
all sorts of
preferences
from other
people."
With a
chuckle,
he
added,
"Liveright
[his
publisher]
likes The Titan
best,
maybe
because he too is a bandit."
He then shifted the conversation to
politics
a
subject
that inter-
ested him
strongly, though
I was to find that his views were
mostly
fantastic.
"Do
you
think that
democracy
has worked out in this
country?"
he asked in a manner that indicated
clearly
that he did not. "Do
you
think this form of
government
is the best?"
156
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
I admitted that at times
plutocracy
had been in the
ascendancy.
But,
I
said,
this was not because of but in
spite
of our democratic
system,
and I reminded him that when the
people
were
aroused,
as
when
Jefferson
overthrew the Federalists and when
Jackson
un-
horsed the
national-bank
plutocracy,
the rule of the
people
had been
real under our institutions.
"I don't know of
any
better
form,
do
you?"
I asked.
But he did not
reply.
That his
skepticism
was real is evident in the
inscription
he wrote
later in a
gift copy
of An American
Tragedy:
"To Claude
Bowers,
whose
duty
and business is to
crystallize
and visualize for America
that
democracy
which as
yet
is a
vague
and nebulous dream."
Suddenly
he said
passionately,
"You
enjoy
life,
don't
you?
Do
you
never
get
morbid,
depressed
and
disgusted?"
And with that
question
I knew he had lifted a curtain on himself.
I soon saw that Dreiser looked out with some distaste on the
world about
him,
and that much
pondering
on man's
inhumanity
to man had made him a little bitter. All this
appears
in his
novels,
his
pity
for the frailties of
man,
his
compassion
for the
underdog.
This
gave
the tone to all he wrote. About this time he wrote me:
"I
greatly acknowledge your
evaluation of
my writing principles.
I think it
springs
from a
fairly
close observation of the
working
principles
of life. There is the old
saw,
to know all is to
forgive
all,
although
in some cases in
my experience,
it seems hard to believe."
One
day
when he was
walking
with me on the street in a
happy,
hilarious
mood,
we
passed
a wretched old woman in
rags
and with
misery
etched on her face.
"God,
look at that!" he exclaimed. "Is
there
any
excuse for that?" His mood
changed
at once and we fin-
ished our walk in
gloomy
silence. It was not an affectation of
sym-
pathy
for human
suffering
with
Dreiser,
it was real.
At dinner one
night
in
my apartment
he
expressed
an unfavor-
able
opinion
of the movie
industry
of the time an
opinion
to be
strengthened
soon when he went to court in a vain
attempt
to
prevent
the mutilation of a novel of his. That
night
he looked
upon
the movies as a
failure,
primarily
because of what he termed "the
ignorance
and
spiritual
and dramatic limitations of
producers
and
artists." He
thought
the movie stars
"shallow-pated, pretty
crea-
tures who have no
knowledge
of
psychology
or of life." Of the
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
directors he had a view
scarcely
more favorable.
Apropos
of the
recent murder of a director soon after he had entertained
Mabel
Normand,
the
actress,
described
by
the
press
as a star of the first
magnitude
in her
time,
he illustrated the
mentality
of the stars
by
citing
Miss Normand's tribute to the dead director as a
great
intel-
lectual
because,
she
said,
"you
can ask him the
meaning
of
any
word and he can tell
you."
This
poor opinion
of the
directors,
along
with the
players,
was to
have an unfortunate
sequel
for me. One
night
as I was
leaving
a
party
at Dreiser's
and,
in a
downpour
of
rain,
had
just caught
a
taxi,
a woman of
my acquaintance
who had also been a
guest
ap-
peared
with another woman on the
sidewalk,
and I
proposed
to
drive them to their homes. The
strange lady
was
strikingly
beauti-
ful.
During
the
drive,
my
friend observed that Dreiser cared little
for the movie stars.
"Yes,"
I
replied,
"he
says they
are morons and
that the directors are
very
little better." There was silence in the
taxi. We reached the
apartment
of the
strange lady
first,
and after
she had left I
inquired
her
identity
of
my
friend. "Her husband is
quite
a famous movie
director,"
was the
crushing reply.
Soon after
moving
to New
York,
my
wife and I were
guests
of
Dreiser at dinner. He had
proposed
some
place
in the
Village
and
had written a reminder:
"Friday
at six or
seven,
suit
yourself,
it's
OKwith me. Do
you
mind
ringing my
door bell? There are dozens
of these evil dens within a few
blocks, and,
Satan
aiding,
it will not
be too much trouble to walk.
Besides,
crime is so
rampant
here that
it is
interesting
to observe it as it
proceeds."
It turned out to be the Russian
Bear,
on Second Avenue near
Twelfth
Street,
frequented by
Bohemians and radicals who
thought
themselves enamored of the Soviet.
Bearded,
spectacled,
vocifer-
ous,
gesticulatory, they
roared
applause
when a dark-skinned fel-
low
sang
Russian
songs
none understood.
That
night
Dreiser
again
amazed me
by
his interest in
politics
and his
abysmal ignorance
of it. He was a radical
thinker,
that was
clear. He resented Wilson because of the war. The Democratic na-
tional convention at Madison
Square
Garden was but a few
days
off,
and he seemed
keenly
interested in McAdoo's
candidacy.
Later
I was to conclude that his
partiality
for McAdoo was due less to
McAdoo's
political
character than to the
Tammany
affiliations of
Governor
Smith,
his
competitor.
"Of
course,"
said
Dreiser,
"if La
158
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
FoUette is nominated I shall vote for him." It was a safe
wager
that
he would not vote at all.
A few
days
later I sent him two rickets to the convention. The
day
after he attended I received a letter from him: "Thanks for the
Convention tickets.
(See
Index World
Morgue,
Convention
Series,
1924.)
Also how are
you?
That horrible Convention all but did
for me. I
gave up
on the i8th Ballot and did not return.
(Texas
votes 60 for
McAdoo.)
As to dinner next w^eek-sure
only
I'll
have to call
you up
on
Monday
or
Tuesday.
I am still hard worked.
Just
got
back from a side
job
in Detroit that wretched
burg.
All
that I have in view is
apple pie."
(We
had a
Virginia
cook who
made
good apple pie
that Dreiser
liked.)
When I saw him next I asked his
impression
of that
rowdy
con-
vention. An
expression
of
pain
or
loathing
contorted his features.
"My
God,"
he
said,
"one session was
enough
for me. And is that
the
way
we're
governed
in a
democracy?"
The
night
at the Russian Bear he had tried to smoke a
cigarette,
and he did it
gingerly, awkwardly
and in evident
distress,
splutter-
ing
and
coughing.
I was astonished to learn that he was not a
smoker.
Laughing,
he said that
when,
years
before,
he was the
editor of a women's
magazine,
he
occasionally
was invited to little
parties
at the houses of some of his women
associates,
and invari-
ably
the air was blue with the
curling
smoke of the
cigarettes
of the
women.
Once,
in sheer
desperation,
he determined to
join
them,
only
to
struggle
and sicken. "There I
was,"
he
said,
"a six-footer of
ample poundage, growing giddy
in
doing
what
every
woman was
doing
with evident
relish,
and I was ashamed."
At this time he was
working steadily
on An American
Tragedy,
the
manuscript
of which I had seen in the window seat of the
apart-
ment on Eleventh
Street,
and the
publisher
was
announcing
it for
publication
in the fall. In
September
I asked him about it.
"It will not be
ready
until
spring,"
he said.
"But the
publisher"
I
began.
"I can't
help
that,"
he barked
angrily.
"You can't write
any
faster than
you
can."
A little while
before,
a woman who was
managing
a small theater
in a basement in the
Village
had
surprised
me
by
her bitter com-
ments on Dreiser. I asked him if he knew her.
Again
the
expression
of
physical loathing
and mental
torture,
and he
groaned
aloud.
"Oh,
159
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
what's the use of
talking
about her?" he
gasped.
And then he
talked
about her. "A
vampire
without
passion,
but with a keen
appetite
for
money,"
he said. "She
gets
her actors and actresses for
nothing,
holding
out the futile
promise
that some
manager
from
Broadway
will
drop
in and
pick
them
up.
She lives in the cellar and has little
expense.
She
plays
her sex
against
men who are in
position
to
help
her
especially newspapermen.
If
you're expecting
to
get
anything
out of
it,
forget
it. She smiled all over me when she
thought
she
could use me. The first
thing
I knew she was
producing
one of
my
plays
without leave. I tried to
stop
her and make her
pay,
but she
only
smiled and went ahead." And
then,
with a
heavy sigh: "Why,
I had to
get
a
lawyer
before I could make her
stop."
It had been a mistake to mention the
woman,
for Dreiser re-
mained
gloomy throughout
the remainder of the
evening. Perhaps
that
gave acidity
to his remarks about Frank Harris' erotic auto-
biography,
which had been forbidden in New York. Harris had
written Dreiser from France
offering
him a set for fifteen dollars.
"No
art,"
snorted Dreiser.
"Nothing
but the nastiest
stories,
with-
out
any
art in the
telling
even,
and illustrated with obscene
pic-
tures
having
no connection with the
textpictures
of the kind
you
pick up
on the streets of Paris when no one is
looking."
He twisted his handkerchief a while in silence.
"I think that Harris is about three-fourths
genius,"
he
added,
"but
the one fourth that is not kills the other three fourths."
The first time Dreiser came to dinner in
my apartment
I had en-
ticed him with the
promise
of
apple pie,
Hoosier
variety.
"How
about
Wednesday, May
21 next?" he wrote. "And if the
apple pie
is what it should be fair Indiana
pie
I will
partake
of it. But
where do I travel to?" He
evidently
liked the
pie,
since I find
another later note from him: "And I never ate better
apple pie.
Only my
manners cheated me of a second
piece."
And much
later,
apropos
of another dinner invitation: "All I have in mind is
apple
pie."
One of the most
enjoyable evenings
I ever
spent
with him was in
the winter of
1925,
after he had left his
apartment
on Eleventh
Street and taken one in
Brooklyn. My
wife and I were invited to
a duck dinner he had
promised
to
supervise
in the
cooking.
He had
sent me a note
giving
the street number and the number of his tele-
160
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
phone,
with directions on how to reach his
place.
We found the
street,
but there was no such number on it. I rushed to a
drugstore
telephone
and told him of our trouble.
"Then
you're just
a block
away,"
he said.
We renewed the
search,
but it was no use and
again
I had re-
course to the
telephone.
It turned out that
absent-mindedly
he had
given
the
telephone
number as the street number of the house as
well. I had his blunder in his own
handwriting,
but I found him
thoroughly annoyed
and
resentful,
though
he did
greet
us with
rather sour
laughter.
It was a fantastic Dreiser that loomed in the
doorway.
He wore
a blue smock such as a
painter
uses,
to
protect
his
clothing against
grease
and
gravy,
since he had
personally
seen to the
cooking
of
the duck. Never had I seen him in a
happier,
more
boyish
mood.
The
apartment
was
simple
but
comfortable,
with a
piano, many
books,
easy
chairs. After the cocktails he
brought
in the
duck,
wheeling
it in on a
serving
table. The
cooking
of that duck had
been a rite. He
explained very earnestly
that it was of
prime
im-
portance
that duck should be cooked
just right.
Never in a restau-
rant had he had duck cooked
properly.
This one had to be. Helen
Richardson had been
impressed
with the
importance
of the
rite,
and
though
she had been afraid to leave the kitchen in the after-
noon,
all she was
permitted
to do was to stand and wait while he
pottered
about the stove.
At
length
the
serving
table was wheeled
up
to the
very
small
table where we
ate,
and the
big burly
man in the blue smock
presided
and served the duck with the
glowing pride
of an artist
contemplating
his
masterpiece.
We discussed Booth
Tarkington
over the
rapidly disappearing
duck,
and
Dreiser,
the
realist,
gave
his version of the mission of the
novelist as an
interpreter
of his time. He was
disappointed
in Tar-
kington
as an
interpreter
of life. "He does not know
reality,
does
not know
life, work,
the
average
human
being,
or
sex,"
he said.
"The best and most ambitious
thing
he has done is The
Turmoil,
and I
thought
he was
going
to do
something
with it. The
subject
was
biga
modern
captain
of
industry
and his reaction to
society,
and
society's
reaction to him. But he had this industrialist a
dreamer,
getting things
in a mess until a
poet
with no business
training
stepped
in,
waved a
magic
wand and
brought
order out of chaos.
161
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
It's not real life. If he had dealt
only
with the raw
realities,
what
a marvel he would be with his
exquisite style."
When An American
Tragedy
was
published
no one was more
astonished than the author
by
its enthusiastic
reception.
Sherman
of the New York Herald
Tribune,
who had been such an un-
compromising purist
earlier that he had
severely
condemned Sister
Carrie,
was almost fulsome now in his
praise.
That
surprised
Dreiser most of all. "I
wonder,"
he said
thoughtfully,
"if the book
is
any good."
With all his erstwhile enemies
praising
his latest
work,
Henry
Mencken,
who had been his valiant
champion against
the field of hostile
critics,
was
tardy
in
coining
forward. I reminded
Dreiser that Mencken had made his
reputation by being against
the field and
perhaps
his inclination had not
changed.
He
laughed
but the adverse criticism came.
Abnormally
sensitive to
criticism,
Dreiser had left New York
just
before the
publication
date to
escape
the
reviews,
and on his
return from Florida he invited
Sybil
and me to dinner. He and
Helen were
living
in a hotel at the corner of
Broadway
and Sixtieth
Street,
and we went out to a little Italian restaurant
nearby
for
dinner. The novel had been a sensational success and it was an-
nounced that the movies had
bought
the screen
rights
for an ex-
travagant
amount. All his life Dreiser had been true to his ideas
and
ideals,
seeing
his best novels
suppressed
or
belittled,
reaping
scant
monetary
rewards from
any
of
them;
and
now,
at
length,
he
was
acclaimed,
and the
money
was
rolling
in. With the shame-
faced
expression
of a man
confessing
to
having
taken
advantage
of
a blind man in a horse
trade,
Dreiser
said,
as
though
unable to
believe it
himself,
"What do
you
think?
They gave
me
ninety-
eight
thousand cash!"
I had heard that he had had some
difficulty
with
Liveright,
his
publisher,
at a dinner at a hotel to discuss business
arrangements
with
Lasky,
the
producer.
That
evening
Dreiser described the ac-
tual event. There had been a
dispute
about some
phase
of the ar-
rangements
and
Liveright
had called Dreiser a liar. The novelist rose
to his full six feet one inch and invited
Liveright
to stand
up.
Tak-
ing
discretion to be the better
part
of
valor,
the
publisher
did not
budge
from his chair.
Thereupon
Dreiser took
up
a
cup
of
coifee,
dashed it into
Liveright's
face and stalked unmolested from the
162
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
room.
Chuckling
over the
incident,
he added that
Liveright
had
been
writing
him "love letters ever since."
I saw Dreiser after his return from
Europe,
when he was bub-
bling
with enthusiasm for the Scandinavian countries and over
"the wholesome
beauty
of their women and their indifference
to
the
capitalization
of their charm." Vienna had
impressed
and de-
pressed
him as a dead
city, poverty-stricken
and
pitiful,
but he was
enthusiastic about Czechoslovakia. President
Masaryk,
who had
recently
written a book about America and devoted an entire
chapter
to
Dreiser,
invited him to the
palace
as his
guest
and the
novelist
finally
found a
politician
he could admire. The
picturesque
old statesman had told him of his
plans
for the
development
of
the
country
and had insisted on its
capacity
to sustain
forty
million
people.
"But
why change?"
Dreiser had
asked,
thus
illuminating
his own taste. The old man had smiled
knowingly,
"Because we
must
progress,"
he
replied, laughing.
In
England
Dreiser had been
surprised by
the mania for
things
American.
"Dramas from America that we consider third-class
here are
playing
to crowded
houses,"
he said.
The next time I saw Dreiser he had entered
upon
a new
but,
happily, temporary phase.
It was a
long cry
from the old-fashioned
rooms on Eleventh Street with the
neighbor's washing flapping
on the line outside his windows to the
imposing
studio
apartment
at 200 West
Fifty-seventh
Street. There was one
very large
room,
the
ceiling
two stories
high,
with a
balcony
on the second floor
off which the bedrooms
opened.
Off the
large drawing
room was
a
tiny dining
room,
which was seldom
used,
and off that a kitchen.
In the
drawing
room a fire was
blazing,
and a
long
sofa was drawn
up
in front of it. Afew
paintings
were on the
wall,
one a
large
canvas
of a woman in the nude. ARussian wolfhound
lay
on a
rug
in front
of the fire. It was a corner
apartment,
and
high stained-glass
win-
dows looked out on two streets. A
piano
stood in one
corner,
an
ornate
writing
desk in another. Dreiser was
dripping
with
pros-
perity.
This
apartment
was
vastly
different from his former
habitations,
and it seemed to me less the
atmosphere
and environment for
Dreiser and his work. I knew he had
grimly struggled against
ad-
versity, producing
some
great
novels,
and I wondered if the luxuri-
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
ous
surroundings
would not dull his
pencil.
I was rude
enough
to ask him
point-blank,
but he
misinterpreted
what was in
my
mind.
"No,"
he
said,
frowning.
"I see no one
during
the
day,
and it's
quiet up
here" for his
apartment
was
high up.
It seemed to me that for a moment Dreiser had made himself
a
subject
for a Dreiser novel the
poor boy
whose life had been
one of intense labor in
very simple surroundings,
darkened
by
abuse and
injustice,
who had had his dreams of more luxurious
living
and who now was in a
position
to realize his dreams. What
would
prosperity
do to the writer? I wondered.
He had written me a note
saying
that he was
having "Thursday
Evenings"
and that since "all the seven arts" would be
represented
he
expected
there would be
"good
talk." Years
before,
he
added,
he had had a small salon on Tenth Street until too
many
came and
they
became
argumentative
and
quarrelsome,
and since it
gave
him
headaches he had
given
it
up.
That first
"Evening,"
Dr. Abraham
Brill,
who had introduced
Freud to
America,
was there when we arrived. Soon the other
guests poured
in,
and cocktails were served
generously.
A
large
man with rather scant
sandy
hair and a blond mustache
appeared,
and Dreiser introduced me to Ford Maddox
Ford,
the
English
novelist,
who was in New York as a
visiting
critic on the Herald
Tribune. He lived in Paris. He
explained
that he had been
gassed
in the war and could not live in London because of the
climate,
though
I believe there were other reasons as well. Dreiser
thought
his salon the most
interesting
in Paris. He seemed that
night
a
gross
monument of indolence too indolent even to enunciate
clearly,
and it was difficult to understand him.
Learning
that I was on the
World,
he
complained
that we had
misquoted
him and had refused
to make a correction. His real
grievance
was that we had said that
he had "a little
wisp
of hair."
"Now look at
me,"
he said. "Does
my
hair seem as thin as all
that?" I
really thought
it did. He did not talk
shop,
but drifted
lazily along
with
quaint
small talk. We left that
night
as Ford was
leaving
with a
beautiful,
rather
voluptuous
woman we assumed
to be his wife. In the taxi the
lady
became
eloquent
on
children,
and
Sybil
asked about hers. Rather
mournfully,
she
replied
that she
had none of her
own,
but that she did much work
among
the
poor
164
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
children.
Ford looked amused. The
explanation
of his amusement
came the next
day
when I was
telling
a
young
woman
on the
World about Ford and his wife. "I understand that he does not
marry
them,"
she said.
That first
night
Dreiser,
in his blue
smock,
seemed
boyishly,
radiantly happy,
but
disappointment
was
just
around the corner.
That
night
a
comely
and neat colored maid
passed
the
cocktails;
the second of the
Evenings
found a butler in
charge.
Dreiser
again
appeared
in his
smock,
which could have stood a
washing.
The
company
was
larger.
The butler
constantly passed
around with
cocktails and
whiskey,
and few
passed
the
cup by,
since this
was
in the
days
of Prohibition. Dreiser took me over to a
large meaty-
faced
man,
with not much in his
appearance
to
suggest
the leader
of a
religious
flock,
and introduced Dr.
Percy
Grant,
the
Episco-
palian
minister at St. MarkVin-the-Bouwerie,
who had been
shocking
the
hierarchy by staging
dances in the church. But he
was
interesting,
and he won me
by
his
praise
of
Bryan.
But the most
interesting person
there was Elinor
Wylie,
the
poetess
and
novelist,
who had
just published
her novel on
Shelley.
Hers had been a colorful career. After her matrimonial
complica-
tions she had
begun
to write
poetry
and
fiction,
and she wrote
exquisitely.
She was then married to William Rose
Benet,
also a
poet.
I had met her first at the home of William E. Woodward,
whose
provocative
biography
of
Washington
had
just
been
pub-
lished. She
appeared
a little late that
night.
Beautiful,
very girlish,
a little wild in her
exuberance,
she stood in the middle of the room
displaying
a new
gown
with the
delight
of a
child,
fairly glowing
in
response
to the
compliments
her dress and manner invited. A
woman of
great
talent,
if not of
genius,
a
literary
craftsman of fi-
nesse,
she
always
seemed to me a
peacock spreading
its tail to invite
admiration.
It was not
possible
to doubt her
vanity,
but her friends
loved
her none the less for this
weakness,
while
freely
commenting
upon
it. That
night
at Dreiser's
when she
approached
him with
an offer to read at the next
party
some of the
poems
of her
"boy
friend,"
meaning
her
husband,
an ill-natured
woman exclaimed,
"See,
she's determined
to be the center next time."
Meanwhile
I listened for the
sparkling
conversation
promised
by
Dreiser
and heard none. The next time two male servants
passed
the
cocktails,
and Dreiser abandoned
his smock for a dinner coat.
165
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
The
personnel
of the
party
had also
changed.
The
two
Van
Dorens,
Carl the critic and Mark the
poet,
were
there,
and
Joseph
Wood
Kratch,
the brilliant drama critic of the
Nation,
Ernest
Boyd
the Irish
critic,
Liveright,
and
many
lesser
lights
who
ap-
peared
with
pretty young girls,
drawn more
by
the free
liquor,
I
suspect,
than
by
the
promised
"talk." Some sat in circles on the
floor,
flirting, exchanging
witticisms,
and it was worth a
journey
to see Ernest
Boyd's
whiskers bob when he
laughed.
Dreiser viewed the scene with
darkening
brows. "I'm afraid
these
parties
are
going
to
get
wild,"
he said
plaintively.
He walked
about
trying
to
engage
some of the
guests
in
"talk,"
but
they
would
have none of it.
But the next week there was an
improvement.
I had received a
note from Dreiser: "Wassermann the German
novelist,
Max Rein-
hardt the Berlin
producer,
Frank Walsh the
lawyer
and Otto Kahn
are all due here
Thursday night. Thought you might
want to
know." The
guests
that
night
were
notably
different. There was
no
flirting
on the
floor,
and the
company
was more
impressive
and
better dressed. It was the
night
of the initial
performance
of the
opera
The
King's Henchman,
by
Deems
Taylor
and Edna St.
Vincent
Millay,
and
quite
a number came in afterward in
evening
dress. I was taken over to a short stout man with a
glistening
face
and introduced to Max Reinhardt. His
appearance
was
disappoint-
ing,
since he looked more like a stockbroker than the
great
artist
that he was. Otto
Kahn,
fresh from the
Metropolitan,
handsome,
distinguished
in
bearing, ingratiating
in
manner,
mingled
with the
company.
In the
dining
room sat a man who reminded me of a
gypsy
slender,
not
tall,
with narrow shoulders and the
suggestion
of a slouch. I had seen
many
like him
conducting gypsy
orchestras.
His face was
dark,
his black
eyes
darted here and there. He was
surrounded
by
a
group
of
admiring
women. This was
Jakob
Was-
sermann,
author of The World's Illusion. He
mingled
but little
with the
guests.
This was the most
distinguished company
that was to attend
these
"Thursday Evenings."
It was after this that Dreiser went to Russia. On his return he
seemed in the best of health and
spirits,
and he
appeared pleased
with his Russian
journey.
From Helen
Richardson, however,
I
166
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
heard a different
story. Accompanied by
a Soviet
guide
in his me~
anderings,
and
suspecting
that he was
being managed,
Dreiser
barked too
many questions,
and the
guide
wondered if he were
entertaining
a
capitalist spy
unaware. His
departure
was accord-
ingly delayed. Helen,
hearing nothing
from
him,
went to
Istanbul,
expecting
a
message
there.
Nothing.
Unable to
speak
the
language,
ignorant
of the customs of the
country,
she was distressed until she
found a Turkish taxi driver who had lived in New
York,
and she
clung
to him as to the rock of salvation. At
length
she heard that
Dreiser was
having
trouble
getting
his exit
permit.
He
finally
emerged, greatly depressed
and
nervous,
and Helen hurried him
to Paris to revive his
spirits.
But from Dreiser I heard
nothing
to
indicate that his Russian
sojourn
had not been a veritable
delight.
His sole
complaint
was that the Russians had a rule
forbidding
an
unhappy ending
of books or
plays.
The
"Thursday Evenings"
were renewed after his
return,
and
they
reached their climax on an
evening
crowded with entertain-
ment. An attractive
young Hungarian
woman,
who had scored
a
triumph
on the Berlin
stage
the winter
before,
sang.
She had a
beautiful
voice,
her manner was
charming,
and she
sang songs
then
in fashion with a verve that
brought
resounding applause
and
many
encores. But her
triumph
almost
deprived
us of the
privilege
of
hearing
Nina
Koshetz,
formerly
a famous
soprano
in St.
Petersburg
in the time of the Czar. This artist was
huge
in
girth,
but with a
pretty
face. She had been
warmly
acclaimed
by
the critics after
her recital in
Carnegie
Hall. But she was ruffled
by
the
triumph
of the other
singer,
and when asked to
sing
she
complained
that
she could not do so until all
smoking
had been
stopped
for half
an hour. The smokers
extinguished
their
cigarettes.
But at the end
of the stated
period
the buxom artist still was
petulant
and refused.
Dreiser
coaxed;
she was adamant. He then tried to
put
his arm
around
her,
but there was not arm
enough.
However,
the
coaxing
finally
succeeded. She
sang marvelously
well,
with a dash and
spirit
that were
truly moving.
After she had finished I
congratulated
Dreiser,
who seemed
boy-
ishly happy,
on the brilliance of his entertainment.
Looking mys-
terious,
he
said,
"The best is
yet
to come."
Finally
a dozen
Congo
Negroes,
all but naked in costumes
representing
various animals
and
birds,
filed into the room with their tom-toms and
swept
into
167
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
a
Congo
dance. It was a warm
evening,
the room was
close,
the
air was
anything
but
pleasant.
Dreiser watched the
performance
with
sparkling eyes.
To him this was the best. Here was
something
primitive.
Another side of Dreiser was revealed.
One
day
in March
1930
I found Dreiser alone in his
huge living
room
working
at an enormous
writing
desk made out of an old
piano.
He wore neither coat nor vest. For the first time I noticed
a
large portrait
of him
by Wayman
Adams,
another Hoosier. That
day
he was on a
rampage
because,
with the
money already
sub-
scribed,
the
people
of Terre Haute had done
nothing
about the
memorial for his brother Paul "What
they ought
to
do,"
he
said,
"is
buy
the old
house,
which can be had for a
song.
I
promised
to
give
them Paul's
organ
and some other
things
of his that could
make an
interesting
museum,
but
they
have
big plans
and
nothing
is done." Afew
years
later the old home was
bought
and a beautiful
boulevard
bearing
Paul Dreiser's name was built
along
the banks of
the Wabash.
That
day
he told me an
interesting story
about Will Bobbs of
the Bobbs-Merrill
Company
of
Indianapolis.
Dreiser had been hav-
ing
a hard time some
years
before,
and Bobbs had tried to
persuade
him to return to
Indiana,
offering
him ten thousand a
year
whether
he
gave
his books to the Bobbs firm or not. "I didn't want to leave
New York if I could
help
it,"
he
said,
"but I was
glad
of the offer.
It
gave
me some
encouragement
to find that someone
thought
I
was worth that much
money."
Meanwhile,
in October
1929,
the stock market had crashed. Bil-
lions in
paper
fortunes were
wiped
out. Stocks
fell,
and with them
dividends. Dreiser had invested his small fortune on the advice of
Otto
Kahn,
and there were
whisperings
that it was
gone. Actually,
though
his income from dividends had been
drastically
cut,
his
stocks were
good.
However,
through
either
necessity
or
choice,
he soon abandoned the
elegant
studio
apartment,
and the
parties
were over. And then I had an
unpleasant
slant on human nature.
Not a few of those
hanging
on to the outer
fringe
of "literature"
who had fawned
upon
Dreiser and
enjoyed
his
hospitality
seemed
sadistically delighted
with the rumors that he had been ruined in
1 68
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
the crash. Those who had once sneered at his
style
resumed their
sneering.
Happily, just
before the crash a
speculator
on the
market,
in
immediate need of
money
to cover his
losses,
sold Dreiser
forty
acres of hill and dale in Westchester
County,
near Mt.
Kisco,
and
one
June
day
we were invited out. "I am in and out like a
shuttle,"
he wrote. "Took a
place
near Katonah
(also
Mt.
Kisco)
and am
doing
over an old cabin. Wish
sincerely
some
Saturday
or
Sunday
you
and
yours
would motor over. There is verandah
enough
to
accommodate a small convention. I will
give you
a drink."
Near the center of the
grounds
was a
single
house,
a
cottage
with
a terrace formed
by
a
huge
rock,
on which we found Helen
sleep-
ing
in the sun. After a
while, Dreiser,
who had been out
walking,
appeared
with Max
Eastman,
both in blue
shirts,
which went well
with their white hair and
ruddy complexions.
Dreiser wore
hiking
boots,
and the man of the studio had become a
country gentleman.
Bubbling
with
enthusiasm,
he took us to where he had formed a
swimming pool
in low
ground
that was fed
by springs;
and to a
hill,
shoulder
deep
in
grass,
which commanded a
splendid
view of the
country
about;
and to a little thatched
cottage
near the
house,
built
by
the contractor who had undertaken to
reproduce
the
cottages
of
Washington's army
at
Valley Forge.
It had one
room,
with a
bed for an overflow
guest,
and a table on which Dreiser wrote.
There we sat and talked
politics,
of which Dreiser still knew ex-
ceedingly
little. He was bitter
against
Al
Smith,
and he
gloated
over
the denunciation of
mykeynote speech
at Houston
by
the
"capitalist
press."
That
day
he insisted that we were headed toward an un-
disguised plutocracy
which would
pave
the
way
to a totalitarian
state. He was
working industriously
at the time on The Stoic
,
the
third of a
trilogy,
the other two
being
The Titan and The Finan-
cier.
It was a
long
time before I saw Dreiser
again.
He had
gone
to
the
mining region
of
Kentucky
to
investigate personally
and write
about the treatment of the
miners,
and his
presence
had been bit-
terly
resented
by
the
operators
and the
newspapers they
controlled.
He took with him a
young
woman
secretary,
and the local Sher-
locks conceived the
happy thought
of
setting
a
trap
for him. Soon
169
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
the
charge rang
over the
country
that the
young
woman had
entered Dreiser's room one
evening
and remained all
night.
This
was demonstrated to the satisfaction of the
sleuths,
because
they
had set a match
against
the door and
by morning
it had not been
knocked over. The foes of the miners were beside themselves with
simulated
indignation
over an
immorality
no Kentuckian could
understand. The rest of the
country laughed.
Instead of
treating
the
story
with silent
contempt,
Dreiser,
overwrought,
startled
everyone
with the
public
announcement that the
charge
was fan-
tastic because he was
"impotent."
It was
immediately
after his return to New York that I saw
him,
in his room at the Ansonia Hotel. Soon after
leaving Kentucky
he had been indicted for
adultery.
The sole
purpose
was to
keep
him out of the coal fields and his
pen
out of the service of the
miners. The
press,
which had found no
space
for the
outrages
committed
against
the
poor
devils in the
mines,
reeked with the
shocking charge
that Dreiser had committed an offense that no
Kentuckian could tolerate. The
telephone
was
ringing constantly,
and he answered with barks. Not once did he sit
down,
and he
paced
the room like a
caged
lion,
bitterly describing
the treatment
of the
miners,
and
indulging
in
profanity
that amazed
me,
since
ordinarily
he never swore. On the table was a
pitcher
of
wine,
and
time and
again
he
stopped
to fill a
glass
and drain it with a swallow.
Pausing
in his restless
pacing,
he
gave
a
contemptuous description
of the activities of the local sleuths.
"I told them I was
impotent,"
he
said,
twisting
his handkerchief.
"They
can't
prove
I'm not."
To
get
his mind off his
obsession,
I called attention to a
picture
of an old man and
woman,
his
parents,
on the
mantel,
with the
observation that he resembled his mother rather than his father.
"My
God,
I
hope
so!" he shouted.
In the summer of
1932
I
accompanied
a
hopeful
author to Mt.
Kisco.
Having forgotten
the
way,
I asked directions to Dreiser's
house.
Finally
a
storekeeper
told me that it was on the Bedford
Road,
but that it would be well to
inquire
for Dreiser's next-door
neighbor
"since more know his
place
than Dreiser's." I
recognized
Dreiser's
place,
however,
when we came to a blue fence with red
trimmings.
The old farm
cottage
had been burned the
year
before,
170
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
and Dreiser was
occupying
the house he had
designed
and had
built. It was a Swiss house with
decidedly
futuristic
decoration,
the interior
lurid,
with
many
colors. The Russian wolfhound came
lazily
to the car to
greet
us. We found Dreiser in the
large
base-
ment room he had converted into a
study.
A
huge
table,
a few
chairs with enormous
high
backs,
a sofa covered with red
plush,
a
bust of a novelist friend of
his,
a
photograph
of himself when he
emerged
from Russia such were the
furnishings.
Dreiser was
seated at the head of the
table,
his white shirt unbuttoned at the
neck,
shoes without
socks,
gray
trousers. He seemed in
perfect
health,
though
his bitterness had
merely
moderated. On the table
before him were
many typewritten
sheets he was
correcting.
This
was The Stoic.
A little
later,
when Frank Oliver and I were
driving
in West-
chester,
we found ourselves at Mt.
Kisco,
and since Oliver had not
met Dreiser I
suggested
a
call,
not without a
warning
that we
might expect
a
gruff reception.
The rain was
coming
down in
torrents.
Again
Dreiser was in his
study,
with Helen and two
friends from France. As I
expected,
our first
reception
was
scarcely
cordial. "Sit
down,
sit
down,
sit
down,"
he barked. But Oliver's
incomparable gift
as a mimic and
story
teller soon won him over.
Never from Dreiser had I heard such boisterous
laughter,
as he
stood
rubbing
his hands
together
and
asking
for more.
When Oliver
began
a
story
on a
Communist,
I wondered what
his reaction would be. He
perked up
to listen.
It was the
story
of a
soapbox
orator in Union
Square
who was
telling
how "ven th' Revolution come"
everyone
would eat "straw-
berries mit
powdered sugar
and
cream,"
when an auditor inter-
rupted:
"But,
mister" "Vat for
you interrupt?"
"But,
please,
I
don't like strawberries with
powdered sugar
and cream." "Aha!"
roared the orator.
"Veil,
ven th' Revolution
come,
you
vill HAVE
to eat strawberries mit
powdered sugar
and cream."
Dreiser roared with
laughter.
We
spent
a memorable
afternoon,
looking
out on the rain-
drenched
fields,
listening
to the
crackling
of the
logs
in the wide
cheery fireplace,
and with the
wolfhound,
superlatively dignified,
adding
an ornamental touch. I had never seen Dreiser in such a
delightful
humor. I knew he was
pleased
when he asked Oliver
why
he wasted time in
Congress
when he could make a fortune
171
MEMORIES OF THEODORE DREISER
on the
stage.
He insisted on
accompanying
us
through
the rain to
the car.
For
years
the
mystery
of The Stoic remained. When I saw him
working
on the
manuscript
at Mt. Kisco I was told it was the last
draft. In the
early spring
of
1933,
at a dinner at Alma
Clayburgh's,
he said he was
withholding
it from
publication
until the book trade
improved,
since it would be a
large
and
expensive
book. Years
passed.
The book trade
revived,
but the book did not
appear.
In-
quiries by
letter failed to elicit a
reply
about the lost book. And I
was not to see Dreiser
again,
for that
spring
I
began my twenty
years
as an
ambassador,
first to
Spain
and then to Chile.
When
years
went
by, twenty years,
without the
publication
of
The Stoic and with
nothing appearing
from his
pen,
I wondered
if I had been
justified
in
my
fear that his financial success would
chill his creative
power.
He was now
living
in
California,
and
years
before he had told me that it was
impossible
for him to write there
because it was "too beautiful." Meanwhile the American
Academy
of Arts and Letters had
given
him the Gold Medal for
Literature,
and
literary
reviews were
placing
definitive estimates on his work
and his
place
in American literature. He had come into his own
after he was
seventy.
His death
brought
the announcement that he
had left two novels
ready
for
publication.
The Stoic had dwindled
to a small
book,
with the
ending
left to the
imagination
of the
reader;
it had turned into
something vastly
different from what he
had at first intended. The other novel
published
after his
death,
The
Bulwark,
more than most of his other books reveals the
man,
his
tenderness,
his
sympathy
with the weaknesses of human
nature,
his
deep
undercurrent of
religious feeling.
It is a
psychological
study
of Dreiser.
I have
attempted
this
portrait
because to me he is one of the
most heroic and
significant figures
in our
literary history.
172
CHAPTER XII
Behind the Scenes in
1918
AFTER THE ELECTION in
1926
there could be no doubt of the nomi-
nation of Governor Smith for the
Presidency
in
1918.
His tri-
umphant
re-election as
governor
in
1924,
when New York State
went
overwhelmingly
for the
Republican
national
ticket,
and his
re-election in
1926
for the third time
sufficiently
attested his
phe-
nomenal
popularity.
His
picturesque personality
made him the
subject
of constant
gossip
from coast to coast. His
rough
and
ready
manner of
dealing
with
opposition
was
suggestive
of another
Andrew
Jackson.
His record in the
gubernatorial
office had never
been
equaled
in New York. In social
legislation
of a humanitarian
nature he had been both a crusader and a creator. His
sympathies
had
always
been with the
underprivileged.
No
living
New Yorker
had his
comprehensive grasp
of the
problems
of the common-
wealth;
in the state constitutional convention some time before he
had been called "the most useful member"
by
Elihu Root. It was
utterly
absurd to brush aside the
legitimate
claims to the nomina-
tion of a man four times a successful
governor
in the
important
Empire
State. No one but knew that had he been a Protestant the
idea of
challenging
his claim to the nomination would have been
thought
ridiculous.
I had an intense
curiosity
about this remarkable man before
going
to New
York,
and when I noticed that he was to
speak
at
a
political rally
in
Brooklyn
in the
municipal
election of
1925
I
found
my way
to the
meeting.
He was
received,
as
usual,
with an
ovation,
but
during
the first five minutes of his
speech
I was
shocked
by
his
rough,
harsh voice. There
assuredly
was
nothing
in it to
suggest polish,
but in a few minutes the charm of his
per-
sonality,
the warmth of his
smile,
put
the voice out of mind.
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
Unhappily,
his
personality,
his charm and
smile,
could
not be
transmitted over the
radio,
and I am sure that his radio
speeches
in the
campaign
of
1928
did him some
harm,
since the radio ac-
centuated the
roughness
of his voice. "Listen to that
voice,"
one
Prohibitionist would
say
to another.
"Clearly
a
whiskey
voice."
And
actually
it was
nothing
of the sort.
The
story
of his
political
rise from the sidewalks of New
York
is
typically
American. Elected to the
Legislature,
he and
James
A.
Hoey,
also a new
member,
alighted
from the train in
Albany
and,
carrying
their
satchels,
went in search of
simple lodgings.
Sitting
silent in the
Legislature,
Smith observed that bill after bill was
called
up
and hurried to a vote without
analysis, explanation
or dis-
cussion. It was offensive to his nature to vote
blindly
on
anything,
and he
found,
to his
disgust,
that his
colleagues
voted
blindly
on
most measures. He
arranged
that all bills introduced be sent to
him,
and
they
were taken to his
lodgings
for a minute
scrutiny.
Soon
thereafter the
green young legislator
from the
neighborhood
of
the
Bowery
astonished his
colleagues by
his intimate
familiarity
with almost
everything.
This was
embarrassing,
since time and
again
he rose to
point
out the
trickery,
the
absurdity
or the vicious-
ness of the
phrasing
and intent. Thus he attracted notice and com-
manded
respect.
About this time a
group
of women of the
highest
social circles
in New York
City,
who were interested in social
service,
were
trying
to
get
certain measures
through
the
Legislature. They
found
it
impossible
to enlist the interest of members of their own strata
of
society
in the
Legislature,
who brushed them off with
promises
not
very seriously given
and
quickly forgotten. They appealed
to
the
rough
but serious-minded
young
man from the
region
of the
Fulton Fish Market and were amazed
by
his instant
grasp
of the
significance
of their measures and
delighted by
his enthusiastic
sympathy
with them. Thus he soon became the one man in
Albany
to whom
they
turned,
and never afterward were
they
to lose faith
in him. I am sure that this was the
beginning
of Smith's ascent to
fame and
popularity.
He was a
realist,
very practical,
and he was honest. From the
beginning
he mastered his
subject.
He formed his
opinions
on the
hard,
cold facts. In
many speeches
I heard him
make,
one sentence
stood out
vividly,
for it was never absent.
Setting
forth the
position
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
of the
opposition fairly,
he would torn to the
papers
on the table
before
him,
seeking
die
right
one,
and
say
in his
rough
tones,
"Well,
let's look at the record." And he never falsified or doctored
that record.
Throughout
his
gubernatorial
terms he had to deal with hostile
Legislatures,
and there were constant battles. It was his method to
summon the
opposition
leaders to his
office,
remove his
coat,
lock
the
door,
put
the
key
in his
pocket
and,
giving
them a
profane
tongue-lashing
such as
they
would have taken from no one
else,
announce that the business of the state took
precedence
over
every-
thing
else and that
they
would not leave the room until an
agree-
ment had been reached. Thus in numerous notable instances he
literally
lashed his
opponents
into
acquiescence.
Even
so,
in
1928
many
Democrats without a
drop
of
bigotry
in
their blood feared that it would be unwise to nominate him for the
Presidency,
because he was a Catholic, Most of these were not
unmindful of the fact that a surrender to this fear would be inter-
preted
as an
acceptance
of the narrow
prejudices
of the
day,
but
they
felt that to
challenge
those
prejudices
would mean defeat in
the
election,
which the
party
could not afford.
Others, however,
felt that the
party
could not afford to
yield
to
prejudice.
After
all,
if the Democratic
Party
stood for
anything,
it should stand four-
square
for
religious
freedom and
toleration,
which had been one of
the
pillars
of the
temple
Jefferson
had raised. For more than a hun-
dred
years
his
party
had not shirked a clash with the enemies of tol-
eration,
and it dared not mar that record now. The issue was
squarely
before it. Better defeat in one
campaign
than the
marring
of the
record and the surrender of the
principles
of more than a
century.
The first conclusive evidence of
party
dissensions
appeared
in ar-
ranging
for the
Jackson
Day banquet
in
Washington.
For
years
this
banquet
had been the occasion of the
meeting
of the National
Committee and leaders from all over the
country.
The candidates
for the Presidential nomination had
always
been
invited,
had al-
ways
attended and
spoken.
In
1928
all the candidates were invited
as
usual,
but it was
arranged
that
something
in the
way
of a
keynote
speech
should be made
by
a
principal speaker
who was not
among
the contenders. It was in the choice of this
speaker
that a feud was
threatened. The
Republican press enjoyed
the situation and re-
ported
on the
progress
of the
quarrel,
until
finally
I read with
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
amazement and
disgust
that it
might
be
necessary
to abandon the
banquet entirely.
It was
easy
for a Democrat to be a
pessimist
in
those
days.
Then one
morning
I read in the New York Herald
Tribune,
under a
Washington
dateline,
that the leaders had been able to
agree
on
my designation
as the
principal speaker.
It seemed so im-
probable
that I
gave
it no
thought
until the
report
was verified
by
Clem
Shaver,
the national
chairman,
in a
telephone
conversation
with me. I was in the midst of work on
my
book The
Tragic
Era
and
impatient
with
interruptions.
That was made clear to Shaver
with the
suggestion
that,
until the convention had chosen a new
party
leader,
John
W. Davis was the official head of the
party
and
should be
designated regardless
of
possible
critics. Shaver
promised
to test the
suggestion.
The next
day
he
reported
back that the com-
mittee could make but one unanimous choice. There was no
escape.
The incident indicated too
plainly
the continuance of the dis-
sensions,
the
persistence
of the feud of
personalities,
the immolation
of
party
interests a second time within four
years.
Never had there
been a more
impressive
need for
party solidarity. Corruption,
flagrant
and now a
part
of
history,
reflected the condition of the
public
service. The
exploitation
of the
great
mass of the
people by
a
privileged
few with the
knowledge
and even the
co-operation
of
the
government
had never been more
open.
It seemed
appalling
that
confronted
by
these conditions the
opposition party
should be
dividing
into hostile
groups
readier to
fight
one another than to
make common cause
against
the common foe. What kind of
speech
could one make from the heart under the circumstances?
Manifestly,
one kind
only
a
thoroughly
Jeifersonian, Jack-
sonian
speech
on the
fundamentals,
shaming
the
party
for
dividing
on the nonessentials. It would be rash to mention these dissensions
and thus add fuel to the flame.
Clearly
it would be bad taste to
criticize the leaders who were
clawing
at one another. But there
was a
way
it could be
done,
to
say
bitter
things
without offense
by putting
it all on
Jackson.
What did
Jackson
stand for? What
enemies did he encounter? What sort of
party discipline
did he en-
force? How did he win his victories? In
answering
these
questions
it would be
possible
to
say
the
things
that should be said. If
they
could not be said
bluntly, they
could be insinuated and the audi-
ence could take them or leave them.
176
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
A few
days
after the announcement of
my
selection I was asked
by
Franklin D. Roosevelt to call on him at his
Liberty
Street office
with the
Fidelity
and
Deposit Company
of
Maryland,
and,
since
he was the
principal
adviser of Smith in his
campaign
for the Presi-
dential
nomination,
I assumed it was to make
suggestions regarding
the
speech.
I found him seated at a
huge
desk. At that rime he
looked his
age,
but no more. His face was smooth but for some
lines,
not
deep,
across his brow. His
finely
chiseled face was
patri-
cian. His
gray-blue eyes
were
expressive.
His manner was charm-
ing, genial,
sometimes
boyish,
and he
laughed
a
great
deal. I had
seen him
before,
but
only casually.
He had written a
long
review
of
my
Jefferson
and Hamilton for the
Evening
World before I
knew him well. I was sure I had been invited that
day
to
get
better
acquainted.
His
secretary
had called me earlier to ask what I would
like for
lunch,
which was served in the office at Roosevelt's desk.
We lunched on
fish,
potatoes,
cheese and tea and talked
politics.
He
spoke intimately
about conditions
generally
and about
Smith's
campaign.
It was evident that the
Tammany politicians
distressed him at times because of their
inability
to
comprehend
conditions
nationally.
He told me of a recent conference where
the decision had been made to name
managers
for Smith's
campaign
in New
England,
New
York,
Pennsylvania
and New
Jersey.
Roosevelt had asked if
they
intended to
ignore
the rest of the
country.
The New York
politicians
doubted if
any managers
were
needed
elsewhere,
but under Roosevelt's insistence
they finally
agreed
to name one Western man "for window
dressing,"
as
they
put
it. Roosevelt was also
annoyed
because it was
apparent
that
they expected
to win in the cities and to
ignore
the
country
and
the small towns.
This,
thought
Roosevelt,
was because Smith had
won his victories in the
cities;
the
Tammany
men did not realize
that while the cities dominated New York
State,
they
did not then
dominate the nation.
Throwing
back his head and
laughing,
he told a
story
illustrat-
ing
the
typical ignorance
of the New York
City politicians
at that
time about the
country
west of the New
Jersey
coast resorts. In
the
preconvention fight
of
1924
some Kansas
delegates
called to
see
Smith,
who was out
attending
the
christening
of the
daughter
of an Irish friend. At
length
he
appeared, entering
like a
breeze,
in
177
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
a swallowtail
coat,
a silk hat at a rakish
angle,
and with the usual
cigar
in his mouth.
"Hello, hello,
my boy,
and how's
things?"
he
said,
addressing
Roosevelt. The latter introduced his callers as dele-
gates
from Kansas.
"Hello,
boys,"
said
Smith,
shaking
hands. "Glad
to see
you.
Y'know,
the other
day
some
boys
were in from Wis-
consin and I learned somethin'. I
always thought
Wisconsin was
on this side of the lake. It's on the other side. Glad to know it. Glad
to know more about the
place
where the
good
beer comes from."
And this to the
delegates
from a
strong
Prohibition state.
Roosevelt told other
amusing
stories about Smith that
day,
and
it was evident that he had a warm affection for him. He told a
story
on himself as well. When he was
just starting
out in
politics
in Dutchess
County
the local boss
gave
him some don'ts: "Don't be
seen
smoking cigarettes
in
public,"
"Don't wear white
clothes,"
"Don't wear
yellow
shoes." About this time he was asked to
speak
at a Columbus
Day
affair at PeekskilL He conferred with no one
about his
speech.
The diners at the
banquet
were all Italians and
very
devout Catholics. In the course of his talk he
thought
he
would strike a
popular
chord
by saying
that he had his associations
with
Italy
through
a close relative. "A
young
and adventurous
fellow,"
he described
him,
"with a flare for
liberty,
and
being
in
Italy
in
1848
he had
joined
the
glorious legion
of Garibaldi." He
had
forgotten
Garibaldi's battles with the Catholic
Church,
but
his hearers had not. He was
surprised by
the silence.
My assumption
that I had been summoned to discuss what I was
to
say
in
Washington
turned out to be
wrong.
Roosevelt did not
ask me what I
proposed
to
say,
and not even
by
indirection did he
make a
suggestion.
It was a
delightful
luncheon.
My speech,
then,
was
prepared
in a
spirit
of
indifference,
or at
least of
resignation,
as to its
reception. Naturally
mention should
be made of the immediate issues raised
during
the
preceding eight
years,
but the heart of the
speech
would be an
analysis
of
Jackson's
methods. In
defining
the kind of leader he had been it would be
possible
to hit
directly
at those who were
betraying
the
party
to
its enemies:
He was too wise to enter a conflict with
enemies,
spies
and traitors
in the rear.
178
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
He had no
patience
with the timid or the time
server,
and he or-
dered the Miss
Nancys
and the Sister Sues back with the scullions and
the cooks to make
way
for two-fisted
fighting
men
upon
the
firing
line.
His
strategy
of battle was to center on a
single
issue,
brush all ex-
traneous matters out of the line of
march, and,
the
strategy
determined,
close debate and concentrate on
victory.
Imagine,
if
you
can,
an
lago insinuating
himself into
Jackson's
camp
to
propose
the division of the
party
on evolution or the
theory
of rela-
tivity
and
living
to
report progress
to the
enemy
that sent him.
He never
fought
with
ping-pong
sticks he
gave
his men battle axes
and
artillery.
He never soft
pedaled
his
approach
to conflict he rode to battle wav-
ing
a warrior's sword and
shouting
commands,
and he rode at the head
of the column.
He never
inquired
whether a
policy
would be
good
for the
North,
South,
East or
West,
for he knew if it were
really good
it would be
good
for the masses of the
people everywhere.
He
fought
the common
enemy;
he
waged
no civil wars.
Under his
courageous leadership,
the
jingle
of the
golden
coin could
not intimidate the
army
that he
led,
and the
enemy
barricades could not
stop
it,
and the machinations of the
enemy
could not divide
it,
and thus
he moved to inevitable and immortal victories for
popular government
and the economic
rights
of man.
And how did he do it?
By giving
the
people
a fundamental issue that
had a
meaning
at
every
fireside in
every
home in the
country.
He
pointed
to the entrenchments of
monopoly
and he
said,
"We will take that."
He called attention to the
increasing arrogance
of class
rule,
and he
asked the masses to follow him to battle for the restoration of a
govern-
ment of
equal rights
for all and
special privileges
for none.
So much for the
spirit
of dissension on nonessentials.
But there was
something
more that was
revolting
to a
Jeffer-
sordan and
Jacksonian
in the talk of the times
among
certain Demo-
crats. These were the defeatists with but a
hazy conception
of the
fundamental differences in the
governmental concepts
of
political
parties,
and these could find no issue at all on which to
fight. They
also said there was no real difference between the two schools of
political thought.
And with these in view I said:
But someone asks what
Jefferson
and
Jackson
have to do with
present-
day problems
and
conditions;
and the answer is that there is
scarcely
a
179
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
domestic issue that
Jefferson
thought
for and
Jackson
fought
for and
Wilson
wrought
for that is not a vital
living
issue at this hour.
If the
party
that these men stood for stands
today
where these men
stood,
for
equal rights
for all and
special privileges
for nonethere is
an issue.
If it stands where these men
stood,
against monopoly
and
autocracy
in
government
and
industrythere
is an issue.
If it stands where these men
placed
it,
for the rule of the
majority
and the
greatest good
to the
greatest
number there is an issue.
If it
believes,
as these men
did,
that the debaucher of the ballot box
and the hucksters in
high places
who sell the nation's
birthright
to line
their
pockets belong
to the
penitentiary
and nowhere elsethere is an
issue.
And to
put
it all in one sentence: If it stands where these men
stood,
for
democracy
and
against
the
oligarchy
of a
privileged
classthere,
there is an issue that can mobilize the
people
and make them march with
waving
banners and the will to
victory
in their hearts.
To
my
astonishment,
the
speech
was more than an
ordinary
success. The
dining
room of the
Mayflower
Hotel was
packed
with
members of
Congress
and
party
leaders from all over the
country.
The
press correspondents
were all in readiness with
sharpened
pencils
for a
Kilkenny
cat
fight,
for there had been
everything
but
harmonious talk in the lobbies.
John
W.
Davis,
presiding,
made
one of his excellent
speeches,
and I followed. I had
expected my
speech
to be heard in a
reproving
silence.
Instead,
there were con-
stant
interruptions,
a series of demonstrationsone
especially,
around the table of Senator Walsh of
Montana,
to whom I had
paid
a brief
tribute,
and once all the diners were on their feet. At
the close there was an
ovation,
and
John
W. Davis said it was the
best
political speech
he had ever heard. To a
speaker prepared,
as I
was,
to be
coldly
heard,
this
reception
was
anming.
Carter Glass
wrote
(January
18,
1928)
that the
speech
was
"powerful
in
concep-
tion and
presentation
a classic
performance";
Meredith Nichol-
son,
the
novelist,
wrote that it was "no dead stuff all alive and with
some
bully
sentences
long
fellows that cracked like a
whip
when
the end came and
greatly
tickled
my stylistic
sense";
and Senator
(later Justice)
Hugo
Black wrote that it was "the
greatest exposi-
tion of
Democracy
since
Jefferson's
day"
because based on funda-
mentals.
180
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
Certain it is that some of the
speeches prepared
for the occasion
were
instantly put
aside. Senator Reed of Missouri made an en-
tirely
different
speech
from the one he had
prepared. My speech
had
accomplished
one
purpose
it made it at least
embarrassing
to
inject
a controversial note.
That
night
and
during
the next
day
I heard
frequent suggestions
that I be made the
keynote speaker
of the national convention five
months
later,
and the next
night
Senator
Hawes,
a
great
friend,
gave
a dinner for me at his house with Senators
Reed, Robinson,
Harrison, Swanson, Pittman,
Tydings,
Broussard and
George,
all
of whom
agreed
to the
plan*
Even so it seemed
impossible,
since the
honor
traditionally
fell to a Senator or a
governor,
and,
not much
concerned,
I returned to
my
less
disturbing
work on The
Tragic
Era.
Then, too,
I had heard
nothing
from
any
of the leaders in New
York,
and
up
until that time I had not met Governor Smith.
Nor,
aside from Senator
Wagner
and Franklin
Roosevelt,
was I
person-
ally
known in the circle of his advisers.
Soon thereafter I was asked to dinner
by
Elisabeth
Marbury,
the
national committeewoman for New York. When I was
speaking
at the
banquet
I had noticed her seated
directly
in front of the
speakers'
table,
and after I sat down she had nodded
approvingly
several times. I
supposed
the dinner
engagement
was connected
with the
banquet speech.
She was
living
in a
charming
old New York
house,
done over
by
her friend Elsie De
Wolfe,
in Sutton Place on the East River.
A short
flight
of
steps brought
me to the
cozy
little
library
where
she received her friends. The walls lined with
books,
the comfort-
able
fireplace
where live coals
glowed,
the
huge easy
chair in which
she
sat,
her cordial
greetings
from the
chair,
for she was too
heavy
to rise with easeall are familiar to the
many
who have crossed her
threshold.
She did not
rise,
but leaned forward with extended hand. "You
must be a
courageous
man,"
she
said,
"to call alone on a woman
whom
you
do not know and who is neither
young
nor beautiful."
We talked for an hour about
people, politics
and
books,
and then
went to the
Embassy
Club for dinner. There she broached the
key-
note
speech, saying
she was
urging
it on Smith. A few
days
later
she
telephoned
me that the Smith
people
had lined
up
for
my
selec-
tion*
181
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
Since she was a remarkable
woman,
a
picture
of her
may
not be
out of
place.
Elisabeth
Marbury
was one of the most clever and
fascinating
women of her time. Hers had been a
unique
career. Her father had
been a
lawyer,
and
socially
her
family
was of the best in the
days
of her
youth,
when the best was
meticulously
tabulated in
society.
In her
prime
she had been
remarkably
successful as an
international
agent
for
authors,
playwrights
and
artists,
with offices in New
York,
London and Paris. In one of the most crowded
autobiog-
raphies
of
achievement, My Crystal Ball,
she had told with rare
charm and humor of her innumerable adventures with men of
genius.
Sardou, Barrie,
Clyde
Fitch,
Oscar
Wilde,
the foremost
writers of
plays
and
novels,
were her intimate friends at the time
she was
introducing
to the American
stage
the best
offerings
of the
French and
English
theaters. She knew them as
friends,
and her
long
association with them had enriched her conversation with
anecdotes.
Possessing
as she did a mind masculine in its
apprecia-
tion of the
realities,
her attention had been drawn to
politics
when
Theodore
Roosevelt,
with whom she had
romped
as a child at
Oyster Bay,
was
breaking
with his
party
and with a fervor almost
touched with
religious
fanaticism was
launching
a new
party
that
would make the brave new world a better
place.
When
Teddy
grew
tired of
crusading
and returned to his old
party,
Elisabeth be-
came disillusioned as to reform and
reformers, and,
finding
the
Democratic
Party
closer in
principles
to the Bull Moose than the
Republican Party,
she became a Democrat and a member of Tam-
many
Hall. At the time I knew her she had one of the best minds
with the best
judgment among
the leaders of that venerable
organi-
zation. She was consulted and
respected by
the leaders. It was she
who insisted that the
Tammany delegation
to the Houston conven-
tion should not decorate its
special
train with
Tammany
banners,
and that the band should not
play "Tammany"
in Houston. She
understood
perfectly
the
popular conception
of that
organization
over the
country. Why
stir
prejudice?
She was indeed of
huge
dimensions;
her face was
overheavy
with
pink
flesh and her
eyes
were a bit
weary
from the
weight, though
darting
satirical
glances
all the while. I think she found amusement
and satisfaction in
satirizing
life and the
people
with whom she
dealt. Her
tongue
was
salty
with sarcasm and her conversation
182
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
sparkled
with
witticisms,
not
always kindly,
but
always
to the
point.
She had
strong
convictions and she
expressed
them
strongly.
Naturally
she made
enemies,
for
people
with
strong
convictions are
always
resented
by people
with bromidic minds.
She was a bit sensitive because of her size. On
my
first
call,
as we
were
leaving
for dinner at the
Embassy
Club,
it took her some
minutes to
go
down the short
flight
of
steps
with the aid of a crutch
cane. I had to follow
very slowly,
and she
may
have been embar-
rassed,
judging by
the aftermath.
Apropos
of
nothing previously
said,
and with this in mind no
doubt,
she said she had
suggested
to
Al Smith that she should
resign
as national commkteewoman and
make
way
for a
younger person.
She was then almost
seventy.
"What's the
idea,
sister?"
growled
Smith.
"I'm no
longer young, my legs
are
bad,
and I can't
get
around
easily,"
she
replied.
"Sister,
we don't want
you
for
your legs,
we want
you
for
your
head,"
he rumbled in his hoarse voice.
And so she continued
through
two more Presidential
campaigns
and until her death.
She admired Dreiser for his
work,
but found him more than ordi-
narily trying
at times.
Young
Phil
Kearney
had
just
dramatized
Dreiser's AnAmerican
Tragedy,
which had been a financial success.
He was
young,
handsome, erratic,
and
interesting enough.
It was
Marbury
who invited him to the task. "I sent for Phil
Kearney,
a
bright young
fellow,"
she
said,
"and
gave
him the two
volumes,
which
everyone
said could not be
dramatized,
and told him to read
it over and let me know if he saw a
play
in it. He came back in a
few
days
with a sketch.
'Now,'
I
said,
'you've
sold
yourself
to me.
You must now sell
yourself
to Dreiser and
Liveright.'
Dreiser was
fascinated with
him,
and the work was done."
Kearney
had
momentarily dropped
from
sight
and I asked her
what he was
doing. "Nothing,"
she said.
"Just
running
around. He
won't do
anything
more." Not
long
afterward he committed sui-
cide.
The house in Sutton Place
presented
a cross section of
political,
social,
literary
and artistic New York. It was as
nearly
like a Paris
salon of other
days
as could be found in the
city.
The
hostess,
seated in her
chair,
was at ease
conversationally,
whether the talk
turned on
books,
plays,
music or
politics.
One
day
the talk over
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
cocktails turned on the number of
seemingly intelligent
men in
high
financial circles who
occasionally
consulted oracles or for-
tunetellers.
Marbuiy
chuckled and her chair shook. It
reminded
her of the woman
pretending
to hold converse with the
dead,
who
had asked to see her "at once" because she had an
important
mes-
sage
from "a dear friend." She was
given
an
appointment.
"And who is this
person
who is distressed about
me,
and
why?"
Marbury
had asked.
"Let me
think,"
said the
woman,
tapping
her head. "It
begins
with R a.
person
of
political
distinction. Do
you
know who it
could be?"
"The
only person
of that
description
I knew was
Teddy
Roose-
velt,
whom I
played
with as a child and followed some time later
in
politics."
The
messenger
of the dead
concentrated,
and her face
bright-
ened.
"Yes,
it is Roosevelt."
"And
why
is he distressed about me?" demanded
Marbury.
"Because of
your present politics,"
said the
messenger.
"He
says
you
were with him and now
you
are with the Democrats. It hurts
him. He is much distressed."
"Well,
that's
funny,"
snorted Elisabeth.
"Teddy,
of all
people!
Ask him if he ever
changed
from one
party
to another.
Changed
his
principles
at the same
rime,
too."
The
messenger
was shocked. "We can't talk with him or
ques-
tion
him,"
she said with a shudder.
"Again
that's
funny,"
stormed the irreverent Elisabeth. "He
comes down here to tell me about
myself
and I have a
right
to ask
him a few
questions,"
The
messenger
became solemn. She raised her hand
impressively.
"He's
going
. . . he's
fading
. . . he's
fading away."
"Hold him!" shouted
Marbury,
thoroughly
incensed. "Hold
him! He can't
pull
a
one-sided debate on me. There are a lot of
things
I want to
say
to him."
But
Teddy
had faded
away.
That
day
some
politicians
were
present,
and we lunched in the
little
brick-floored
dining
room
downstairs,
the
small-paned
win-
dows of which looked out on a little
garden
with
irregular
stone
steps leading
down to the
river. She
impressed
me as the wisest
politician
in the
group.
184
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
It was in that
charming
room
later,
before the Houston con-
vention,
that I had
my
first
warning
that
my
idea of a
proper
keynote speech might
not conform with that of others
high
in the
councils
of the
party.
Norman
Mack,
the national
committeeman,
and former Ambassador
James
W. Gerard were with me alone
and,
while no direct
suggestions
were
made,
there was a
very
evident
intention to
enlighten
me as to
what,
if
anything,
should or should
not be said. After
they
were
through
I was a bit
puzzled.
Gerard
was sure that we should make it clear that as to the tariff we could
and should make it as
high
as the
Republicans.
Mack
thought
this
a little
strong,
but
suggested
that we
might
at least
soft-pedal
the
subject.
Neither could see
any point
in
referring
to the
desperate
plight
of the
farmers,
or to the treatment accorded labor at that
time.
My
idea that
something
should be said that would be
pleasing
to
progressive Republicans,
liberals and
independents
made no hit
at all.
They
feared it
might
drive from Smith some
great
industrial-
ists and
monopolists,
who I knew would not
support
a Democratic
nominee under
any
circumstances. I went
away
with the
uneasy
thought
that a militant
Jeffersonian speech
would
greatly displease
some
party
leaders. I
decided, however,
to
say precisely
what I
thought
should be said.
A few
days
later I
got
a more
agreeable impression
from
con-
versations in
Washington
with two leaders for whom I had a
pro-
found
admiration,
Senator Thomas
J.
Walsh of Montana and
Cordell Hull. The latter was
fundamentally
sound on
Jeffersonian
principles,
and no one in the
preceding
five
years
had even
ap-
proached
the service of the former to the
party
and to clean
gov-
ernment. He was the
symbol
of
protest
against
the
corruption
of
the time.
Through
him,
I wished to
verify
and
fortify
what I
planned
to
say
on the
subject.
He went about
answering questions
meticulously
and
methodically.
On
every question
he summoned
his
secretary
and had the evidence in the oil scandal
brought.
Then
he would read this
slowly
and caref
ully.
When,
after the conven-
tion,
it was intimated
that the delectable
creatures involved in the
corruption
had been lied
about,
I had the satisfaction of
knowing
that
every
single
charge
and reference had been checked from the
official records
by
Walsh
himself. Hull was in accord with the
general
tenor of the
speech
throughout.
185
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
192
8
Once
only
I discussed the
proposed speech
with the New
York
party
leaders,
whom I met at the Manhattan Club with
Franklin D.
Roosevelt:
Surrogate Foley, Judge Joseph
H.
Proskauer,
Senator
Wagner
and
Judge Olvany.
New York could not have
assembled
a finer lot of
men,
and no fault was found with the outline of the
speech.
"That suits me one hundred
per
cent,"
said
Proskauer.
When I outlined what I
proposed
to
say
about dollar
diplomacy
and
military
intervention in South and Central
America,
Roosevelt
smiled
wryly.
"But don't
forget Nicaragua,"
he said. This inter-
vention was under a Democratic Administration. I
replied
that it
was because I had not
forgotten
it that I
proposed
to
protest against
such interventions.
At this
meeting
there was some discussion of the
Vice-Presiden-
tial nomination. It was
agreed
that Cordell Hull would be an ideal
nominee but for his
traditionally
Democratic
position
on the
tariff,
which was distasteful to some of the New York
contingent.
Roose-
velt
suggested
Senator Alben W.
Barkley,
whom Bernard Baruch
had mentioned to me some time before as a
good
Presidential candi-
date. There was a
friendly suggestion
of Senator
Harry
B.
Hawes,
but he was dismissed on the
ground
that it would not be well to
have two
"dripping
wets" on the ticket.
That
day
Roosevelt looked in
perfect
health, seated,
but he used
two
canes,
and it was with
difficulty
that he made his
way
to the
car in which he drove me to the World.
More
interesting,
as
sidelights
on
history,
were a few small din-
ners to discuss the
platform.
The first was held in the
apartment
of
Senator
Wagner
and was attended
by Wagner,
Gerard,
Foley
and
Senators Peter Goelet
Gerry
of Rhode Island and
Key
Pittman of
Nevada. Senator Pittman had been selected
by
the Smith followers
for the
chairmanship
of the committee on
resolutions,
and this was
the first
opportunity
some had to feel him out. He made a fine
impression,
for he had keen
intelligence,
excellent
judgment,
con-
summate tact and a
saving
sense of humor. It was at this
meeting
that it was decided that
Tammany's delegation
was not to
appear
in Houston in
special
trains three and four
days
before the
opening.
Pittman,
no
enemy
of
Tammany,
warned that the
press
corre-
spondents
would feature the
Tammany appearance
and create the
impression
that the Smith
movement was
primarily
that of Tam-
186
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
many
Hall.
Foley
was not hard to
convince,
and he
agreed
to
urge
upon
the
organization
the abandonment of the
original plan
to
appear
in force
early.
It was also
agreed
that
Tammany
would
remain in the
background
as much as
possible
and
permit
the Smith
supporters
from other states to take the
lead,
and that in the event
of an attack on
Tammany
the
organization
would remain silent and
indifferent. Soon I was to find that this in no
way corresponded
with Smith's own idea.
The discussion
passed
to Prohibition. Some of Smith's
friends,
including
the Governor
himself,
were
bitterly
resentful of the at-
tempt
of the World to force the Governor into a declaration be-
fore the convention. I learned that at a
private meeting
Smith had
asked
Ralph
Pulitzer of the World if he
thought
he should be
forced into a declaration before the
Republican
convention
met,
and Pulitzer
agreed
that he should not. The outcome was an
agree-
ment that the World would
say
no more until after the
Republican
convention. Proskauer announced at the
Wagner
dinner that Smith
would make no further statement until after the nomination and
then would make his
position
clear in his
acceptance speech,
when
he would
express
the
opinion
that national Prohibition was
wrong,
that such matters should be left to the
states,
but that so
long
as the
law remained on the statutes he would
try
to enforce it.
Again
the tariff came
up,
and Gerard reiterated the view he had
expressed
to me at Elisabeth
Marbury's.
This shocked Senator
Wagner,
who
stoutly
insisted on a traditional Democratic stand.
Pittman smiled his inscrutable smile and said
nothing.
A few
days
later Governor Smith
telephoned, asking
me to meet
him at the Biltmore Hotel and
saying
that he had "some ideas about
taxation." This was
disturbing,
since
my speech
had
already
been
distributed to the
press,
but I hurried to the Biltmore. It was a
very
unconventionally
clad
figure
that met me at the door of his room.
He had arrived a few minutes before from Buffalo and was about
to leave
again.
He
evidently
had
just
taken a bath and finished
shaving,
since the suds were caked at his
temples.
He wore a bath-
robe,
which was thrown
back,
and old-fashioned underwear that
reached to his ankles and fit like
tights, giving
a
grotesque appear-
ance to his thin
legs.
When,
frequently,
he had to
go
to the door to
turn someone
away,
he went at a
dogtrot,
his
skinny legs
in
tights
most
conspicuous
as he ran. But his thin
face,
actor's
profile
and
187
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
penetrating
blue
eyes,
his
fluency
and
clarity
in
explaining
what
he had in
mind,
his
magnetism
and
dynamic
force,
stamped
him as
an
outstanding
individual,
a real
person.
It was not taxation he had in mind.
Sitting
down at a table in
front of one of the tall wall mirrors and
motioning
me to a chair
beside
him,
he said in his
husky
voice,
"I'm afraid that at Houston
an attack will be made on
Tammany.
If it is it should be answered
on the
spot.
When
Bryan
made his attack in the Baltimore con-
vention I told Charlie
Murphy
it should be answered
right away,
but he
thought differently.
The next
day,
when it was too
late,
he
changed
his mind and
put up
Stanchfield,
who made a botch of it.
Now,
if an attack is made at Houston it should be answered on the
spot,
and
you?
re the man to make the answer. You're not a member
of
Tammany
I don't
suppose you've
ever been in a
Tammany
club in
your
life. The Democrats over the
country respect you,
and
you're
the man to make the answer."
He then
proceeded
to set forth what he
thought
should be said.
Talking earnestly, gesticulating
with clenched
fist,
looking
in the
mirror as he
talked,
the
way
an actor
would,
he set forth the
argu-
ment. It was a
good
one. But it was
startling
to be asked to assume
this
responsibility
in addition to that
resting
on the
keynote
speaker.
It was in direct contradiction to the
agreement
I had heard
made
by
the inner circle of his advisers not to
reply
to
any
attack.
I wrote
Judge
Proskauer,
reminding
him of the
agreement,
and I
heard no more about it.
However,
no attack was made.
It has often been said that a
great
actor was lost when Smith
went into
politics,
and on this occasion he
gave
an exhibition of his
histrionic talent. He had Governor
James
M. Cox and
myself
as an
audience as he acted out a
story
about former Governor Sulzer of
New
York,
an
amusing
and
amazing figure.
This
politician,
tall and
slender,
had once been told that he resembled
Henry Clay,
and
thereafter he tried to accentuate the resemblance. He wore a lock
of hair on his forehead in imitation of the
great
Kentuckian. He
had made himself invincible in his
Congressional
district even
against
the frowns of
Tammany
when he was in the House of
Rep-
resentatives,
claiming
credit for
everything
that
pleased
his con-
stituents,
many
of whom were Russian
Jews.
He
opened
his
campaign
for
governor
in his district
just
after the
Senate,
under
the
leadership
of Senator
Raynor
of
Maryland,
had forced the
188
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
abrogation
of a Russian
treaty
because of the mistreatment of
Jews,
and he
shamelessly
claimed the credit.
Smith,
giving
an imitation of Sulzer on that
occasion,
stood
up
in his
tights, pulled
an
imaginary
lock of hair over his
forehead,
assumed an
impressive
frown and an air of
great solemnity, glared
around a moment at his
imaginary
audience and said in stentorian
tones,
"All over Russia
tonight
the
Jewish
people
are on their knees
praying
for Bill Sulzer."
Then he acted out the
dialogue
between Sulzer and Martin
Glynn,
the nominee for lieutenant
governor
(who
had a sense of
humor),
as
they
drove
away:
"Bill,
you
made a fool of
yourself tonight."
"And what's the matter
now,
Martin? What did I do? You're
always worrying
about little
things.
It's a wonder
you
aren't in a
sanatorium. What did I do?"
"You said that all over Russia
tonight
the
Jewish
people
are on
their knees
praying
for Bill Sulzer."
"And so
they
are, Martin,
so
they
are. What's
wrong
with that?"
"Merely
this: Most of the audience was made
up
of Russian
Jews,
and
they
know that when the
Jews
of Russia
pray they
don't
get
on their knees."
"Ah, but, Martin,
that
may
be
usually
true,
but when the
Jews
of Russia
pray
for Bill Sulzer
they always get
on their knees"
It was a few
days
after this that I attended a
meeting
of the
plat-
form
group
and had an
opportunity
to observe Smith in action.
We dined at the Lotus
Club,
and Senators Pittman and
Wagner,
Surrogate Foley
and
Judge
Proskauer were
present.
An entire
plat-
form had been
prepared
for
discussion,
plank by plank.
Al Smith
literally exploded
when Pittman read the
proposed plank
on inter-
national affairs. It was sound
enough,
a bit
overcautious,
but
couched in the
ponderous
language
of
diplomacy.
The Governor
first read it over in
mocking
tones,
while
Pittman,
who was then
all but a
stranger,
looked on
keenly, clearly surprised,
but
plainly
interested in
studying
the man.
"Now,
what does that mean?" stormed Smith. "No one knows
what it means. I know a
little,
but it
gives
me a
pain
in the back of
the neck to
get
it. Our
people
are not the
professors
and the
fancy
boys
down at the Union
League
Club. We want a
platform
the
189
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
man in the
factory
and the corn row can understand. Now let me
try my
hand."
Everyone
was interested. Few
thought
that Smith had ever
given
a moment's
thought
to
foreign
relations and international affairs.
He clenched his fists for
gesticulation,
the cords in his neck stood
out,
his face
flushed,
he looked at the
floor,
and he delivered a
speech
instead of a
plank,
but one that astonished me
by
its keen
comprehension
of world
problems
and our relations to them. His
lack of
familiarity
with federal
procedure
was
occasionally
shown
by
his
frequent questions
as to the relative roles of the President
and the
Senate,
but there was
everything disarming
in his
honesty
in
asking,
and admirable in his instant
comprehension.
There was a moment of silence when he
finished,
and then
Proskauer
said, "Al,
that comes
very
near to the
League
of Na-
tions."
Smith did not
reply.
Occasionally during
the
evening
he would make a
suggestion
that Proskauer or Pittman would
combat,
and with admirable
open-mindedness
Smith would
say,
"Pm
licked,"
and settle back
in his chair.
On the Prohibition
plank
he
objected
to the
proposed pledge
to
enforce the
Eighteenth
Amendment. It could not be
enforced,
he
said,
and he would not
stultify
himself
by promising
the
impossible
to the
people.
He was
willing
to
say
that he would do his best to
enforce
it,
leaving
him an
opportunity
to
amplify
in his
speech
of
acceptance. Finally
he wrote on a
slip
of
paper:
"The
Eighteenth
Amendment is
part
of the fundamental law of the United States.
We hold it to be an economic and not a
political question.
We
promise
a solution of its enforcement or its amendment as
experi-
ence
may
teach."
Proskauer and Senator
Wagner interposed
to
say
that he meant
"social,"
not
"economic,"
and it
developed
that he had in mind the
amount of
money
the
people
would be
willing
to
spend
on enforce-
ment. In the end he tore the
slip
of
paper
in two and threw it on
the floor.
His
husky
voice and his
manner,
when in earnest
debate,
of talk-
ing
a second or so out of the corner of his mouth were
unpleasant,
but his
personality
filled the room. It was a
strange
room for such a
conference,
with
portraits
of Whitelaw
Reid,
the
Republican
aris-
190
BEHIND THE SCENES IN
1928
tocrat,
and William
Winter,
the drama
critic,
neither of whom
would have felt comfortable
there,
looking
down from the wall.
Fastidious
gentlemen might
be distressed
by
the mannerisms of
Smith,
who was a sort of Andrew
Jackson
of the sidewalks of New
York,
but no one could or did
question
his intellect. At a dinner at
Nicholas
Murray
Butler's soon after Columbia
University
had
made Smith a Doctor of
Laws,
I heard Sarah Butler tell an illumi-
nating story
illustrative of the man's vast fund of information and
his
great ability.
It was the custom for Butler to
give
a dinner in
honor of those
receiving honorary degrees,
with
representative
citizens
among
the
guests.
Each
recipient
of a
degree
was
invariably
called
upon
for a
speech.
Butler,
who was fond of Smith and
ap-
preciated
his true
worth,
was distressed over the
necessity
of
calling
on him without notice in the
presence
of
gentlemen
of the acad-
emy.
He was fearful that the
cynical might get
a
wrong impression.
But there was no
escape
from the custom. In
presenting
him,
Butler
referred to the fact
that,
with the
exception
of De Witt
Clinton,
Smith was the
only
man who had been
governor
of New York
four times. This
gave
Smith his cue. To the amazement of all
pres-
ent,
he
began
a
comparative analysis
of
government
in New York
in the
days
of Clinton and in his own time
which,
Butler
thought,
if reduced to
writing
and
polished
here and
there,
would have
been as fine a thesis for a doctor's
degree
as
any
he had seen. It was
a remarkable
performance,
but then Al Smith was a remarkable
man.
191
CHAPTER XIII
Politics Turns Putrid
IN APRIL I was selected as the
temporary
chairman and
keynote
speaker
of the national convention in Houston in
June.
Meanwhile
I was
again interrupted
in
my
work on The
Tragic
Era
by speaking
engagements.
In March when I
spoke
at a Democratic
banquet
in
Kansas
City
and met
Harry
S Truman for the first
time,
I was
surprised
to find that Senator Reed's
candidacy
was not taken seri-
ously,
but that Missouri would
pay
him the tribute of its
support.
In
April
I delivered the Founders'
Day
address at the
University
of
Virginia.
It was a militant reassertion of
Jeffersonian
principles.
President
Alderman,
who was
ill,
wrote me a
congratulatory
letter,
and the Charlottesville
paper
said it was a
speech
overdue,
since
previously
the address had sometimes been made
by
men
having
no
sympathy
with
Jeffersonian
ideas and ideals.
From
Virginia
I went to
Washington,
on the invitation of the
state of
Tennessee,
to make the formal
speech
on
Jackson
at the
unveiling
of his statue in the
Capitol.
At the
conclusion,
when sur-
rounded
by people saying
the usual
pleasant things,
I was startled
by
a
finger shaking
under
my
nose and a
lady speaking
with much
emphasis;
more
surprised
to find that it was Alice Roosevelt
Long-
worth,
the wife of the
Republican Speaker
of the House and the
daughter
of Theodore
Roosevelt;
and still more astonished
by
what
she was
saying:
"This
country
has never been more
corrupt
than
it is
today.
What it needs is another Andrew
Jackson
to clean it
up.
If the Democrats had the sense that God
gave
a
goose, they
would
make
corruption
the issue and
they
could
sweep
the
country."
But
I was to find that
they
did not have that much sense.
En route to
Houston,
we
stopped
for a
day
in New
Orleans,
sweltered in the
heat,
rode about in search of a breeze and
finally
192
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
retired to a room in the St.
Charles,
where a
huge
electric fan
gave
some relief. When we entered the station that
evening
the
special
train
bearing
the
delegates
of
Georgia,
the Carolinas and
Florida,
comprising
the anti-Smith
bloc,
was
pulling
out,
the rear
platform
packed
with
cheering
men. We had entered our train when the
special
with the Massachusetts
delegation
drew
up
on a
parallel
track,
and from the observation car we
enjoyed
the
antics,
since
Holman
Hamilton,
a student at Williams
College,
later the
biog-
rapher
of President
Taylor
and a
professor
at the
University
of
Kentucky,
had drilled the
Negro porters
in "The Sidewalks of
New
York,"
and
these,
with the
delegates,
were
lustily singing.
We reached Houston to find it
baking
in the most
deadening
heat we had ever
felt,
but soon
Jesse Jones
called and took us to his
breezy apartment
on
top
of the Lamar
Hotel,
where we found Mrs.
Woodrow Wilson. I had not met her before. She was natural and
charming,
with a
delightful schoolgirl giggle.
A reference to a current
story
that President
Harding
had
Negro
blood elicited from her an
interesting sidelight
on the character of
Woodrow
Wilson. He and Mrs. Wilson had been
sitting
on the
portico
of the White House when
Tumulty appeared
in a
high
state of
excitement,
exclaiming,
"We have them now." He then
told the
story.
Wilson was shocked and
instantly
forbade its use
politically.
Still more
interesting
and human was her
story
of her first im-
pressions
of Wilson. She had a woman cousin who was an idolator
of the President.
"I heard so much about him from her that I be-
came
prejudiced
against
him,"
she said.
Later,
on
learning
that
Wilson would attend the theater one
night,
the cousin insisted on
going.
At that late hour tickets were difficult
to
get,
but the future
Mrs. Wilson told the ticket seller that she had "a lunatic
along"
and that if he wanted to avoid a scene he had better
produce
the
tickets,
which he did. Their seats were close to the Wilson box.
"Mr. Wilson was never less
inspiring,"
she said. "He was tired and
he
yawned
constantly."
But the cousin never took her
eyes
from
the box and saw
nothing
of the
play.
When,
some time
later,
the
cousin
appeared
with
shining eyes
to announce
that she had
wangled
an invitation to the White
House to
"just
shake
hands,"
Mrs. Wilson
rebelled
"I
certainly
am not
going,"
she said. Tve
lived in
Washington many years
and have never been inside the
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
White House.
However,
I'll drive
you
down and wait for
you."
This she
did,
driving
around and around the
grounds
until the
cousin
appeared.
The hour with Mrs. Wilson is
my
most
pleasant memory
of
those
dreadfully
hot
days
in Houston.
The
opening
session of the convention was set for
night
in order
to reach the radio
audience,
which was then
something
new. The
heat that
day
was intense and in the afternoon there was a fierce
storm,
with
startling
electrical effects that I feared would
put
the
radio out of commission. When the time came for me to
go
to the
convention the rain was
coming
down in torrents. I found the
lobby
of
my
hotel
deserted,
since
everyone
had
gone
to the con-
vention hall. No taxi could be found and I did not
have,
nor could
I
borrow,
beg
or
steal,
an umbrella. In
my predicament
I
appealed
to a casual
acquaintance,
the sole man in the
lobby.
He hurried to
the door and a moment later motioned me to follow. He had
stopped
a
large
car in the street and was
standing
beside it.
Clearly
the
occupants
had
agreed
to drive me to the hall. To
my
embarrass-
ment,
I found the car
occupied by
three
priests. Fearing
as I did
a
campaign
of fanaticism because
Smith,
a
Catholic,
was a candi-
date,
it seemed
highly inept
that I should be driven to the hall
by
three
priests,
but the
night
was
stormy,
rain was
falling, press
photographers
would
hardly
be
waiting
at the
entrance,
and I took
a chance. Had it been a clear
night, photographers
would have
taken
pictures
of
my
arrival and the intolerants would have made
the most of it. The most
respectable papers
would have
published
the
pictures
without
comment,
but with full
knowledge
of the
effect on the
bigots.
No
pictures
were
taken,
and it remained
my
secret and that of the
priests.
When I told the World staff of the
incident that
night they laughed.
"It's a
great story," they
said,
"but not for the World."
The
hall,
which could seat
eighteen thousand,
was
packed,
and
the
roof,
in
spots,
was
leaking. My keynote speech
that
night
broke
precedents,
since,
contrary
to
custom,
it received
perfect
attention
and there was a
long
demonstration in the middle of
it,
with a
parade
of the standards of all states and
territories.
Having
attended several national conventions and been a dele-
gate
to
some,
I had definite ideas of what a
keynote speech
should
194
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
be. The usual
thing
was to outline the record of the
party
when it
was in
power,
and,
if it was out of
power,
to set forth
principles
and
policies
to be used if it was called to
power. Invariably
the
speeches
were read and little attention was
paid,
while the
delegates
engaged
in low-toned conversation.
My conception
of a
keynote
speech
was
something
other than a
review,
especially
at a time
when the
average
man had concluded that there were no elemental
governmental principles
involved in
elections,
which were
nothing
but a
struggle
for the loaves and fishes of
patronage.
That
spring
I had heard Walter
Lippmann
tell an audience of Democratic
women that criticisms of
Republican politics
should be much re-
strained,
because the
majority
of the
people
were
Republicans
and
their sensibilities should not be hurt. I was convinced of the con-
trary:
that the
great majority
of the
people
were
Jeffersonians
and
that the line should be
sharply
drawn between the two schools of
political
thought
to
permit
the electorate to know what funda-
mental
principles
were involved.
My purpose,
then,
was to draw
that line.
Later,
when the
speech
aroused such
fury among
the ultra-
conservatives,
I knew it was due not to what was said about the
transient issues of the
hour,
but to the
sharp
line I tried to draw on
fundamental
principles.
Those who feared
plain speaking
even in
political polemics
were shocked. Those who had
persuaded
the
average
man that the two
parties
or
any
two
parties
were
merely
teams
contesting
for
patronage
were even more offended
by my
attempt
to draw this definitive line between the fundamentals of
the two schools of
political thought:
The issues are as fundamental as
they
were when
Jefferson
and Ham-
ilton crossed swords more than a
century ago.
To understand their con-
flicting
views on the functions of
government
is to
grasp
the
deep
significance
of this
campaign.
Now,
Hamilton believed in the rule of the
aristocracy
of
money,
and
Jefferson
in the
democracy
of men.
Hamilton
believed that
governments
are created for the domination
of the
masses,
and
Jefferson
that
they
are created for the service of the
people.
Hamilton
wrote Morris that
governments
are
strong
in
proportion
as
they
are made
profitable
to the
powerful,
and
Jefferson
knew that no
government
is fit to live that does not conserve the interest of the com-
mon man.
195
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
Hamilton
proposed
a scheme for
binding
the
wealthy
to the
govern-
ment
by making government
a source of revenue to the
wealthy,
and
Jefferson
unfurled the banner of
equal rights.
Hamilton would have concentrated
authority
remote from the
peo-
ple,
and
Jefferson
would have diffused it
among
them.
Just
put
a
pin
in this: There is not a
major
evil of which the American
people
are
complaining
now that is not due to the
triumph
of the Hamil-
tonian
conception
of the state. And the tribute to Hamilton in Kansas
City
[at
the
Republican
national
convention]
was an
expression
of
fealty
to him who
thought
that the
government
is
strong
in
proportion
as it is
made
profitable
to the
powerful,
who
proposed
the
plan
for
binding
the
wealthy
to the
government by making government
a source of revenue
for
them,
who devised the scheme to tax the farmer to
pay
the
factory,
and whose avowed
purpose
was to make
democracy
a
mockery
and a
sham.
Then,
turning
to the
fallacy, cleverly imposed
on
many,
that
Lincoln and Hamilton
belonged
to the same school of
political
thought:
What a comment on the confusion of the
public
mind on the elemen-
tals of American
politics
when a
great party
is able to claim
joint parent-
hood in Abraham Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton.
Why, you
cannot believe with Lincoln in
democracy
and with Ham-
ilton
against
it.
You cannot believe with Lincoln that "God loved the common
people
or he would not have made so
many
of them" and with Hamilton that
the
people
are "a
great
beast."
You cannot believe with Lincoln that "the
principles
of
Jefferson
are
the axioms and the definitions of a free
society"
and with Hamilton that
they
are the definitions of
anarchy.
You cannot believe with Lincoln in a
government
"of the
people, by
the
people
and for the
people"
and with Hamilton in a
government
of
the
wealthy, by
the
powerful
and for the
privileged.
There are Lincoln
Republicans
and Hamilton
Republicans,
and never
the twain shall meet until
you
find some
way
to ride two horses
going
in
opposite
directions at the same time.
Except
for
applause,
there was absolute silence
during
the de-
livery,
which I
planned
to consume no more than
forty
minutes.
It was intended as a
fighting speech. During
the tribute to Wood-
196
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
row Wilson the convention rose. The sensational feature of the
reception
was
wholly unexpected by
me. In
touching upon
the
legitimate grievances
of the
farmers,
in
disclaiming any thought
of
paternalistic
treatment of
them,
I
said,
"We do demand that
privi-
lege
take its hands out of the farmer's
pockets
and off the fanner's
throat."
I had not
expected
even a
handclap
here,
but
instantly
the
delegates
from
agricultural
states
sprang up cheering,
and,
taking
their state banners from their
sockets,
they
started a march around
the hall. State after state
joined
in the
procession,
to the amusement
of Mencken of the Baltimore Sun when the
"horny-handed
sons of
toil" of the New York
delegation joined
in the
parade.
This dem-
onstration continued for
twenty
minutes. In the midst of
it,
Ralph
Pulitzer,
publisher
of the New York
World,
sent me a note:
"Never before has there been a demonstration like this
during
a
keynote speech."
The Democratic
press
was warm in
praise,
with the
exception
of the
World,
which was able to restrain itself. The attacks of the
Republican press
were violent at the time and continued
through-
out the
campaign
in some
papers.
At
any
rate,
unlike most
keynote
speeches,
it was not
forgotten overnight
or treated with the con-
tempt
of silence. And when weak-kneed Democrats
cringed
before
the
vigor
of the attack I recalled the comment of
Jackson's fighting
lieutenant Isaac
Hill,
who under similar circumstances
clapped
his
hands and
said,
"I have hit
them,
for
they
flutter."
I soon sensed some distress
among
certain of the local advisers of
Governor Smith. The Governor had listened to the
speech
on the
radio with a
group
of
newspapermen,
and he had seemed
pleased;
but when the New York
papers,
all
Republican
or
mugwump,
be-
gan
their
attacks,
I have no doubt he was worried.
My
first intima-
tion that the
speech
had
frightened
some of his advisers came with
the
discovery
that,
contrary
to
custom,
it was not
printed
and dis-
tributed
by
the National Committee.
I learned later that national
headquarters
was astonished
by requests
from
party organizations
all over the
country
for
copies
of the
speech,
and it was
finally
published
with the
Jackson Day speech
in the
campaign
book,
under the
caption
"Authoritative
Pronouncements
of Democratic
Principles."
Criticism
of the
speech
was confined
largely
to New
York
City.
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POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
Among
the flood of letters I
received,
the one that
pleased
me
most of all was from Alfred
Harcourt,
the
publisher,
with
whom I
was not
acquainted:
I have seen
enough disparaging
remarks on
your keynote speech
that
I cannot refrain from
writing you
that I
thought
it was a
grand job.
Carl
Sandburg
was
staying
with me at the time and we both listened to
it with the
greatest enjoyment
It was a
great
relief from the usual
politi-
cal
oration,
and
yet
it was
beautifully phrased,
and,
to us at
least,
came
off
perfectly.
It was fine and
refreshing
and I must make
you my
com-
pliments
on it.
More than ever I was
persuaded
that the sooner the two
parties
discontinued their
disposition
to run in
parallel
lines and
got
down
to first
principles
and the fundamental differences
dividing
the two
schools of
political thought,
the better the
prospect
of
preserving
our free democratic institutions. Senator
Hugo
Black,
later to rank
among
the
greatest
members of the
Supreme
Court,
wrote me in
agreement
with this
thought.
That Al Smith did not share the
opinion
of
bipartisan
New York
Democrats about the
speech
is manifest in a letter of
August 7,
in-
viting
me to a luncheon at the Executive Mansion in
Albany
for a
discussion of his
speech
of
acceptance. Unhappily, my
reservations
were made for a
trip
to
Europe
and I was unable to attend.
By
a
coincidence,
I had
repercussions
of
my keynote speech
years
later in Chile from two
distinguished
American visitors.
When I was
driving Henry
Wallace to the
country
home of Presi-
dent Rfos he told me that the
speech
had
given
him the final shove
into the Democratic
Party
in
1928.
Two
years
later,
on the same
road and on the same
mission,
President Hoover
surprised
me
by
saying
that he had heard the
speech
on the radio. I held
my
breath,
expecting
an
explosion
which did not
conie. He said he had had
some "fun with the
boys"
because of the Biblical
quotation,
"To
your
tents,
O
Israel/'
with which I closed. "I
said,"
he
continued,
"that
maybe
the Democrats had to live in
tents,
but that we Re-
publicans
were substantial
enough
to live in houses." It was not
scintillating,
but we both
laughed
heartily,
and it was the
only
men-
tion of
politics during
Mr. Hoover's visit to
Chile,
which I
greatly
enjoyed.
What convinced me that I had served
my purpose
was the
publi-
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
cation of the
speech
in full in an
English magazine
two months
after the
convention,
with the
explanation
that it had
persuaded
the
editor that there were fundamental differences in
principles
and
philosophy
between the two
political parties
in the United States
after all.
In late
August
I went to Hot
Springs,
Arkansas,
to
"notify"
Senator
Joseph
T. Robinson of his nomination for Vice-President
a
silly
custom. At St. Louis I
joined
the small
party
of
John J.
Raskob, who,
though
a
Republican,
had been made national chair-
man
by
Smith. Hot
Springs
was
gaily
decorated with banners bear-
ing
the
inscription
"Our
Joe."
The
ceremony
at
night
was
just
outside the
Arlington
Hotel,
the
spectacle impressive,
with
spec-
tators on roofs and
leaning
out windows.
Returning
to the Raskob car after the
ceremony,
we found the
table
spread
for a
feast,
and I found
my prejudice against
Raskob
melting
in the warmth of his
personality.
It was
my
first contact
with him. He was a little man with serious brown
eyes.
One could
almost see his mind
work,
and it was a
good
mind.
Occasionally
he
smiled,
but most of the time he was serious.
During
the
journey
back I was
surprised
to see him take from his
bag
a
copy
of
Ariel,
the Andre Maurois
biography
of
Shelley.
An executive of General
Motors
reading
about the
poet
would have seemed
incongruous
even if he had not then been
engaged
in a
political campaign.
He
seemed a
symbol
of
efficiency. Though
he
appeared
modest,
there
was a decisive note in his conversation. At various
points
local
poli-
ticians
joined
the train to ride to the next station and
urge
their
political
necessities.
They
wanted assurances about
campaign
funds
and
speakers.
They
would enter the car
jovially
to see a fellow
politician
and would find themselves in the
presence
of a
quiet,
undemonstrative
man of business. This
momentarily
drove the
jo-
viality
from their faces.
Then,
as Raskob
gave
them his ideas about
organization, patterned
after that of General
Motors,
they
became
silent and
clearly disappointed. They
had never known a
party
manager
like Raskob.
I sat aside and studied their faces with amuse-
ment.
I am
going
into this
campaign
with some detail because of its
numerous
unique
features and its lessons that must be learned if
American institutions
are to survive. The
campaign
of
1928
was the
199
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
most
disgraceful
and
threatening
in our
history up
until that
time.
At some
periods, happily
wide
apart,
waves of
religious
and
racial
intolerance had
swept
over the
country,
but never had there
been
anything
so
widespread
and sinister in its
implications.
It came so
suddenly
and was so incredible. It was not the
candidacy
of Smith
that
inspired
it,
since it was in full blast some time before. The
nomination of
Smith,
a
Catholic,
only
added fuel to the
flame.
Soon the favorite outdoor
sport
in some states was
parading
in bed-
sheets and
pillowcases
and
burning
crosses on the
hilltops
at
night.
Although
it is
naturally
denied,
there is not a scintilla of doubt
that the
Republican managers expected
to
profit
from the
bigotry
and
gave
discreet
encouragement
to its
growth.
Millions no doubt
were innocent of
complicity.
Years later Herbert Hoover told me
in
Santiago
that he had
publicly repudiated
that
phase
of the cam-
paign against
Smith,
and
though
I do not recall this
public repudi-
ation I have no doubt he did.
It was difficult to meet the issue without
giving primary
im-
portance
to intolerance. The
general feeling among
Democrats
was,
the less said the better.
Besides,
in most
places
it was a subter-
ranean force that refused to
fight
in the
open.
It was a
campaign
of
poisoned whispers.
While
many
of his advisers
thought
it unwise to meet this anti-
American issue forced
upon
them,
it was
impossible
to convince
Smith that he should remain
silent,
and he insisted on one of the
most
gallant
and
magnificent
acts of his career. He was not
running
away
from his
faith;
he was not
defending
it;
but he was
defending
one of the most sacred tenets of
JefFersonian
democracy.
He de-
termined to make one
speech
on this
phase
of the
campaign,
and
with his usual
courage
he went to the
capital
of a state where one
of the Senators of his
party
had deserted because of Smith's church
affiliations. In
my opinion,
that
speech
in Oklahoma
City
was
easily
the
greatest
of the
campaign.
The
effect,
however,
was as feared
by
those who
sought
to dissuade him.
Among
intolerants it made
religion
the
paramount
issue. Herbert Hoover told me later that in
his
opinion
it was a tactical mistake. But in the final
appraisal
of
the character of Al
Smith,
this
speech
is of
lasting importance
to
history.
From the World
tower, where,
with
my pen,
I
played
a
meager
part against
this
anti-American
propaganda,
I followed the cam-
zoo
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
paign
with
increasing
amazement not unmixed with
amusement,
despite
the
tragedy
it
implied.
Volumes could be
printed
about the
mad
things
said and done. I
editorially urged
that a
systematic
collection of the
"literature" of intolerance be made and
preserved
for historians in the
future,
and this was done. But there were a few
ridiculous incidents
brought
to me
by personal
friends that
may
serve to
lighten
the sadness of this
story.
My
most intimate friend at the
time,
Frank
Oliver,
spoke during
the
campaign
in a small town in Delaware. Himself a
Catholic,
he
was
chagrined
on
entering
the hall to find the Democrats' nominee
for
Congress discussing
the
religious
issue.
"They say,"
the orator was
saying,
"that if Smith is elected the
Pope
will come over here and run the
country.
Now,
let's see about
that. As
you
know,
I'm a
Presbyterian.
Last
year my pastor
went to
Rome and called on the
Pope.
A
lovely
old man came in. He was
the
Pope,
and he said he was
always glad
to see Americans because
he can't come to America to see us.
Now,
to understand that
you
must know how the Catholic Church is run. When a
Pope
dies,
they go
out and
pick
his successor and
they
shut him in the Vat-i-
can,
and he never can leave there
any
more. And if he sticks his
head ten inches outside the Vat-i-can he
automatically
ceases to be
pope." Turning triumphantly
to
Oliver,
who had been educated
by
the
Jesuits,
he
said,
"Ain't that correct?"
Oliver,
being
a
good party
man,
had to nod his head in assent
with his
fingers
crossed.
"So
you
see,"
continued the
orator,
"the
Pope
can't come over
here and run the
country."
That
day
the local leaders
pobted
out to Oliver an old man who
seemed a caricature of the Civil War
veteran,
standing
on a street
corner. He was told that this man was on the
payroll
of the
oppo-
sition
party
and that his work was to stand on the street and
pass
out a certain line of talk. "We're
going
to have
you
introduced to
him as a
young
man who is
thinking
of
voting
for
Smith,
so that
you
can
get
his
line,"
Oliver was told.
When he was
presented,
the old man looked
up
with a
cunning
eye
and
said,
"Young
feller,
you
seem to have had
good up-
bringin'."
Oliver admitted that he had had a
good
home environment.
"Well,"
continued the old
man,
"this is all there is to it: If this
2OI
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
man Smith is
elected,
the
Pope
is
goin'
to come over here with
all
his wives and concubines and live in the White House and run the
country. Y'may
not have noticed that Catholics in droves are
goin'
into the
Army,
for if Smith is elected
they're goin'
to take over the
country
and make the
Pope
President."
"Well,"
said the amazed
Oliver,
playing
his
part,
"I won't stand
for that."
"I didn't think
y'would,"
said the old man.
After the election I had lunch with Mrs.
Champ
Clark and her
daughter
Genevieve
Thompson,
and the latter told me of an ex-
perience
of hers at some
point
in Oklahoma where a Democratic
community
had
gone
wild on the
religious question.
Since the
women were the worst
offenders,
it was
thought
that
perhaps
a
woman
speaker might
have a
good
effect,
and Genevieve was asked
to
go
from her home in New Orleans. When the train drew
up
at
the station in the little
town,
the station was black and there seemed
to be no
lights
in the
village.
The conductor advised her to
get
back on the
train,
go
to the next town and
spend
the
night
there,
but Genevieve
replied
that a committee was to meet her and she
would take a chance. She went into the station. At
length
a
big
man
wearing
a
huge
hat flashed a
powerful searchlight
in her face
and demanded her business there. She
explained.
"Wai,"
he
drawled,
"they
ain't
gob'
to be no meetin' and
they
ain't
goin'
to be no committee. I reckon the best
thing y'can
do is
to
stay
all
night
with me an'
my
old woman an' take the train out
tomorry
morninV
Since there was
nothing
else she could
do,
she
went,
and on the
way
to the house she found that her host believed that there is no
real
baptism except by
immersion,
sprinkling being
insufficient,
a
mere
halfway
measure.
The next
morning
the "old woman"
appeared
at the breakfast
table. She was
scrawny, yellow,
with black hair
parted
in the
middle and
plastered
down,
feverish dark
eyes
and sunken cheeks.
"Wai,
I understand
yer
for
Smith,"
she said
accusingly,
"Yes,
I'm for Governor Smith."
"Wai,
I
ain't,"
said the hostess with
vehemence.
"Well,
perhaps you're
a
Republican."
"No
sir,
I'm a
Demmycrat, my
dad was a
Demmycrat, my
granddad
was a
Demmycrat."
202
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
"Then
why
are
you against
Governor Smith?" asked Genevieve.
"He's a
Catholic."
"I don't want to be
impertinent,"
said Mrs.
Thompson,
"but I'm
a Protestant and
yet
I'm for Governor Smith.
Why
are
you
so
bitter
against
the Catholics?"
The
eyes
of the woman
blazed,
the muscles in her sunken cheeks
twitched,
and she
brought
her clenched fist down
upon
the table
with a
resounding
whack.
"They brung
in
sprinklirf!"
she cried.
Such incidents were not at all unusual. All over the
nation,
in
village,
town and
country, during
four months of the
campaign
they
were
being repeated
in fantastic
forms;
printed propaganda
of the most libelous sort was
being
mailed and distributed even at
the doors of the churches. Never in our
history
had so
many
Ameri-
cans turned
venomously against
American
traditions,
principles
and
ideals.
I have
gone
into this
campaign
because this anti-American move-
ment should be a
warning against
future movements of this sort.
It resembled a fascist movement in that it was based on
hates,
preju-
dices and
demagogy.
It was a revolt
against
the Bill of
Rights,
and
yet
millions were mobilized under its banner. The Hitler move-
ment in
Germany
had its
origin
in a similar
appeal
to racial and
religious
hate. If it did not eventuate in fascism in America it
tended
dangerously
in that direction.
Marching
men in uniforms
of bedsheets and
pillowcases,
the
fanning
of the flames of
hate,
the
burning
of
crosses,
intimidation all
quite
similar to events in Ger-
many
in the
19305.
The movement had its storm
troopers
too. The
time caine when in Indiana in a
Republican
state convention the
head of the Klan in that commonwealth stalked down the aisles
with a
gun
in his holster in
plain
view,
giving
orders.
Happily,
this
man ended his career in the
penitentiary.
The
theory
of the fanatics was that Al Smith was "the Catholic
candidate" and that all Catholics
supported
him. He lost New York
State
partly
because of the Klan
strength
there,
but he
probably
could have carried the state had all the Catholics there
supported
him,
and
they
did not. Catholics in
big
business,
for
instance,
did
not
permit
their
religion
to alienate them from the
Republican
Party.
No Democrat in
public
life was a more devout Catholic than
203
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
Senator Tom Walsh of Montana. Soon after Smith's
nomination I
received a
three-page, single-spaced
letter from
him,
expressing
his
fear that he
might
not be able to
support
him
unconditionally,
be-
cause of Smith's
opposition
to the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence water-
way.
He believed the
project
was of the
greatest importance
to the
farm states in the
marketing
of their
products.
"Hoover,
as
you
know,
is committed to the
project,
is
enthusiastically
for
it,"
he
wrote.
"Twenty-two
states have
officially
endorsed it. New York
alone
among
the
forty-eight
has
gone
on record
against
it,
insisting
on the utilization of its so-called
'barge
canal.'
"
He ascribed the
opposition
to "the railroads
leading
from the West to New York
City"
and to "the
power
trust." The
strong opposition
of Smith to
the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence
waterway
he ascribed to the selfish
or
"provincial"
views of New
York,
and he
thought
that
possibly
it
had been
imposed upon
him as
governor
of New York. But "what
can I
say
to the
people
of Montana about what President Smith will
or will not do?" he asked. He had told the
people,
both from the
platform
and in the
Senate,
that their dearest interests were in-
volved,
and how could he
warmly support
a candidate
openly op-
posed?
He
hoped
that
though
as the
spokesman
for New York
Smith had to
go along
with New York
sentiment,
as President he
would
respond
to the demands of the rest of the
country
of which
he would become the
spokesman
but how could
he, Walsh,
be
certain? In a statement he had "said what I could for the nominee
. . . but how
wholeheartedly
I can enter into the
campaign
for him
is still
uncertain,"
for the reasons set forth in his letter to me.
Here was one of the two most
conspicuous
Catholics in
public
life
refusing blindly
to follow a candidate because of his
religion.
Just
what
understanding
he
may
have reached with Smith is not
revealed. His
position,
however,
based on
political
and economic
grounds regardless
of the nominee's
religion,
stands out like a red
light against
the Klan's
propaganda
that Smith was
primarily
the
candidate of a
religion
rather than of a
political party.
Soon after the
election,
Smith went south on a
prolonged
vaca-
tion. I saw him for the first time after his return at a dinner at the
home of Ed
Flynn,
the
party
leader in the Bronx.
He arrived
looking
fit after his
rest,
his color
ruddy,
his
eyes
bright,
his
step springy.
Mrs. Smith was with
him,
and
nothing
204
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
could have been more
charming
than his devotion to her.
During
the cocktail interval he held forth with
boyish
enthusiasm on the
Bronx of their
courtship days,
when she had lived there and
when,
he
said,
"it was a wilderness." He had had a
job
in the New York
County
(Manhattan)
sheriff's office which called for the
delivery
of
summonses,
and no one relished an
assignment
to the
Bronx,
since the houses were
widely
scattered. On a
Thursday young
Smith offered to deliver all the Bronx summonses on condition that
he would not be called
upon
to
report
until the task was
finished,
and the sheriff
agreed.
That
night
the
young
lover
appeared
at
the home of Katie's
family,
and when it
grew
kte a
gentle
hint was
given.
"But I'm
staying
all
night,"
he
said,
and he
explained
the
bargain
with the sheriff.
"The next
morning,"
he
continued,
"I
got
Katie's brother's bi-
cycle,
and
by Friday
noon the
job
was finished and I had two and
a half
days
to wander with Katie on the commons and
along
the
riverbank." He recalled the
strategy
with all the
gusto
of a mis-
chievous
boy,
while Katie smiled.
During
the dinner he was
amusing
and little was said about the
campaign
and the
election,
but it was evident that he resented the
poor showing
in Manhattan. The
suggestion
was made that New
Rochelle and another
place might
be annexed to the Bronx. Some-
one broke in with the reminder that the
majority
in these towns
were
Republicans.
"Take them in and make them
Democratic,"
said Mrs. Smith-
"And
you might
annex Manhattan and do the
same,"
Smith said
sourly.
"You can have
my
full share of Manhattan."
That
night
he told a
story
that throws
light
on his
very
human,
kindly
traits. An Italian
policeman
had been about to sail on a va-
cation to
Italy,
and
Smith,
then
governor
and in the
heyday
of his
popularity,
had decided to see him off. "I
thought
it
might
mean
good
treatment for
Tony
on his
trip,"
he
explained.
All the officers
of the Italian liner were
standing
at salute when he and his
party
arrived. Asked what he would have to
drink,
he
said,
"No drink
I want some Italian
spaghetti."
The
party
was shown into the
dining
room,
and the stewards
brought
two
huge portions
of the
spaghetti
the
guest
craved. He had asked for another
helping
when
he noticed it was ten minutes of
six;
the boat was scheduled to sail
at
six,
so he canceled the order. A stiff-necked officer
retired,
and
205
POLITICS TURNS PUTRID
a moment later the
captain,
in
gold
braid,
very
formal and
military,
appeared,
walking
like a soldier on
review, bowed,
saluted and
said,
"Governor,
the boat will sail when
you
have had the
spaghetti."
The boat was an hour late in
sailing,
but on the
trip Tony
was
treated like a
prince.
The most
touching thing
Smith said that
evening
was
apropos
of the election. In
Georgia, just
before,
he had heard of a
convent
school where the
girls
had
prayed
for his election and had been
bitterly
disillusioned and
disappointed by
his defeat. "I decided to
go
to the school and talk to the
girls,"
he said. "I said to
them,
1
understand
you
were kind
enough
to
pray
for
my
election,
and
I thank
you
for it. I hear
you're disappointed
because
nothing
came
of it.
Well,
girls,
remember this it's in the Bible:
"Thy
will be
done on earth . . ."
' "
There was a dead silence at the table.
That same
evening
the
Ringling
Brothers circus was
having
its
formal
opening
for the season in the
Bronx,
and
Smith,
a friend of
John
Ringling's,
was to be master of ceremonies. On the
way
there
from
Flynn's,
he was
constantly exclaiming
about the
growth
of
the Bronx since the
days
of his
wooing. Thirty years
before he had
been
permitted
to exercise the horses of a
firehouse,
and he was
peering
out the window in an effort to find the site.
"Yes,
there it
is!" he cried
excitedly.
At the circus the band
played
"The Side-
walks of New York" and Smith waved his
derby
and
beamed,
and
inside he vied with the smallest
boy
in his enthusiasm.
At this time he had been made the
manager
of the
projected
Empire
State
Building
which was to rise on the site of the old
Waldorf-Astoria
Hotel,
internationally
famous for its cuisine and
for the celebrities who had
sojourned
there. The
day
he
presented
inscribed
copies
of his
autobiography
to a few
friends,
he had been
watching
the men at work
demolishing
the old structure and he
seemed rather sad The historic hotel was a
part
of the old Man-
hattan that he
loved,
and I
gathered
that he
thought
that
something
of the old life was
passing
out.
"In the
banquet
room where I've
spoken
so
many
times and at-
tended so
many
dinners,"
he
said,
"it was
pathetic.
Those
great
gold
and brass
moldings
and decorations in the corners that I
sup-
posed
were
really costly nothing
but
gilded plaster.
And the
chandeliers!
They
looked
magnificent hanging,
but on the floor
206
POLITICS TURKS PUTRID
just junk.
I went down
thinking
I
might pick up something
for
my
apartment,
but there was
nothing
there worth
having.
It was
pathetic."
His was a
unique personality,
colorful,
unforgettable,
and he will
never be
forgotten
in New York.
207
CHAPTER XIV
The Year of the
Bursting
Bubble
THE YEAR
1929
was to become memorable for the
bursting
of the
bubble of stock market
prosperity
toward its close. While a few
men of
penetration
could see the
approach
of
disaster, these,
like
angels,
were few and far
between;
and
despite
the
increasing
un-
employment
and the
agricultural depression,
the vast
majority
were convinced that
nothing
could
happen
to disturb the com-
placency
of the fool's
paradise. During
the first half of this
year
that was to end so
dismally,
I found
my
friends
devoting
most of
their conversation to the stock
market,
to the fortunes
being
made
on
paper
and to the ease with which such fortunes could be made.
Happily
for
me,
I was not a
speculator
and had other
things
to
occupy
me that
year.
I had finished
my
research for The
Tragic
Era,
and
during
the first six months I wrote and rewrote the manu-
script.
I had found this research on the Reconstruction
years
more
fascinating
than I had
expected.
It was a liberal education in that
period
of American
history.
I had not set out to
prove any pre-
conceived
theory
of
my
own,
but to set down the
facts,
whatever
they
were found to
be,
and I was
making
discoveries that
sharply
challenged interpretations
of
fifty years.
I had
always
assumed that the
popular impression
of Andrew
Johnson,
passed
on
through
historians either
writing
in a
partisan
spirit
or
lacking
the
courage
to attack a
prejudice,
was the correct
one. I was to
emerge
from the research convinced that not more
than four or five other Presidents have
approached
his defense of
American institutions and
ideals,
and that none has
fought
such a
gallant
battle for constitutional
government.
I had
accepted
the old slander that he was a drunkard and that
he was drunk when he
spoke
in Cleveland in 1866 and
replied
208
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
to insults from the audience. This incident occurred
during
his
"swing
around the
circle,"
when
day
after
day
he had
spoken
in
numerous cities. I knew he had made the
swing
to arouse the civic
conscience of the
people
in defense of the
peace plans
of Lincoln.
So
through many newspapers
I followed him on this
tour,
reading
all the
speeches published
in the
contemporary press,
and I found
them
constitutionally
sound,
dignified, pitched
on a
high
ethical
plane.
It was because of the favorable
impression
he was
making
that the radical
Republicans
who had taken over the
party
of Lin-
colnwhom
they
hated
along
with his
postwar plan
of conciliation
found it
necessary
to meet his
patriotic
crusade with a fusillade
of
falsehoods,
the favorite
weapon
of the
demagogue.
These made
their stand in Cleveland. En route to Cleveland from his last
stop
he had
engaged
in conversation on serious
matters,
and he was
per-
fectly
sober. But his enemies knew he had been trained in the
rough-and-tumble
methods of the Tennessee
hustings
of
prewar
days
when the
speaker
who failed to
reply vigorously
to
interrup-
tions from the audience was considered weak or
timid,
and
they
knew, too,
that
Johnson
had a
temper.
Thus the insults hurled at
him in Cleveland
by
his
enemies,
and
by
men who were enemies of
the Lincoln
plan
of
reconstruction,
were answered
angrily,
and the
damage
was done. "How
disgraceful," they
cried,
"that a President
should
bandy
words with a crowd!" "Of course he was
drunk,"
many
insisted. But
my
research showed that his
speeches
on his
"swing
around the circle" had been
statesmanlike,
patriotic,
and
unanswerable
except
with abuse.
I learned that an old
friend,
Grace
Julian
Clark,
daughter
of
George
W.
Julian,
one of the most
conspicuous
of the abolitionists
and a
leading
member of
Congress during
the Civil
War,
possessed
a
diary
of her father's. It had not been intended for
publication,
but,
on
my request,
the
daughter placed
two volumes
covering
the
period
of The
Tragic
Era at
my disposal,
and there I found some-
thing
of the
spirit
of those mad
days, something
of the hatred and
contempt
aimed at Lincoln
by
the leaders of his own
party.
One
notation,
written on the
day
of Lincoln's
death,
startled me. It
recorded the
proceedings
and the tone of a
party
caucus in which
the
prevailing
sentiment
was one of
hostility
to Lincoln's
plan,
and
it concluded with the observation that the
general
feeling
among
the leaders was that Lincoln's death "was a God-send to our cause."
209
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
And that cause was the cause
espoused
and led
by
Thad
Stevens
and the radicals! Thence
onward,
the
growing
hatred of
Johnson
reflected the hatred of the radicals for Lincoln's
plan
of
concili-
ation.
But
Johnson
had been unfortunate in that he had
incurred the
resentment of both
political parties.
The Democrats could not for-
give
the man who had left his
party
to
go
on the Union ticket in
1864, though finally
his chief
support
came
reluctantly
from the
Democrats in
Congress;
and the
Republicans,
taken over
bag
and
baggage by
the
extremists,
hated him for
interfering
with their
plans
for the
punishment
of the South. There was no
one,
at
first,
to
champion
his cause or to defend him
personally.
I think I rendered a real service to
history
in
bringing
about a
revaluation of Andrew
Johnson
which has now been
accepted.
The
nearest relative of the
maligned
President wrote me on the
publica-
tion of the book to thank me for the
justice
I had done him. When
I
began
I had no
thought
of
defending
Johnson,
whom I
supposed
undefendable. I followed the trail of
truth, however,
and the real
Johnson emerged.
And later Nicholas
Murray
Butler told me that
when he was a child in
Elizabeth,
New
Jersey,
his father had taken
him to see
Johnson
on his
"swing
around the
circle,"
and that
my
portrayal
of him was borne out
by
his own recollection of
John-
son's
impressive
and
dignified appearance.
The
Tragic
Era had a
good reception
both in the North and in
the South and was a
Literary
Guild selection. The historian Dr.
David S.
Muzzey
of Columbia
University,
in his review in Current
History,
began
with the admission that while a sad
story
had been
told it was a true one and that
perhaps
"the time has come to tell
it." I was
deluged
with
letters,
especially
from the
South,
and
eight
months after
publication
Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote me from
Warm
Springs:
It
may
interest
you
to know that since I have been down here for the
last two weeks at least a dozen
good people
have
spoken
to me about
"The
Tragic
Era,"
and
they
have not been confined to
Georgians
or
southerners. The
book,
more than
any
other book in recent
years,
had
a
very
definite influence on
public thought.
This book
kept
me home after office hours at the World and the
year
for me was serene and
happy.
There were a few diversions.
210
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
I
spoke
at the
unveiling
of
Jo
Davidson's statue of Robert M. La
Follette, Sr.,
in
Statuary
Hall in the
Capitol
in
Washington.
It is
the most
living
of the statues
there,
showing
La Follette seated in
the
Senate,
his hands
grasping
the arms of his chair as
though
he
were on the
verge
of
springing
to his
feet,
with an
expression
of
whimsical
incredulity
on his
face,
as I saw him in the flesh
many
times. That
day Statuary
Hall was
packed
with his
friends,
fol-
lowers and
political
associates,
though among
them were not a
few
who,
like Senator
James
Watson of
Indiana,
had no use for his
political
views while
having
a secret admiration for his
genius
and
courage.
I was to
speak
toward the
close,
and there were too
many
speeches,
most of them too
long;
even
so,
Fola La Follette twice
sent a note to her brother on the
platform asking
me not to cut
my
speech
"one inch." It was well received. At least one man in the
audience,
aside from the
family,
was
pleased,
for Senator Norris of
Nebraska sat
beaming
and
smiling broadly
when I said that La
Follette "did not have to await the conclusion of a
party
caucus
to determine the dictates of his conscience."
That summer
Sybil,
our
daughter
Patricia and I sailed for
Europe
on the
Berengaria,
visiting England
and
France,
spending
most of
the time in London and Paris and their
environs,
but for me the
greater part
of the
year
was
passed prosily enough
in New York
between our
apartment
and
my
office in the tower.
One
day
we lunched with Colonel and Mrs. House in their
apartment,
and the conversation revolved
largely
around Clemen-
ceau. Mrs. House drew a
charming picture
of the old man at his
place
on the coast of
Brittany
in a
village
of
fishermen,
where he
spent
some summers. She described the house as
really
that of a
fisherman,
surrounded
by
sand. "He sticks
things
in the sand and
wonders
why they
don't
grow,"
she said. His workroom faced
the sea and was all
windows;
he had built a kind of shed where he
could be out of the sun and
enjoy
the ocean breeze.
I was interested
by
the Colonel's observation that a mistake had
been made
by
Wilson in not
placing
Root and Taft on the
peace
commission. "That would have assured favorable action in the
Senate,"
House said. "He should have said to
Taft,
Tou've been
interested for
years
in a
League
of Nations. I want
you
to concern
yourself
with that.' He could have
put
me on with Taft and I could
2H
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
have headed off
anything
in Taft's mind that
might
have run
counter to Wilson's
plan.
Taft would have been
easy
to work with.
And to Root he should have
said,
'You're
recognized
as one of the
world's
greatest
international
lawyers.
You
protect
us there.'
"
He then told me a
story
not
generally
known,
of the
resignations
resulting
from the
appointment
of the
peace
commission. Ambassa-
dor William G.
Sharp,
accredited to
Paris,
wanted to be on
it,
and
when he heard that Wilson
preferred
to have Newton D. Baker
on the commission he took it as a
personal
affront,
since both were
from Ohio. "I tried to reason with
him,"
said
House,
"calling
his
attention to the fact that none of the other nations included their
ambassadors in
Paris,
but he was miffed and so he
resigned.
"Then, too,"
said
House,
"while McAdoo was not keen to
go,
I
thought
he should be on to handle the financial
matters,
but Wilson
wouldn't
appoint
him,
and when McAdoo heard that Baker
might
go
on, he,
who had been
eager
to return to
private
life,
also
resigned
from the Cabinet. And then
Baker,
who had been reasonable
throughout,
decided not to
go."
It was on another occasion at the Colonel's that he talked of the
pretensions
of General Smuts of South Africa to the
parentage
of
the Covenant of the
League.
He said that all that Wilson owed to
Smuts was the mandate
system.
The
President,
he
continued,
had
wanted a tentative covenant
ready
so the discussions could revolve
around it. He had discussed it
many
times with
House,
and the
Colonel was asked to make a first draft. "I
spent
two
days
at
Mag-
nolia
writing
it,"
he said. "It had
twenty-three points
and Wilson
worked over it
trying
to boil it down to thirteen his
lucky
num-
ber."
And then the Colonel said a
startling thing!
"It's
strange
that the
only thing
he struck out was the
provision
for a world court."
That autumn in a dinner-table conversation with McAdoo I
learned
something
about
Jules Jusserand,
for
years
the French am-
bassador in
Washington.
I had not seen McAdoo for two
years.
He
was
thinner,
with less
color,
and was much older and more mellow.
However,
at his
age
he had taken to the
air,
possessing
a
plane
of
his own in which he was
traveling
between Los
Angeles, Washing-
ton and New York. I had never known him to be so
animated,
so
charming
in manner or so
interesting
in conversation.
Despite
his
212
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
years,
he was as
straight
as an Indian. At times he walked around
the
room,
but most of the time he sat in a
chair,
one
leg
thrown
over the
arm,
and talked. The conversation turned on his visit to
France after the
war,
and he had little to
say
about it that was
pleasant.
"After the convention in
1924,"
he
said,
"I was worn out and
so was Mrs.
McAdoo,
who had not been
quite
well
since,
after
sitting through
all those
days
in an
atmosphere
of hate. So we went
to
Europe
for a rest. When we landed at
Cherbourg
some French
reporters
met us and I told them we were there for a rest and im-
plied
that we didn't care for much attention. But when we
got
to
Paris
I found this was taken
literally,
for we were
utterly ignored.
One
day,
however,
I was told that the French
government
was
sending
an invitation.
They
had heard that I wished to visit the
battlefields,
and
they
offered to
arrange
the
trip
and to send
along
an officer who
spoke English.
I
preferred
to
go my
own
way,
but
it was
urged
that a refusal would seem
ungracious,
so I
accepted.
Just
as I
feared,
it was a
military program
an hour
here,
half an
hour there. We were
put
in an old automobile I would not have
hired. The
officer,
who
spoke
English poorly,
wore me out. In
two
days
we were back and
weary.
Then came the climax. The
government
submitted
a bill for
everything-for
the automobile,
for the services of the
officer,
even for the meals we had in a French
fort."
I
expressed
amazement.
"It was no worse than was done to
Wilson,"
he added.
"When
he went to France
a
special
train was at
Cherbourg
to take him to
Paris,
and Wilson
thought
it a
gracious
act. But the French
govern-
ment submitted
a bill for the
train, and,
much embarrassed,
Wilson
paid
for it out of his own
pocket."
Thus the conversation
veered
to
Jusserand.
McAdoo
described
him as
pro-Republican,
certainly
unfriendly
to the Wilson Admin-
istration.
This did not
surprise
me in a
diplomat
accredited
to
Washington
in those
days.
I had
read numerous
memoirs and letters
of British
diplomats
who had been in
Washington
from
the
18908
until
1913,
and
scarcely any
of them
had found
anything
to admire
or even
respect
outside
Republican
circles. This
was due in
part,
no
doubt,
to the fact
that their
position
and taste confined
their
personal
contacts
to the
rich social
circles of
Washington,
New
213
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
York and
Newport,
which were almost
entirely Republican.
Thus
foreigners
formed their
opinion
of the
personnel
of American
politics
from these. Then came McAdoo's almost incredible
story
about
Jusserand:
"When the war
began
for us and we
entered,
the Allies finan-
cially
were on their last
legs. Morgan
and
Company
had about
reached the end of their
rope.
I
suggested
to Wilson that loans be
made to
help
while we were
getting
our
army ready
for the field.
This was the time we
got Congress
to vote nine billion dollars. Five
billion of this was for
us,
two for the
loans,
and two more for
emergencies.
We then loaned
England
two hundred million dollars.
When I told the
representative
of the Bank of
England
what I
proposed,
his
eyes
filled
up.
When I made out the check
my
secre-
tary suggested
that I
sign
with two
pens
and
give
one to Sir Cecil
Spring-Rice,
which I
did,
and it seemed to
please
him. Then I made
a loan of a hundred million dollars to France. Before
that,
Frank
Cobb had been
suggesting
in the World that we
'give
it to France
and not loan
it,'
and one
day
Jusserand
came in to ask about it
ostensibly
on the instructions of his
government.
I told him it was
impossible
and
unwise;
that if we
gave
it,
the
people
would think
we had done
enough,
but that a loan could be
repeated.
Jusserand
couldn't see it and was
displeased
not
only
for that
reason,
but
also because he
thought
France should have
got
as
large
a loan as
England.
I
pointed
out that
England
had made
many
loans to the
Allies,
and that we would make other loans from time to time to
do the most toward
ending
the war. When I
signed
the
check,
I did
it with two
pens
as
before,
and afterward I offered him one. 'I do
not want
it,'
he said. I
thought
it the most
ungracious thing
I had
ever heard."
Jusserand
was a brilliant
man,
a
distinguished
social historian and
an
elegant speaker,
and he was much loved and admired
by
the
Americans,
but he had no such
comprehension
of American institu-
tions as
John
Bryce.
In
my early days
with Kern I used to see
Jusse-
rand almost
every evening
on his habitual
walk,
which led
past my
apartment, accompanied by
his American
wife,
who loomed im-
pressively
above him in stature. He was a
short,
bearded
man,
and
he
always
seemed solemn on these walks. I had heard him in
Arling-
ton at the
unveiling
of the L'Enfant
memorial,
when Elihu Root
also
spoke,
and I could not but notice that the Frenchman
spoke
a
214
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
more
elegant English
than the American. He had been an intimate
of Theodore
Roosevelt,
who
probably
molded his
opinions
on the
personnel
of
public
life;
this could
hardly
have
given
him a favor-
able
impression
of Woodrow Wilson. He was an ardent French
patriot,
and while there were
ample
reasons for
giving
a
bigger
loan to
England
than to France it is not remarkable that he resented
it. Even
so,
I cannot disassociate
my impressions
of
Jusserand
from
the incident of the
pen.
One
night
I dined at Nicholas
Murray
Butler's on
Morningside
Heights.
Dr. Butler had
grown
mellower
politically,
and he found
little to commend in the Hoover administration and
something
to
praise
in the Democrats'
program.
Wise as he was
politically, ap-
parently
he was not a
perfect judge
of
political
acumen,
for that
evening
he said that Franklin D. Roosevelt was a
political
dud. This
was
surprising,
since at this time Roosevelt was
enormously popular
with the
prosperous
old families in New York because he too was
of the
aristocracy
and
could,
they thought,
be counted
upon
to
stand
by
his "class." No one then could have foreseen that fifteen
years
later,
when he was at the
peak
of his
greatness
and world
renown,
rendering
service to
mankind,
he would be the
object
of
the most violent abuse in these same circles.
Later,
Butler was to
admire and
support
Roosevelt's
foreign policy.
And then one
gloomy day
in October there was a sensational
slump
on the stock
market,
and tremors of fear ran
through
the
city.
The
speculators,
in over their
heads,
tried to console them-
selves with the
thought
that it was a freak manifestation
arranged
for some sinister
purpose by
some
mysterious personage,
and that
the morrow would see the market
booming
as before. But on the
morrow it was worse.
Desperate
men were
crowding
into the banks
seeking money
to cover
themselves,
and
finding
the bankers cold.
Many
were
trying desperately
to unload their
suddenly
worthless
stocks. Those who could not sell and no one was
buying-and
could not
borrow,
were
facing
ruin. And the third
day
it was still
worse.
It was on the
night
of the third
day
that I attended a dinner for
Winston Churchill in the home of Bernard
Baruch,
a close friend
of the British statesman
(who
was
spending
his
parliamentary
re-
2I
5
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
cess in the land of his
mother).
There were not
many guests,
but
these
represented
hundreds of millions of dollars. It was such a rich
group
in its
representation
that
John
W.
Davis,
head of the Ameri-
can bar and
scarcely
in want
himself,
came to me to
say
he was
glad
I was
there,
since it
gave
him less of an
inferiority complex
in
the midst of so
many "plutocrats."
For there was Charlie
Schwab,
big,
bluff,
burly,
associated with the steel business and
many
times
a millionaire. The
short,
slight
man with the keen
eyes, sharp
fea-
tures and
iron-gray
hair was Gerard
Swope
of the General Electric
Company,
a
vest-pocket
edition of his
brother,
Herbert
Bayard
Swope,
The
large
man with the
strong,
chiseled features one finds
on old Roman
coins,
a bit
cynical
and
sardonic,
was Charles
Mitchell of the National
City
Bank. The rather
prim
little old
man with a white beard was
Cyrus
Curtis,
owner of the
Saturday
Evening
Post and the New York
Evening Post,
who had his
finger
in numerous financial
pies.
His white
hair,
bright eyes
and
pink
schoolgirl complexion
made him handsome. Former Colorado Sen-
ator Simon
Guggenheim,
a
short,
jolly
man with a democratic man-
ner,
was in the
company.
And
mingling
with the financiers was
George
Wickersham,
former
Attorney
General,
a short
gray
man
with a
smiling
face and a
genial
manner.
Had Churchill still been Chancellor of the
Exchequer, anyone
seeing
him in such
company
would have
suspected
his mission to
be that of
negotiating
a loan.
Knowing
of the turmoil on Wall
Street,
with the economic and
financial structure
trembling
to its
base,
I would have
thought
most
of the
guests
of the
evening
would be in a huddle on the Street
seeking
means to save or restore financial
order;
I did not realize
that these wizards of finance were as
helpless
as the
ragpicker
in the
alley.
I was
puzzled by
the
general
simulation of carefree
levity,
but later I could understand.
They
were
entering
a
graveyard
and
they
were
whistling
like the scared
boy
to
keep up courage.
For
during
the dinner tie financiers on a
powder keg gave
the
impres-
sion of abnormal
gaiety.
I was seated between Baker of the
City
Trust and
Curtis,
and I asked the former how
things
looked on the
Street.
"It looks as if tomorrow will be worse than
ever,
from
present
indications,"
he said. So that was it.
I had read all that Churchill had
written and I
thought
him the
216
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
most brilliant and
entertaining
writer of
political history
since
Macaulay.
I had followed his career
eagerly
from the hour I heard
him,
fresh from his
escape
from a
military prison
in South
Africa,
lecturing
in the
English
Theater in
Indianapolis.
He then was
young.
This
night
his
appearance
at first was
disappointing.
The
dashing,
audacious,
brilliant
fighting political
orator I had envi-
sioned was
short,
pudgy,
thick-chested,
with
slightly
rounded
shoulders. He was a little
bald,
but he had the fresh
English
com-
plexion, bright, twinkling pale-blue eyes
and a small cherubic
mouth. When I told him that
although
I was the
youngest
man
present
I had
probably
heard him before
any
of the
rest,
and de-
scribed his
appearance
in
Indianapolis years
before,
he was amused.
He had read The
Tragic Era,
which Gilbert Chesterton had elabo-
rately
reviewed in an
English magazine.
In conversation his voice
was
peculiar,
a little
nasal,
as
though
he had a head
cold,
and he
talked
choppily.
With the
champagne,
Churchill was introduced and he
spoke
conversationally
for fifteen
minutes,
with numerous little whim-
sical touches and no
attempt
at
purple patches.
The
pending
eco-
nomic
tragedy
was not
mentioned,
and he talked
entirely
on
Anglo-American
relations. He said
that,
while anxious for actual
naval
parity
between the two
nations,
England
was
dependent
on
the sea for existence and this necessitated a
navy strong enough
to
keep
the breadline
open.
It was a
pleasant,
familiar talk.
After dinner I had an
opportunity
to talk with him for some
time when he was in a reminiscent mood. Someone had
suggested
that the settlement of the Irish
question
had removed a bone of
contention between the
English-speaking peoples
and that he was
largely responsible.
"No,"
he
said,
"Lloyd George
was
responsible.
Of
course,
when the
plan
was
proposed
I had
something
to do
with
helping
iron out the difficulties."
The
party
broke
up
at
midnight,
and the next
day
the market
struck bottom. The
panic
and the
long
lean
years
loomed ahead.
The
long depression,
with millions
dependent
on
charity
for
life,
had the result of
disillusioning
the
average
American about the
superhuman
wisdom of the
great
financiers. Most Americans until
then had
kept
a childlike faith in the
capacity
of bankers and
great
industrialists to do
anything they
wished. For some months it was
pathetic
to see how
many clung
to the illusion. One heard on
every
217
THE YEAR OF THE BURSTING BUBBLE
side that the market crash was due to some clever
maneuver
of
some financial wizard for some selfish
end,
and that when the
pur-
pose
had been
served,
these
strong
men of the Street would wave a
magic
wand and
lo,
everything
would be as it was
before.
It was wishful
thinking.
No one knew this so well as the
idols
of these
optimistic people. They
were as
helpless
as
anyone,
and
some of them were more
pessimistic
than most.
They
who were
of the
magic
circle knew it that
night
at
Baruch's,
and this
explained
the simulated
levity
of the
evening.
Since that
period,
the
superman
of Wall Street has
passed
into
mythology.
That autumn
Houghton
Mifflin,
my publisher,
who had
pub-
lished the books of Senator
Beveridge,
asked me to
undertake a
biography
of the
Senator, who,
after
writing
his
monumental
work on
John Marshall,
had died when an
equally imposing
work
on Lincoln was half finished. I would have
demurred had I not
learned that Mrs.
Beveridge hoped
I would consent.
Then,
to
my
relief,
I was told that
Beveridge
had
kept
all his
correspondence
of
thirty years, comprising
thousands of letters from national lead-
ers.
Eager
to
satisfy myself
of the existence of this rich mine of
information,
I went one weekend to
Beveridge's
summer home
at
Beverly
Farms, Massachusetts,
where he had written his
Marshall
and Lincoln
biographies.
The house was
large
and
attractive,
but he had built a
platform
in a tree where he had worked in warm
weather. The letter files
were on the
top
floor of the
house,
and there were the letters
alpha-
betically
filed for each
year.
And there on
many
weekends in the
attic I was to examine the
manuscript
and select such as I
required
in New York. I came to look forward to these
excursions to Bev-
erly
Farms,
since
they
took me into a beautiful
countryside
where
I could
get
the odor of trees and the smell of the sea. I had feared
that restrictions would be
put
on the use of the
manuscript,
but I
soon found that Mrs.
Beveridge
and the
publisher
wanted
history
and not an
inspired panegyric.
The letters were there to
use,
and
some of them were of the sort that
families often
keep
from
biog-
rapher
or
historian;
none was
withheld or even
discussed.
My ap-
preciation
of Mrs.
Beveridge grew
through
the months. She had
worked with
Beveridge
in the
writing
of his
great
biographies,
reading
the
manuscript
and oif
ering criticisms,
and she had the in-
218
THE YEAR OF THE
BURSTING BUBBLE
stinct of a real
historian. She never once
interfered,
never once
asked what line I was
taking.
When the
manuscript
was finished I
asked her to
read it for the
correction of
possible
mistakes as to
facts. When it was
returned with the sole
suggestion
that I
give
more
space
to the first Mrs.
Beveridge,
whom I had known when
I was a
boy, my
admiration
grew.
Though
the enormous amount of
manuscript
material,
including
the
exchange
of letters between the
political
leaders of the
period,
convinced me that the book had some
permanent value,
I was sur-
prised
when Carl Van Doren asked for it for the
Literary
Guild.
The reviews were
uniformly
favorable,
that of Dr.
John
H.
Finley
in the New York Times
especially
so. Personal letters reinforced
the
judgment
of the reviewers. When Ferris
Greenslet of
Hough-
ton
Mifflin,
whose
literary judgment
was
acknowledged,
wrote me
that "it seems to me the
very
best
biography
of
any
American
public
man that I have ever
read,"
and Willis
Abbot,
then editor
of the Christian Science
Monitor,
wrote me that he
thought
I had
"done an
amazing piece
of work when
judged by
its
literary,
his-
torical and
political
character,"
I was satisfied with the book. After
twenty-five years
I still sometimes receive letters about it.
Meanwhile the
depression deepened
and darkened and
nothing
was done in
Washington beyond
the
giving
out of assurances with
monotonous
regularity
that
prosperity
was
"just
around the cor-
ner." We were to hear this
constantly
for four
years
of
increasing
misery,
and the search for the "corner" was like
looking
for the
end of the rainbow.
219
CHAPTER XV
The
Deepening
Gloom
THROUGHOUT THE YEAR
1930
the
country
was
accustoming
itself
to the
depression,
which was
deepening
month
by
month. There
was
scarcely anyone
who did not have
personal
friends who were
in dire distress. The demands on
private charity
increased alarm-
ingly,
and no matter how
generous
the
response
it did not
remotely
meet the needs. Millions of workmen were in the streets
pounding
the
pavement
in
hopeless
search for a bread-and-butter
job.
Throughout
the
year
I was
making regular journeys
to
Beverly
Farms to work on
my biography
of
Beveridge,
and,
aside from
this,
and
my
editorial work on the
Evening World,
I was
responding
to
more invitations for
speeches
than ever before. Because of The
Tragic
Era I was overwhelmed with
requests
for commencement
speeches
in Southern
universities,
from
many
of which I received
the
honorary degree
of Doctor of Laws.
The
political pot
was
boiling
over that
year,
and I had
political
speeches
to make as well. The Administration was
conspicuously
unpopular.
It seemed
paralyzed
as to action in the face of the
great-
est economic crisis in our
history.
It insisted that it was not
proper
to extend national aid to the
unemployed
and that this was the re-
sponsibility
of
private charity
or of the cities and the
states,
whose
resources were almost exhausted. The one measure on
which,
strangely,
it
pinned
its faith was an
absurdly high
tariff
measure,
the
Smoot-Hawley
bill. With
people starving,
with trade
languish-
ing,
it
appeared
to think that to increase the cost of
living
would
somehow ameliorate the condition of the
hungry,
and that to
wreck our
foreign
market would revive the
dwindling
commercial
exchange.
The measure was so
utterly illogical
that for one
day
the Administration forces lost control of the House to the Demo-
crats and the
insurgent
Republicans.
220
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
I was in
Washington
that
day,
and I witnessed this first serious
break in the Administration lines. The lumber schedule was
up
for
discussion and action in the
House,
and
Congressman Hawley,
hail-
ing
from a lumber
state,
Oregon,
was keen about it. The
press
of
the
nation,
including
scores of
Republican papers,
was in
open
re-
volt,
putting
the fear of the Lord into the hearts of the most robust
partisans. Taking advantage
of the
situation,
Crisp
of
Georgia,
one
of the cleverest of
parliamentarians,
who was
leading
that
day
for
the
Democrats,
moved to
put
lumber on the free list.
Speaker
Longworth
called for a voice
vote, and,
to his amazement and
Hawley's
consternation,
the
ayes
won.
Hawley
stood in the aisle
with his mouth
open, mentally paralyzed, speechless.
To
give
him
a chance to recover
sufficiently
to move for a roll
call,
Longworth
drawled
slowly,
"The . . .
ayes
. . . seem to ... have it." He
repeated
it more
slowly,
but there stood
Hawley,
rooted to the
spot
and still
speechless.
At
length,
his face flushed and
very angry, Longworth
did a
most unusual
thing.
"Does the
gentleman
from
Oregon
wish to ad-
dress the chair?" he
asked,
expecting
a motion for a roll call. Still
Hawley
stood,
his mouth
open, paralyzed.
Someone else
finally
made the
motion,
but the roll call did not
help,
since
twenty
Re-
publicans,
who had stood
up
for the
high duty
but feared a record
vote,
went with the Democrats.
Then came the
sugar
schedule,
and the Democrats forced a re-
duction in the
duty.
The remainder of the afternoon the Demo-
cratic
minority
was in absolute control of the
Republican
House,
and
Crisp,
in the absence of
Jack
Garner,
sick with a
cold,
assumed
the actual
leadership
of that
body.
It was a
comedy
of errors all
around,
throwing
a white
light
for consumers on the tricks of tariff
making.
For the confession
was made that the cement bloc and the lumber bloc had
agreed
to
vote for each other's
graft.
The cement vote came first and the
lumbermen carried out their
part
of the
bargain,
but when the vote
on lumber
came,
so
great
was the
protest
that the cement men ran
out on theirs. Infuriated
by
the
betrayal,
the lumbermen
rushed to
Crisp, appealing
to his
expert parliamentary
knowledge
for some
way
to force a reconsideration of the vote on cement. The incident
was a revelation
to
many
Americans on how tariff bills are
put
through.
That
night everyone
was
laughing
in the hotel lobbies
221
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
over the bizarre events of the
day.
The old
regime
had
just
about
reached the end of its
string.
Early
that
year
I attended a
stag
dinner for General Smuts in the
home of Bernard Baruch. The last two Democratic nominees for
President, John
W. Davis and Al
Smith,
were there. That
night
Admiral
Grayson,
who had been the friend and doctor of
Wood-
row
Wilson,
told me of his
plan
to
publish
his White House
diary
when
Ray
Stannard Baker had finished his
biography
of
Wilson.
Senator Carter Glass was there with his crooked
smile,
very chatty
and
interesting, along
with Senators
Wagner
and Pittman.
There,
too,
was Governor Ritchie of
Maryland, Adolph
Ochs of the
Times,
Henry Morgenthau
and Norman H. Davis. The latter
joked
on the
possibility
of the
marriage
of his son to a
descendant
of Ben Butler of Civil War
fame,
and Carter Glass of
Virginia
sourly
observed that "the Butler
spoons"
would
probably
find their
way
to the Davis
family.
With Tom Chadbourne and Mitchell of
the National
City
Bank
talking
business at the
table,
Judge Bing-
ham,
later ambassador to
England,
turned to me with the observa-
tion,
"It's
funny
that when these New Yorkers
get together they
talk of
nothing
but
money."
In a
joking
mood Mitchell turned to
Eugene Meyer,
who,
with
Baruch,
was interested in
legislation
for the alleviation of the
tragic
state of the farmers. "And how are
your
farmers,
Gene?" he asked
with a smile.
"My
farmers
may
save
you
financiers if there's to be
any saving,"
Meyer
said.
"They're
the
people
who
may get you
out of the
panic,
and if
they
won't we'll never
get
out.
They
continue to
produce
while
your
factories close."
Mitchell sobered. "I think
you're right,"
he said.
One
day
I lunched with
Edgar
Lee Masters at the
Players
club.
He
appeared
late with the
explanation
that he was
working
on a
poem
to
supplement
his
"Jack
Kelso." It was to be called
"Gettys-
burg."
I have never known
anyone quite
like the author of
Spoon
River
Anthology
so
simple,
direct, natural,
so
pessimistic
over
politics
and so
prone
to
ignore
it because it distressed him. He was
very
like Dreiser in this
regard.
At this time Allan Nevins was
planning
222
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
to edit a series of American
biographies,
and I
persuaded
him to ask
Masters to write the
biography
of
Altgeld,
for whom I knew the
poet
had an immense admiration. The idea
appealed
to Masters mo-
mentarily,
but in the end he declined. "I found I would
get my
thoughts
on
things
I want to
keep away
from for the
peace
of
my
mind,"
he said.
Tagore,
the Indian
poet,
was then in the United States
receiving
the adulation of
literary
circles. I was shocked
by
the bitterness of
Masters' denunciation of the man.
Finally
I was able to
pin
him
down to his
grievance.
He said that the widow of William
Vaughn
Moody,
the
poet,
had a tearoom near the
University
of
Chicago,
and that all
literary
celebrities
visiting
the
city
were
expected
to
have tea with her. When
Tagore
went there he told Mrs.
Moody
that he had a few friends who would love to have tea with her as
her
guests.
He was told that he
might bring
them. The next
day
he
appeared
with half a hundred
husky compatriots,
and Mrs.
Moody
had to scour the
neighborhood
for bread and cake.
"Yes,"
snorted Masters
scornfully. "Tagore
is a
grafter."
In the old
days
I had often wished to have Dreiser and
Edgar
Lee
Masters to
dinner,
but I had found both
chilly
to the
suggestion
and
had learned a
possible
reason for the
estrangement.
It seems that
some
years
before the
publication
of his
Spoon
River
Anthology
Masters,
then one of Dreiser's
friends,
was
morbidly depressed
over
his
inability
to realize his
literary aspirations.
He had abandoned a
lucrative law
practice
with Clarence Darrow to concentrate on
writing
and
nothing
had come of it. He was even
hinting
at suicide.
Dreiser,
who knew he was full of the
Spoon
River
poems,
had
urged
that he
put
them in form. "You're such a
killjoy,"
he told
him,
"that I'm not concerned with what
you
do about
yourself,
but I am interested in
seeing
those
poems
written. Write
them,
and
then,
if
you
insist,
go
off and shoot
yourself."
Masters wrote
the
poems,
and Dreiser
peddled
them about to all the
publishing
houses in New York without success. At
length
William Marion
Reedy published
some of them in his St. Louis
magazine,
and after
these created a furor all the
publishers
wanted them. "I've seen
very
little of Masters for a number of
years,"
Dreiser added. "It
got
so
every
time I saw him he was cross with
me,
and so I
stayed away.
I have no idea what it was about."
The
subject
was too delicate to mention to
Masters,
so I never
223
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
heard his version of the
cooling
of their relations.
Happily, years
later,
when Dreiser was
given
the Gold Medal for Literature
by
the
Academy
of Arts and
Letters,
he insisted that
Masters,
then
ill,
ac-
company
him to the
ceremony,
and Masters did.
That
year
the
political
outlook was
interesting.
After the elec-
tion of
1928
Mr.
Raskob,
the national
chairman,
delegated
the
active duties of the
chairmanship
to
Jouett
Shouse,
than whom no
better man could have been found. I knew him
intimately
and ad-
mired him. He did much to form the Democratic members of Con-
gress
into a
compact organized group.
He
put experts
to work col-
lecting
the material that formed the basis of
Congressional speeches
that were
given
a nationwide circulation. In Charles Michelson
he found one of the ablest
publicity
men who ever served a
politi-
cal cause.
Despite
the
overwhelming
defeat in
1928
the
party
entered the
Congressional campaign
of
1930
perfectly organized
for action and
richly
munitioned
through
Shouse. He had a hun-
dred thousand
copies
of an article of mine in the World
printed
and circulated. And so with
many
others. That
year
I made a num-
ber of
political speeches. My
own interest in them now comes from
incidents connected with them.
In
February
I
spoke
at a
banquet
of the Democratic Editorial
Association in
Indianapolis,
and the next
day
I went to Terre
Haute, where,
at one of several functions for
me,
I had a
peculiar
experience
that has
puzzled
me ever since. I have often
thought
that a clever
essayist
could write a
charming essay
on the adven-
tures of a
book,
and this will illustrate: At a luncheon
presided
over
by
the
mayor,
a local labor leader was introduced to tell a
story.
He said he had
long patronized
a little
junk shop
and secondhand
bookstore near where he
worked,
and that
recently,
while rum-
maging among
his
possessions bought
there,
he had found a
copy
of
Byron's poems
the
inscription
of which showed that it had been
bought by
a
boy
with
money
made on tickets for a
Joaquin
Miller
lecture. He remarked that the book had
marginal
notations and
that he was distressed to
say
that most of the marked
passages
were
from Don
Juan.
He had been
tempted
to
keep
the
book,
but had
concluded it should
go
back to the
boy
who had
bought
it
myself
.
I remembered the book well. How it found its
way
into a
secondhand store in Terre
Haute,
seventy
miles from
Indianapolis,
224
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
I cannot
imagine,
since I had never sold a book from
my library'.
It
probably
had been loaned to a friend
who,
as is often the
custom,
failed to return it and later needed a little
money.
Thus after a third
of a
century Byron
came back to me.
A somewhat similar
experience
later: When I was in Chile I
noticed in a circular
announcement of the
Argosy
bookstore in
New York that
among
the old books offered was a first edition of
my
Party
Battles
of
the
Jackson
Period,
and since I had no first
edition I ordered it. I had it some
years
before I noticed that it was
an inscribed
copyfrom
William Gibbs AlcAdoo to Tom Chad-
bourne as a Christmas
gift
in
1922.
It
evidently
had reached the
Argosy through
the sale of Chadbourne's
library
after his death.
I am sure that the bookstore too had overlooked the
inscription,
or the
price
would have been
higher.
In
April
1930
I was the
speaker
at a dinner of the Women's
National Democratic Club in
Washington
in their new clubhouse
on Connecticut Avenue.
Among
the numerous men who attended
were Cordell
Hull,
Perry
Belmont,
some Senators and Dr.
Jamieson
of the
Congressional Library.
At the small round table where I
sat,
and at which Mrs.
Daisy
Harriman
presided,
were Mrs. Woodrow
Wilson,
Madame
Grouitch,
a
Virginia
woman married to the For-
eign
Minister of
Yugoslavia,
and,
strangely enough,
a
Republican
guest
who arrived
just
as I
began speaking
Alice Roosevelt
Long-
worth. When the wife of the
Republican Speaker
threaded her
way among
the tables there was a
gasp
of astonishment from most
of the women which sounded like a sudden breeze in the trees. I
certainly
had not
planned
to
say anything
about her father or her
husband,
but I did moderate a few
expressions
out of deference to
her. She was not enamored of the Hoover Administration
and,
being
a
Roosevelt,
had no inhibitions on the
subject,
and she
cheered
portions
of the
speech
and
laughed heartily
at all the
jibes
at the Administration.
A week later I
spoke
at a state Democratic
banquet
in
Cleveland,
in the ballroom of the Statler Hotel. I looked forward with
pleasure
to this
dinner,
since Newton D. Baker had
agreed
to introduce
me,
and,
though
ill and
running
a
temperature,
he
appeared.
He was a
small
man,
but no one could look into his
face,
with its
penetrating
dark
eyes,
without
realizing
that there was an
extraordinary
intelli-
225
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
gence
to
explain
his brilliant career at the bar and as
Secretary
of
War. At this time he was
being urged
in
many quarters
for the
Democratic Presidential nomination. He brushed the
suggestion
aside with
seeming levity.
When I told him of a talk with Mrs.
Woodrow
Wilson,
who had
expressed
a
preference
for his nomina-
tion,
he said he had been too close to the
Presidency
ever to crave
the
job,
but this I could not
quite
believe. That
night
he was down-
cast over the fate of the World Court and
puzzled
over Hoover's
failure to
popularize
himself,
ascribing
it in
part
to his
incapacity
for
political leadership.
As we were
leaving,
an incident convinced me that Baker would
have liked
nothing
better than the Presidential nomination in
1932.
He had left the hall and was in the
lobby,
when he returned to the
dining
room to
say
to me in an
undertone,
"It's too
early
to decide
on the matter
you
mentioned at the table.
5 '
During
the last week of the
campaign
in
1930
I was asked
by
Shouse to make a
political speech
over a nationwide radio
hookup,
and I chose as
my subject
"The
Collapse
of an Administration." I
had
always
found a
microphone disturbing;
still,
it had been
pos-
sible to
ignore
its
presence
when I was
facing
an audience. But to
make a
speech
with the
right
tone and
expression
into a
piece
of
mechanism in an
empty
room was not so
simple,
and I looked for-
ward to the ordeal with
trepidation.
However,
on
entering
the
room I found a
thirty-piece
band that was to furnish
music,
and
during
the
delivery
of the
speech
I talked to the musicians and
got
the same
inspiration
as from
any
other audience. Even
so,
it seemed
a waste of time and
energy,
for this was in the
early days
of the
radio and I still found it hard to believe that
people
were
really
listening.
But the
reception
was
good
and
telegrams
and letters
poured
in from
every
section of the
country. Bainbridge Colby
described the
speech
as "a terrific
arraignment
of the Hoover Ad-
ministration without
exaggeration,"
and Shouse
thought
it "the
strongest speech
of the
campaign." Requests
for
copies
of the
speech
came from
Congressional
candidates over the
country.
I
was
pressed
to
speak
in
Boston,
and Peter Goelet
Gerry
asked me
to
speak
in
Providence,
but it was
impossible,
and
my
one
campaign
speech
was made over the radio. It was
easy
to make an
opposition
speech
in those
days.
226
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
The Democrats
swept
the
country
in
1930
and carried the House
of
Representatives.
In New York Franklin D. Roosevelt was re-
elected
governor by
a
majority
much
greater
than the one that had
first elected him in
1928,
and there no
longer
could be
any
doubt
of his
candidacy
for the
1932
Presidential nomination.
In
July
I had
spent
a
day
with Roosevelt at his
family
home at
Hyde
Park
my
first visit
there,
although
I had been to his house
in the
city.
The drive from
Poughkeepsie
to
Hyde
Park is
through
a beautiful
countryside.
The house looked mellow and attractive
a
very large yellow
brick,
with a columned
porch,
softened
by
time. It reminded me of an
English country
house.
Mrs. Roosevelt
appeared
in the
drawing
room to
say
that the
Governor wanted to initiate me into the
mysteries
of a farmer's life.
When I reached the hall I found Roosevelt in a wheel
chair,
jovial
but not
looking
so
well,
I
thought,
for his color was
grayish
and
there were circles under his
eyes.
He was wheeled outside and two
husky
men
engaged
on the farm lifted him into a small
car,
in
which he drove us to a
grove
of
poplars
whose
trimming
he wanted
to
supervise.
He was without coat or
vest,
and his shirt was un-
buttoned
at the
top.
His mother had
suggested
a
light
coat,
but he
had
impatiently
brushed it aside.
Hardly
had we reached the
grove
when the contractor for a
bridge
that was soon to be
formally opened
came to talk over the
plans
for the
ceremony.
"Foolish,"
said Roosevelt after the man had
gone.
"It could have been attended to better
through correspond-
ence."
It was soon evident that he knew all about
trees, for,
as he sat in
the
car,
he directed which branches should be cut
off,
and how
close
they
were to be cut. When one of the farm hands
appeared
with a
scythe
to mow the tall
weeds,
Roosevelt
gave
a shout of
ap-
proval,
expressing surprise
that the man knew how to use it. The
youngest
Roosevelt
boy
also had a
scythe,
and his father took some
pride
in
that,
warning
him not to cut his shins.
In between
times when he was
directing
the
trimming
of the
trees,
he talked
politics.
It was clear that the Prohibition issue an-
noyed
him not a little. He had his own idea of a
plank
for the state
platform,
to be headed not
"Prohibition,"
but
"Temperance."
It
differed little from the
ordinary
declaration
for the
repeal
of the
Eighteenth
Amendment.
It
proposed
a restoration to the states of
227
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
the
right
to determine for
themselves,
with a
pledge
of federal
sup-
port
in the enforcement of Prohibition in states that
preferred
it,
through
a control of interstate commerce.
I told him I
thought
Smith had made a mistake in the
convention
of
1928
in
sending
his "wet"
telegram
after he had been
nominated,
and he
agreed.
"The
telegram
was sent on the insistence of Belle
Moscowitz,"
he said. "It came when the convention was on its last
legs,
and,
in the absence of
Robinson,
Pat Harrison was
presiding.
I showed him the
telegram. 'My
God,'
he
said,
'this will cause a
riot!' And so we
agreed
that when all the business was over the
telegram
would be
read,
since we had to read
it,
and then I would
immediately
move an
adjournment
and Pat would
put
the
question
and declare its
adoption."
At
length
Mrs. Roosevelt
appeared, laughing,
to
say
that we
really
must
go
to
lunch,
since others were
waiting
and
hungry.
It
was then almost two o'clock. She stood on the
running
board and
the Governor drove us back.
Roosevelt was in fine humor that
day.
He entertained the com-
pany
at lunch
by telling
about his Harvard
days,
and about the
place
in
Georgia
where water ran
uphill
an
optical
illusion that he
then
explained.
After lunch when the ladies went to the
drawing
room for
coffee,
Roosevelt had a conference with some
politicians
from Connecti-
cut,
while I sat on the
porch
and smoked. At
length
we were sum-
moned to the
drawing
room with the announcement that Roosevelt
was "in his corner"
by
the
fireplace.
Here we talked
politics
and
personalities
for a while. Then his
secretary
came to
say
that some
foreigner
was there to ask him about some
"poles
in the road."
Visibly annoyed,
he told her to find out about it and to take notes.
Soon Mrs. Roosevelt
entered,
amused and
apologetic, saying
that
the man
simply
had to see him about some
"poles
in the road."
Simulating
the manner of a
petulant
child,
he
said,
"But I don't
know
anything
about
poles
in the road." And then he
added,
"This
is the
way
it is. I'm troubled more here with matters of this sort
than in
Albany."
I had been much
impressed by
Roosevelt's
naturalness,
by
the
delightful informality
of the
family
and
by
his evident love of
Hyde
Park,
and I was
glad
that I had seen him
trimming
the trees
minus coat or vest and with his shirt
open
at the
top.
228
THE
DEEPENING GLOOM
But
Presidential
politics
was now to the fore. That
August
I had
lunch with
Jouett
Shouse at the Park Lane Hotel in New York and
found him
optimistic
over the
party's prospects
for
1932.
He had
attended a
conference of Raskob and Smith with Roosevelt. This
was before the
convention that was to renominate Roosevelt for
governor.
I
learned later that the
purpose
of the conference was
to
persuade
Smith to
place
Roosevelt in
nomination,
and to de-
termine Smith's role in the
campaign.
Still
later,
I learned that
Smith had issued an ultimatum that if he was to take
part
in the
campaign
for
Roosevelt the latter would have to make clear
pub-
licly
that he was a
"dripping
wet."
Thus,
for the first
time,
I fore-
saw the inevitable friction between the old friends. In New York
it was an
unnecessary
declaration,
since
everyone
knew
perfectly
well that Roosevelt was
opposed
to Prohibition. The
only
effect
of a
dripping-wet
declaration would have been to
put
him on the
defensive in the
South,
which was
politically dry.
It was not in-
tended to be
helpful
to Roosevelt's
candidacy
for the Presidential
nomination.
Political luncheons and dinners were
multiplying.
One
day
Bain-
bridge Colby
asked me to lunch with him at a restaurant on Ann
Street. I knew him for what he
was,
a
very
brilliant
man,
a
polished
orator. In
appearance
he resembled the
pictures
of the courtiers of
the
days
of Louis XIV. He had that
mingling
of
strength, cunning
and romanticism. His handsome head covered with
iron-gray
hair,
his
strong,
lean bronzed
face,
his brown
eyes indicating
his
intellect,
his full
lips, gave
me that
impression.
His voice was full-toned. His
manner was not
merely
courteous,
it was
courtly.
That
day
I found
him a
fascinating
conversationalist. As in his
speeches,
his vocabu-
lary
was rich and colorful.
He told me how he had entered the Democratic
Party
in
1916
by way
of the Bull Moose. He had made the
speech placing
Theo-
dore Roosevelt in nomination at the
Chicago
convention,
but
scarcely
had he finished his
peroration
when his candidate walked
bag
and
baggage
back into the
Republican camp. Utterly
crushed
and
disgusted,
he could not
bring
himself to
join
the others on the
homeward
journey,
and instead he went to a
Chicago
hotel and
shut himself in his room with a bottle of
rye
and a box of
cigars.
When the New York World
telegraphed
Win for his views on the
229
THE DEEPENING
GLOOM
situation he brushed it aside. "But
finally,"
he
said,
"the
rye
and
the
cigars
soothed me and I decided
to send
something
to the
World. I said that the
Progressive Party
was dead and that it would
be wise to wait and see what the Democrats
did. That went all over
the
country
and caused some comment. Later I attended a dinner in
New York addressed
by
Woodrow
Wilson. It was the time he said
he was
playing
for the verdict of mankind.
Unexpectedly
I was
called
upon,
but I didn't commit
myself.
It didn't seem to be the
time. But I did
pay
a tribute to Wilson and sat down. I was a little
flustered,
as one will be when called
upon
without
warning,
won-
dering
if I had said the
right thing. Suddenly
someone took hold of
my
arm. It was Wilson. He had come all the
way
from his
place
at
the table to thank me and to
say
he
appreciated
what I had said.
That was the sweetest moment of
my
life." Soon after that he had
gone
over to the
Democrats,
to become in time Wilson's last Secre-
tary
of State.
That
day
he told another
story
of the
Progressive,
or Bull
Moose,
Party.
Two calls were written for the first
Progressive
convention
in
1912,
one
by
Frank
Munsey,
the other
by Colby.
Theodore
Roosevelt
preferred
the
Colby
call,
but
Munsey
threatened to leave
the
party
if his were not
used,
and it was. After
Munsey
left,
Roosevelt
said,
"I have a
profound respect
for Mr.
Munsey's
checkbook."
I
got
the
impression
that
day
that
Colby
had
aspirations
for the
Presidential nomination. He told me
something
I had not heard
before,
that at one time
during
the
1920
San Francisco convention
there was a
possibility
that he
might
be
put
in nomination.
Murphy
of
Tammany
had told him that there was some sentiment for his
nomination,
and that it had been decided to
"give
him a run." But
Murphy thought
it would be unwise for
Tammany
or New York
to lead off. His idea was for some state near the
top
of the roll call
to lead off and for New York to follow.
Just
why
this
plan
was
not carried out he did not
say.
I had no little admiration for the intellectual caliber of Bain-
bridge Colby,
who
unquestionably enjoyed
the confidence and
friendship
of Woodrow Wilson. But with a Democratic
victory
al-
most inevitable because of the wretched economic condition of the
country,
it was too much to
expect
that the
party
would turn for a
leader to one who had been associated with it
only
a few
years,
230
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
Clearly
it would make its choice between
Roosevelt,
Garner,
Baker,
Ritchie and others who had
fought
the battles of the lean
years
and felt that in the
year
of the harvest one of them should be
the
beneficiary
of the
sowing.
In the
interval,
in
early
1931,
came what
Adolph
Ochs of the
New York Times
described as a
great tragedy
to American
jour-
nalismthe needless
scrapping
of the New York
World,
the
great-
est
champion
of liberal
principles
in the
country.
I had
just
returned from
Georgia,
where I had
spoken
at the
University
of
Georgia
and at
Oglethorpe University,
and was un-
locking
the door to
my
office when Rollin
Kirby,
in
passing,
asked
if I
thought
it worth while. He then startled me with the news that
the World was
being
sold to the
Scripps-Howard
chain and would
be
scrapped.
It was
my
first intimation that
negotiations
for a sale
had been in
progress,
and I was no more
ignorant
of the
proceed-
ings
behind the screen than others on the staff who had been on the
paper
for
thirty years.
Later I learned that Herbert
Pulitzer,
Joseph
Pulitzer's
youngest
son,
to whom the father had left a
controlling
interest,
had
approached Adolph
Ochs with an offer to sell the
Morning, Evening
and
Sunday
World to the Times. The offer was
refused.
Ochs,
who looked
upon great newspapers
as
public
insti-
tutions and not
merchandise,
was
shocked,
and he
promised
a
counterproposition.
This
contemplated
the
turning
over of the
paper
to members of the
staff,
with some financial assistance to
cover the
period
of transition. No
reply
was made to that
generous
proposal.
The sale
proceedings
were
delayed
because the sale could
not be consummated without court action from
Surrogate Foley,
and
during
the interval a funereal
pall
descended on the staff.
Lovely
old
John
Heaton,
who had been with the
paper
for
years
during
the lifetime of
Joseph
Pulitzer,
and to whom the World
was as a
child,
was
prostrated by
the news.
Surrogate Foley
was still
considering
his action when I attended
a dinner of Roosevelt's at the Executive Mansion in
Albany
and
stayed
the
night.
All at the table were
talking
almost
exclusively
about the fate of the
great newspaper.
Roosevelt announced that he
had
arranged
for
any
news
touching
on the sale to be
promptly
transmitted to him. The
atmosphere
was like that of
people
in a
room
Adjoining
that of a friend whose life was
ebbing.
The news
231
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
that
Foley
had authorized the sale came while we were still at the
table,
and it was received with the
solemnity
with which the an-
nouncement of a death would be received.
Some time
later,
at a
political
dinner,
Surrogate Foley
told me
of his
grief
in
authorizing
the
sale,
but said that all information in
his
possession
indicated there was no
possible way
to save the
paper.
Later still I learned that there was a
way. Adolph
Ochs,
who was
abroad at the
time,
told a staff conference on his return that
per-
haps
it was
just
as well that he had been out of the
country,
because
if he had been in New York he would
voluntarily
have
gone
before
Foley
and shown
how,
with some
changes,
the
Morning
World
could make
money,
thus
eliminating
the one reason on which
Foley
acted.
The sale was
against
the
judgment
or desire of
Ralph
Pulitzer.
On
February
24, 193
1,
1 received a sad letter from
Ralph:
In the face of this
tragedy
to our
newspaper
and of the
personal
catas-
trophe
that it means to so
many
devoted World
men,
words seem worse
than
empty.
I must ask
you
to believe that the
abrupt
nature of the sale as well as
the sale itself was unavoidable.
The
depth
of
my
own distress for the fate of the editors and the fu-
ture of so
many
of the men with whom I have
spent my working
life
I must leave to
your friendship
to realize.
With heartfelt thanks for
your past loyal
services to the
paper
and
to
me,
I
am,
Faithfully yours,
RALPH PULITZER
The
grief
of
many
thousands is reflected in a letter that Senator
Wagner
wrote me on March 2:
I never
regarded myself
as a
sentimentalist,
yet
I had that
"lump
in
the throat"
feeling
when I realized that the sun had set
upon
the
Evening
World. In a
rapidly changing age
I
suppose
we must learn to
accept
such events and
hope
that the ideas and ideals embraced in
your
edi-
torial
page
will somehow find
expression.
In
fact,
knowing you,
I am
sure
they
will.
There can be no doubt that the
scrapping
of the World was not
only
the
greatest tragedy
in the
history
of American
journalism
but
an
equal tragedy
to liberalism in the United States.
232
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
I was still at the dinner table in
Albany
when Hearst
telephoned
from California to Will
Curley
of the
Journal
to
get
me for a
signed
editorial column. Six
years
before I had declined an offer of a
Hearst editorial
position
vacated
by
Norman
Hapgood.
When
Curley
invited me to his
apartment
in the Warwick Hotel I told
him that
many
of
my
views were not in accord with those of Mr.
Hearst,
and that I could not write
against my
own convictions.
He
replied
that I would select
my
own
subjects
and treat them in
my
own
way,
and that since
my
column would be
signed
it would be
mine without interference. I
accepted
with some
misgivings,
I
wrote
signed
articles for all the Hearst
papers
from coast to coast
for two
years
and not one word was ever stricken out. Never once
was I instructed to write
anything.
No one ever
inquired
what I
was
going
to write or
say.
As an editorial writer I have never had
such freedom of
expression anywhere
else.
In one editorial I
injected
a
paragraph
in commendation of some-
thing
Al Smith had said. Because I had been treated so
fairly,
I took
the editorial to
Curley
and told him that it contained a
paragraph
he
might
not want and that it could be stricken out without
de-
stroying
the whole. He read the editorial
carefully.
"What
paragraph
do
you
mean?" he asked. I told him.
"
What's
wrong
with it?" he asked.
I
replied
that I found
nothing wrong
with
it,
but that I knew
of the feud between Hearst and Smith.
"All the more reason we should
publish
it,"
he said. "It
proves
to the
public
that
you're
free."
Another
incident,
even more
impressive
to me: I had devoted
two columns of satirical observations
on a
political
interview with
a
great
industrialist,
and the next
day, speaking
in the home
city
of
this
man,
I had
repeated
the substance of the editorial in a
speech.
Two months
later,
after the election of
1932,
the
city
editor told
me that at the time the editorial
appeared
the industrialist was on
the
point
of
signing
an
advertising
contract of
huge proportions,
and that Hearst almost lost the contract.
I went to
Curley.
"You didn't tell me about the trouble over the
advertising
contract
with
,"
I said.
Curley's
face flushed. "Who told
you?"
he asked.
I told him.
"He had no
right
to tell
you,"
he said with
indignation.
"We had
233
THE DEEPENING GLOOM
specific
instructions from the chief never to mention the matter to
you.
Hearst stood firm and
got
the contract
anyway.
If he
hadn't
it would have been all the same as far as
you're
concerned."
I
enjoyed my
two
years
with Hearst. I wrote
my
editorials in
my
home and took or sent them to the office. Because
my
name was
signed
to them I had a new
experience
as an editorial writer: a
great daily
flood of letters addressed to me. Most of these were
laudatory,
some were
abusive;
from them I learned more about the
public.
During
his
long
life
many derogatory things
were said about
Hearst,
too few in commendation of
many public
services he ren-
dered.
Differing
from him on
many things,
I
thought
him a
great
journalistic genius
and a man of
great ability.
His occasional two-
column
front-page
editorials were most
powerful.
He
fought many
a battle for social
justice
for which he was
viciously
assailed.
I saw him
personally only
once,
when I was ambassador in
Madrid and he was
touring Spain.
He came to the
embassy
resi-
dence,
the
palace
of the Duke of
Montellano,
to see the famous
Goya panels
and the beautiful
garden,
and it was hard to associate
the
hard-hitting journalist
with the
modest-mannered,
soft-spoken
and
kindly gentleman
I met that
day.
2
34
CHAPTER XVI
Gloomy
Years and
Light
Shafts in
the Darkness
WHETHER Colonel House
played
an
important part
in the Demo-
cratic national convention of
1932
I have never known. At an in-
teresting
luncheon at the home of Elisabeth
Marbury
in
January
of that
year
I met him
again.
We had
eggnog
before luncheon,
and there was some
speculation
as to whether Mrs. Roosevelt
would
object
to the
serving
of cocktails. This was
incredibly silly,
since
they
were served in the Roosevelt home and Roosevelt al-
ways
insisted on
making
them himself. I had seen him
shaking
them
in his corner in the
drawing
room and had
partaken
of a number of
his brew. That
day
I found that both House and Miss
Marbury
were for
Roosevelt,
and I was
puzzled
when she
pointed
to House
with the
comment,
"He's our rock."
The traditional Democratic
banquet
on
Jackson's birthday
in
Washington
was held as
usual,
but there was
significance
in the
dropping
of the custom of
inviting
all the avowed candidates for
the Presidential
nomination
to
speak.
Instead it had been
decided
that
speeches
should be made
only by previous
Presidential
nomi-
nees,
which meant
John
W.
Davis,
James
M. Cox and Al Smith-
two of whom at the time were undercover
candidates.
I was asked
to
preside
as toastmaster. The
significant
thing
was the exclusion of
Roosevelt,
who was the most
conspicuous
candidate.
Smith
received an ovation
when he entered the
dining
room.
His
speech,
though
not
quite up
to his standard,
was more con-
structive than the others'.
By urging
federal
action to meet the
crisis of
unemployment,
he made a
timely
talk and a wise one.
That
evening
Jack
Garner,
now
Speaker
of the
House,
also re-
235
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS
IN THE DARKNESS
ceived an ovation on
entering
and his
ruddy
face beamed. He too
was then a
prospective
candidate. It seemed clear to me that it was
the field
against
Roosevelt.
Three weeks later I lunched at the Waldorf with
Jouett Shouse,
and we discussed the statement
by
Newton D. Baker that the
League
of Nations would not be an issue in the
campaign
a state-
ment that had been
accepted
as an announcement of his
candidacy.
Many
who
hoped
for Baker's nomination were
criticizing
him for
his
coy approach
and his
indisposition
to
wage
a militant
campaign.
Shouse,
who admired
Baker, remarked,
"In these
days
no one can
hope
for the nomination without an active
fight."
The next
day
the
opposition
of Al Smith to Roosevelt came out
into the
open.
With
unnecessary emphasis
he
repudiated
the
story
that he would soon be a
guest
of Roosevelt in
Albany,
and this was
taken as a declaration of war
against
his former friend and cham-
pion.
I know that on that
very day
a conference was in
progress
to
persuade
Smith to announce his own
candidacy.
I
got
the im-
pression
from men
sponsoring
that conference
that,
while
they
did
not think Smith could be
nominated,
they hoped, through
his
candidacy,
to make it
impossible
for Roosevelt to marshal the
necessary
two-thirds vote.
Also,
that with two candidates from
New York neither could be nominated. The
tragedy
here was in
the fact that Smith himself was confident of the nomination.
Meanwhile,
Governor
Harry Byrd
of
Virginia
was about to enter
the arena. In
February
1932
I sat beside him at a luncheon at the
Lawyers
Club and he asked me to
linger
after the others had
left,
when he told me that in conversation with Smith he had found him
wrought up
with fear that
religion might again
be
dragged
in,
and
complaining
that Roosevelt had not mentioned his own Presidential
aspirations
to him
personally.
This,
I
know,
was
true,
but Roosevelt
knew from the
beginning
that he could not count on the
support
of his old leader. The sole
justification
for the reference to
religion
was in the fact that
many
who would have liked to see Smith Presi-
dent did not want to
go through
another
campaign
like that of
1928.
Soon after this I had an hour alone with
Jack
Garner in the office
of the
Speaker
in
Washington.
He was
being urged
to enter the
race. Few men have had a more
magnetic
and
pleasing personality.
He was
picturesque,
with white hair and
heavy long
white
eye-
236
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
brows,
always
a bit
disheveled. There was a
golden
warmth in his
all-embracing
smile,
and in the
blue-gray eyes
could be seen a
capacity
for fire and
fury.
He was a
fighter
and looked it. When I
told him that in business circles I was
hearing many complimentary
things
about
him,
he
instantly
sobered.
"Yes,
I hear
that,
and that's
what worries me. I'm
wondering
if
my
conservatism has been
exag-
gerated." Later,
after his
nomination for
Vice-President,
an at-
tempt
would be made to convince
conservative elements that he
was a radical
extremist. It was clear that
day
that,
while
eager
for
the
Presidential
nomination,
he had no illusions.
He then told me an
interesting story
about the Hoover mora-
torium on
intergovernmental
debts. Hoover had
telephoned
him in
Texas to ask for a
sweeping approval
of the
plan.
This he refused
to
give.
Later,
at a
meeting
of the
Congressional
leaders at the
White
House,
it was he who had broken
up
the
plan
for a
longer
moratorium with cancellation as the evident intent. He told
Hoover that it seemed that the leaders had been called in to write
his
message.
"I had had a drink or two and
got
restless and I walked
out into the
hall,"
he said. "Senator Borah followed me and
said,
Tm
gkd you
said what
you
did. I was
waiting
to see if someone
else would
say
it,
and would have said it
myself
if no one had.' The
next
day
Borah told a
press correspondent
that he had
always
been
a Prohibitionist but that two drinks of
liquor
had rendered a
great
service to the
country
the
night
before."
On the first of
May
I lunched with
James
A.
Farley
in his room
at the Biltmore in New York. He was a man of attractive
personal-
ity
and
political
tact,
combined with rare
organizing ability,
but
until then his
experience
in national
politics
had been limited. He
was to become
perhaps
the
greatest campaign manager
in our his-
tory.
He formed
personal
contacts and
friendships
with
party
workers from the
highest
to the
lowest,
and
precinct
workers in
forty-eight
states
spoke familiarly
of him as
"Jim."
In Terre Haute
early
in that
year's campaign
I
joined
the
party
workers for re-
freshments after
speaking
and noticed that constant references
were
being
made to
"Jim."
Assuming
the reference was to some
local
politician,
I
asked,
"What
Jim?"
Evidently
astonished
by my
ignorance, they replied
in a
chorus, "Jim
Farley,"
He had
spent
a
few hours in the Hoosier
city
and was
already
established as a sort
of next-door
neighbor.
2
37
GLOOMY YEARSAND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
ceived an ovation on
entering
and his
ruddy
face beamed. He too
was then a
prospective
candidate. It seemed clear to me that it was
the field
against
Roosevelt.
Three weeks later I lunched at the Waldorf with
Jouett Shouse,
and we discussed the statement
by
Newton D. Baker that the
League
of Nations would not be an issue in the
campaign
a state-
ment that had been
accepted
as an announcement of his
candidacy.
Many
who
hoped
for Baker's nomination were
criticizing
him for
his
coy approach
and his
indisposition
to
wage
a militant
campaign.
Shouse,
who admired
Baker, remarked,
"In these
days
no one can
hope
for the nomination without an active
fight."
The next
day
the
opposition
of Al Smith to Roosevelt came out
into the
open.
With
unnecessary emphasis
he
repudiated
the
story
that he would soon be a
guest
of Roosevelt in
Albany,
and this was
taken as a declaration of war
against
his former friend and cham-
pion.
I know that on that
very day
a conference was in
progress
to
persuade
Smith to announce his own
candidacy.
I
got
the im-
pression
from men
sponsoring
that conference
that,
while
they
did
not think Smith could be
nominated,
they hoped, through
his
candidacy,
to make it
impossible
for Roosevelt to marshal the
necessary
two-thirds vote.
Also,
that with two candidates from
New York neither could be nominated. The
tragedy
here was in
the fact that Smith himself was confident of the nomination.
Meanwhile,
Governor
Harry Byrd
of
Virginia
was about to enter
the arena. In
February
1932
I sat beside him at a luncheon at the
Lawyers
Club and he asked me to
linger
after the others had
left,
when he told me that in conversation with Smith he had found him
wrought up
with fear that
religion might again
be
dragged
in,
and
complaining
that Roosevelt had not mentioned his own Presidential
aspirations
to him
personally.
This,
I
know,
was
true,
but Roosevelt
knew from the
beginning
that he could not count on the
support
of his old leader. The sole
justification
for the reference to
religion
was in the fact that
many
who would have liked to see Smith Presi-
dent did not want to
go through
another
campaign
like that of
1928.
Soon after this I had an hour alone with
Jack
Garner in the office
of the
Speaker
in
Washington.
He was
being urged
to enter the
race. Few men have had a more
magnetic
and
pleasing personality.
He was
picturesque,
with white hair and
heavy long
white
eye-
236
GLOOMY
YEARSAND LIGHT SHAFTS IK THE DARKNESS
brows,
always
a bit
disheveled. There was a
golden
warmth in his
all-embracing smile,
and in the
blue-gray eyes
could be seen a
capacity
for fire and
fury.
He was a
fighter
and looked it. When I
told him that in business circles I was
hearing many complimentary
things
about
him,
he
instantly
sobered-
"Yes,
I hear
that,
and that's
what worries me. I'm
wondering
if
my
conservatism has been
exag-
gerated." Later,
after his
nomination for
Vice-President,
an at-
tempt
would be made to convince conservative elements that he
was a radical
extremist. It was clear that
day
that,
while
eager
for
the Presidential
nomination,
he had no illusions.
He then told me an
interesting story
about the Hoover mora-
torium on
intergovernmental
debts. Hoover had
telephoned
him in
Texas to ask for a
sweeping approval
of the
plan.
This he refused
to
give.
Later,
at a
meeting
of the
Congressional
leaders at the
White
House,
it was he who had broken
up
the
plan
for a
longer
moratorium with cancellation as the evident intent. He told
Hoover that it seemed that the leaders had been called in to write
his
message.
"I had had a drink or two and
got
restless and I walked
out into the
hall,"
he said. "Senator Borah followed me and
said,
Tm
glad you
said what
you
did. I was
waiting
to see if someone
else would
say
it,
and would have said it
myself
if no one had.' The
next
day
Borah told a
press correspondent
that he had
always
been
a Prohibitionist but that two drinks of
liquor
had rendered a
great
service to the
country
the
night
before."
On the first of
May
I lunched with
James
A.
Farley
in his room
at the Biltmore in New York. He was a man of attractive
personal-
ity
and
political
tact,
combined with rare
organizing ability,
but
until then his
experience
in national
politics
had been limited. He
was to become
perhaps
the
greatest campaign manager
in our his-
tory.
He formed
personal
contacts and
friendships
with
party
workers from the
highest
to the
lowest,
and
precinct
workers in
forty-eight
states
spoke familiarly
of him as
"Jim."
In Terre Haute
early
in that
year's campaign
I
joined
the
party
workers for re-
freshments after
speaking
and noticed that constant references
were
being
made to
"Jim." Assuming
the reference was to some
local
politician,
I
asked,
"What
Jim?"
Evidently
astonished
by my
ignorance, they replied
in a
chorus, "Jim Farley."
He had
spent
a
few hours in the Hoosier
city
and was
already
established as a sort
of next-door
neighbor.
2
37
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE
DARKNESS
I had met him
casually
before the
day
of our lunch at the
Bilt-
more,
but had never
really
talked with him.
Big, hearty,
manif
estly
sincere,
he made a
deep impression upon
me.
Just
what he
wanted
to see me about I could not
guess,
and when at
length
I left
him
I still did not know. It was evident that he was then
utterly
devoted
to
Roosevelt. He had been
equally
devoted to Al
Smith,
whom he
still loved. When he was asked to
manage
Roosevelt's
preconven-
tion
campaign,
he had
gone
to Smith to ascertain whether he
would
be a candidate and had been
given
the distinct
impression
that he
would not. No
objection
was offered
by
Smith to his
managing
Roosevelt's
campaign. Farley
had been shocked
by
Smith's belated
announcement,
since he could not
honestly change
his
allegiance
at that
stage.
I was amazed that a
campaign manager
could be so frank and
open,
but it was this
quality
that was to make him so
popular
and
so successful. He said
that,
"while some
people
think me
crazy,"
he could not
figure
the
possibility
of a combination that could
pre-
vent Roosevelt's nomination.
Taking
a
pencil
and
paper,
he wrote
down for the
opposition
Massachusetts,
Connecticut,
New
Jersey,
part
of
Pennsylvania,
Ohio, Illinois, California,
Maryland, Virginia,
Texas and Missouri much more than
necessary
to
prevent
Roose-
velt's nomination. But he did not think these
opposition
votes could
be
held,
and he was sure that if Roosevelt went into the convention
with six
hundred votes he would be
nominated.
I asked him who would be
nominated for
Vice-President,
and
without a
hesitation he said Cordell Hull. I am sure that at that
stage
this was in accordance with Roosevelt's
plan.
In March and
April
there was a release from
preconvention
politics,
and at this time I had an
amusing
encounter with Gertrude
Atherton at a
party
at Alma
Clayburgh's.
She had
just published
her
autobiography.
I was
surprised
to find that the thin little
woman in a
very
low-necked
dress,
with
sandy-colored
hair and
old-fashioned
bangs,
was the author of The
Conqueror
and
other,
better
novels.
Having
in mind her
idealized
portrait
of
Hamilton,
I sat beside her on the sofa with the idea of
talking
with her about
her hero. I am sure she had never heard of me or of
Jefferson
and
Hamilton,
and when I
broached the
subject
of Hamilton she
snapped,
"When I'm
through
writing
on a
subject,
I
put
it behind
238
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
me." It was as
though
she had
said,
"I am Sir Oracle and when I
ope my
mouth let no
dog
bark." Soon she was
put
in a
high-back
chair
by
the
fireplace,
and there she sat in state. Part of the time
someone was
talking
with
her,
but most of the time she sat
alone,
apparently preferring
it,
watching
the other
guests
with
expres-
sionless
eyes.
I had
expected
to see Dreiser. "I called him
up,"
said the
hostess,
"and he
began
to
grumble,
'Oh,
a crowd I don't care for such
damn
things.'
"
"Don't
come,"
she had said. "Come some other
time when no one else is here."
In
April
I went to
Charlottesville,
Virginia,
to make the
speech
at the
unveiling
of Pericelli's statue of
James Monroe,
a
ceremony
that
twenty-four governors
from the
governors'
conference in
Richmond attended. But visits to
Charlottesville,
though delightful,
were never
restful,
because of the too
generous hospitality
of the
Virginians,
and the next
morning
we were
glad
to drive
through
the
charming countryside
to
Lexington,
where I was to
speak
at
Washington
and Lee
University.
I shall
always
remember that
visit,
the
beauty
of the
country
and of the little
town,
the luncheon with
Mrs.
Gaines,
the wife of the
president
of the
university,
the visit
to the
chapel
to see Valentine's
exquisitely
beautiful recumbent
figure
of Lee but most of
all,
perhaps,
the
privilege
of
spending
some time with
Henry
St.
George
Tucker, statesman,
jurist,
writer,
in his
delightful
home. He was a handsome old
gentleman
with Old World
graciousness. Summoning
a venerable white-
haired
Negro,
a bit feeble in his
walk,
who had a charm and
courtesy
that matched that of his
employer,
Tucker asked him if
he
thought
he could make a real mint
julep.
The old
Negro
smiled
expansively.
He
could,
he would and he did. Then we walked in
the
garden
and talked
politics.
One
evening
in late
June
Senator Wheeler
telephoned
me that he
had attended a "war conference" with Roosevelt in
Albany, along
with Cordell
Hull,
Senator Tom
Walsh,
Dan
Roper
and
Major
Cohen of the Atlanta
Journal,
and that it had been the unanimous
decision that I should be asked to render a certain
service,
which
all
hoped
I would
give.
I was to be called
by
Roosevelt the next
day.
On the morrow I was summoned to the national
headquarters
in New York
by
Louis Howe to receive
"an
important message"
239
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
from the Governor. I assumed that I was to be asked to make the
speech placing
Roosevelt in nomination at the convention.
Nothing
could have been more
embarrassing,
because of several
complications.
I was
writing
a
political
column for all the
Hearst
papers
and it would
appear daily during
the convention in
Chicago.
At that
time,
Hearst was
supporting
the
candidacy
of
Speaker Jack
Garner. While
my
contract left me free in such
matters,
I could see
that the
delivery
of the
speech might
be
embarrassing
to the
paper
in
Chicago.
Then, too,
the New York
leaders,
in
making
out the
list of the
delegates
at
large
from their
state,
had overlooked the
keynote speaker
of the last national
convention,
but the leader in
Manhattan had
telephoned
me to
say
he
thought
I should be a dele-
gate
and to ask if I would
go
as a
delegate
from
Manhattan,
and
I had
agreed.
I had no idea what the
position
of the
organization
would be in the convention.
The next
morning
Roosevelt
telephoned, asking
me to see him
in
Albany
that
night.
I was met at the door of the Executive Man-
sion
by
the venerable butler with the cold announcement that
Roosevelt was "not at home." I was
protesting
with no little irrita-
tion when I was
interrupted by
a boisterous
laugh
from a room off
the entrance
hall,
and Roosevelt's voice: "Come on
in,
Claude."
I found Roosevelt seated on a sofa before a
table,
with Miss Le
Hand,
his efficient
secretary, taking
dictation. He was in a
jovial
mood. It had been announced that the
findings
of
Judge Seabury
in the
investigation
of the
charges against Mayor
Walker would be
delivered to Roosevelt that
night.
"There will be a flock of
report-
ers
along insisting
on some
expression
from
me,"
he
said,
"and I
want to
skip
them. Thus the butler's refusal to admit
you,
since I
had
forgotten
to make an
exception
in
your
case." He
added,
"After
all,
this is
my
home."
A little later there was a rumble of cars in the
driveway
and the
sound of
many
voices. The bell
rang.
The butler went to the door.
We maintained
silence,
and Roosevelt had the
expression
of a mis-
chievous
boy awaiting
the reaction to a trick. We could hear the
butler
saying
that the Governor had retired and that the
papers
would be
given
to him in the
morning.
The door closed. The butler
cleverly deposited
the
great
sack in the
hall,
and there
they
re-
mained for a
long
while,
lest a curious
reporter peer through
the
240
GLOOMY YEARSAND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
glass
in the door.
They
were then
brought
in and
placed
beside the
sofa.
When the
accompanying
letter from
Seabury
was
placed
in
Roosevelt's hand and he read
it,
I was interested in his
expression
of distinct distaste.
Reading
it
aloud,
he commented on its failure
to make direct
charges
or to ask
anything.
His observations on the
letter were not
complimentary.
"No
governor
in a hundred and
fifty years
has
ejected
an elected officer on
charges
as
vague
as
these,"
he said. "But
Jimmy
[Walker]
has been
guilty
of so
many
indiscretions that in the accumulation it looks bad." I
certainly got
the
impression
that
night
that he was not keen on the removal of
Walker,
and that he
suspected
that
Seabury
had
maliciously put
him in an
embarrassing position
in the Presidential contest. Later
he was
spared
the
necessity
of
taking
action
by
the
voluntary resig-
nation of the
mayor.
This
over,
he asked if I would have a
glass
of beer. The servant
brought
in two bottles and when these were finished Roosevelt
asked for a second round. Then he came to the
point,
the
request
that I make the
nominating speech.
I
explained my
difficulties,
particularly
as
they
related to the
support
of Garner
by
the
papers
running my
editorials. I felt I could not
agree
without
getting
the
consent of Hearst.
"Is there
anything
I can do?" he asked. "Can I
get
Hearst on the
telephone?"
And he reached for the
phone.
I
suggested
that this
would be the surest
way
to
get
a
negative
answer,
and that it would
be better for me to submit the matter to him
through
the office.
To this he
finally agreed.
Then he outlined the tone of the
speech
he had in
mind-very
significant
of what was to come later
during
his
Presidency.
He
wanted a
"fighting speech,"
and he enumerated
the various
points
he
thought
should be
emphasized.
He mentioned Andrew
Jackson
and said he wanted a
"fighting
Jackson speech."
I concluded that
Jackson,
more than
Jefferson,
was his idol. I had no doubt of his
complete
adherence
to the
Jeffersonian principles
of
democracy,
but he
clearly
had a
preference
for
Jackson's
methods.
The next
day
a
telegram
from Hearst was received
by
Curley
of the
Journal
It
said,
"While I would not think of
interfering
in
any way
with
Mr. Bowers'
personal
or
political
views and
prefer-
241
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
ences,
I think it would be less
embarrassing
to the
papers
if he did
not too
intimately identify
himself with
any
one
candidacy."
Bitter
though my disappointment
was,
this seemed reasonable to
me. I enclosed the
telegram
with a note to Roosevelt that I mailed
that
night.
Thus was I
deprived
of the
high
honor of
placing
Roosevelt in nomination in
1932.
Any
fear of his
possible
resentment was
immediately
removed
by
his
reply
of
June
18:
DEAR CLAUDE:
Please do not take it too much to heart that
things
did not work out
as we
hoped.
You must of course do what seems wise and for the best
interest of all concerned.
Certainly
I would be the last to ask
you
to
go
against your
own better
judgment.
You know and I know where
your
heart is and that
you
will do all in
your power
for me when the time
comes. . . .
Had I had the
slightest
doubt of the
inevitability
of a Democratic
victory
that fall it would have been
dispelled by
what I saw and
felt at the
Republican
convention in
Chicago,
which I attended in
the
press
section to write
daily
editorials on the
proceedings.
The
day
I arrived the lobbies of the hotels were
positively
lonesome,
almost deserted. I found Nicholas
Murray
Butler alone at the
Blackstone,
looking
tired and
discouraged,
but
prepared
to make a
fight
for the inclusion in the
platform
of a
straight-out plank
for
the
repeal
of the
Eighteenth
Amendment. The next
day
the town
was still
dull,
with no enthusiasm. In the hotel lobbies the
delegates
were
discussing everything
but
politics.
On
visiting
the Indiana
headquarters
I failed to find one man with the
slightest expectation
of
victory.
During
the convention I went
daily
to the hall in Governor
Homer's official car at a
terrifying speed,
the sirens
screaming.
The
keynote speech
made no reference to the dread realities in the
country.
No enthusiasm. The mention of Hoover's name was
scarcely
cheered and
then,
as if on second
thought,
a brave effort
was made which amounted to
nothing.
It was clear that the sole
interest was in the
fight
for the
repeal
of the
Eighteenth
Amend-
ment.
The next
night
featured that
fight. James
R.
Garfield, old,
austere in
appearance,
read the
platform,
which
ignored
the des-
242
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
perate
economic state of the
nation,
and the
delegates
drowsed
until the
Prohibition
plank
was
reached,
when
they perked up.
Garfield led off in the debate
against repeal.
When he
said,
"The
youth
of
today
knows
nothing
of the taste of
liquor,"
the
galleries
naturally
roared with
mirth,
and
many
booed. Garfield stood
stern,
with a Calvinistic
countenance. "I
repeat"
he
began,
but his voice
was drowned
by
shouts from the
gallery.
When Senator
Bingham
spoke
for
repeal
he was well received. Nicholas
Murray
Butler,
who
followed,
was a
disappointment. Clearly
he was dead on his
feet,
and I noticed that his hands trembled. What he said was
by
odds the best
thing
said,
but there was no fire. Then
Ogden
Mills,
arrogant,
with his
small, cold,
supercilious eyes, spoke
with
great
vigor
and made the best
speech
of the
evening.
It was after one
o'clock when the roll was
called,
and
repeal
lost
by
six hundred
odd to four hundred odd.
The next
day
when the
nominating speeches
were made I
watched the demonstration for Hoover with some amusement.
Most
delegates
looked as
though scourged
to the task.
Heavy
faces,
sour
faces,
without
expression, certainly
without enthusiasm or
conviction. Balloons were released to the
ceiling,
but
they helped
very
little. Most
amusing
was the insistence of the band on
playing
"California,
here I
come, right
back 'where I started
from
. . ."
The
artificiality
of the demonstration was shown when the
chairman held
up
his hand for silence and it came with the sudden-
ness of a shock. No one could have attended that convention with-
out
being
convinced that the next President would be nominated in
the Democratic convention.
In the double role of
delegate
and commentator I attended the
Democratic
convention,
taking Sybil
and Patrick with me. Know-
ing
all the candidates but
one,
I made the rounds of their
headquar-
ters.
My
first call was on Al Smith. The outer rooms were
packed
and I was
immediately
shown into his
private
room. He was seated
at a table
by
the
window, cordial,
jovial
and without the
slightest
indication of nervous strain. One of his men entered to
propose
that Smith make a demand on the entire New York
delegation
for
its
support, accompanied
with a threat. Smith seemed startled.
"Oh, no,"
he said. "I wouldn't do that. I never would do that.
Every
man is entitled to his
opinion."
2
43
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
Thence to the
headquarters
of Governor
Byrd,
whom I
found
with his brother the Admiral and some other
Virginians.
Major
Reed of
Richmond,
his
manager,
was
complaining
that no
working
arrangements
had been
agreed upon by
the candidates
competing
with Roosevelt. He could not understand
why
there had been no
meeting,
and he was
unhappy
because Smith had taken the center
of the
stage, creating
the
impression
that the nomination had to
go
to Smith or Roosevelt.
That
night
I attended a caucus of the New York
delegation
on
the
permanent organization
of the convention. The National Com-
mittee had selected Senator Walsh of Montana for
permanent
chairman,
and the
opposition
favored
Jouett
Shouse. The atmos-
phere
was tense. Dan Cohalen
spoke
for
Shouse,
George
R. Lunn of
Schenectady
for Walsh. Then
John
W.
Davis,
very
handsome with
his white hair and
pink complexion,
made an earnest
plea
for
Shouse. Lieutenant Governor Lehman
spoke
with
deep
emotion and
under a nervous
strain,
announcing
that he had not
yet
decided but
that he would make
up
his own mind. He was
greeted
with boos.
When Smith entered later he was
given
an
ovation,
but not
equal
to that accorded
Mayor
Walker. The caucus voted to
support
Shouse.
Resuming my
visits,
I found Governor
Murray
of
Oklahoma,
"Alfalfa
Bill,"
another
candidate,
standing
in the door of his de-
serted
headquarters
in his shirt
sleeves,
without a
collar,
and with
one
suspender
off his shoulder.
Drawing
me inside the
room,
he
astonished me with a
penetrating analysis
of
my
book
Jefferson
and
Hamilton and then introduced me to his
wife,
a
charming
and
motherly
woman. Thence on to the
headquarters
of Governor
Ritchie, handsome,
smiling
and
entirely
calm,
but not
exuding
con-
fidence.
After Senator
Barkley's keynote speech
the next
day,
I went to
Garner's
headquarters,
where Sam
Rayburn
was in
charge.
There
I found Ruth
Bryan
Owens,
daughter
of the
Commoner,
an at-
tractive woman with
something
of the
magnetism
of her father.
Someone
suggested
that she should
carry
a cane now that she was
a "lame
duck,"
having
been defeated for renomination to
Congress.
"Oh,
I
always
carried a cane when I lived in
England,"
she
said,
"but with more
swagger
than
you." Whereupon, taking
a
cane,
she rose and strutted about with a
kangaroo swing.
244
GLOOMY YEARSAND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
Roosevelt did not
appear
in the convention
city
until after his
nomination.
The debate on the
repeal
of the
Eighteenth
Amendment came at
a
night
session. Cordell
Hull,
speaking against
a
straight
declaration
for
repeal,
was much too
judicial
and
argumentative,
but the boos
from the
gallery
shocked me.
Then Al Smith
dramatically appeared
on the
platform
to
speak
for
straight repeal.
His face was red and he beamed with
smiles,
for his ovation was tremendous and
long
continued. The
galleries
roared. Walsh
wisely
did not
attempt
to abbreviate the demonstra-
tion. Even Smith seemed
surprised by
his
reception,
and there was
moisture in his
eyes.
His friends
hoped
that the demonstration
would
sweep
the
delegates
into his
camp.
The
plank favoring repeal
was
overwhelmingly adopted.
The
nominating speeches
the next
day
were followed
by
the
usual
organized
demonstrations,
and the
balloting began.
There
were three ballots that
evening.
The windows
began
to
glow
with
the dawn. On the
platform
I noticed
John
W. Davis sound
asleep.
All
around,
delegates
were
resting
their heads on their arms.
It was
nine-thirty
in the
morning
when we filed out of the hall.
That
day
it was
whispered
that the Garner forces would
go
over
to
Roosevelt,
and William Gibbs McAdoo took the
platform
to
make the announcement. It was a
mistake,
in view of the Smith-
McAdoo
feud,
since it
gave
to the action the
appearance
of a
pre-
arranged revenge.
The
galleries
booed
unmercifully.
McAdoo took
it
coolly, though
he was
angry.
In
Spain
two
years
later he was
my guest
in San
Sebastian, and,
walking along
the
Concha,
he told
me that he had realized the
danger
of
having
him make the an-
nouncement and that he had
urged
the choice of someone
else,
but
without effect. Other states now followed
rapidly
into the Roose-
velt
column,
and he was nominated. At the moment of the nomi-
nation, John
W.
Davis,
standing
beside
me,
murmured as if to
himself,
"What a
pity."
Thus the road was cleared for the historic
regime
of Franklin D.
Roosevelt.
Garner's nomination
for Vice-President followed the next
day.
On
Sunday morning
I met
Farley,
Cordell Hull and other Roose-
245
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS
IN THE DARKNESS
veltians,
all in a
high
state of elation. Roosevelt had made his sensa-
tional
flight
to address and thank the convention. In the hall
that
day
I found
many
of his friends
apprehensive, fearing
an
accident,
a
plane flight being
still considered at that time an act of
daring.
I found Roosevelt in his room at the
hotel,
along
with Louis
Howe,
seated
by
the window. When he saw
me,
Roosevelt threw
back his head and
laughed.
"We must razz
you
for
voting
for
Smith,"
he said.
Almost
immediately
he had a
problem
in his
lap
when someone
entered to
say
that McAdoo was in the
reception
room and wanted
to
pose
with him for a
picture.
Roosevelt's face fell. He asked
my
opinion.
I
thought
it would be a
mistake,
since it would mean
rubbing
salt into the wounds of the Smith followers. He decided
to
say
so
frankly
to
McAdoo,
and when the latter entered I left.
There was no
picture.
The sad feature of the convention for me was the failure of Al
Smith to avail himself of the
opportunity
to make himself the hero
of the
day.
It was known that Roosevelt on his
way
to the conven-
tion would
stop
at the hotel where Smith was
staying.
The defeated
candidate was surrounded
by
men and women
passionately
de-
voted to his fortunes but irreconcilable in their bitterness because
of his defeat. These
persuaded
him to leave the hotel before Roose-
velt's arrival. Had he been better
advised,
he would have remained
to
greet
the
victor,
would have ridden with him to the
convention,
have
gone
onto the
platform
with him arm in
arm,
and have moved
to make the nomination
by
acclamation. An emotional reaction
would have
swept
over the convention and Smith would have
gone
forth better loved than ever before. But when Roosevelt arrived
Smith had
gone,
and there would be no
meeting
or
greeting
for
almost three months. Those three months of silence would
deprive
Smith of
many
friends
throughout
the nation.
To me the most
astounding
revelation of the convention came
with the
speech
of Senator
Huey Long,
who was to
speak
in
sup-
port
of a contested
delegation
from Louisiana. There was a
general
fear that he would mutilate the
English language,
tear a
passion
to
tatters,
make a
vulgar
exhibition and humiliate the
party.
When
he
appeared
on the
platform, nattily
dressed,
he looked serious and
not at all like the comedian whom the
public
knew best. He asked
246
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS IN THE DARKNESS
freedom from
interruptions pro
or
con,
since
they
would be taken
out of his allotted
time,
and
thereupon plunged
into his
argument.
Speaking rapidly
in excellent
English
and with
closely
knit
logic,
he made one of the
strongest
and most
dignified speeches
of the
convention. It was a revelation to me that there was a
Huey Long
quite
distinct from the
frothing demagogue
with whom the
public
was familiar.
I
gave
him full credit in a
signed
editorial in the
Chicago paper
the next
morning.
That
day
a
page
came to me on the floor to
say
that Senator
Long,
then on the
platform,
wished to see me. I had
never met him and I doubted if he would know me
by sight.
Cer-
tain that he wanted to thank me for the
editorial,
I went to the
platform,
introduced
myself
and
congratulated
him on his
speech
before he had an
opportunity
to
say anything. Throwing
back his
shoulders and
looking
more
belligerent
than
pleased,
he
roared,
"As
a rule I don't care a damn what
any
crooked
newspaperman says
about
me,
because
they're mostly goddam
liars,
but
you gave
me
a
square
deal and I want to thank
you
for it."
I was not
quite
certain whether I had been
patted
on the head
or kicked.
Just
before
leaving Washington
for
Spain
the
following year,
I was
lunching
in the Senate restaurant with Vice-President Garner
when
Huey Long, passing
our
table,
paused
to shake hands with
great cordiality
and to
express regret
that I was
leaving
the coun-
try.
I
replied
that one of
my regrets
would be that I could not
follow his
speeches
in the
Congressional
Record. "I'll send
you
the
Record" he
said,
jotting
down a reminder on a
piece
of
paper
and he did.
When he
passed
on,
I said to Garner that
Long
had charm.
"Charm!"
exploded
Garner. "Too damn much charm. He has
more charm than
any
man in the
Senate,
and that's what makes
him
dangerous."
In
truth,
he had become a
very dangerous
man at the time of his
death. He had a
superabundance
of natural
ability,
in which rare
cunning played
a
part.
A more
persuasive
demagogue
has never
appeared
on the American scene. The conditions of the
time,
with
millions
jobless
and millions
hungry,
discouraged
and
desperate,
were made to his order. It was so
easy
then to indict a
system
based
on
democracy.
I have no doubt that he
thought
to
play
the
part
so
247
GLOOMY YEARS AND LIGHT SHAFTS JN THE
DARKNESS
successfully played by
Hitler in
Germany,
and he was
making
threatening progress
when a bullet
put
a
period
to his
activities.
Anyone
who thinks it absurd that there is a
possibility
of
fascism
in this
country
would do well to
ponder
on the careers of
Huey
Long
and
Joe
McCarthy.
CHAPTER XVII
The
Revolution of
1931
I HAD KNOWN Roosevelt
personally
and
politically
for several
years.
He had been
pleased
with
my
treatment of his
hero,
Andrew
Jack-
son,
in The
Party
Battles
of
the
Jackson
Period and he had reviewed
my Jefferson
and
Hamilton,
the
only
review I think he ever wrote.
The first time I saw him was in the
spring
of
191 3
when,
with some
other subordinate officers of the Wilson
Administration,
he
spoke
one
evening
at the National Press Club. He was then about
thirty
and in the
pink
of
physical
condition
tall, handsome,
athletic. His
pronounced
Harvard accent was a bit
disconcerting
to a
Hoosier,
but his
personality
exuded charm.
Tragic
as was the attack of infan-
tile
paralysis
a few
years
later,
I have no doubt it served the nation
well. The
years
that bound him to his chair
gave
abundant
oppor-
tunity
for extensive and
leisurely study,
and
this,
I
think,
was the
period
of his intellectual
growth.
Years
later,
Senator
Wagner,
who
had suffered a nervous breakdown from
overwork,
told me that
Roosevelt had told him that enforced rest has its
compensations.
"I
could not have
kept going
under the
pressure
of the last few
years,"
Roosevelt
said,
"had I not accumulated stores of
energy during
the
time I was
physically
inactive."
I think our
friendship
was based
largely
on our common interest
in
political history
and his interest in
my
books. In the
spring
of
1929
he wrote me a letter that is not without
significance:
Many
thanks for
your mighty
nice letter. I am thrilled at the
prospect
of another book from
your pen
[The Tragic Era,
published
five months
later]
. I think it is time for us Democrats to claim Lincoln as one of our
own. The
Republican Party
has
certainly repudiated,
first and
last,
everything
that he stood for.
249
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
That
period
from
1865
to
1876
should be known as America's Dark
Ages.
I am not sure that we are not headed for the same kind of era
again.
I do
hope
that this summer after I
get
back from Warm
Springs you
can run
up
to
Albany
or
Hyde
Park and
give
me a chance to talk to
you
about
many things.
Meanwhile
please
let me tell
you
how
very grateful
I am for all the
splendid
editorials in the
Evening
World.
They
are a bulwark of
strength.
My
close relations with Roosevelt date from about this time.
Apropos
of his interest in
political history,
I was not
surprised
to
see that
Upton
Sinclair in his novel A World to Win ascribed to
Roosevelt a
longing
to write
history
after his retirement. Some time
before,
he had
surprised
me
by saying
that he had
long
had an
ambition to write an
adequate biography
of Martin Van Buren.
The Red
Fox,
as he was
called,
was a favorite of
Jackson's,
but no
two men could have differed more in their methods. Van Buren
was
supercautious,
conservative in
action,
and more of a clever
manipulator
than a
fighter.
"Better walk miles to see a man than
risk a
letter,"
was his motto. I
suppose
that Roosevelt's interest
grew
out of Van Buren's
political sagacity,
his
organizing ability
and the fact that
he,
like
Roosevelt,
was a
product
of the
politics
of
upstate
New York. It is a
pity
Roosevelt did not find time for the
realization of his
ambition,
for his
biography
of Van Buren
might
have thrown more
light
on the character of the author.
From
my
return from
Europe
in
September
1932
until the elec-
tion in
November,
I wrote a two-column
political
editorial
every
day
but
Sunday
which was
published
in
newspapers
from Boston
to San Francisco
having
an
aggregate
circulation of several mil-
lions. These editorials were
militantly
Democratic,
attacking
the
Hoover Administration all
along
the line.
(There
was an embar-
rassing
richness of material that
year.) They
made no
personal
attacks on Mr.
Hoover,
but his
policies
were assailed tooth and
nail. These editorials were used as directives
by party
committees
throughout
the
country. Urging
their
publication
in
pamphlet
form,
Senator
James
Hamilton Lewis wrote that I was
"possibly
the
only outstanding
writer who
constantly puts
the
principles
of
the
Democracy
as the
guide
of
politics
rather than the
prospect
of office." After the election Mr. Ritche of Mr. Hoover's staff said
they
were "the most
damaging
articles of the
campaign."
Letters
250
THE
REVOLUTION OF
1932
of
approval poured
in from
many Republicans,
some fearful that
Roosevelt
might
make a blunder to the benefit of his
opponent.
William Allen White wrote me
facetiously
in
July:
"How do
you
suppose
Roosevelt is
going
to
manage
to elect Hoover? You Demo-
crats never had such a
hard
job
before and I almost
despair
of
your
success. . . . Still it's a
great Party."
Soon after
my
return,
Roosevelt invited me to
Albany
to have
dinner and
stay
the
night.
Patricia and I arrived
just
as he was re-
turning
from a
day's
campaigning
in Vermont
by
motorcar. We
found him in "Franklin's corner" in the
drawing
room,
shaking
cocktails. Never had he seemed so
boyish
as he did in his enthusi-
asm over the cordial
reception
he had received in that rock-ribbed
Republican
state. I recalled to him the
story
of Samuel
J.
Tilden,
who was
repeatedly importuned
to "address the
Democracy
of
Vermont," until,
weary
of excuses and the
persistence
of the invi-
tations,
he
replied
that he would "be
glad
at
any
time to address
the
Democracy
of Vermont in his
library
in New York."
Roosevelt threw back his head and
laughed,
but
quickly
said,
"Well,
you
couldn't
get
the crowds
today
into Tilden's
library."
That
night
he was in an exhilarated mood at
dinner,
the drive
through
the
crisp
air and contacts with the
people having
done
much for his
spirits.
While we were at table his mother
telephoned
that some friend had sent
fifty quail
to
Hyde
Park and she wanted
to know what should be done with them. He
laughed uproariously.
"In heaven's
name,
how can we ever eat them?" he asked. When
told that
they
were live
quail
he
gave
minute directions where on
the farm
they
should be
placed
and
just
what
they
should be fed.
Later,
talking
about
Britain,
he recalled a blunder he had made
in Scotland at a
garden
show when he was
unexpectedly
called
upon
to
say something.
He
thought
he was
making
an
impression
as
no doubt he
was,
by telling
the Scots the difference between the
American and Scottish
ways
of
cooking vegetables.
"You cook
them in
water,"
he
said,
"we in milk." Mrs. Roosevelt had been
much embarrassed.
After dinner we went into the
library,
where a
log
fire was
blazing.
He sat in an
easy
chair before the
fire,
a table beside
him,
and Miss Le Hand went over some
correspondence
with him. Oc-
casionally
a servant
brought
in the
telephone.
He talked with
251
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
Governor Dern in Utah about the
speech
he was to make in
Salt
Lake
City.
Were there
steps
at the tabernacle where he was
to
speak?
He had been asked to attend an
Episcopalian
service
there,
and he
inquired
about the
steps
at the church.
Surely
never in his-
tory
has
any
man ventured forth on a continental
campaign
tour
under such a
physical handicap,
but all he
required
was
prepara-
tion.
The
night
before,
Al Smith had held a conference with his
friends
regarding
the
position
he should take in the
campaign.
He had not
yet
broken his silence since the convention. Someone
from New York
telephoned
that he had attended the
conference.
Herbert
Bayard Swope
was to have informed
Roosevelt,
but
up
to
midnight
that
night
he had not called.
Then the
secretary
entered to
say
that Mr.
,
a New
Yorker,
wished to
speak
to Roosevelt from Idaho.
"But I don't want to talk with in
Idaho,"
he said with his
trick of
pretended petulance.
Raymond Moley
did the
talking
and
explained
that Roosevelt
had retired. Mr. said he had
telephoned
to warn that Roosevelt
(that
excellent
politician)
should not
pass through any
state on his
Western tour without
greeting
the
people.
"What?" exclaimed Roosevelt
incredulously.
When the
warning
was
repeated
he
laughed.
The scene that
night
was memorable to me: Roosevelt
boyishly
happy
and in
laughing
mood,
Miss Le Hand curled
up
before the
fire on the floor like a
kitten;
and there was
good
talk until after
midnight,
when we retired. I noticed in the
big
hall
large photo-
graphs
of Al Smith and his wife. The
tragedy
of a strained friend-
ship.
When I saw Roosevelt the next
morning
to
say goodbye
I found
him
propped up
in bed
working
on a
speech.
It was not until almost a month after
this,
at the New York State
convention,
that Smith and Roosevelt metmore than three
months of silence on the
part
of the
defeated candidate. Senator
Wagner
had asked me to make the
speech
at the convention
put-
ting
him in nomination for his second
term,
and thus I witnessed
the
meeting.
The real excitement in the convention centered on whether
252
THE
REVOLUTION OF
1932
John
F.
Curry,
the chief of
Tammany,
would
persist
in his efforts
to
prevent
the
nomination of Herbert H. Lehman for
governor.
Every
effort was
being
made to
whip
him into
line,
and a
story
was
circulating
that at a
conference for this
purpose
Al Smith had
turned on
Curry
a
battery
of
vituperation
not unmixed with
pic-
turesque profanity
that would not look well in
print. Wagner
was
gravely
concerned,
and when I talked with Roosevelt on the
phone
and told him I had heard that the
opposition
would be withdrawn
he was
skeptical.
On the
morning
of the
day
of the
nomination,
which had to be made before
midnight,
Curry
had sent instructions
to his men to be in their seats
by
7 P.M.,
and this seemed ominous.
We sat in the torrid heat of the hall filled with
perspiring people
from seven until
eight-thirty, doing nothing,
while behind locked
doors the leaders
fought
it out until
Curry
fell into line.
When Smith
appeared
on the
platform
to nominate
Lehman,
he
was
given
an ovation. This was to be his first
meeting
with Roose-
velt since the convention in
Chicago.
Roosevelt was seated in the
center of the front row on the
stage.
With a debonair smile and
manner,
Smith shook hands with
everyone
in the front row as he
approached
the center.
Roosevelt,
in the
meanwhile,
had risen.
Finally reaching
his successful
rival,
Smith thrust out his hand
cordially,
and he was
reported
to have
greeted
him
familiarly
with
"Hello,
old
potato," though
this was afterward denied. The
scene was
dramatic,
and the convention roared
approval.
For the
benefit of the
photographers
Smith,
whatever his inner
thoughts
and
feelings,
held on to Roosevelt's
hand,
beaming.
It was in
nominating
Lehman that Smith for the first time an-
nounced his
support
of the national ticket. Roosevelt then
spoke
from
manuscript,
a
good,
sound
speech,
but it was not so
raptur-
ously
received as was Smith's. The reconciliation was to
prove
skin
deep
and was not to live
beyond
the election in
1932.
Soon afterward I had an
amusing experience.
I had
gone
to the
Biltmore Hotel in New York to address a
meeting
of the Demo-
cratic
Forum,
arranged by
Mrs.
Roosevelt,
and in the corridor I
met
Farley,
who invited me to
stay
after the
meeting
and dine with
Garner and some others on the same floor. I
supposed
it would be
a small dinner of five or
six,
and I was
astonished,
on
entering
the
room,
to find at least
thirty
or
forty present.
One
glance
at the
2
53
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
personnel
convinced me of the
purpose, though
Farley
had
given
me no intimation. There were a few
politicians,
but more
numer-
ous were businessmen and industrialists of
very
conservative
views.
The
silly
idea had been
propagated by
the
Republicans
that
Garner
was a radical of almost
Populistic
tendencies,
and a scare had
been
thrown into these men
by
the
thought
that Roosevelt
might
not
live
through
his term and that
Garner,
a
"dangerous extremist,"
would become President. It was
amusing
that the
ultraconservatives
had no fear of
Roosevelt,
because of his conservative
background,
but
actually
were doubtful of
Garner,
who was
ultimately
to be
prominent
in the conservative
opposition
to some
Rooseveltian
measures.
That
night,
Garner was introduced first.
Talking
in a
conversa-
tional tone and
smiling
his infectious
smile,
his red cheeks
glowing,
he made one of the
frankest,
most
human,
transparently
honest
speeches
I have ever heard. He stressed the fact that his first
politi-
cal
appearance
as a
youth,
in a
county
convention in
Texas,
had
been to
oppose Bryan's
silver views in
1896.
He
clearly
made a
favorable
impression
on his audience. I was startled when
Farley
next called on me. Still uninformed as to the
purpose
of the
dinner,
but
suspecting
what it
was,
I said some
pleasant things
about Gar-
ner and added that the
only
criticism I had ever heard in Demo-
cratic circles was that he was too conservative. I felt that would
help
reassure most of the diners.
The Garner confession of faith had an immediate effect. An
important moving-picture magnate
rose. He told of his
early pov-
erty,
of his
migration
to the United
States,
of
having
met Mrs.
Roosevelt and then
Roosevelt,
and of his
attachment to them. He
had
gone
to the dinner with the intention of
contributing
a certain
amount,
he
said,
but after
hearing
Garner's
speech
he had decided
to double it. Garner
rose,
beaming,
and rushed over to shake his
hand. So the movie
magnate
became the hero of the dinner.
But Garner was to remain the
problem
child of the
campaign.
Though
he had been in
Congress
for
thirty years,
and was one of
the ablest debaters in the
House,
he had made few
stump speeches
in
years,
and
never,
or
very
seldom,
outside his district. He had been
stubborn about
taking
the
stump
in
1932, and,
in
fact,
he was to
speak
but little. He had been
persuaded, however,
to make a radio
speech
on a nationwide
hookup
in
reply
to
Hoover,
and there was
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
some fear that he would
pull
his
punches.
I met Sam
Raybum,
later
Speaker
of the House
longer
than
any
other man in our
history,
in
the Biltmore
lobby,
and he told me
they
were
having
trouble with
Garner and asked me to see him and do
my
bit in favor of a robust
attack. When I asked
why
he did not
go
himself,
he said with a
grimace
that his old friend was
annoyed
with him for
persisting
in
the
plea
that he take the
stump.
I found Garner in
good
humor,
glowing
as
usual,
and asked him if his
speech
was to be an attack.
He
said,
"Mostly."
I
expressed
the
hope
that he would make the
attack
outstanding.
Then he
surprised
me even more. "I wonder
if the
people may
not feel
sorry
for
Hoover,"
he said
meditatively.
The next
night
I listened on the radio and
thought
the talk one of
the most effective and
devastating speeches
of the
campaign.
I had left Indiana in
1923
with no intention of ever
again making
a
campaign speech,
but there was no
escape
in
1932.
Toward the
close of the
campaign
I
spoke
before old friends in Terre Haute
and then went on to Detroit to close the
campaign
in the
armory
there. I remember that
meeting clearly
because it was there I first
met and formed a warm
friendship
with Frank
Murphy,
then
mayor
of Detroit and later
governor general
of the
Philippines,
governor
of
Michigan, Attorney
General under Roosevelt and As-
sociate
Justice
of the
Supreme
Court. I had heard from several
quarters
of
pleasant things
he had said about
my
books and edito-
rials. In some
way
I had formed the fantastic idea that he was a
rough
diamond,
unschooled but rich in character and with a
high
idealism. When I met him I was not
prepared
to find him
looking
like an intellectual
priest,
and when I heard him
speak
I was amazed
by
the brilliance of his
talk,
the richness of his
phrasing.
I have
seldom known a man in
politics
with such an
appreciation
of
spiritual
values.
That
night
the
armory
was crowded. Incredible
though
it
seemed,
I was assured that
Michigan
would
go
Democratic for the
first rime since it went to Franklin Pierce in
1852,
eighty years
before.
The moment I reached
home,
Louis Howe
telephoned
that
Roosevelt was to have
spoken
that
night
over a nationwide radio
hookup
for
forty
minutes but that
something
had intervened and
he wanted me to substitute. I made the
speech,
and on
returning
255
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
home I found a stack of
telegrams,
with one from
Farley
calling
it
"one of the best
speeches
of the
campaign yours
and that of
Carter
Glass."
The next
morning
I went to Buffalo to close the
campaign
there.
This was the most
pleasant
excursion of the
year.
Norman
Mack,
national
committeeman,
then over
seventy,
drove me with a
small
party
over the International
Bridge
to Canada for lunch at the Erie
Downs
Country
Club. In the afternoon I went with a small
party
to the station to meet
Mayor
Thatcher of
Albany,
who did not
arrive. When we were
waiting
at the
gate
as the
passengers poured
through,
it was
amusing
that
Ogden
Mills,
Secretary
of the Treas-
ury,
who was to close the
campaign
there for the
Republicans
that
night,
should loom before us.
Though
I had never met
him,
I had
been
vigorously attacking
him
through
the
campaign simply
be-
cause he was
by
odds the ablest advocate of Hoover's re-election.
When I was introduced he seemed curious and not
very
cordial;
but when later after a Gridiron Club dinner in
Washington
I found
myself
in an elevator with
him,
he was
cordiality
itself. He was one
of the ablest
Republicans
of his
time,
but an
inescapable arrogance
of manner
deprived
him of
popular support.
From Buffalo I went to
Syracuse
to close the
campaign
there.
The
meeting
was crowded and enthusiastic. There for the first time
in
years
I was told that some manufacturers were
trying
to intimi-
date their workmen. The stormiest
applause
of the
evening
fol-
lowed
my
denunciation of this lawless
attempt
and
rny
advice to
the workers to
keep
their own council and
go
into the
secrecy
of
the
voting
booth with their
sovereignty
under their hats and vote
their own convictions in defiance of these men who seemed to look
upon
them as chattels.
That was the
Saturday night
before the
election,
and
my
work
was over. I had
thoroughly enjoyed
the old thrill of
facing
a mili-
tant audience with a
fighting speech,
Roosevelt carried
forty-two
of the
forty-eight
states, and,
as
predicted, Michigan
was in the Roosevelt column.
Following
the
campaign
and a surfeit of
politics
there was a
literary
interlude. That winter William Butler
Yeats,
the Irish
poet,
visited New York. A few
days
before I met
him,
at dinner in
Yonkers,
I knew there had been some discussion
among
members
256
THE REVOLUTION OF
of the Irish-
American Historical
Society
on the
propriety
of invit-
ing
the
poet
to some function. There was a
feeling
that Yeats was
a bit critical of the Catholic
Church,
and a
year
before
during
a
debate in the Dail on a divorce bill he had made a rather
nasty
attack on Daniel
O'Connell as
having illegitimate
children "scat-
tered all over Ireland."
Contrary
to the
rule,
Yeats looked like a
poettall,
slender,
of
graceful figure,
with
very slightly stooping
shoulders and with a
great
shock of white hair. He seemed either
shy
or bored and
looked at the floor most of the time. Years before I had seen Eleanor
Robson in his
charming play
The Land
of
Heart's
Desire,
and I
told him I had seen the actress a few
nights
before at a dinner at
General Donovan's for A. E.
(George
William
Russell).
He then
showed some
interest,
remembering
her in the
play,
and
inquired
about her. He talked but little at the dinner
table,
but afterward
he read some of his
poems, giving
their
background
in
prefatory
statements,
and he was
thoroughly delightful
in the
reading.
A
little later I saw him at Mrs.
Casserly's
in Sutton
Place,
where he
lectured on the
literary
revival in
Ireland,
speaking
with
perfect
modulation and
enunciation, and,
at
times,
with dramatic
effect,
though
he
got
this effect
by
soft rather than
flamboyant
methods.
He
explained
that the
youth
movement which broke
away
from
the Irish
Party grew
out of the bitter resentment of the
young
be-
cause of the
stupid repudiation
of Parnell at the behest of Glad-
stone. To me the
highlight
of his lecture was his
story
of
going
down to the waterfront as a
boy
to see the
unloading
of the casket
of the
great
leader who had died of a broken heart.
But his
story
of the
origin
of the
Abbey
Theatre was both
fascinating
and
amusing,
his
yarns
about the dramatists
diverting,
his
description
of the tumultuous scenes in the
pit
of the theater
in
protest against
the "insults" to Ireland
very funny.
The
purpose
of the
intellectuals,
he
said,
had been to
emphasize
the bad
qualities
of the race to
bring
about their
eradication,
but the noble intent
escaped
the rank and file in the
pit.
I am
glad
I heard him that
night
recite with tremendous effect his
moving poem "O'Leary
in the
Grave."
But New York was not in the mood for
literary
or theatrical
entertainment. That winter Katharine Cornell was
appearing
in
the
tragic play
Lucrece and there was
tragedy enough
all about.
2
57
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
No one but an actress of the first order could have
played
the
part,
and Cornell was
superb.
But the drama was too
tragic
for
those
gloomy days
when
tragedy
sat
by
the fireside of millions of suffer-
ing
Americans. None of the theaters was ever
filled,
though only
a short time before reservations had to be made in advance or
out-
rageous prices
were exacted
by
the
speculators.
The state of the
country
was
deepening
into
darkness,
with mil-
lions
jobless,
with children
suffering
and some
starving,
with the
harbor of New York almost deserted because the tariff had dis-
couraged foreign
trade,
with
importers
and
exporters closing
their
offices,
their business ruined.
Pedestrians were
constantly importuned by beggarsbeggars
who had once held
responsible
and
dignified positions.
I knew
some men who were
sleeping
on the benches in railroad stations
and
living
on a few
pennies
a
day.
The usual refrain in the streets
was
"Brother,
can
you spare
a dime?" I knew a man who had held
an
important position
and who was driven to
selling apples
and
shoestrings
in the street.
Desperation
was
driving
men to crime. One
night
on
returning
home I found the iron
grille gates
to
my apartment
house closed
and
locked;
no one was admitted until identified. An old man who
lived in the
house,
entering by
the back
way
to avoid the bitter
winds on Riverside
Drive,
had been set
upon by
robbers,
gagged
and robbed.
Though
he was not
badly
hurt,
the attack
brought
on
a stroke and the next
day
he died.
Just
before this
incident,
a
gang
had
boldly
entered International House next door and
emptied
the
box of the cashier.
Crime had us in a state of
siege.
In sober truth we were on the
verge
of revolution. With the
hammer of the auctioneer
knocking
down farms to the
highest
bid-
der because of
nonpayment
of
taxes,
the
traditionally
conservative,
law-abiding
fanners were on the
warpath.
When these men
pushed
into a courtroom where eviction
proceedings
were in
progress, put
a
rope
around the neck of the
judge,
carried him to a
grove
and
were on the
point
of
hanging
him,
the blindest must have seen that
we were
rushing
toward revolution. And when
striking
farmers
armed with
pitchforks patrolled
the
highways leading
into
Chicago
to
prevent
the
delivery
of milk the most incurable
optimist
must
have had moments of
misgivings.
258
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
It was in these
days
of darkness that thousands of
young
men,
despairing
of a future under democratic institutions and driven to
desperation, began
to become interested in
Communism,
which
they
did not
understand
very
well.
They
were
young
and all
they
understood was that
they
could not be
happy
under
things
as
they
were.
The
atmosphere
and the conditions were
precisely
those that
precede revolutionary
storms.
At
Hyde
Park Roosevelt in his corner was
pondering problems
such as no other President had ever faced.
In
early January
at a dinner at
Henry Morgenthau's
the conver-
sation was on the
gravity
of the
situation,
and Frank
Vanderlip
dripped
with
gloom.
He found the real-estate situation in New
York
threatening
"terrible,"
as he
expressed
it with
general
con-
ditions dreadful. He
thought
Roosevelt should name a committee
of
outstanding
businessmen to
go
to
Washington
and
stay
there
exchanging
views with
Congress.
Since
outstanding
businessmen,
given
a free rein
during
the
Coolidge
administration,
had done
much to
bring
the ruin and had not submitted a constructive
thought
to meet the
situation,
the
suggestion
seemed ironical to
me.
Morgenthau poked
fun at
Vanderlip's pessimism.
In
every
sector of
society
one saw the
wreckage
of
hopes,
am-
bitions,
fortunes. One
day
Pat
Hurley, Secretary
of War in the
Hoover
Cabinet,
told me of the
tragedy
in the life of the brilliant
Attorney
General
Mitchell,
who had to
forego
his
lifelong
ambi-
tion when it was within his
grasp. Hurley
insisted that Hoover's
Attorney
General was
really
a Democrat. Not
infrequently
in
Cabinet
meetings
he would
say,
"I
belong
to a school of
political
thought
with which it is
impossible
to reconcile this
plan
of
yours.
You must leave me out." With the retirement of
Justice
Holmes,
Hoover had
planned
to
put
Mitchell on the bench and to make
Hurley Attorney
General. A canvass of the Senate had shown that
the
appointments
would be confirmed. But when the President
made the offer to Mitchell the latter
said,
"Mr.
President,
my
one
ambition for
years
has been for a seat on the
high
bench,
but this
depression
has
wiped
me out and I must buckle down for the next
few
years
to make
money
for the
protection
of
my family.
So I
cannot take it now that it's offered."
In
early February
I
spoke
at a dinner in honor of Mrs. Roose-
259
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
velt at the Waldorf and sat beside the
guest
of honor. She
described
to me her visit to the White House under the
ciceronage
of
Mrs.
Hoover,
and her almost irresistible
impulse
to
laugh
on
being
shown the Lincoln bed of
teakwood,
black and
heavily carved,
with the headboard
looming
toward the
ceiling.
The
picture
had
flashed
upon
her of the
plight
of the
occupant
if the
headboard
should ever
collapse.
She talked a little of her
plans
for the
kitchen,
but in the midst
of the
levity
of the occasion what
impressed
me most was her
reply
to
my question
whether she looked forward with
pleasure
to mov-
ing
into the White House.
"As the time draws
near,"
she
said,
"and I think of the
terrible
condition of the
country,
and of the
high expectations
from the
change,
it
frightens
me."
In late
February
Roosevelt announced his
Cabinet,
and the same
day
I was called to the
phone by Raymond Moley.
"I have a
pleasant
task,"
he said. "The other
night
Roosevelt and
Farley
had a
long
conference and I was
present. Farley
said that
you
had done
great
work for the
party,
and I said that
you
were
doing
the
greatest
kind of work for liberalism and
democracy
through your
books. I've been asked
by
the President to
say
to
you
that
you'll
be
appointed
ambassador to
Spain.
He asked me to
get
in touch with Hull so that he can
notify you
as he sees fit. I had
Hull on the
phone
this
morning
and he's
delighted.
It's an interest-
ing post just
now,
and I
envy you."
It was to
prove
more
interesting
than he
thought,
but I doubt if
he envied me a few
years
later.
Three
days
before the
inauguration,
a dinner was
given
for me
at the Astor in New York. It had
nothing
to do with
my appoint-
ment,
since this was still secret. Ruth
Bryan
served
beautifully
as
toastmaster,
and
complimentary speeches
were made
by Josephus
Daniels,
Frank
Murphy,
Jim
Farley,
Senator Hawes and
Mayor
O'Brien of New York.
Meanwhile I had been selected to make the
only speech
at the
banquet
of the Electoral
College
in
Washington
the
night
before
the
inauguration.
I have a vivid
remembrance of the
grimness,
the
feeling
of
depression bordering
on
hysteria,
in
Washington
on the
eve of an occasion
usually given
over to
hilarity.
In the afternoon
260
THE
REVOLUTION OF
1932
I had visited
several
Senators at the
Capitol,
and,
without a
single
exception,
I found them solemn and
gravely
disturbed. One Senator
told me he
thought
that the banks still
standing
were
sound,
but
that
hysteria
was
abroad,
and
huge
withdrawals were
threatening
all. Another
Senator told me that
$43,000,000
had been withdrawn
from banks
within ten
days.
I was told that the Federal Reserve
Board had sat late the
night
before and
proposed
the
suspension
of
gold payment,
but that
Roosevelt had vetoed the
plan.
On the eve of the
inauguration
conditions were so somber that
hotels were
refusing payments
in checks. Rich men
high
in the
business world with
large
balances in the
strongest
banks found
their checks
worthless in the hotels. This in the
capital
of the
United States!
At the
Electoral
College banquet
I was
introduced
by Farley.
Just
before the dinner I met the notorious Father
Coughlin,
who
had been asked to deliver the
invocation. For sheer
arrogance
and
offensive
conceit,
I have never seen another such face. At the con-
clusion of
my speech,
which was
studiedly
free from
partisan
jubilation
because of the
gravity
of the
hour,
he sent a note to
Farley offering
to
say something
if desired.
Farley
made a
grimace
and declined the offer. It was a more unusual occasion than I had
known.
After the dinner I had a letter from Michael Francis
Doyle,
chairman of the Electoral Commission:
The
Committee,
appreciating
the fact that
your
address was the out-
standing
feature and did much to add to the
brilliancy
of the
occasion,
sends this
expression
of their
appreciation
and
gratitude.
We
hope
it
may
also be treasured in
your
mind as
being
the first
meeting
of Presi-
dential electors of the United States in one
body,
and that
your
selection
as the
only speaker
is a tribute of the
regard
in which
you
are held
by
the
Democracy
of the nation.
The
great throng
that faced Roosevelt at the
inauguration
was
not the traditional
laughing, jubilant
crowd. It was
serious, sober,
intent on the
inaugural
address. This was on
Saturday.
On
Monday
morning
it was announced that all banks would be closed until
investigated;
that all found sound would be
immediately reopened,
backed
by
the
government.
This was the kind of decisive action
with which the
country
had not been familiar for four
years.
261
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
Thereafter Roosevelt was to move
rapidly
and with
daring.
His-
tory
will record that he saved the nation from ruin and
revolution.
In a few
days
Roosevelt
telephoned
me from the White
House.
"That
Spanish
matter is all
right,"
he said. "I'm a little
embarrassed
about so
many people
from New York. Can I send
your
name in as
from Indiana?"
"I've voted in New York for
eight years,"
I
said,
"but
you may
do as
you
wish,
since
you're
the dictator"
referring
to the all but
dictatorial
powers granted
him in the crisis.
I heard a
gasp,
and then a
hearty laugh.
"Have
you any prop-
erty
in Indiana?" he asked.
"I have not."
"Do
you
have
any
of
your things
there?" he
persisted.
"None."
"Then I
guess
I can't do it. I think I'll send
your
name in as from
Indiana and New
York,"
he concluded.
(I
had been
presented
as
temporary
chairman of the Houston convention in this
way
as
from Indiana and New
York.)
"Fll send it in tomorrow."
The reaction in
Spain
to
my appointment
was
friendly.
It now
seems
significant
that Ambassador Cardenas in
Washington
seemed
interested
solely
in
ascertaining
what,
if
anything,
I had written
about the forced
departure
of
King
Alfonso XIII in
1931,
when
the
monarchy
was
replaced by
the
Spanish Republic.
A career
diplomat
under the
monarchy
who had been retained
by
the Re-
public,
he would later turn
against
the
republican government
and
become Franco's
agent
in the United States.
The
morning
I reached
Washington
I called on Cordell
Hull,
the new
Secretary
of
State,
who was
looking
tired. No one could
have
thought
that he would
go through
twelve
grueling years
of
international crisis before
retiring,
at the
age
of
seventy-three.
I
paid my respects
also to William
Phillips,
the Under
Secretary
of
State. I had been warned that his
stiff,
cold manner would be dis-
concerting,
but I found this
distinguished diplomat very
human
and cordial. Afterward I lunched at the
Spanish embassy
with
Ambassador
Cardenas,
and that same
day
I had
my
first official
audience with Roosevelt.
The President was at his desk
looking very thoughtful
when
I
arrived.
Then,
as was his
custom,
he threw back his head and
262
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
laughed.
He said he was
sorry
I was
going
out of the
country.
When I
congratulated
him on the tidal wave of
public approval
of
his dramatic measures to save the
country
from the
danger
of utter
ruin,
he
again
looked serious.
"But I'm
always
a
pessimist,"
he said. "How
long
will it last?"
Though
he looked
well,
there was a
sobriety
about him and a
set look about the mouth that one month of tremendous
responsi-
bility
had
given
him. Both the President and Hull had told me of
their desire for the
negotiation
of a commercial
treaty
with
Spain,
and I was
consequently puzzled
when I failed to find a
single
sub-
ordinate official of the State
Department
who did not rather deride
the idea. I confessed
my
bewilderment to Dan
Roper, Secretary
of
Commerce,
and
urged
the
necessity
of
knowing
whether a
treaty
would be
seriously
undertaken before I
expressed myself
in
Madrid. He was sure the
treaty
was
wanted,
but he advised me to
talk
again
with the President and Hull.
The next
day
I saw Hull
again.
He,
an
idealist,
was
becoming
disillusioned
early. Apropos
of the various international confer-
ences
preliminary
to the London Economic
Conference,
he said
that "all these fellows come over with a
big
trunk
expecting
to
carry away big
concessions,"
and that he was afraid none had en-
larged
views and were "bent
solely
on some immediate
advantage."
He reiterated his desire for a trade
treaty,
but he admitted he had
pressure upon
him from all sides
against lowering
the tariff barriers.
On
May
2, 1933,
1 had
my
farewell talk with Roosevelt before
sailing.
He seemed much less harassed than before. His office
looked out on a beautiful
green
lawn,
and while I was with him he
gave
instructions that no flower beds were to be
planted
to break
the
continuity
of the
greenery. Apropos
of the
proposed treaty,
I
told him that
some,
fearing
for the American
telephone company
in
Spain, property
of the International
Telephone
and
Telegraph
Corporation,
which had had some
difficulty
a little while
before,
had
proposed holding
off a commercial
treaty
to use it as a club for the
protection
of the
corporation.
"Of
course,"
he
said,
"the matter of the Tel and Tel is
simple.
The
company
entered into a contract in
good
faith and has
put
its
money
into
building
a
great telephone
system.
We
expect,
of
course,
that the terms of the contract will be observed."
But,
with a
263
THE REVOLUTION OF
1932
vigorous
shake of the
head,
he waved aside the idea of
using
the
trade
treaty
as a club.
"Oh,
of course
not,"
he said. "That's the
old
diplomatic
method,
outdated now."
(Incidentally,
the Tel and Tel had no trouble of
any consequence
during my
tenure,
and
during
the
Spanish
Civil War it
continued
to function on both sides of the
lines.)
And then Roosevelt said
something
indicative of how his
mind
was
working:
"One
thing
I want
you
to find out when
you get
over there is what would be the effect of
my making
an
appeal
over the heads of
government
leaders to the
peoples
of the world.
I'm
greatly
disturbed over the trend of the world toward dictator-
ships.
I'm a
Jeff
ersonian
democrat,
despite
some of the laws enacted
recently
in
Congress. Italy
is
gone. Japan
is
gone. Germany
with
Hitler is
becoming
a menace. Now I can see that
Spain
has a
po-
tentiality
of
becoming again
one of the foremost nations. She isn't
one
today.
I don't know
positively
how she stands on
democracy,
but I'm anxious to have
Spain
on our side of the table."
On
reaching
Madrid I was assured
by
Fernando de los
Rios,
Spanish
Minister of
Foreign
Affairs,
that the
Spanish government
would
heartily
welcome the President's
suggested appeal
to the
peoples
of the world
against
the totalitarian
drift,
and I so informed
the President. I was to think of this
many
times between
July
1936
and
June 1939.
As I was
leaving,
Roosevelt
gave
me an inscribed
photograph
and
said,
"I wish that whenever
you
find
anything you
think I
should
know,
even
though you
have sent it to the State
Depart-
ment,
you
would send me a
copy
with such observations as
you
may
care to make to me
personally."
I am
sorry
I did not avail
myself
more
fully
of this
privilege
during
the
Spanish
war.
264
CHAPTER XVIII
The
Embassy
in
Spain
WE SAILED for France on the initial
voyage
of the
George
Wash-
ington
in
mid-May, proceeding immediately
to
Madrid,
where I
presented my
credentials as ambassador the first of
June.
Madrid was a
typical European capital
with a million
population.
The
leisurely tempo,
the beautiful tree-lined
streets,
the circles and
the monuments bore a resemblance to the
Washington
I knew be-
fore the First World War. The tone of the
city
was
political,
not
commercial or industrial. The
Prado,
a treasure house of
art,
was
equal
or
superior
to the Louvre in Paris. Because of
my
interest in
history
I was
especially
fascinated
by
the older sections of the town
through
which the centuries have
marched,
such as the Puerta del
Sol,
where the soldiers of
Napoleon
were mowed down
by
infuri-
ated
patriots,
where the
Republic
was
proclaimed
in
1931,
and
where at
midnight
on New Year's Eve
boys
and
girls
assembled to
eat their twelve
grapes,
one with each stroke of the clock on the
Ministry
of the Interior a short distance
away.
The Plaza
Mayor,
a few
steps beyond
and entered from several
streets
through
stone
archways,
was
steeped
in
history,
and here I
was to make
many
sentimental
journeys.
Here the medieval build-
ings,
once residences of the
nobility,
had become
tenements,
and
on the flat roof of one of them a frame house had been built and
one could see the
occupants
sewing
or
hanging
clothes on the line
to
dry.
Here,
with a little
imagination,
one could visualize the
scenes of other
daysthe
festive
gatherings,
the
dancing
in the
street,
the
bullfights
with nobles in the role of
matadors,
and the
terrible drama of the
Inquisition.
The
balcony
of the Casa de la
Real
Panaderia,
the old bakers'
guildhall,
interested
me,
since from
this
point
of
vantage
Charles I of
England,
then Prince of
Wales,
265
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
with his
gay companion
the Duke of
Buckingham,
had
looked
down on the
bullfight arranged
in his honor.
It is
customary
to write with distaste of the Castilian
plains
about
Madrid,
so
dusty,
with so little
vegetation,
with few trees
and with
their scorched
yellow
earth,
but I came to love those
plains.
I was to
make
many journeys
to the
surrounding country
to the
Escorial,
the most
impressive, inspiring
and
yet depressing
structure in the
world,
with its
royal apartments,
its
monastery,
its beautiful cathe-
dral,
its
library
and art
gallery,
and its dark marble
crypt
in which
rest the caskets of all the
Spanish
monarchs from the
Emperor
Charles V to
King
Alfonso
XII;
to El
Pardo,
my
favorite
among
the
royal palaces
because here one felt that human
beings
had lived
domestic lives. I never visited the
palace
without
driving
in the
great hunting park
of the
kings just beyond,
with its low
rolling
hills and stunted trees.
Our
government
did not own an
embassy
in Madrid at that time.
We rented the
palace
of the Duke of
Montellano,
one of the
grandees
of
Spain,
and had both the residence and the office in the
same
building.
The
palace
and
grounds occupied
a full
city
block
and
gave
entrance on three streets the
Castellana,
one of the broad
avenues of
Madrid,
and two
quiet shady
streets,
Cisne and
Fortuny.
The
house,
designed by
a French architect
forty years
before,
was
beautiful and comfortable.
When,
many years
later,
Franco an-
nounced that the
grandson
of Alfonso
XIII,
who was
being
edu-
cated in
Spain,
would be
living
in an
apartment
in the Montellano
Palace while
taking
his
military training,
because the dictator
wished him to live in an
atmosphere
of
"austerity,"
I marveled at
his choice of the word.
To a
reasonably simple
Hoosier,
the marble
dining
room,
with its
painted ceiling,
and the
long
ballroom adorned with
portraits by
Boldini and
Zuloaga
of the beautiful Duchesses of Montellano and
Arion had
special
charm,
but the best of all was the little
Goya
room,
designed exclusively
for the famous
Goya panels.
The
dining
room,
the ballroom and the hall
opened
on a broad marble
terrace the width of the
house,
looking
out over a
very large
formal
garden
with horse chestnut
trees, flowers,
statuary
and a fountain.
The
garden
was so shut in
by shrubbery
that one could dine at
night
on the
lighted
terrace with a
feeling
of
perfect privacy.
One
266
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
walk in the
garden
was
especially appreciated,
since It was bor-
dered
by
a row of trees whose branches overarched to form a de-
lightful green
aisle.
By
the tennis court was a little stone summer-
house for tea or
bridge. Nothing
could have been more beautiful
and restful than this
garden, especially
at
twilight
or in
moonlight,
and
Queen
Victoria of
Spain,
who was a friend of the Duchess,
had loved and
frequently
visited it.
I
particularly
recall one
moonlight night
when Franklin Roose-
velt, Jr.,
just
out of Groton and
ready
for Harvard in the
fall,
visited
Spain
with a classmate and we had them as our
guests.
The
first
night, seeking
some form of entertainment and
noting
their
keen interest in
bullfights,
I
arranged
for
Sidney
Franklin,
the
American matador,
to come in after dinner. We were
sitting
on the
terrace when the matador
appeared,
dramatizing
his entrance. The
eyes
of the
boys popped.
He was an excellent
matador,
with a sense
of
drama,
and the
boys
sat on the
edge
of their chairs,
leaning
for-
ward so as not to miss a word. Now and then
Sidney
Franklin
took a
cigarette,
and the son of the President
literally sprang
across
the terrace
with a
lighter.
The matador's
dramatic
dialogue
went
on and on while the moon traversed the
sky,
and the dawn was
breaking
when we went to bed.
I understand
that
young
Roosevelt
left
Spain
with a stuffed
bull's
head,
the
gift
of a
Spanish
well-wisher,
which
delighted
him
but
was
something
of a
problem
to his mother and the White
House
staff.
Another
well-remembered
moonlight night
we had Ernest
Hemingway
and
John
Dos Passos and their wives as
guests.
Nat-
urally
it was after a
bullfight
that I first met
Hemingway.
He was
then an enthusiastic
friend of the
Republic
and
spent
much time
in
Spain
following
the corridas
and the fiestas.
There
in these
pleasant
surroundings
we were to remain till
the summer
of
1936.
In this house
before
the
Spanish
Civil War I
wrote two
books, Jefferson
in Power
and The
Spanish
Adventures
of
Washington
Irving, finding
much material
for the latter in the
archives
of the
embassy.
The
monarchy
had fallen
without
the
firing
of a shot two
years
before
I reached
Spain.
The
Republic
had
adopted
a
thoroughly
democratic
constitution
and had
chosen Alcala
Zamora
as its first
267
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
President. The
Cortes,
popularly
elected and
consisting
of
476
members,
legislated
in the old chamber mellow in
history
since the
days
of Castelar. The
political party
or coalition
having
a
majority
in the Cortes constituted the
government.
Alcala Zamora was a
small,
handsome man with lustrous
brown
eyes, graying
hair and
mustache,
and a
complexion hinting
of
Moorish blood. He was a leader of the Madrid bar and
several
times had served as a minister of the
King.
He was
innately
con-
servative and
devoutly
Catholic. In his character were
many
virtues
and some weaknesses that were to
prove
his
undoing.
The
government
was headed
by
Manuel Azafia as
Premier,
by
all
odds the
greatest
statesman of the
Spanish Republic.
Brilliant as a
writer and
biographer, all-powerful
as an orator and
debater,
pro-
gressive
as a
thinker,
profound
as a
political philosopher,
he was to
prove
himself the most convinced and militant democrat at the
head of
any European government during
the
period
of
appease-
ment of the Axis in the
early phases
of its war on "decadent democ-
racy."
I knew him well and found him
fascinating. Though
a
pro-
gressive,
he had the conservatism of common sense. His
great
ora-
tions were
closely
knit conclusions of sound
logic expressed
in the
purest language
free from tasteless
floridity
and
demagogy.
The titular leader of the
opposition
was
Alejandro
Lerroux,
long
the
republican
leader
during
the
monarchy.
When the
rightists
triumphed
in a
general
election and Lerroux became
Premier,
my
personal
and official relations with this
picturesque
veteran of
seventy
were
always pleasant.
He had an
intriguing personality,
colorful because of the traditions that
clung
to his career. A
short,
stoutly
built
man,
erect as a ramrod
despite
his
years,
he not
only
was
meticulously
correct in his dress but he was
something
of a
dandy.
His socks
always
matched his
tie,
and a
blue-edged
hand-
kerchief
always protruded
from his
upper pocket.
It had not been
so
always;
in the
days
when he
posed
as the
champion
of the
prole-
tariat in Barcelona he had worn flannel
shirts,
unbuttoned at the
top
to
prove
he had hair on his chest. His manner was
gracious
and
ingratiating,
and he had
great
charm. His old
eyes
had
penetrated
all the secrets of
politics
and he knew most of the answers. As an
orator he had more words than
ideas,
but the words
poured
from
him with the ease and
melody
of a mountain stream.
I have described Lerroux as the titular leader because the real
268
THE EMBASSY IK SPAIN
leader of the
rightist
coalition was
Jose
Maria Gil
Robles,
the head
of the
CEDA,
the
Catholic
party,
which
during
the Lerroux re-
gime
was
numerically
the
strongest
in the Cortes. This remarkable
man had
organized
the
victory by persuading
all
rightist parties
to
unite in a
common
front,
and
by making promises
to all and
sundry
that could not all be
redeemed. To
escape
embarrassment,
it was
said,
he
stepped
aside that Lerroux
might
become Premier.
By
the
nodding
of his head he could have
toppled
Lerroux from his throne
any
minute,
and because the old veteran knew it he
voluntarily
bowed to the will of the ambitious
young
leader. I am convinced
that Lerroux was a sincere
republican
and
fundamentally
a demo-
crat and I do not think he
realized that there were times when his
government
was
whittling
away
the
Republic.
His
supreme
ambi-
tion had been to become Premier and he was
willing
to
pay
almost
any price
to retain his
station.
Gil Robles was a clever man whose rise in
politics
had been
spectacular.
He was an orator who
depended
for effect on the
emotional fervor of his
declamation. He did not
approach
Azafia,
but he was better than Lerroux. His
position
was difficult to define.
He was believed to be a
monarchist, and,
while he never
openly
avowed himself
such,
he never
convincingly
declared himself re-
publican.
He was a somewhat
enigmatic figure
even to his own followers.
Many
who
joined
the CEDA in the belief that it was a monarchist
party, secretly pledged
to
bring
back the
King,
later became dis-
illusioned and restive. Others
thought
him a fascist and found
themselves mistaken. Yet he
helped prepare
the
way
for the rebel-
lion and was
apparently
in close
co-operation
for some time with its
future leaders. Then when the rebellion broke out the CEDA dis-
banded,
and for
many years
of the Franco
regime
Gil Robles lived
in exile.
Emotionally,
I am
sure,
he would have liked to see the
King
return,
but the cause to which he was
truly
devoted was the
cause of the Catholic Church.
The CEDA was a
large party
and it included elements which
had
very
little in common with each other
reactionary
landown-
ers and extreme conservatives on the one
hand,
and on the other
a
group
which would have liked to make of the CEDA an instru-
ment for social
progress
after the ideas of
Pope
Leo XIII. There
was even talk of a land reform
program,
but the bulk of CEDA
269
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
support
and finances came from
groups
that would never
permit
interference of this sort and the reform
program disappeared
early.
The
political
left was so convinced of Gil Robles' monarchism
and
his intention to
betray
the
Republic
that when Lerroux
gave
Cab-
inet
posts
to some members of his
party
there was a
general
strike
and a brief
revolt,
which was
put
down at once
everywhere
except
in the northern
province
of Asturias. The
Spanish Foreign Legion
was
brought
over from Morocco to deal with the Asturian miners
and crushed the revolt with a
severity
and violence that
aroused
lasting
bitterness
among
the
working
classes.
These
three, Azana,
Lerroux and Gil
Robles,
were the outstand-
ing
leaders
during my
time in
Spain
before the Civil War.
Madrid then had its season for official
entertaining.
It
began
with
the President's dinner to the
diplomatic corps
on the first of
Janu-
ary
and ended
early
in
June.
President Alcala Zamora had offices
on the
ground
floor of the
imposing Royal
Palace,
but he lived in
his town house near our
embassy.
The
royal apartments
were used
only
on
special
occasions,
because of the cost of
heating
the enor-
mous structure. Sometimes the
stately
salons were all but
frigid,
though
on the occasion of state dinners
great
fires blazed in the
fireplaces
and took off the chill. The dinners were served in the
state
dining
room at a
very long
table colorful with flowers and
lighted by
candles in
splendid
silver candelabra. The silver service
still bore the
insignia
of the
King. Following
the dinner we filed
into the throne room for the
entertainment,
and I have a vivid
recollection of
seeing
La
Argentina
dance there to the music of her
castanets.
In the
diplomatic corps
were a number of
interesting
and clever
men. The
nuncio,
now Cardinal
Tedeschini, tall, handsome,
ele-
gant,
suave and
velvety,
seemed to have
stepped
out of the
period
of
Talleyrand
and
Metternich,
for he was a consummate and wise
diplomat
of the old school. He astonished me on
my
initial
protocol
call
by
his
familiarity
with
my
Irish
Orators,
then out of
print
a
quarter
of a
century.
I remember him most
vividly
as I saw him
occasionally
on
my
drives in the Casa del
Campo,
where,
on the
rustic
road,
I met him
walking,
his car
following
to
pick
him
up
when he was tired. I was to witness the
ceremony
at the
palace
when Alcala Zamora
placed
the cardinal's red
cap
on his head. It
270
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
was not
surprising
to me later that he was one of the three most
favored cardinals in the election of a new
pope
in
1939.
One of
my
colleagues
told me that
King
Alfonso XIII had been somewhat bit-
ter
against
several members of the
diplomatic corps, among
them
the
nuncio,
for not
having
taken some
steps
to show
support
of the
monarchy.
Cardinal Tedeschini had told
my
friend that the
King,
then
living
in
exile,
had seen
Pope
Pius XI and endeavored to turn
him
against
Tedeschini.
"But,"
said Cardinal
Tedeschini,
"His
Holiness is an old
man,
and when the
King began
his criticism of
me he noticed that His Holiness was
nodding.
He
changed
the
subject
and His Holiness woke
up.
Then the
King began again.
But
immediately
he observed that His Holiness was
nodding."
My
most cherished friend
among my colleagues
was Sir
George
Grahame,
the British
ambassador, who,
being
a
bachelor,
seemed
to me a
lonely
man.
Though
he had been born into a
very
con-
servative
county family,
I was to find him more liberal than
my
other
colleagues.
Tall,
rangy,
his shoulders
slightly stooped
because
of his
height,
he would have attracted attention
anywhere
and I am
sure he would have
preferred
it
otherwise,
for he was a
shy
and
modest man.
Once,
admiring
a
painting
on one of his
walls,
I asked
the name of the artist. He
blushingly replied
that he was
guilty.
"I
dabble a bit for
my
own
amusement,"
he said. He wrote short
stories that were shown
only
to his intimate friends. I
thought
them
too clever to hide
away,
but the mere
suggestion
of
publication
threw him into a
panic.
His
political judgment
was of the
best,
and
well before the fall of the
monarchy
he had warned London of
the
growing unpopularity
of Alfonso XIII.
My
relations with Count
von
Welczeck,
the German ambassa-
dor,
were most cordial.
Preceding
me in Madrid
by
seven
years,
he had been a favorite
hunting companion
of the
King.
He was a
great
landowner,
a
thorough
aristocrat in the better sense. He had
entered the
foreign
service somewhat
against
his
will,
on the insist-
ence of his father. "I wanted to be a
farmer,"
he told me.
Tall,
slen-
der, courteous,
he was
socially popular.
He admired
pretty
women
and loved to dance. I know that he found the Nazi
regime
at that
time offensive and not a little absurd. It was his fate to be transferred
to Paris
a few
years
before World War
II;
however,
he
resigned
be-
fore the storm broke. On the afternoon of the
day
of the memorial
service for
Hindenburg
in Madrid
he
spent
the afternoon in our
271
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
garden,
and
through
a
long
intimate conversation I came to know
him.
Another
interesting colleague
was the Mexican
ambassador,
Genaro
Estrada,
famous as the author of the "Estrada
doctrine."
Short in
stature,
a little stout and
very quiet,
he
gave
the
impression
that he was more the
poet
than the
politician.
Some of the most
pleasant
memories of
my
Madrid
days
cluster about him and his
beautiful and
charming
wife,
then in her
early
twenties,
who was
no end bored
by
her enforced association with the other ambassa-
dors and
ambassadresses,
most of them old
enough
to be her
par-
ents. Protocol made me her table
companion
at numerous
dinners,
and I found her as
refreshing
as a breeze on a
sultry day.
Among
the women of the
corps
the most
stimulating
and clever
was Princess Elizabeth
Bibesco,
wife of Prince Antoine
Bibesco,
the Romanian
minister,
and
daughter
of British Prime Minister
Asquith
and the famous
Margot Asquith.
She was
small, attractive,
and
sparkling
in her manner and conversation. She had a rich sense
of
humor,
but her brilliant wit was
devastating
and her sarcasm
deadly.
Her talk was
epigrammatic,
like her
novels,
and these
epi-
grams
were
disconcerting
since
they
came with the
rapidity
of
machine
gun
fire,
and at times with much the same effect. I am
sure she cared little for the conventions and liked whenever
pos-
sible to
put
aside
diplomatic protocol.
Our first dinner in
Madrid,
before I
presented my
credentials,
was at her table. She admired
Azafia and took liberties with him in
conversation;
at the other
pole,
she was a friend of
young
Jose
Antonio Primo de
Rivera,
founder of the
Falange party,
and after his death in the
Spanish
Civil
War she dedicated a novel to him. When I told her how much we
appreciated
her
great helpfulness
and kindness in our first
days
in
Madrid,
an
expression
almost of wonder
spread
over her face. "I
don't have a
reputation
of that
sort,"
she said.
In
my many trips by
car to all
parts
of the
country,
I found
Spain lovely
and
fascinating.
When the heat of summer became
oppressive,
one could roll
along
in a
day
to the
refreshing greenery
of the
Basque country
or to the sea at San
Sebastian;
when the
gloom
of winter settled
sadly
on the
city,
one could
quickly
reach
Andalusia and the blue waters of the Mediterranean at
Malaga.
These motor
trips
were
delightful,
since the roads were
perfect
272
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
and at
intervals,
at the
edge
of small
towns,
were
charming
para-
dors,
inns for the
traveler,
where one could count on excellent
meals and
sleep
in
comfort in clean beds with fresh linen.
These
journeys
of thousands of miles took me
through many
villages,
some as old as
Spanish history,
all
dusty
with
time,
and
picturesque.
The
primitive
threshing
in the
fields,
the windmills
such as
Quixote
saw and
fought,
the
patient donkeys
with loaded
panniers plodding along bearing
old women with wrinkled faces
or
young girls
with
sparkling eyes-such
was the drama of the
highway.
On these
journeys
I came to understand the observation
made
long ago
that "the real
nobility
of
Spain
is the
peasantry,"
Courteous and
always helpful, they
had
great self-respect, pride
and
dignity.
Time and
again
we made the short
trip
to
Toledo,
near Madrid.
An
impressionistic picture
of the town would be cold and austere.
The narrow
winding
streets and the
plaza
have little
physical beauty
to commend them to
tourists,
but visitors with a sense of
history
and some
imagination
will find them
thrilling
because several civili-
zations have
passed
and left their
imprint.
One can sit in the his-
toric
plaza
and let
fancy
run
riot,
for it reeks with
drama,
romance
and
tragedy.
A bit
gruesome
to me was the
"Bloody
Gate" on one
side,
with its
balcony
whence
princes
and ecclesiastics once looked
down
coldly
on the scenes of the
Inquisition. Passing through
the
gate
and down uneven
steps
worn
rough
with the tread of
genera-
tions,
one found the medieval tavern where Cervantes once
stayed
and which before the
Spanish
Civil War was still
ministering
to
the needs of man and beast. There in the
cobblestone-paved
court
the chickens still scratched and clucked and the air was redolent
of the old stable where
peasants
left their mules and
donkeys
on
market
days,
as when Cervantes once looked down from the bal-
cony.
I am
glad
I saw the old tavern before it was wrecked in the
struggle
for Toledo. Here one could
easily transport
oneself in
fancy
to the
days
when the ladies of
easy
virtue in front made
sport
of
poor
Quixote.
We
always
visited the little
church,
to stand before El Greco's
masterpiece
"The Burial of Count
Orgaz,"
and
lingered
in the
cathedral so
intimately
identified with the
political
and
spiritual
history
of the
country.
I never had
enough
of the treasure
room,
to
which access could be had
only
in the
company
of three
priests,
273
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
each with a
key.
The treasures are
priceless gold
and silver
and
precious
stones,
and the raiment of dead cardinals
studded with
emeralds and
pearls.
There in the cathedral are El Greco's
paint-
ings
of the
disciples.
No
spot
in
Spain impressed
me more than
Toledo, I
especially
remember
walking through
the narrow old
streets at
night during
an official fiesta in the town and
hearing
the
music of
guitars
from the latticed balconies.
In Seville I remember the old
palaces steeped
in
history,
the nar-
row streets with
awnings
stretched across them to
protect pedes-
trians from the
sun,
and the marvelous drama of
Holy
Week,
the
most
impressive
I have ever
seen,
when the hotels are filled to over-
flowing
and
many
find
lodging
in other towns not too far
away.
The
purely religious
motive was not so
predominant
as it had once
been,
but it was still
there,
and the
gay
folks with their
drinking
and
laughing
could not shut it out. In Granada we rambled
through
the rooms of the Alhambra and visited the
great gardens
of the
Moors. I am sure the
majority
of
Spanish
roosters live in
Granada,
for
invariably
I was awakened in the
morning
there
by
the crow-
ing
of cocks. We made several
journeys
to the walled town of
Avila to visit the convent of Saint Teresa and the ancient church
built into the town wall as
part
of its
protection
in old
times,
with
the
figures
of warriors one on each side of the entrance to remind
the visitor that the Church had been a
fighting
force;
to Cordoba
with its memories of the
Jewish
philosophers
and the
Moors,
and
its
great
cathedral that was once a
mosque;
and to
Segovia
and San
Sebastian,
the first
impressive,
the second
amusing
in summer.
And I
always
remember with
particular
affection the small town
of Alcala de
Henares,
the
birthplace
of
Cervantes,
near Madrid.
Soon after our arrival in Madrid Elizabeth Bibesco recommended
it to us as the most
charming
and
interesting
small town in
Spain,
and she was
perfectly right.
The
buildings
of the old
University
of
Madrid there for the most
part belonged
to the
Army
and were not
open
to the
public,
but one
room,
once reserved as the
dining
room
of star students in ruffs and with
swords,
is now a restaurant for
tourists. We often lunched and dined
there,
and in the winter we
were
grateful
for the
slightly
elevated stone
fireplace
whose danc-
ing
flames drew out the chUl of the mountain air. While
waiting
to be served we would
go
out into the court to
enjoy
the archi-
tectural
beauty
of the old
building
with its
pinkish glow imparted
2
74
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
by
time,
its
gargoyles
worn smooth
by
the rain and sleet of cen-
turies. Thence into the room where
great
savants lectured to
students now for centuries turned to dust.
Anyone
who can stand
unmoved in that room with its
beauty
and memories must be cold
indeed.
During
these
years
I formed an admiration and affection for the
Spanish people.
Even their chief fault comes from an
overdevelop-
ment of their chief
virtue,
their intense
individualism,
their ex-
treme
pride,
the
feeling
that each man is a
sovereign
within himself.
In the
Spanish people
is a
strong
vein of
poetry,
born of the
mysti-
cism of the race that is in their blood. I came to resent the
super-
ficial
impression
of
foreigners
that
they
are cruel This
impression
springs
from the
bullfight,
but one
may question
whether the kill-
ing
of the
bull,
in which the matador
imperils
his
life,
is worse than
the
running
down and
killing
of the fox. The
foreigner
answers
that it is not
sportsmanlike
in that the
magnificent
bull never has
a
chance,
and the
Spaniard replies
that it is not a
sport
at
all,
but a
tragedy.
I knew
many Spaniards
who did not care for the
tragedy
and never attended the
fights,
but I met no tourist whose chief in-
terest was not in
seeing
the
bullfight.
I know of no classless
nation,
and
Spain
like all the others has
its social divisions. The old
nobility
of
Spain
and the newer aristoc-
racy
are a mixture of
good
and bad.
Among
them one finds culture
of the
highest
order,
intellectual distinction and
taste,
but also
play-
boys
who would not
permit
a
vitally important
election to divert
them from a
day's sport.
Undoubtedly
the
nobility,
as a
class,
had
signally
failed in its
political obligations
to the state and even to
the monarch. Unlike the
English aristocracy,
which
prepares
a son
for
public
life,
the
Spanish nobility
looked
upon politics
as
degrad-
ing.
There were
very
few
exceptions.
When in the
municipal
elec-
tions of
1931
the
monarchy
was
tottering,
the
greater part
of the
nobility,
to whose
support
the
King
had a
right
to
look,
was stand-
ing
aloof.
Just
as fatal to the
nobility
was the fact that for some
decades the old
landowning
aristocrats had ceased to maintain real
contact with the
peasants
on their broad acres or to
recognize
their
responsibility
to them. In former times
they
lived a
large part
of the
year
on their estates and the
peasants
thought
the master could be
counted
upon
as their friend and
protector;
but for
years
the mas-
275
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
Jacinto
Benaveme,
the famous
dramatist,
winner of the
Nobel
Prize for
Literature,
was
already
a
legend
in Madrid when I ar-
rived.
Though perhaps
his finest dramas were behind
him,
he was
turning
out
sparkling
comedies all the time. I do not know
why
he
always
reminded me of
D'Annunzio,
unless it was because he was
small and wore a
slight goatee.
His bald head was
impressive
and
he seemed
something
of a
dandy, being always meticulously
at-
tired. His hands were
tiny
and I was fascinated
by
a
great
exotic
ring
on his
finger
which must have had a
history.
His was an al-
most
extravagant courtesy.
In the summer I found him often in
front of his favorite cafe in San Sebastian and he
invariably
rose,
lifted his hat and bowed.
Another friend was the
distinguished poet
and
recipient
of the
Nobel Prize for Literature
Juan
Ramon
Jimenez,
a
very shy genius
who seldom left his
ivory
tower. He had a
charming
wife,
and
occasionally
one or both were at the
embassy.
The bearded
poet,
whose health was
frail,
would sit in the warm room
wrapped
in a
heavy
coat,
most of the time
silently looking
into the fire. He could
not be counted
upon
to initiate a
conversation,
but once it had been
begun by
others he could talk
pleasantly
in the
language
of the
Academy.
I found
him,
a little to
my surprise,
an admirer of the
poetry
of
Longfellow
and
Lowell,
especially
the latter.
Perhaps
the most
picturesque
of the novelists was Valle
Inclan,
called the Anatole France of
Spain,
whose satiric novels
depicting
the free and
easy
court of Isabella II did much to undermine the
hold of the
monarchy.
I never
spoke
to
him,
but I saw him occa-
sionally sitting
under a tree in front of the cafe he
favored,
always
surrounded
by
his court of
youthful
admirers.
Tall,
very
slender,
with a thin El Greco face and a
long,
narrow
beard,
he seemed
formidable. He was not
easy
to
know,
and the same was true of
Unamuno,
the
great philosopher,
who
occasionally appeared
in
Madrid from
Salamanca,
where the
Republic
had
given
him a life
professorship
in the
university.
A
truly great
man,
a
profound
thinker,
he had been exiled
by
General Primo de Rivera and was
supposed
to be an
uncompromising enemy
of all
dictatorships.
I
was therefore startled
during
the war in
Spain
to find in a fascist
paper
an interview in which he was
purported
to have said that
the
Spaniards
were fit
only
for a dictator. I
hoped
that the
explana-
tion
lay
in the
presence
of a Franco officer
during
the
interview,
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
or that the
paper
had
misquoted
him
intentionally.
Soon he was
saying,
"These Germans
swaggering possessively through
the town
I love will kill me." And he died
during
the war after a violent
scene in the
university.
Another friend of Madrid
days
was Count de
Romanones,
a
former
minister of the
King
and a liberal
favoring
a constitutional
monarchy.
He was a monarchist
deputy
in the
Cortes,
but he sat
apart
from the small monarchist
party,
which did not think a
king
should be
hampered by
a constitution.
Though
a
politician,
he was
also an intellectual and the author of a number of
important biog-
raphies
and histories. He lived across the street from our
embassy
on the Castellana and I saw him in our house and in his beautiful
and historic
country place
near Toledo. Our common interests
were
largely literary
and historical.
Crippled
from
childhood,
he
carried a cane. He had a
roughhewn
face and a
brusque
manner
which was
partly
affected. His wit was
biting,
his sarcasm with-
ering.
He was
by
odds the ablest man
politically
of his class.
During
the two and a half
years
of Azaiia's
leadership
as Premier
great
and
significant
reforms
tending
to the destruction of a lin-
gering
feudalism were made. His
program provided
for the cre-
ation of a small
peasant proprietorship
in the
land,
through pur-
chase,
not
confiscation,
of
parts
of the enormous estates. Labor
laws similar to those in the United States and
England
were enacted
to raise the economic status of the workers. A
program
of
building
schools and
training
teachers
was
initiated,
and
this,
perhaps,
was
the most
important
of all his
reforms,
inasmuch as when the mon-
archy
fell there were more than nine thousand
villages
and towns
without teachers and
schools,
and the
illiteracy
rate was
naturally
high.
Unfortunately
the schools of the
religious
orders were to be
closed and
many
devout Catholics
were
unwilling
to see the state
school
system
replace
the Catholic
schools.
The
agricultural
and labor
reforms,
though
much
needed,
aroused the
hostility
of
powerful
forces-the
great
landowners,
the industrialists
and the bankers.
During
the
succeeding
Lerroux-
Gil Robles
regime
these reforms
were reduced to a
nullity.
Antici-
pating
the return of Azana and the liberal
parties
to
power
at the
polls,
these forces
prepared
to take over the
government by
armed
rebellion
in
conjunction
with
Army
leaders and after
receiving
assurances
of
support
from Hitler
and Mussolini. Meanwhile
the
279
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
Lerroux-Gil Robles
government
had been
manipulating
the
Army
and
placing
the future
conspirators
in
strategic positions.
Such were the conditions when the
general
elections were
forced
in the late winter of
1935-36.
The
republican
and
democratic
forces and the
working
masses were aroused to fever heat.
When
Azana
sought permission
to
speak
in Madrid and was
stupidly
refused,
a field outside the
city just beyond
the Toledo
Bridge
was
taken for the
meeting
and a
quarter
of a million
people poured
in
from
every
side
by
train and
bus,
on mules and on foot. The
great
orator of
republicanism spoke
for two hours to this
enormous mul-
titude without the
slightest
incident in the
city.
And Azana was
swept
back into
power.
In the first
days
of the
Spanish
Civil War Count de Romanones told me that the
military
rebellion had been
planned
before the election to have
everything
prepared
in the event of a
rightist
defeat at the
polls.
He
may
not
have
known,
though
this seems
improbable,
that the
bargain
with
Hitler and Mussolini had been made even before that. Since I have
told in detail the
story
of these
conspiracies
in
My
Mission to
Spain,
I need not
repeat
it here.
The
Spanish
Civil War
began
in
July.
Most of the
diplomatic
corps
had
gone
as usual to San Sebastian in the north of
Spain
for
the summer.
My
wife was
recovering
from an
illness,
so instead of
going
to the hotel in San Sebastian for several
weeks,
as we had
done
before,
we took a villa for the summer in
Fuenterrabia,
a
quiet, picturesque village
on the coast near San Sebastian. Ten
days
after the war
began
I was ordered
by my government
to leave
Spain
and
join my colleagues
of the
diplomatic corps just
across
the French border in
Hendaye.
I then went on board the
Cayuga,
an American
ship,
to call at
Spanish
towns
along
the northern coast
and evacuate Americans. When
September
came and the
great
hotel in
Hendaye
closed for the season we all moved on to
St.-Jean-
de-Luz
just beyond,
and here we were to continue
during
the re-
mainder of the war. I established our
chancellery
in the Miramar
Hotel and from this
point
it was
possible
to
report fully
on the
activities of the rebels across the
Spanish
border. American war
correspondents frequently
called to tell me of conditions
they
could not
publish
because of the
military censorship. Daily
I read
the
Spanish papers
of both sides and in the Franco
press
I found
280
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
attacks on Roosevelt and on
England
and
France,
together
with
praise
of
Hitler,
Mussolini and the "new order." It seemed that the
struggle
was to be
between
democracy
and fascism.
With all the
diplomatic
corps
accredited to the
Spanish Republic
stationed in
St.~Jean-de-Luz,
it was
certainly
the most
unique
"capital"
in the
world. It was a
very
old
town,
much older than
Biarritz
nearby,
but such an influx of official
foreigners
had
prob-
ably
not been seen there since the remote
days
when the
pompous
courts of
Philip
IV of
Spain
and Louis XIV of France moved in for
the
marriage
of the French
King
to the
daughter
of the
King
of
Spain.
Close to the
waterfront stood the old
palace
in which the
bride awaited the
ceremony,
and the
palace facing
the
plaza
where
Louis XIV
stayed
was still there. Visitors were amused
by
the
walled-up
door of the church
through
which the
great
French
monarch
emerged
with his new
Queen,
after which he
gave
in-
structions that the door should never
give
entrance or exit to
any-
one less exalted than this
royal couple.
Most of the
people
who owned villas in
St.-Jean-de-Luz
were
quiet
and
conservative,
and the town had
only
one small
night
club,
open
in the summer for
tourists,
where I once saw the Prince of
Wales,
later Edward
VIII,
sitting
in a corner alone with a sad ex-
pression.
At the cocktail hour most
people gathered
at the Bar
Basque,
but
anyone hungering
for more hectic entertainment could
find his
way
to Biarritz.
St.-Jean-de-Luz
was a
dignified
little town
normally drowsing
in an
atmosphere
of sweet
serenity. Daily
we
went to a
stationery
store for the
foreign papers
and
frequently
to an old-fashioned and
very popular English
tearoom which had
books to rent. We were fortunate to find a
pleasant
villa on the
edge
of the Chantaco
golf
course with
big
windows
looking
out
in three directions over a
lovely kndscape.
It rained much in the
winter,
but with the wind
whipping
the
falling
water into waves
the scene was
entrancing.
In the
green
lush
pastures
cattle
grazed
in
peace
and
sheep
huddled
together
when the wind was
strong.
Here for two and a half
years
we were more than
comfortably
housed.
Ignacio Zuloaga,
the foremost
Spanish painter
of the
time,
called
upon
me there one rain-drenched
day.
He was a man of
large
frame,
scarcely gray despite
his
age,
and he astounded me
by
his
281
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
youthfulness,
his
vivacity
and enthusiasm. He was
living
near
San
Sebastian in an old convent he had converted into a
combined
residence,
studio and museum.
Possessing
a head of Saint
Lawrence
by
El Greco which he considered
among
the artist's finest
work,
he had
put
it in a
safe-deposit
box in a bank in San Sebastian at the
beginning
of the
Spanish
war. When the fascists took the
city
the
Loyalist government
transferred the contents of the boxes to a
bank in
Bilbao,
and
Zuloaga
was in terror lest the
Basques, ignorant
of the value of the
canvas,
misplace
or mar it. He had been unable
to
sleep.
I told him I would write
Aguirre,
head of the
Basque gov-
ernment,
if he wished and
perhaps
it
might
be
possible
to
arrange
for the
painting
to be
deposited
under the
guardianship
of some
agency
in France until the close of the war. He was
boyishly grate-
ful. But the next
morning
the
lady
with whom he was
visiting
came
to tell me that
Zuloaga
had been unable to
sleep, worrying
that the
acceptance
of
any
favor from the
Basques
would arouse the resent-
ment of the
fascists;
he would
prefer
for me to do
nothing.
That
day
in
my
house he seemed more
republican
than rebel. As
we sat before a
blazing
hearth he told me of his
experience
with
the
incomparable propaganda
of the radio commentator of Lisbon.
His
friends,
thinking
to relieve the tedium of his
isolation,
had
given
him a
radio,
and he and his
family gathered
about it and
turned it on. The first words he ever heard on his radio were these:
"I am
sorry
to announce that the
great Spanish painter Zuloaga
has been
brutally
murdered
by
the reds." It was all news to
him,
but
none the less
thrilling.
A little later he was "murdered"
again
in
the
newspapers,
this time
by
his own
people,
the
Basques.
I soon
gathered
that
though
his friends were all
republicans,
he
had become a warm
partisan
of the fascists. When Mussolini ar-
ranged
for an exhibit of his
paintings
in Rome he went all over to
the
fascists,
and his last
days
were
spent painting portraits
of Ger-
man Nazi officers and Italian Fascist
generals.
He was
very good
on uniforms.
During
this time I
personally
wrote elaborate
dispatches
for
Washington covering every phase
of the
situation,
as Cordell
Hull
told his
press
conference at the time. Most of the ambassadors
and
*
ministers of those democratic nations which were soon to fall under
the feet of Hitler showed marked
partiality
for the rebels who
282
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
were backed
by
Hitler and
Mussolini. It was lonesome for a demo-
crat on that
coast.
Democracy
had been shunted aside like a broken
freight
car on a
siding,
and the fascist and Nazi
expresses
had the
right
of
way.
The
very
word
"democracy"
was
dropped
from the
vocabulary
in
fashionable
quarters.
Titled men and women from
Spain
who
thought
Franco was
fighting
for the restoration of the
King
made the
fashion. The
so-called
international set was
entirely
pro-rebel.
I was there when Iran fell to the rebels because the "Non-Inter-
vention" Committee
prevented
the
delivery
of ammunition
waiting
on the tracks at
Hendaye
for the
Loyalist
forces. I saw the
pitiful
parade
of
refugees,
bewildered old
men,
trembling
old women
bearing
burdens,
children with
frightened
eyes,
and
young
mothers
carrying
their
babies,
trudging along
the road between
Hendaye
and
St.-Jean-de-Luz.
I was to witness the same scenes at
Perpignan
after the fall of
Barcelona. But I do not have the heart for further
discussion of the
Spanish
Civil
War,
which I have described in
another book.
With the fall of Barcelona in
January 1939
and the imminent
triumph
of the Franco
forces,
I was summoned
home,
ostensibly
for
consultation,
but
really,
as Cordell Hull
says
in his
memoirs,
"to
leave our hands free to
recognize
the Franco
regime."
My sympathy
had been
wholly
with the
legal,
constitutional,
democratic
government
of
Spain.
The
nonintervention
trickery,
cynically
dishonest,
was
supplemented by
us with our
embargo
denying
the
Spanish government,
which we
recognized,
its
right
under international law to
buy
arms and ammunition to defend it-
self.
My government
stood
militantly
behind this
embargo,
thus
placing
us in collaboration with the Axis in one of the moves in its
campaign
to
wipe
out
democracy
in
Europe.
President Truman in
his memoirs
apologizes
for
having
voted in the Senate for the em-
bargo
and concedes that our
policy
contributed to the overthrow
of the
Spanish Republic;
and Sumner Welles has written that our
Spanish policy
is a black blot on our record as a
democracy.
I
never abandoned
hope
that the
embargo
would be lifted. I wrote
President Roosevelt
that,
however
good
our intention was in
adopt-
ing
the
embargo,
events had
proven beyond any possible question
that we were
collaborating
with the
aggressor
nations,
Hitler's
283
THE EMBASSY IN SPAIN
Germany
and Mussolini's
Italy.
His
reply
came not in a
letter
but
in a
speech
a little later when he said that while our
intent
origi-
nally
was
good,
the effect had been to
align
ourselves
with
the
aggressor
nations.
But the fall of Barcelona was fatal to
Spanish
democracy.
A
famous
foreign correspondent
of an American
paper,
stationed in
Paris,
telephoned
me at
St.-Jean-de-Luz
one
day
that a
"distin-
guished
Frenchman" would like to see me
confidentially,
that he
was
going
for the weekend to
Lyons
and would like me to drive
there
quietly
to see him. He left no doubt in
my
mind that
the
"distinguished
Frenchman" was
Harriot,
who had
staunchly sup-
ported
the
Spanish Republic throughout.
But
Barcelona
fell;
and
the next
day
the
correspondent phoned
that the man I was to meet
had become
discouraged
and
thought
it best to wait a while to see
what would
happen
next.
It was while seated in the
lounge
of the
Queen
Mary
on March
28
listening
to the radio news that I heard of the
capitulation
of the
republican army
in Madrid. Thus the fall of
Spain's capital,
the
city
that Franco with the aid of the
military
forces of Hitler and Mus-
solini could not take for almost three
years, finally
was
achieved,
in
part through
the "nonintervention" of the democracies.
284
CHAPTER XIX
The Rooseveltian Years
WHEN I LEFT for
Spain
in
1933, twenty years
and a little more
were to intervene before
my
definite return to the United States
to live.
But,
though
far removed from the American
scene,
I was
intimately acquainted
with
political
activities at home
through
let-
ters from men
high
in the councils of the Democratic
Party
and the
nation.
Jim Farley
wrote me
very frequently
and
fully,
with com-
plete
frankness,
analyzing
the conditions in the
country
as a whole
and in different
states,
and these letters throw a vivid
light
on events
important
in the
political history
of those dramatic
years.
Letters
and conversations with Roosevelt furnish an
explanation
of some
motives and events that
may
be of interest to the historians of the
future.
I did not return on leave from
Spain
until the
early
summer of
1935,
when,
on board the Italian liner Conti
Grandi,
we sailed from
Gibraltar. I had
hoped
for a
quiet
vacation with relaxation
among
personal
friends,
aloof from
politics
and
politicians,
but even before
I landed I knew I was doomed to
disappointment.
One
day
on the
boat I was startled
by
the wireless
bringing
the news that the
Supreme
Court had held the NRA unconstitutional. This was one
of the
major organizations
on which Roosevelt had
depended
for
the rehabilitation of the
economy
of the
country.
The action of the
Court seemed to cut the
ground
from beneath much of what he had
done and
planned,
and it threatened all the other measures he had
employed.
When we reached New York the
country
was
fairly boiling
with
political
controversy,
for a Presidential election was but one
year
in the future. The
President,
who a
year
before had been
hailed as the savior of the
nation,
had
already
become in most
285
THE ROOSEVELTIAN
YEARS
fashionable and
wealthy
circles "that man." I recalled that
two
years
before,
when I
congratulated
Roosevelt on the
enthusiastic
public
acclaim of his work of
rehabilitation,
he had said that he
was
"always
a
pessimist"
and had
asked,
"How
long
will it last?" It had
not lasted
long.
There was no
possibility
of rest and relaxation in New
York
Three
days
after
landing
we went to
Washington,
where the
beautiful home of Walter
Schoellkopf,
first
secretary
of the em-
bassy
in
Madrid,
had been
placed
at our
disposition,
but,
aside
from
the hours
passed
in this
house,
I was to find
Washington
more ex-
hausting
than New
York,
and
partisan
rancor more
intense,
more
fanatical,
almost
pathological.
I called at once on Cordell
Hull,
who received me as an old
friend. This
tall,
slender statesman with a
truly
beautiful face had
always impressed
me as a
superior person.
Soft-voiced and meticu-
lously
careful in his
utterances,
he had never
spoken
in the House
without extensive research and much
thought,
and
though
he
lacked the more
conspicuous qualities
of an
orator,
his
speeches
were of such caliber that his
colleagues
read them in the Record
with
profit.
In this
respect
he resembled Edmund
Burke,
whose
orations in the House of Commons often found the benches
empty,
but whose
great speeches
were studied with admiration
by
mem-
bers who found his
delivery
dull. Hull was the statesman's states-
man. Had he been nominated for President in
1924,
the
year
his
party deliberately
committed suicide at the national convention
in New
York,
he
might
have been elected. His one obsession was
his desire for an
easy
flow of
goods
from one
country
to
another,
unhampered by
artificial barriers set
up by
selfish interests. Un-
happily, just
when he became
Secretary
of
State,
a
post
in which
he
hoped
to
accomplish something,
the totalitarian
states,
extremely
nationalistic,
began
to take over the control of
commerce,
and then
came the war. But for twelve
years,
the
longest
tenure in Ameri-
can
history,
he was to win international renown
by
his wise direc-
tion in international affairs with
very
few mistakes.
Having
known him for
years,
I had
always
been aware that this
even-tempered,
modest
gentleman
was
capable
of
expressing
him-
self with
vigor,
but I was astonished at this
meeting by
the richness
of his
vocabulary
of
profanity.
It was
just
after the close of the
controversy
with one of his
subordinates. I
gathered
the
impression
286
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
that he had become convinced that this
assistant,
who had been
close to Roosevelt in the
campaign
of
1932,
had set out to
usurp
his
functions as head of the State
Department.
That
day
he was bitter
over the treatment accorded him at the London Economic Con-
ference, where,
naturally,
he was the head of the American
delega-
tion. He
spoke
in
scathing
terms of the arrival in London of his
subordinate in an
airplane,
"with much
beating
of
drams,"
with a
view to
scrapping
Hull's
policy
in the conference. He felt the im-
pression
had been created that his assistant had arrived to
supersede
his chief. The result was Roosevelt's
acceptance
of the assistant's
resignation.
Hull had also been
annoyed by
his
experience
in the Pan-Ameri-
can conference in Montevideo. He had in mind radical
changes
in
our South American
policies
which w
r
ere to culminate in the Good
Neighbor policy,
but he had been sent without actual
authority
to
break new
ground.
When he reached the conference and found
that much was
expected
of
him,
he
telegraphed
the President for
authority
to act. A
reply being delayed,
he
telegraphed again,
but
the answer was
discouraging.
This aroused the
fighting spirit
of the
Tennessean,
and he sent a
sizzling telegram:
"If we do not stand for
this,
for God's sake what do we stand for?" He was then
given
a
free
hand,
with the fine results that followed.
Then, too,
that
day
he was not
wholly
enamored of the so-called
brain trust. He seemed
distinctly
sour,
clearly
a bit
impatient
with
the
experts. "Experts
are all
right,"
he said. "I've used them
many
times. But I use them to collect facts and
material,
not to
bring
me
a
program
of their own for
my signature.
"But
you
should see the President at
once,"
he said
finally.
I had
expected
to
postpone
the call at the White House for a
day
or
so,
but he made an
engagement
for me at four o'clock that
day.
I had
an
appointment
at the
Spanish embassy
a little
earlier,
and it was
with
difficulty
that I reached the White House at
four,
to find
Roosevelt in conference with his advisers on the NRA decision.
When at
length
I was
admitted,
I found Roosevelt alone at his
desk. He threw back his
head,
burst into a
hearty laugh
and ex-
claimed, "God,
Fin
glad you're
back! "-which was soon to be
explained by
the burden of work that was
put upon
me. I com-
mented on his
healthy appearance,
and Marvin
Mclntyre,
his
secretary,
who was there at the
moment, said, "Yes,
and without
287
THE ROOSEVELTIAN
YEARS
benefit of
clergy."
Roosevelt
smiled a bit
sheepishly.
The
joke
referred to his failure to attend church with
regularity.
But soon the
jovial
mood
passed,
and he became serious. I wrote
down that
night
what he said about the
Supreme
Court decision
and the almost incredible bitterness of the
reactionary
element
against
him.
"The
people
have not been in control of this
country
since the
Civil
War,"
he said. "First the railroads were in the
saddle,
and
then the
industrialists,
and then the
big
bankers took control of
industry
and the railroads. For
long
now the bankers have had the
people by
the throat."
Bitterly
he said that two
years
earlier the
bankers had been on their knees before
him,
volunteering
to do
anything
he asked. Now
they
were
opposing everything
he did
now that he had saved them from a crash in the
spring
of
1933.
Turning
to the NRA
decision,
he said that members of the
United States Chamber of Commerce who had denounced the
NRA
up
to the time of the decision had
gone
to him
asking
that it
not be
scrapped entirely,
and
offering voluntarily
to
go
on with it.
"I said to
them,
'Very
well,
I've said that
you're practical
men.
Here are six hundred industries of one
type. Suppose
five hundred
live
up
to the rules
voluntarily,
and a hundred do not. As
practical
men,
tell me if the five hundred can
go
on
following
the rule if
one hundred do not.'
"
He
paused
a moment
thoughtfully
and then
laughed.
"It's amus-
ing
how little some
really intelligent big-moneyed
men know of the
country
and the
spirit
of the
people
and the
times,"
he said. He
referred to a visit from a
great
industrialist,
who had called to
point
out the
way
to
prosperity;
his
suggestion
was to
give
the
signal
to
the
great corporations
to
go
full
speed
ahead,
doing
as
they pleased.
A few
days
kter I had lunch with Roosevelt alone outside his
office,
facing
the lawn.
Having
been
caught
in a traffic
jam,
I was
two or three minutes
late,
and I found him at the table with a rather
cold
expression
on his face. He
accepted my explanation
and
apol-
ogy
rather
grimly,
I
thought.
The old
gaiety
was not
apparent
this
time. He talked
freely
and at
length
on the
approaching
election of
1936,
predicting
a bitter
fight,
with the
press largely
in
opposition.
"We shall
scarcely
have a
single metropolitan paper
with
us,"
he
said.
And
again
he went back to the NRA decision. I told him I had
288
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
heard that
Justice
Brandeis,
who had decided
against
the
NRA,
to
the
surprise
of
many,
had
expressed
the
hope
that the President
would not be
discouraged.
I
suggested
that Brandeis was a liberal
and his friend.
"Ah,
yes,
he
is,"
he said. "But once he wrote a book
against
monopoly
and the concentration of
great
economic
power,
con-
tending
that the
resulting problems
were too
big
for one man to
handle. That's in his mind. He feels the same about the NRA."
After lunch I noticed with
surprise
that his hand shook when he
lighted
his
cigarette.
That
evening
at a
garden party
at the home of
the three Misses Patton I met Dan
Roper,
the
Secretary
of Com-
merce, and,
commenting
on Roosevelt's
nervousness,
asked if it was
something
new.
"Yes,"
Roper replied, "just
since the
Supreme
Court decision."
The next
day
I had lunch with Vice-President Garner in his
office in the
Capitol.
He was
eating
raw onions. "I'm the
only
mem-
ber of the Senate
permitted
to eat
them,"
he said with a
bad-boy
grin.
He was still
loyal
to the
Administration,
but I
got
the
impres-
sion that
he,
a stout
conservative,
was
becoming
resdess.
Roosevelt had
said,
when I lunched with
him,
that he wished me
to
arrange
to return for the
campaign
the next
year.
Dan
Roper,
an
old
friend,
also invited me to lunch with
him,
in his office in the
enormous
building
that housed his Commerce
Department,
and
when I did he
urged
me to
resign
and return to write
political
articles for the National Committee. I have since seen a reference
to this
plan,
on which I had not been
consulted,
in the
published
diary
of Harold L.
Ickes,
then
Secretary
of the Interior. Even be-
fore
this,
Cordell Hull had written me that Roosevelt had some
work to do that he
thought
I could do better than
any
other
per-
son;
the
suggestion
had been
sugarcoated
with an
extremely
flat-
tering
offer of future
preferment.
During
this hectic home leave I did
promise
James
A.
Farley,
in
a conference at the national
headquarters,
to write a
weekly
article
for the committee and to return after the convention to
participate
in the
speaking campaign.
In truth I had
my
reservations to return
home in
August
1936
for two months on the
stump
when the
outbreak of civil war in
Spain
necessitated a cancellation. While
eager
to
help my party,
I doubted the
propriety
of a
diplomat's
289
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
taking
an active
part
in a
political campaign,
and I still think it
improper.
Happily
Ed
Flynn, party
leader in the
Bronx,
who was then
vacationing
in
St.-Jean-de-Luz,
had tea with us at our villa in
Fuenterrabia and
agreed
that it would be the
height
of
impropriety
for me to leave
my post
under the circumstances. Later Roosevelt
wrote me that I was
"absolutely right
about not
coming
home at
this
juncture."
It was evident that the
fight
to
prevent
Roosevelt's re-election
would be one of extreme bitterness. From
Flynn
I learned of the
incredible hatred of the President in
high
social circles. The Bronx
leader had attended a dinner at a fashionable summer resort near
New
York, where,
though
the
guests
all knew of his close
personal
and
political
relations with
Roosevelt,
he had to listen to the most
venomous
personal
abuse of the head of the nation. At
length
Flynn
had risen and
proposed
a toast: "To the President of the
United States." Few
responded,
none of the
women,
the latter
being
more violent than the men. I recalled the attitude of these
circles toward Roosevelt before his election. He was then a
prime
favorite
among
them and was considered
quite
sound. Did he not
belong
to an old and aristocratic
family?
Was not
J.
P.
Morgan
a
friend of his mother and
occasionally
a
guest
at her home? But
when he announced his
program
to restore
government
to the
peo-
ple they
turned
upon
him with the bitterness with which the same
element had
blackguarded
Jefferson
for the same reason. Both were
denounced as "traitors to their class."
The vacation of
1935
turned into a
nightmare.
Political and social
engagements
made relaxation
impossible.
In a dark little room in
the
Metropolitan
Club in
Washington, supplied by Farley
with a
typewriter,
I sat for hours
pounding
out articles and
speeches.
This
was all the more
maddening
because I had written the first draft
of
Jefferson
in Power in Madrid and had
planned
to comb the news-
papers
of the
period
of 1801-1
809
for the final
rewriting. By engag-
ing
a
stenographer
and
by hurrying
to the Astor
Library
in New
York between
engagements,
I
managed
to
go through
the
papers,
but when I went on board
ship
for the return to
Spain
I was in a
state of exhaustion.
I was not to see America
again
throughout
the almost three
years
290
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
of the
Spanish
Civil War not until March
1939,
when I was sum-
moned home for "consultation."
The real reason for
my being
called back then
was,
as I have
indicated and as Cordell Hull would
say frankly
later,
to leave
Washington
free to
recognize
the Franco
regime. England
and
France had
already
accorded it
recognition
and there was some un-
easiness and
impatience
over our
delay.
I had been
openly
in
sym-
pathy
with the
Loyalists' fight
for the
preservation
of their democ-
racy. My preference
for the
legal government
was based on
polit-
ical,
not
personal, grounds. Officially
I had followed our line of
neutrality
between the two
sides,
and it was on the
request
of the
Francoists that I undertook to
negotiate
the first
exchange
of mili-
tary prisoners,
and succeeded. I was on
personally friendly
terms
with
many people
on the Franco side as well as on the side of the
Republic
and had often
helped
rebel officers in humanitarian mat-
ters,
as in
getting
medicine to relatives in
Barcelona,
where the
remedies could not be found. Nevertheless it would be
clearly
out
of the
question
from
every point
of view for me to continue as
ambassador after the Franco
government
was
recognized by
Wash-
ington.
I left
taking
with me memories of a beautiful land and a charm-
ing
and
gallant people
whom I liked
regardless
of
political
ideol-
ogies.
Vivid in
my memory
are the old
dusty villages,
the
palaces
and the old
country
houses,
the
beauty
of the Andalusian land-
scape,
the Castilian
plains
and the
green Basque
coast,
the Prado
and its
treasures,
the harvest fields with their
primitive
methods,
the
gypsies
in the
dance,
the flamenco
singing
from the balconies
in
Seville,
the warmth of the
people,
and their
courage.
These mem-
ories
help
to soften the
tragic
memories of a terrible and bitter war.
At
quarantine
fifteen or more
reporters
met the
ship
and
poured
into
my
stateroom. I could not talk with them until I had
reported
to the President and the State
Department,
but I left them in no
doubt about
my
own
position.
I went
immediately
to
Washington,
prepared
to see the President that
night,
but in a
telephone
con-
versation he
suggested
that it would be best for me to see the State
Department
first. I had abundant reasons to know that he had not
been
entirely
comfortable with the
policy
we were
following.
I saw Roosevelt the next
day,
not in the executive offices but in
291
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
his
study
in the White House. He looked
grim
and
unhappy,
show-
ing
none of the exuberance with which he
ordinarily greeted
an old
acquaintance
after an absence.
His first words to me
were,
"We've made a mistake. You've been
right
all
along."
Startled,
I made no
reply,
and he went on: "I can see no reason
to
hurry
about the
recognition
of the new
regime.
We'll let them
stew in their
juice
for a while."
That
night
I went to the home of
Key
Pittman,
chairman of the
Senate
Foreign
Relations Committee and author of the
embargo.
I had known him
personally
and
politically
for a
long
time,
and we
were the best of friends. He was alone. The moment I
entered,
he
walked over to a table to
get
a
cigarette
and,
glancing
back over
his
shoulder, said,
"I'm afraid we made a mistake about
Spain.
It
seemed to me in the
beginning
that if we could exclude all outside
interference and let the
Spaniards
work out their own
problem
it
would be a wise
thing.
But our
embargo
didn't
keep
out the armed
forces of Hitler and Mussolini."
This,
coming
on
top
of what the President had said that
day,
seemed
tragic
to me. But Pittman was the best of
company,
I was
fond of
him,
and so we sat and talked until dawn. It was the last
time I was to see him.
At a
reception given
for me
by
Senator
Guffey,
Sol
Bloom,
chairman of the House Committee on
Foreign
Affairs,
asked me to
appear
before his committee and
give
it
my impressions
of
Spain.
I was
surprised
when
George
S.
Messersmith,
Assistant
Secretary
of
State,
standing
beside
me,
urged
me to
accept.
I talked to the
committee for an
hour,
making my position plain, speaking
with
the utmost frankness and
answering every question
but one
whether we should
recognize
the new
pro-fascist government.
I re-
plied
that this was
up
to the President and the State
Department.
From the tone of the
meeting
and the
reception
of
my
remarks I
got
the distinct
impression
that
Roosevelt and
Pittman were not alone in
concluding
that our
Spanish policy
had been a blunder.
In
my
conversation with Cordell Hull I
got
no such
reaction,
for he
clearly preferred
not to discuss the
Spanish
situation at all.
However,
I found
Sumner
Welles,
the Under
Secretary, reflecting
the
feeling
of the
President. He too saw no reason to
hurry
the for-
mal
recognition
of the new
regime
in
Spain.
The
President,
who had
292
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
gone
to Warm
Springs,
had left instructions that
nothing
be done
about
Spain
in his
absence,
but this I did not know until later. Since
it was
crystal
clear that we had decided on
recognition,
I could see
no
point
in
remaining
in
Washington,
as Roosevelt had
requested,
and he was in
Georgia.
I knew that one of Ambassador William C.
Bullitt's
young
men from our Paris
embassy
had been sent to
arrange
the
recognition
on Franco's own terms which was done.
When Welles asked
my opinion
on
recognition
I told him that
if it were not for our nationals' investments in
Spain
that
might
be
confiscated I never would accord
it,
but that since the investments
were there I would accord
recognition
on certain conditions: that
the dictator
give positive
assurances
regarding
American invest-
ments,
and that he
pledge
himself to
stop
the
"liquidation"
of
Spanish republicans,
liberals and labor leaders.
Welles
replied
that these
pledges
had been
made,
though
Hull in
his memoirs
says
that Franco refused to make
any promises.
If
any
promises
were
given,
not a
single
one was redeemed. Colonel
Behn,
head of the
telephone company,
was refused
permission
to enter
Spain
for a
long
time,
and Mr.
Caldwell,
the
manager
in
Madrid,
was
long
excluded from the
company's property,
and soon the
company
found it more comfortable to sell the
property,
which had
been a
gold
mine until then. The National
City
Bank was
speedily
bowed out of the
country.
That there
may
have been some doubt about the
authenticity
of
the assurances Welles
says
were
given
and Hull
says
were not
seemed
probable
when Welles
expressed
the wish that I would not
go
to Madrid to collect
my belongings.
When I voiced
my surprise
that we were
giving
our
blessing
to a
regime
so barbarous that the
American ambassador would enter the
country
at his
peril,
I was
told that it was the Italians who were feared. I reminded him that
on Franco's
request
I had acted in the
exchange
of
military pris-
oners and secured the release of
many
Italian
pilots,
and that the
Italian ambassador had written me a warm letter of
appreciation.
I
suggested
that I could
probably
count on a salvo conducto from
the Italian
embassy,
but Welles looked
reproachful
and said noth-
ing.
There
really
was
nothing
to
say.
I had a
significant
conversation with Roosevelt in
July
when I
made
my
farewell call before
returning
to
Europe
to wind
up my
293
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
affairs. I had found
party
leaders all
agog
over whether the Presi-
dent would be a candidate for a third term in
1940.
Two members
of the Cabinet had told me that
they
had been unable to
get
an
inkling
of his
intentions,
but that
they thought
I
might. My engage-
ment at the White House was for
twelve-fifteen,
but a
delegation
of labor leaders was
conferring
with him on
WPA,
and
they
found
their host so
agreeable
that
they lingered
on,
despite
the frantic
efforts of General Watson to shoo them off. At
length they
emerged, laughing
and
happy.
It was a
blistery
hot
July day,
the
anniversary
of the fall of the
Bastille. I found the President without coat or
vest,
looking
cool,
comfortable, unruffled,
and with color in his cheeks. It seemed
that constant
battling
for
eight years
had
given
a certain
grimness
to his
expression, making
him look
considerably
like Andrew
Jack-
son,
his hero.
When he asked what I had heard since
my
return I
audaciously
replied
that I had heard much
speculation
on whether he had fin-
ished his
speech
of
acceptance.
He seemed startled at first
by
the
effrontery
of the
approach,
but then he
smiled,
shrugged
his
heavy
shoulders as if to brush
my reply
aside,
and
plunged
into a serious
discussion of the
suggestion
in about these
words,
as I recorded
them in
my diary
that
day:
"You and
I, Claude,
are interested in the Democratic
Party,
and
it's not
good
for a
party
to revolve around
any
one man. That leads
to
disintegration.
Take the case of the Liberal
Party
in
England,
whose
disintegration
is,
in
my
mind,
one of the
tragedies
in
English
history.
It won in the election of
1906
under
Campbell-Bannerman,
and then in the
election of
1910
under
Asquith.
It had several able
leaders-Asquith, Lloyd
George,
Edward
Grey.
Then came the
coalition under
Lloyd
George,
and
by 1920
it had
become a one-
man
party.
In the
election that
year Lloyd
George
said,
1 am the
party.'
That
began
the
disintegration.
Principles
became subordi-
nated to
personalities."
The
expression
and the tone were those of
absolute
sincerity.
"I don't want that to
happen
to the
Democratic
Party,"
he added.
To draw him
out,
I
suggested
that in his case it was not so much
the man as the man's
principles
and
policies,
and that no one could
be
nominated and elected on the
Democratic ticket who was not a
294
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
New Dealer.
And,
I
said,
among
the men not
politically
shelfworn
who were
truly
in accord with Roosevelt's
policies,
it seemed im-
possible
to find
anyone
with
enough political background
and
per-
sonal
appeal
to
party
workers.
Here Roosevelt
interrupted.
"But Bob
Jackson
[Robert
H.
Jackson,
then Solicitor
General]
is an ideal man for the
Presidency
though
the
boys
don't cotton to him."
I then said that the continuation of the Roosevelt
policies might
therefore force a third nomination. As to the third-term
prejudice,
I
suggested
that it had
always
been conceded that in case of a
crisis,
such as
war,
the tradition would not be a bar to a third term.
To this Roosevelt
agreed,
and then he said
something
that I was
to recall less than two months later. He said that under
existing
conditions no one knew when war
might
come. I concluded that
he had this in mind as the
determining
factor in his case.
"Suppose,"
he
said,
"a world war should break out in
Septem-
ber."
And it did. I have since
thought
that had there been no war he
would not have
accepted
a third nomination.
I then added that war
changes
all rules because it means a
crisis,
but that war does not
necessarily
mean a conflict with arms. I
sug-
gested
that at home we were in the midst of a war to save democ-
racy by making
it function for the
general good,
and this too was
a crisis.
I
thought
that Roosevelt showed
by
his manner and
expression
that the course of the conversation was not
displeasing,
but he in-
terrupted
here to
say
that Cordell Hull would make a
good
candi-
date because of his immense
popularity.
In the
Presidency
he
thought
that "Cordell
might
be
swamped by
details" and "buried
under
papers,"
since he was not so
good
an executive as he was a
thinker,
but that he could "surround himself with assistants to look
after details." I admitted Hull's
great popularity among thought-
ful
people,
but wondered if this extended to the mass. Roosevelt
thought
it did.
Then he
said,
"Cordell with his fine mind and character and
beautiful face would make an
appeal.
He would not be a militant
campaigner,
but we could nominate a
running
mate to stir
up
the
animals."
295
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
At this
point
he was
interrupted by
a
messenger
from the State
Department
who announced that Hull would be over in a few min-
utes with his
statement
repealing
the
embargo against Spain
in the
Neutrality
Act,
and
inquiring
how much time Roosevelt would
require.
"Is it written and
typed?"
he asked.
"Yes."
"Well,
that's the
message.
I can do
my part
in ten minutes."
This made me
positively
ill. First a stern refusal to sell arms to a
legally
constituted,
democratic
government
to defend itself
against
Nazi and fascist armed forces from
Germany
and
Italy,
and now
the
lifting
of the
embargo instantly
so that we could sell arms to
Franco to stock the arsenals for a fascist
army against
the demo-
cratic
aspirations
of the
Spanish people.
It seemed sad to me.
As I was
leaving,
Roosevelt smiled and
said, "Well,
keep your
ear to the
ground."
I left with the
feeling
that there would be a war and that Roose-
velt would
accept
a third nomination.
A
day
later I saw Cordell
Hull,
who said he had
discouraged
the
Tennessee
Democrats from
launching
a movement for his nomina-
tion,
since it would embarrass him in his work on
foreign
affairs.
He said he
expected
to be asked at his
press
conference if he
favored a third
term,
for other members of the Cabinet had de-
clared
themselves in favor. He did not indicate what his
reply
would
be,
though
his
loyalty
to Roosevelt was as
unquestioned
as
Roosevelt's
loyalty
to him. He looked well and cool
despite
the
heat. He talked a bit about the unfortunate
cleavage
between
Roosevelt and
Farley
with which the cloakrooms and
drawing
rooms were
buzzing.
He said he was
very
fond of
Farley,
"as
everyone
is who knows
him,"
but that he was afraid
things
had
gone
too far to restore the old
relations.
A few
days
after this I
spent
an hour with
Farley
in his office in
the
national
headquarters
at the Biltmore in New
York,
and he
discussed his relations with the President
fully
and
frankly.
The
substance of it was that in some
way
he must have lost the Presi-
dent's
confidence,
since Roosevelt did not consult him as
formerly.
He said he had been
intensely loyal
to him and he could not under-
stand the
change.
Whenever he tried
to
get
Roosevelt's attitude on
296
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
the nomination the next
year,
the
subject invariably
was
changed.
He was
thinking
at the time of
resigning
from the
Cabinet,
and
he asked
my opinion.
I
urged
him to do
nothing
of the sort. "You
have the
confidence,
appreciation
and affection of all the
party
workers down to the
precincts,
and
your resignation
would be
misinterpreted,"
I said. He then said he would remain in the Cabinet
until after the next convention.
With our
recognition
of the Franco
government
in
Spain,
I
thought my
adventure in
diplomacy
at an end. I declined one
offered
post,
but
finally,
on the
personal request
of President
Roosevelt,
I
agreed
to
go
as ambassador to Chile. It seemed remote
from the war I had
predicted
as
inevitable,
and I was
eager
for the
sake of
my family
to
get
out of the
poisonous atmosphere
of hate. I
knew of the charm of Chile and that it was a
functioning democracy,
the one most
deeply
rooted in tradition in all South America. Late
in
August 1939
we sailed on the Grace Line
ship
Santa Maria for
Valparaiso.
I was not to see
Washington again
until
September
1943,
when
I flew from Chile to be with
Foreign
Minister Fernandez on his
official visit to the United States. The
capital
was then
literally
a
madhouse because of the war. But for the kindness of a friend who
lent me an
apartment
at the
Shoreham,
it would have been difficult
to find hotel accommodations. To enter the State
Department,
I,
though
an
ambassador,
had to
present
a
special printed permit
at
the
door,
and I could not leave without
again showing
the
permit
to the
guard.
Within a few
days
of
my
arrival I had
my
first
meeting
with
President
Roosevelt,
which extended more than an hour. I was
shocked
by
his
appearance
as he sat at his desk. He looked
years
older than when I had seen him last. His face was
deeply
lined,
his
complexion gray;
there were dark circles under his
eyes
and he
seemed
utterly weary.
He talked with his old
animation,
but he
appeared
to be
forcing
himself.
His first
words,
spoken
with a
smile, were,
"Are
you
broke?"
referring
to the disastrous effect of war taxes on
diplomatic
salaries
when there was no
possible way
of
reducing
the cost of maintain-
ing
an
embassy.
He was not in a
happy
mood,
and he
spoke
with
bitterness about the
sniping
of the
newspapers, "especially
the col-
297
THE ROOSEVELTIAN
YEARS
umnists." Factual news was
published
fairly
in the news
columns,
but "some columnists are
wholly
unscrupulous/'
he said.
Turning
to
politics
and the
approaching
election of
1944,
he
said,
"The
Republicans
are
split
three
ways.
The most
popular
of
their candidates is
Willkie,
but that's with the
people,
not with the
party
leaders and
workers,
who are
against
him.
Dewey
is
just
a
prosecuting attorney
without
any
vision or
conception
of inter-
national affairs. The
fight
between them
may
become so bitter that
to
get harmony
the
Republican
convention,
like that of
1920,
may
turn to a dark horse and nominate
Bricker,
a
competent
man with
no
striking ability,
whose sole claim to attention is that as
governor
of Ohio he has reduced the cost of
government,
but this can be
said of other
governors."
Such was his
reasoning
in
September
1943.
Commenting
on the
frequent changes
of
Ministry
in Chile due to
the
multiplicity
of
political parties,
which made unstable coalitions
necessary,
he
said,
"I told Churchill that in the
reorganization
in
France there should not be more than two
parties.
If
more,
there
should be a run-off election between the two
highest
at the
polls
so that the
government
in
power
can have a clear mandate."
A few
days
later I saw him
again,
at a
reception
for Fernandez on
the
upper
floor of the White House. He was seated on a sofa when
the
company, mostly
Senators and
Congressmen,
filed into the
room and shook hands. He said
they
could have
tea,
"but if
you
prefer whiskey
and soda
you'll
find it
yonder
on the
table,"
and
most of the
company
moved
instantly
to the table. Roosevelt seated
Fernandez on the sofa beside him and
they
conversed in French a
long
time. As we were
leaving,
I told him that I was
going
to New
York and would see
Farley,
and that if I heard
anything
of interest
I would let him know. "I wish
you
would,"
he said.
I did see
Farley,
for whom I had a real affection. I was
primarily
interested in
ending
the
gossip
that he would bolt the ticket if
Roosevelt was nominated for the fourth
time,
and in
ascertaining
what could be
expected
from him in the
campaign.
When I saw Roosevelt on
my
return he
greeted
me with the
question
"What about
your
mission?"
Momentarily
I was
puzzled,
assuming
he had reference to
my
mission in Chile. "I mean
your
mission in New
York,"
he added.
THE ROOSEVELTTAN YEARS
I told him of
my long
conversation with
Farley
and that he had
said he
thought
Roosevelt still liked him.
An
expression
of satisfaction flashed over his face. "I've
always
been fond of
Jim,"
he said.
I then told him that
Farley
could not
get
over the Mead-Bennett
fight
for the
gubernatorial
nomination in New
York,
but the Presi-
dent made no comment. I also told him that
Farley
felt hurt that
he had not been asked to undertake
any
war work. As for the com-
ing
election,
I said that
Farley
did not know
precisely
what he
would do in
1944
an<^ would wait a while before
deciding,
but that
he
might resign
the state
chairmanship
in New York and retire
from
politics.
However,
he believed in
party regularity
and would
never
support
a
Republican
nominee
against
Roosevelt. I
quoted
him as
saying,
"I'll never
forget listening
to Al Smith on the radio
making
his
speech
for Landon in
1936.
It seemed so unnatural that
it made me
physically
sick."
Roosevelt listened
intently,
and when I
suggested
that should he
send for his old friend the latter
undoubtedly
would
come,
he
asked
my opinion
of a
plan
that he had in
mind,
or that
may
have
just
occurred to him. Governor
Lehman,
who had been director
of the Relief and Rehabilitation
Commission,
was
being
transferred
to another
post
and he had in mind
asking Farley
to take the
posi-
tion vacated
by
Lehman. I
urged
him to do so. I learned much
later that
Farley
was not summoned to the White House
by
Roose-
velt. But he would be one of the few invited to the services in the
East Room when the President
died,
for none had been more in-
timately
identified with Roosevelt's first nomination and his elec-
tion in
1932
and
1936.
The conversation shifted to
reminiscences,
inspired by my saying
that Governor Cox had
just telephoned
me that he was
writing
his
memoirs.
"Good,"
exclaimed
Roosevelt,
brightening.
"Tell him for me
that he must write the
story,
never
yet
made
public,
of our call on
Woodrow Wilson after the San Francisco convention in
1920."
This was the convention that had nominated Cox for
President,
with Roosevelt as his
running
mate. The
big question
then had been
whether to
support
the
League
of Nations. As he told the
story:
"After the convention I
stopped
oif in
Dayton
to see Cox. I told
299
THE ROOSEVELTIAN
YEARS
him that we were damned if we did and damned if we
didn't;
that
if we made a
fight
for the
League
of Nations we would
probably
be
defeated,
and if we didn't we would be accused of cowardice
and
charged
with
disloyally
to the Administration.
Cox
said, Well,
we're
going
to see President Wilson
early
next week and we can
postpone
a decision until then.'
"I went with Cox to
Washington,
where we were
greeted by
a
great
crowd at the
station,
and we drove
directly
to the White
House. We were asked to wait for fifteen
minutes,
as
they
were
taking
the President to the veranda
looking
out on the
grounds.
When we came in
sight
of the veranda we saw Wilson in a wheel
chair. He had a shawl thrown over his shoulder to conceal his left
arm,
which was then
paralyzed.
Cox
gasped
and in an undertone
said to
me,
'My
God,
he is in a bad condition!
'
"We went
up
to the wheel chair and Cox
greeted
him.
Wilson,
who seemed
very
weak,
said in a voice
scarcely
audible,
Tm
glad
to see
you.
Pm
very glad
to see
you.'
"I had noticed that there were tears in Cox's
eyes
when we first
caught sight
of
Wilson,
and
now,
emotionally,
he
said,
'Mr. Presi-
dent,
we're
going
to be a million
per
cent with
your
Administra-
tion,
and that means for the
League
of Nations.'
"Wilson
replied
in a feeble
voice,
Tm
grateful,
I'm
very grate-
ful.'
"We left him
very
soon and
again
I noticed tears in Cox's
eyes."
At this
point,
Roosevelt
straightened
in his chair and bent over
his desk.
"We came
directly
to this room where we
sit,
and Cox sat down
at this table" and Roosevelt
put
his two hands on the table "and
asked
Tumulty
for a
pencil
and
paper,
and
right
here,
on this
table"
slapping
the table "he wrote the statement that made the
League
of Nations the
paramount
issue in the
campaign."
This
story,
all the more dramatic and historic
coming
from one
of the two
greatest
Presidents since Lincoln about
another,
seemed
to me
thrilling.
Had I foreseen then that the
speaker,
like his
great
predecessor,
would be stricken and die while on
duty
in the service
of the nation and
humanity,
it would have seemed even more
dramatic.
That
day
Roosevelt looked
rested,
the lines in his face had
smoothed
out,
his
complexion
was
goodin striking
contrast to his
300
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
worn and
weary appearance
a short time before. When I made this
observation to a
friend,
he said that when I first saw Roosevelt
after
my
arrival from
Chile,
Churchill had
just
left the White House
after a visit of some
days.
Roosevelt
usually
retired
reasonably
early,
but it was
impossible
to
get
Churchill to bed before two or
three in the
morning.
While Churchill
slept
late,
Roosevelt
wakened
early.
While Churchill took a short
nap during
the
day,
this was
impossible
for Roosevelt.
Thus,
I was
told,
Roosevelt
for
days
had
averaged
but a few hours'
sleep
at
night.
It was
during
this visit of Churchill's that
Roosevelt,
wishing
to
see
him,
went to his
room,
knocked
and,
on
being
told to
enter,
opened
the door to find the
great Englishman
stark naked because
of the terrible heat. Roosevelt
apologized
and started to back out.
"No,
come on
in,"
called the Prime Minister. "I have told
you
time
and
again
that the British
Empire
has
nothing
to conceal."
More worn and
aged
was Cordell Hull that summer of
1943.
When I went to see him he seemed a
very
old man and
utterly
weary.
Never before in
twenty years
had I seen him when he had
not
spoken
with
emphasis
and at some
length,
but that
day
there
was no
vigor
in his
conversation,
and he talked little. I saw him
again
when I drove to the
airport
to meet Fernandez. I found Hull
waiting
in his car and
joined
him there.
Again
he seemed old and
tired.
Referring
to the
resignation
of Sumner
Welles,
he said there
had been
only
minor differences between them as to
policy.
At the
dinner he
gave
for Fernandez at the Carlton he said but little and
was
clearly eager
to cut the
evening
short.
Later I
accompanied
Fernandez to his conference with Hull in
the latter's office. While Fernandez was
giving
him his
impressions
of his visits to several American
republics
en route to
Washington,
Hull listened
intently,
with a
pleasant
smile,
but he said little him-
self. I was not
surprised
when,
in little more than a
year,
his health
broke down
completely
and he suffered the
agony
of
abandoning
his
high
station before the conclusion of the war and the formation
of the
plans
for future
peace.
Two
years
intervened before I saw him
again
when I accom-
panied
President
Juan
Antonio Rios of Chile on his official visit to
the United States and took him to call on Hull in his
apartment
at
Wardman Court. As we
stepped
out of the elevator we found the
301
THE ROOSEVELTIAN YEARS
old statesman
waiting
for us in the hall. He showed the
good
effect
of his
long
rest. His
complexion
was
good
and his manner
mellow,
and,
always
handsome,
he had never been more so.
His mind was
still
active on international
problems,
and he
seemed
particularly
concerned over our
rapidly increasing annoy-
ance with Russia because of her obstructive and
delaying
actions.
"We must
remember,"
he
said,
"that for a
quarter
of a
century
Russia has had little
practice
in international
negotiations,
and that
suspicions growing
out of that
quarter
of a
century
cannot be
blotted out
instantly.
We must be
patient
and not
permit
ourselves
to become ruffled. If we cannot
get
an
agreement
now,
drop
it and
take it
up
six months
later,
or a
year
later,
but under no circum-
stances must we break with Russia. The
peace
of the world is in-
volved in a final
understanding
with her."
During
the next
year
and a half I was
continuously
at
my post
in
Chile,
but
during
this
period
I received numerous
personal
letters
from Roosevelt. These astounded me in view of the terrible
burdens of war that
pressed upon
him. Toward the close I noticed
an
increasing
shakiness in his
signature,
but the old
virility
was in
everything
he
wrote,
and some of his letters
sparkled
with humor.
He wrote me
just
before he left on the fatal
trip
to
Yalta,
the
journey
which,
together
with the
unprecedentedly
bitter
fight
in
the election of
1944,
unquestionably
hastened his end.
On the
evening
of
April
12, 1945,
1 was called to the
telephone
at the
embassy
residence
just
as some
guests
were
leaving.
It was
my
friend Father
Weigel,
an American
priest
who lectured at the
Catholic
University
in
Santiago.
He
expressed
his sorrow and
placed
himself at
my
service. When I
inquired
the
meaning
of the
offer,
he
merely
said,
"The President." I was still in the dark.
"The President is
dead,"
he said.
"What President?" I
asked,
thinking
it
might
be the President of
Chile.
"President
Roosevelt,"
he said. He had heard it
by
radio. A few
minutes later it was
officially
confirmed.
It seemed to me that a
sustaining pillar
of a
trembling
world had
fallen.
Immediately
a stream of Chilean
officials,
ambassadors,
senators
and
personal
friends
began pouring
into the house. This continued
302
THE ROOSEVELTLAST YEARS
for several
days.
Never in Chilean
history
had the death of
any
foreigner
so touched the emotions of the
people; they
knew that
Roosevelt had been their friend. Cardinal Caro called at once to
offer the cathedral for a memorial
service,
something
without
precedent,
since the dead President was not of the Catholic faith.
The
presidents
of the Senate and the Chamber of
Deputies
came
to announce that memorial services would be held in the two
chambers and to invite me and the
embassy
staff to seats on the
floor. In both houses
very
fine tributes were
paid by
the
spokesmen
of all
political parties.
But even more
impressive
to me were the
delegations
of workers who came from the factories in their work
clothes to
express
their
sympathy;
and still more
touching
the dele-
gations
of small schoolchildren
bearing
flowers.
The
greatest
human
being
I had ever
known,
and one of the
greatest
in all our
time,
had
passed
into
history.
303
CHAPTER XX
My
Fourteen Years in Chile
MY HOPE for a
period
of rest and relaxation after
Spain
in an atmos-
phere
of
serenity
amidst the
beauty
of Chile was dashed
when,
within a
day
after our
arrival,
war was declared in
Europe,
and
South America became a
diplomatic
battlefield. At once I found
myself
back where I had
been,
fighting against
the
Nazis,
and
immediately
after the end of the war the Communists took
up
where the Nazis left off.
My antagonists during
this
long period
were
totalitarian of both the
right
and the
left,
but Chile as a whole
was
soundly
democratic.
These
controversies in no
way
diminished the
entrancing beauty
of the
country
and the charm of the
people
or
my
admiration for
their democratic institutions.
Santiago,
the
capital,
with
nearly
a
million and a half
population,
is beautiful because nature made it
so.
Always
in the distance looms the matchless Cordillera de los
Andes,
standing
sentinel. In the
winter,
when snow seldom falls
in the
city,
the
snow-capped
mountains
glistening
in the sun are
beautiful
beyond comparison.
Breathtaking
in their
beauty
are the
sunsets on these
majestic heights.
The business section of the
city
resembles that of
any large
town in the United States. I found it much busier and more hectic
than Madrid. The
residential section had moved
away
from the
turmoil of the center to where
tree-lined streets
gave
charm and
quiet.
Most of the houses in this
section,
architecturally
individual-
istic,
are set back in
spacious grounds
colorful with flowers-
which are
abundant in
Chile-and
shut off from the street
by
waUs
of
shrubbery.
In most
places
the
visitor
rings
the beU at the locked
gate
to
get
entrance to the
grounds.
The
American
embassy
resi-
dence,
home of our
ambassadors since
1922,
is rather
palatial
and
304
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
faces the
Parque
Forestal,
a miniature Bois in the middle of the
town. One looks in vain for
imposing
colonial
buildings,
so cher-
ished in Peru. The one official colonial
building
in
Santiago
is the
Casa de la
Moneda,
designed by
the famous architect
Joaqum
Tosca after Somerset House in London. It is a solid structure occu-
pying
a full
city
block,
with an entrance
through grilled gates
where soldiers stand sentinel as before
Buckingham
Palace. The
many
rooms are furnished with taste and some
elegance,
but,
since
the windows look out on
noisy
commercial
streets,
it feels like a
public building
rather than a
home,
though officially
it is the resi-
dence of the
presidents
of Chile. The
Foreign
Office,
occupying
a
third of the
building,
is entered
through
die Plaza Bulnes. This
structure,
along
with the
Municipal
Theater,
the Club de la Union
and the
big
hotels,
dominates the center of
Santiago.
Much of the artistic
activity
of the
city
centers in the
Municipal
Theater. I was to find that the Chileans are enthusiastic and dis-
criminating
music lovers. I heard concerts and recitals and saw
many
ballets and
plays
in this
huge
theater,
and it was
always
packed
to the
top gallery
with crowds which included students
and the
poor.
French theatrical
companies
with brilliant artists
appeared frequently.
I saw the famous Italian actress Grammatica
and her
company
in the
plays
of
D'Annunzio,
Barrie and Piran-
dello,
and
Margarita Xirgu,
the celebrated
Spanish
actress,
then in
exile,
in
plays
of
Shakespeare,
Benavente and Garcia Lorca. I was
always impressed by
the reaction of the
audience,
which was more
restrained than in
many
other Latin American countries. Perfect
silence was maintained
during
the
performance.
If it was outstand-
ing
the ovation was
tremendous,
if
just good
the enthusiasm was
more
controlled,
if bad it was still received with
good
manners
and a
polite
amount of
applause.
Most
impressive
to me was the marked resemblance between
Chile's institutional life and our own. Her democratic constitution
is
revered;
the three co-ordinate branches of
government,
execu-
tive,
legislative
and
judicial,
are each
independent.
The differences
from ours are rather minor ones.
Unhappily,
the
multiplicity
of
political parties
makes it
impossible
in a
presidential
election for
any
one
party
to
get
a clear
majority,
and this results in coalition
governments
which are often
precarious
and short-lived because of
305
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
differences between the
parties
in the coalition.
During my
four-
teen
years
there I dealt with seventeen
foreign
ministers,
but almost
all were men of
judgment
and
capacity.
From the
beginning
of the Second World
War,
I found the
great majority
of the
people
true to their democratic
traditions,
in
sympathy
with the Allies and
friendly
toward the United States
even before the attack on Pearl
Harbor,
though many
of these
pre-
ferred a
policy
of official
neutrality.
Even
so,
the enormous re-
sources in
strategic
material in the
country
were reserved for the
United States from the
beginning.
There
was, however,
a
strong
undercurrent of
sympathy
with
Germany
in influential
circles,
and this was natural. German
skill,
perseverance
and resourcefulness had redeemed to cultivation the
rich fertile section of the south. The
large
German
colony,
becom-
ing prosperous
on the
land,
expanded
into
industry, shipping
and
banking,
and at the
beginning
of the war it owned the
telephone
system
in the south and
many newspapers.
These Germans had
married into Chilean families. A German officer had trained the
Chilean
Army
for
years,
and the armed forces had
adopted
Ger-
man
equipment
and
methods;
Chilean officers had been invited to
Germany
for
special training;
Chilean
physicians
and
surgeons
had
studied in German
hospitals
and
laboratories;
German
scholarships
had been
given
to Chilean
students,
who had been received in Ger-
many
with warm
hospitality. Many
if not most of these Chileans
had returned convinced that the Germans
really
were a master race
with the
highest degree
of
culture,
and that the German
Army
was
irresistible.
Still,
most German-Chileans had not been
impressed
with the
Nazi
philosophy.
But when Hitler fared forth
winning
bloodless
victories
during
the
period
of
appeasement,
and when in the first
year
of the war his armies
swept easily
into
country
after
country,
many
German-Chileans,
from
pride
of
race,
were
swept
into
sup-
port
of the Axis.
Though
there was abundant evidence of a fifth
column,
I was
puzzled
to find that the mere
suggestion
of its existence was bit-
terly rejected
in
government
circles.
Walking
one
day
in a drizzle
of rain with President
Aguirre
Cerda on the
grounds
of the sum-
mer
palace
at Vina del
Mar,
I asked him if its activities were
being
followed,
and I was
surprised by
the vehemence with which he
306
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
denied its existence. He was an ardent
democrat,
an admirer of
Roosevelt,
and I was to conclude that the Chileans are
prone
to
close their
eyes
to the more
unpleasant
realities.
They
are,
more-
over,
a
proud, patriotic people, very
sensitive with
regard
to their
sovereignty
and
quick
to resent
anything
that
might
seem an
attempt
to
impose
our will and
policy upon
them.
At this time the
embassy
knew that German Nazis not Chileans
of German
descent,
but Germans trained in the Nazi school of
espionage
and
sabotagewere
active in Chile.
Illogically,
while
stoutly denying
the existence of
danger,
the
government
was
secretly
alarmed lest the
copper
and nitrate mines within
shooting
distance of the sea
might
be attacked. It was because of this fear
that
Aguirre
Cerda
gladly agreed
to a
joint meeting
of the
general
staffs of the United States and Chile to make
plans
for a co-ordi-
nated defense of the continent if attacked
by
the Nazis from Dakar.
I
presided
at the
preliminary meetings
in these
negotiations,
which
went off
speedily
and
successfully.
Our officers were
delighted
and
President Roosevelt sent me a letter of
congratulations.
Later the
War
Department gave
me a decoration in
appreciation
of what I
had been able to do for the co-ordination of continental defense.
Such was the situation before the attack on Pearl Harbor. Five
days
before that treacherous
attack,
I learned that the
Japanese
ambassador called on the Chilean
Foreign
Minister, Rossetti,
to
say
that war with the United States was inevitable and to ask
refuge
in
Chile for
Japanese
nationals then in Panama. Two
days
before
Pearl Harbor I was informed that the German ambassador had
called to reinforce the
Japanese request.
Both
requests
were
sharply
denied,
and orders were flashed to the Chilean consulate in Panama
not to
grant
visas to the
Japanese.
This information I
telegraphed
immediately
to
Washington.
It had been
agreed
at the
1940
inter-American
foreign
ministers'
conference in Havana that an attack on one American nation
would be taken as an attack on
all, but,
unhappily,
the Act of
Havana had not
yet
been ratified
by
the Chilean
Congress.
Just
before the attack
Aguirre
Cerda died. A sincere democrat
and an
intellectual,
he had based his thesis on the sentence "To
govern
is to educate." He was a modest man. I conversed with
him while
Jo
Davidson was
working
on his
bust,
now in
Washing-
307
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
ton,
and he
impressed
me as almost embarrassed that so much
genius
was
going
into the
preservation
of his likeness.
Throwing
all his
strength
into his
work,
he had weakened under the strain. One
day
in his office in the summer
palace
he asked
me,
in
wondering
tones,
how Roosevelt stood
up
under the
pressure,
and when I
replied
that he had no nerves and loved a
fight, Aguirre
Cerda took a
long
breath and shook his head. I knew then that he felt himself
sinking
under the strain.
His death threw the
country
into a
presidential
election,
stoutly
contested on both
sides,
though
on a
dignified plane,
and
Juan
Antonio Rios was elected. Meanwhile the
Acting
President did not
feel free to take
any
decisive action in the international field while
heading
a
Ministry
of mere transition.
Nothing
could be done be-
tween
Aguirre
Cerda's death and the election of
Rios,
and two
months would intervene before he could take office. We could
only
mark time.
Ernesto Barros
Jarpa,
a
distinguished lawyer,
a
personal
friend
of mine and a friend of the United
States,
who became the new
Foreign
Minister,
was
opposed
to an immediate
rupture
with the
Axis on the
ground
that it would
accomplish nothing
and would
make more difficult the transmission of war material from Chile to
the United States. I made
my fight
for it with the
proper
officials
behind closed doors. I offered no
public
criticism of Chile's
posi-
tion,
gave
out no
interviews,
made no
speeches
and
certainly
made
no threats. Meanwhile there were
disagreements
within the
gov-
ernment circles on
rupture,
and
public opinion,
now
mobilized,
was
parading
with bands and banners
demanding
immediate action.
The
Ministry resigned,
and when Barros
Jarpa
was succeeded
by
Joaquin
Fernandez it was understood that
rupture
was near.
During
the interval I saw President Rfos
many
times and was
assured that
preparations
were in
progress
for
breaking diplomatic
relations with the Axis. Public
opinion,
he
thought,
had to be
pre-
pared.
Because of the
long
debate on
rupture extending
from the
banker to the taxi
driver,
I am convinced that in Chile there was a
clearer
understanding
of the
significance
of the war than in
any
other
country
of the
continent,
and the
goal
was reached in
perilous
times without
deviating
one
hairbreadth from the demo-
cratic
process
and without a violation of the Chilean constitution.
Through
this
long period
of
preparation
I was
constantly
308
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
attacked in the
pro-Nazi press.
In the final issue of a Nazi
paper
the
day
before the
rupture
I was honored with a
full-page open
letter
giving
me the role of villain behind the scenes.
Later,
when the
Nazi
press
went out with the
departure
of the German
embassy,
recourse was had to a chain of
mimeographed
letters
bearing
the
names of historic
patriots
and sent
through
the
mails,
and in these
I continued to be the
pet
aversion. One of these is
especially
choice
as an illustration of the
poverty
of ideas behind the
propaganda,
and I submit an
excerpt
from it to
lighten
these
pages:
There is a man who refused to fulfill the desires of Ambassador Bow-
ers,
and this man of honor was
expelled
on the
following day
from the
Army.
Who selects those who make the
expensive trips
to New York with
the nation's
money?
Bowers.
Who benefits
by
the
tyrannical
and
arbitrary
black list which has
left thousands of Chileans without work and in
hunger?
Bowers.
Who controls and censors the
organs
of the
press
and radio? Bowers.
Who is feared and
obeyed by
some of our
government people, par-
liamentarian
groups
and
many political
leaders? Bowers.
To whom do we owe
Department
50
[the
secret
service]
and the
institutions outside the
law,
a shame to the nation and
typical
of colonies
or
subjugated people?
Bowers.
Who ordered the
obligatory shipment
of meat and other articles of
prime necessity
to the United
States,
leaving
our own
people
in hun-
ger?
Bowers.
Such was the tone of the
attacks,
which
were,
of
course,
without
a scintilla of truth. Their
absurdity deprived
them of
any
effect on
public opinion.
During
this
period
I formed a
very high opinion
of President
Juan
Antonio Rios. His
regime
covered the critical
years
of the
Second World
War,
and
history
will
give
him credit for
having
piloted
the
country safely
and with
dignity through perilous
times
without
compromising
its democratic institutions or
violating
its
constitution. Cancer claimed him as a victim soon after the
victory,
and another
presidential
election was
necessary.
In a
spirited campaign
Gabriel Gonzalez Videla was elected to
succeed him. I knew him to be a convinced
democrat,
but in a
closely
contested
campaign
he had the
support
of the Communists
in the
Popular
Front,
and it was these who
gave
him his
plurality.
309
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
After his election and before his
inauguration
he told me that this
placed
him under an
obligation
to
put
three Communists in his Min-
istry.
The reaction abroad was
naturally
bad,
and for a few months
the effect on his administration was not
good.
When he found that
these ministers were
using
their offices to undermine his administra-
tion,
to create social disorders and to
encourage illegal
strikes,
he
turned
upon
them with
indignation
and
put
them out.
The Chilean Communists had
strength beyond
their numbers.
They
followed the
party
line
religiously
and
unanimously. They
maintained
perfect discipline. They
felt no embarrassment in com-
pletely reversing
their
position overnight
on orders from Moscow.
Unlike the members of other
political parties, they
worked in-
cessantly. They
followed their leader without
question.
"Theirs
not to reason
why." Through
their infiltration into labor unions
they
often
imposed
their will
by
threats. But the secret of their
strength
was in the fact that in close elections their votes could
sometimes determine the
result,
and the
politicians
of non-Com-
munist
parties
were sometimes
prone
to cultivate them for their
support.
In the
early stages
of the
war,
before Hitler
swept
into
Russia,
they
were
venomously
hostile to the United States.
During
this
period
it was
impossible
to differentiate between the
propaganda
of the Nazis and that of the Communists. But the moment Hitler
turned on Russia the
party
became a militant
supporter
of the
United States. This continued until the end of the
war,
when
they
again adopted
the old Nazi
slogans
as their own. Thence onward as
long
as I was in Chile
they
concentrated their hate on the United
States,
and one late afternoon
they
threw stones
through
the win-
dows of
my
house.
When,
to
prevent
a
repetition
of this
offense,
the
government
stationed carabineros about the
grounds
of our
summer house in the little town of Villa
Alemana,
the Communist
paper
dubbed me "the
Viceroy
of Chile."
Gonzalez
Videla,
having expelled
the Communists from his
gov-
ernment,
had now become their
pet
aversion. A coal strike at
Lota,
prepared along
subversive
revolutionary
lines,
gravely threatening
the economic life of the
nation,
came as a
challenge.
Convinced
that the Communists' orders from Moscow reached them
through
a
Yugoslav general
who
mysteriously appeared
about this
time,
Gonzalez Videla broke
diplomatic
relations with
Yugoslavia
and
310
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
followed at once with the
expulsion
of the new Russian ambassa-
dor and the Czech minister. Relations with
Bulgaria,
Romania and
Albania were
severed,
a Law for the Defense of
Democracy
was
enacted,
and
throughout
the
greater part
of Gonzalez Videla's
regime
he
waged open
war with the Communists.
Thus
during my
fourteen
years
in Chile I was
engaged
in war-
fare with both the Nazis and the Communists. To a
Jeffersonian
democrat
nothing
could have been more
agreeable.
I have never known a lovelier land than
Chile,
with its
towering
Andes that are
always
in
view,
with the
incomparable beauty
of its
famous
lakes,
with its rivers
teeming
with
fish,
with its
charming
coast
line,
its
skiing
fields and its
delightful countryside.
But
living
as a
diplomat
in Chile is not without its
problems.
Its social activi-
ties are a bit
terrifying
to a
diplomat past forty.
The Chileans are
famous for
hospitality,
and there is no "season" for
entertaining,
which
goes
on without intermission
throughout
the
year.
Lunch-
eons
began
at one and continued until
three;
dinners scheduled for
nine or
nine-thirty
seldom found the
guests
at table earlier than ten-
thirty,
and,
with
liqueurs,
coffee and
cigars
later,
they
seldom broke
up
before
twelve-thirty
or one at the earliest. Cocktail
parties
were
innumerable,
and attendance at
many
of them was almost
obliga-
tory diplomatically.
Unlike cocktail
parries
at
home,
where one
may drop
in for a few minutes for a cocktail and
canapes,
in Chile
to leave under an hour
usually
calls for an
apology
or
explanation.
The
receptions
at embassies and
legations, literally packed
with
people,
are often an abomination but
unescapable.
When the hot months
came,
we
sought
relief outside the
capital.
We
spent
three summer vacations in Vina del
Mar,
a small
city
of
great
charm
by
the
sea,
but here one met the same
people
one had
dined with in
Santiago,
and the social
game
continued with even
greater
zest. To
escape
this we
spent
several summers at
Zapallar,
a
quiet
resort and one of the most beautiful I know
anywhere,
where
the air is
fragrant
with the odors of the sea and the
neighboring
woods.
However,
we had to abandon this
delightful spot,
since
communication facilities with the
capital
were all but nil. Seven
summers found us on the
edge
of small cities on the road from Vina
del Mar to the historic old town of
Quillota:
two in. a comfortable
modern house with
ample grounds
at
Limache,
two at
Quilpue,
31*
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
which is noted for its
pure healing
air,
and three at Villa
Alemana,
where we had
large grounds
enclosed
by
a
high
brick wall and
abounding
in
fruit,
apples, oranges,
lemons,
figs,
almonds,
peaches
and
pomegranates,
and with a
grape
arbor,
very
wide and in
length
equivalent
to more than a
city
block,
bearing huge
luscious
grapes.
We
literally
lived
throughout
the
day
in the shade of this arbor.
The entertainment of visitors is a
part,
and
usually
a
pleasant
part,
of the duties of those in the
foreign
service. In Chile our list
of visitors was
long.
Admiral Richard
Byrd stayed
with us at the
embassy
for several
days
en route home from the Antarctic. Cardinal
Dougherty
of
Philadelphia
came,
to be
warmly
received and to find
a
boyish delight
in his ride from the station to the hotel in an old
ornate state coach drawn
by
four
horses,
with mounted cara-
bineros
riding
in the rear and on either
side;
in the darker
days
of
the war
Henry
Wallace,
Vice-President of the United
States,
made an official visit on which he rendered
great
service and was
received with enthusiasm. Later President Herbert Hoover
ap-
peared
on an official mission. I
thought
him mellowed
by
the
years
and in fine fetde. On
my
insistence,
Eleanor Roosevelt came as
special
ambassador for the
inauguration
of President
Ibanez,
went
through
five
incredibly
crowded
days
of continuous ovations from
thousands
packing
the
streets,
and achieved a
personal triumph
surely unequaled by any
man we have sent to a coronation or
inauguration.
North American
bankers, industrialists,
educators
came in a
long procession.
All these visits entailed
luncheons,
dinners,
receptions.
An
impressive
number of
distinguished
Euro-
peans
also
appeared.
Lord
Willingdon,
erstwhile
Viceroy
of
India,
headed a numerous
company
of bankers and industrialists from
England;
Hore-Belisha,
the able Liberal leader and War
Secretary,
and Sir Samuel Hoare
(then
Lord
Templewood),
the Conserva-
tive,
made short
visits,
as did the
vice-president
of the Italian
Senate and the Italian Under Minister of
Foreign
Affairs.
Among
literary
men of distinction were Andre
Maurois,
the brilliant
French
biographer,
and
Philip
Guedalla,
the
English
historian and
biographer
of Palmerston. One was never bored in
Santiago.
In
my
memories of Chile two men who were
my
friends stand
out most
vividly.
312
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
Arturo Alessandri Palma had twice been President of the
Repub-
lic,
and soon after
my
arrival he was elected to the
Senate,
which
named him its
president.
He continued to
preside
over the Senate
until his
death,
when he was more than
eighty years
old. His-
torically
more
significant
were his constructive achievements in
social
legislation,
in which Chile led South America. These meas-
ures
sponsored
and
pressed by
Alessandri have not been much dis-
turbed since. More than
any
other one
man,
he was the architect of
Chile's
thoroughly
democratic constitution. A consummate
poli-
tician,
a master of all the tricks of
politics,
he could be an
oppor-
tunist until fundamental democratic
principles
were
involved,
and
then he was as immovable as Gibraltar. I have never known a man
of more colorful
personality.
He was
tempestuous
at times and
easily
moved to
anger,
but as
easily
to
regret. Belligerent, always
ready
for
combat,
with his
finger
on the
trigger,
he sometimes let
his
quick temper
lead him into bitter
phrases
and
devastating
char-
acterizations of his
political
foes,
all the more
deadly
because of his
partiality
for
fighting
words. In
early
life he had been dubbed "the
Lion,"
and he was still a lion in his old
age.
Short in
stature,
his shoulders a bit rounded from
bending
over
the
table,
with a
roughhewn puckish
face
exuding
a zest for
life,
Alessandri
captivated
the multitude. Whenever he
appeared
and
there was a
crowd,
he was cheered. Once at a fashionable
wedding
when,
as
padrino
for the
bridegroom,
I was
waiting
at the church
door for the
bride,
I was startled
by
loud
cheering
and assumed the
bride had
arrived,
though
this
reception
would have been without
precedent.
Then I noticed Don Arturo
approaching, pounding
the
pavement
with his
heavy
stick,
and knew he had been the
object
of the
strange
demonstration. I saw him
many
times on his walks in
the
Parque
Forestal across from the
embassy
residence,
always
accompanied by
a
huge
man,
his
secretary,
and an enormous Great
Dane
dog
that was devoted to him. I never was
entirely
comfortable
in his
apartment
with this
dog
stretched
quietly
on the floor and
never
taking
its
eyes
from me. Once when I
urged
Alessandri to
accept
an invitation for a mission to the United States he said in all
seriousness, "No,
no. The
dog
is too old to travel."
I have
delightful
memories of the hours I
spent
in his modest
apartment.
Time was never wasted in his
presence.
The old
fighter,
seated in his
easy
chair,
with a
light rug
over his knees in cool
3*3
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
weather,
was as
entertaining
as a comedian. His conversation was
vivacious,
sparkling
with wit and
humor,
sometimes acidic with
irony
or
sarcasm,
and
always politically
wise. We
occasionally
dif-
fered in
politics,
but without the
slightest cooling
in our
personal
relations. In reminiscent mood he was
especially delightful.
He died as he would have
preferred.
He had dismissed his car
and
gone
for a
walk, and,
feeling
ill,
he
stopped
at the house of a
friend and asked the servant for a
glass
of water. As she left for
the water he took
up
a
book,
and on her return he was dead with
the book
clasped
in his hand. I went
immediately
to his house. The
narrow
winding
street in front was
literally packed
with a silent
multitude,
and
Pepe,
our
Spanish
chauffeur,
had
difficulty
in
get-
tino-
my
car to the
door,
even with the aid of the
police.
This
tribute was from the heart.
His
diary,
when
published,
will uncover
many
secrets of Chilean
history
over a
long period
of
years.
I have never known a more
exhilarating
man.
Another
cherished friend was
Jose
Maria
Caro,
who became
cardinal
primate
during my
Chilean
days.
His
slight, frail-appear-
ing
frame seemed
scarcely strong enough
to sustain his
spirit.
He
was in his mid-seventies when I first knew
him,
and when I left
he was in his
eighty-sixth year
and still
constantly
active.
Never,
with the
single exception
of Cardinal
Gibbons,
have I seen a cleric
who seemed so much a
spiritual
force,
so much the
symbol
of a
soul,
with so much inherent
goodness
and,
despite
his exalted
rank,
so much
humility.
His
origin
was
humble,
and this no doubt ex-
plains
in
part
his intimate
understanding
of the
poor
and
lowly.
No
one in Chile was so
generally
loved in all circles
regardless
of creed.
Habitually
sweet and
gentle
in his
manner,
he could be firm and
stern when the occasion called. Once when he had withstood
pres-
sure to do
something
he
instinctively
knew would have had an
unfavorable
reaction,
and his
position
was vindicated
by
events,
he
chuckled and
said,
"It was not for
nothing
I was born a huaso
[cowboy]
." I was
very
fond of this
truly good
and
great
cleric and
had him
frequently
at
my
table. So often that one
day
when accom-
panying
me to the
dining
room he looked
up
at me with
twinkling
eyes
and asked
facetiously,
"Is this more Yankee
propaganda?"
I
had the honor to
speak
in behalf of the
diplomatic corps
when
3*4
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
forty
thousand
people
assembled in the stadium to
pay
tribute to
him on the sixtieth
anniversary
of his
induction into the
priest-
hood.
When,
as a
young priest,
he had been told
by
the doctors that he
had less than a
year
to live because he had
tuberculosis,
he had
gone
about his
parish
duties as
though pushing
death aside. In his
eighties
he was twice stricken with
pneumonia;
the second
time,
when he was
eighty-five,
his death seemed
certain,
but soon he was
traveling
over the
country again
on his official duties. He was
my
friend
throughout
the fourteen
years
of
my
tenure,
and when I
made
my
farewell call
upon
him he
gave
me a silver medallion bear-
ing
his likeness.
Despite my diplomatic
duties and the social activities connected
with
them,
I found time to write
by avoiding golf
and
bridge.
In
my study
in the
embassy
residence I wrote
Young Jefferson,
the
third book of
my trilogy
on
Jefferson,
and Pierre
Vergniaud:
Voice
of
the French Revolution.
Vergniaud
had fascinated me ever since I read Lamartine's His-
tory of
the Girondins as a
boy.
He
impressed
me as the classic
orator of the French Revolution and as the noblest
figure among
the leaders not
only
because of his rare
eloquence,
which is litera-
ture and
comparable
with that of
Cicero,
but because he alone
among
the five most
conspicuous
leaders
championed
and died
for democratic
principles. During
the most lurid and dramatic
years
of the
Revolution,
1791-93,
he was
concededly
the most
brilliant
figure
in the
tribune, but,
more than
that,
he was intellectu-
ally
honest and sane and humanitarian. Mirabeau and Danton were
tainted with
corruption, Robespierre encouraged
the
Terror,
and
Marat
perhaps
an
anarchist,
perhaps
insane,
but
certainly
blood-
thirsty
and
hysterical gloried
in
it;
yet
American historians have
written
biographies
of these men and
ignored
the one man who
worked and died for the
principles
Americans
espoused.
This
seemed all the more remarkable to me because
during
the French
Revolution the
speeches
of
Vergniaud
were more
frequently quoted
in the American
press
than those of
any
other.
I decided to fill the void. I had been
gathering
material on
Vergniaud
for
years,
and in intensive research I uncovered manu-
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
script
material that had
escaped
the notice of the historians. The
American reviewers did not seem to
recognize
this material as
new,
but the
scholarly
reviewer for the London Times
thought
it
impor-
tant. On
my
desk is a small bronze bust of
Vergniaud copied
from
one in the
possession
of his
family
and inscribed to me
by
them in
the bronze.
During
almost
eight
of
my
fourteen
years
in Chile
Harry
S
Truman was President of the United States. Previous to his admin-
istration I had
enjoyed
no such
personal
relations with him as I
had with President Roosevelt. I had met him for a
fleeting
moment
in
1932
when I
spoke
at a
party banquet
in Kansas
City
and he was
toastmaster. He had been elected to the Senate after I had
gone
to
Spain.
When,
after he succeeded to the White
House,
I met him at
a dinner
there,
I was
captivated by
his infectious
smile,
his natural
and
gracious
manner,
his
simplicity
and utter lack of
pose.
Entering
the White House
unexpectedly through
the door of
tragedy,
he
accepted
his
responsibilities
with both
daring
and
humility.
He had the all too rare
capacity
to make decisions and
assume
responsibility.
He had one other
supreme equipment
for the
Presidency
he was a
politician,
he knew the common man. It
seemed to me
during
his first term that there was almost a con-
spiracy
to belittle him. Even the leaders of his own
party
seemed
to
accept
the
predictions
of the
metropolitan press
and the com-
mentators that he would be defeated in
1948.
In the convention
that nominated him in
1948,
Sam
Rayburn, pointing
to his
really
fine record of
achievement,
asked the
delegates
if
they
were not
proud
of
it,
and then
indignantly
shouted,
"Then in God's name
why
don't
you
act like it?"
But Truman was a
fighter
and,
almost unaided
by
his
party,
he
went into the
campaign
alone and with
supreme
confidence. A
month before the election the
press
was
already
inclined to
specu-
late on the
personnel
of his
opponent's
Cabinet,
and Truman smiled.
Through
the New York Times I followed his
speeches
and their
reception.
The first week I was
surprised;
the second week I
thought
after all he had a
chance;
the third week I was certain of
his election if he had a little more time. He did not need it. I had
said I
thought
if he had
enough
time he would
win,
and on the
morning
after Election
Day
I
gained
a not
entirely
deserved
316
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
reputation
in Chile for
political prophecy.
In a letter I received
from Truman
immediately
afterward I found him free from bit-
terness or
resentment,
but
jubilant
over the discomfiture of his foes.
For some
years
I
corresponded
with
him,
and in all his letters he
was without bitterness. When General MacArthur returned to
Washington
after the President had dismissed him from his com-
mand in the
Army, following
futile efforts to
persuade
him to work
in
harness,
Truman was so far from
pettiness
that he ordered
gov-
ernment offices closed that the
employees might pack
the streets
and cheer the hero of the
Philippines. Very
few men would have
been
capable
of that act.
When President Gonzalez Videla of Chile made an official visit
to the United States and was a
guest
at Blair
House,
where the
Trumans were
living
while the White House was
undergoing
repairs,
the visitor was startled and
delighted
with Truman's in-
formality
and
simplicity.
That
night
President Truman sat down at
the
piano
and
played
Mozart and
Chopin,
his
daughter Margaret
sang,
the Chilean visitor
laughingly placed
a Chilean manta over
Truman's
shoulders,
and the
evening passed
with informal chat and
laughter.
The next
day
the Chilean said to
me,
"Last
night
I found
one of the most
delightful
human
beings
I have ever seen."
I am
proud
that I served for
twenty years
on
pleasant
terms with
two
great
Presidents,
and one of them was Truman.
Before the
inauguration
of President Eisenhower I tendered
my
resignation,
and,
being
a
personal
or
political appointee
of Roose-
velt,
I
expected
an immediate
acceptance.
I heard
nothing
from
Washington
for seven
months,
but in
August my resignation
was
accepted
in a letter from the President:
August 3, 1953
DEAR AMBASSADOR:
I am
accepting your resignation
as Ambassador to the
Republic
of
Chile and as
Representative
of the United States on the Economic
Commission for Latin America and of the Economic and Social Com-
mission of the United
States,
to be effective
September
first.
You are to be
congratulated
on
your distinguished
record as Amer-
ican. Chief of Mission to two
important
countries. This includes six
years
as Ambassador to
Spain during
a difficult
period,
and an extraor-
dinarily long
tenure in
your present post
since
1939.
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
With
appreciation
of
your
effective
representation
and
good
wishes
for the
future,
Sincerely,
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER
Also much
appreciated by
me was a letter from Sumner
Welles,
then in retirement after a most
distinguished
career as Under Secre-
tary
of State. No man in
Washington
understood so
perfectly
or
sympathetically
the
problems
of Latin
America,
and no one was so
familiar with the
personnel
and the
psychology
of the various
nations. I therefore have some
pride
in this letter.
Bar
Harbor,
Maine
August
8,
1953
MY DEAR MR. AMBASSADOR:
I cannot let
pass
the announcement of
your
retirement as Ambassador
to Chile without
sending you
these lines to let
you
know how
deeply
I
regret
this news. You have served with the utmost distinction
during
these last fourteen
years
as our Ambassador in
Chile,
and
your
services
have been of immense
value,
and never more so than
during
these latter
years
when our inter-American relations seem to have been
regarded
as of such minor
significance
in
Washington.
It was a
great personal
satisfaction to me to have had the
privilege
of
cooperating
with
you
in
the
past.
Please
accept my
warmest remembrance and
every good
wish for the
years
to come.
Yours
very sincerely,
SUMNER WELLES
Had there been no other
commendation,
this alone would have
been
compensation enough
for
years
of labor in a field not too
much
appreciated by
the American
people.
I had served under
three American
Presidents, Roosevelt,
Truman and
Eisenhower;
and under four Chilean
Presidents,
Aguirre
Cerda, Juan
Antonio
Rios,
Gabriel Gonzalez Videla and Carlos
Ibanez,
all of them
my
friends.
I was not
prepared
for the Chilean reaction to
my
recall. For a
month the Chilean
newspapers
contained editorials and
special
articles and letters in commendation of
my
work,
and we were
exhausted
by
almost
daily
farewell luncheons and dinners for more
than a month. Those that were
distinctly
Chilean
impressed
me
318
MY FOURTEEN YEARS IN CHILE
most. I was
greatly
moved
by
the Chilean luncheon at the Club de
la Union
sponsored by
Cardinal
Caro,
the
president
of the Senate
and the Chief
Justice
of the
Supreme
Court,
and attended
by
the
leaders of all
political parties
but the
Communist,
and
by
the
pro-
fessional, industrial,
commercial and cultural circles. An old
friend,
Ernesto Barros
Jarpa, spoke
for the
assembly.
Oscar
Fenner,
the
Foreign
Minister,
gave
a farewell luncheon at the Cousino Palace
that was attended
by
seventeen former ministers of
foreign
affairs
with whom I had been
officially
associated.
My colleagues gave
the traditional luncheon at the
Union,
where another
friend,
Hugo
Pena,
ambassador from
Uruguay, presented
to us a handsome silver
plate bearing
the
signatures
of all the chiefs of missions. President
Ibafiez
gave
me a farewell luncheon in the Moneda.
Like all who know
it,
I shall
always carry
Chile in
my
heart.
CHAPTER XXI
Postscript
The
manuscript of my father's
book ends here. The last
chapter
had
not been written and to take its
place
I
give
some extracts
from
his
diary telling
about the
years after
his return to the United States.
PATRICIA BOWERS
Washington, September 30, 1953
We landed in New York from the Santa Cecilia after a
pleasant voyage
with the
exception
of one
night just beyond
Buenaventura when we ran
into the most violent thunder and
lightning
storm I have ever seen. The
day
after our arrival we came to
Washington.
I met scores of old
political
friends and former associates. . . .
Today
I had half an hour
with
John
Foster
Dulles,
Secretary
of
State,
and was
surprised by
the
cordiality
of his
reception
and his
praise
of
my diplomatic
career. He
asked about
Spain
and
my forthcoming
book and said it should be
pub-
lished. . . .
Tonight
we came back to New
York,
arriving
at
midnight.
New
York,
October
i, 2953
Schuster of Simon and
Schuster,
and
Barnes,
formerly foreign
editor of
the Herald
Tribune,
spent
two hours with me on
my Spanish
memoirs.
October
8, 1953
Called on Freda
Kirchwey
at the
Nation,
and then to the studio of
Luis
Quintanilla,
the
Spanish painter
and
republican,
on
Eighth
Street,
two
flights up.
He
painted my portrait
in
1933
for an exhibition
planned
in New York
by
Ernest
Hemingway.
At the time
Janet
Speirs,
a
very
beautiful
girl,
was
my secretary.
The two were married in New York
three
years
later. Luis showed me
portraits
of writers
Hemingway,
Dos
Passos, Nathan,
Miss
Parker,
Carl Van Doren and others all
excellent,
especially
Van Doren's.
320
POSTSCRIPT
October
26,
Got to
Memphis
last
night
and
put up
at the
Peabody
Hotel. This
morning
a number of men
called,
most of them with
copies
of
my
book
for an
inscription.
At noon had lunch with some
delightful people
at
the Tennessee Club. In the afternoon General
Wooten,
my military
attache in Chile when I first went
there,
called. At seven o'clock
gave
my
lecture on
Jefferson
and Civil Liberties at the State
College.
It was
raining briskly
but the attendance was
large
and the
principal
of a
high
school in
Kentucky
drove with four students a hundred and
fifty
miles
to hear the lecture and told a
reporter,
"It was worth it." I like to think
it,
but I doubt it. At the close Professor
Mitchell,
head of the
history
department,
had some
people
in for me at his house.
October
27, 1953
I dreaded
today,
since I had to lecture in the
morning,
in the afternoon
and
again
in the
evening.
Lectured on Polk in the
morning,
on
Jackson
as the creator of
party government
in the afternoon and on
Jackson's
administration in the
evening. Large
audiences and
prolonged applause
at the close of each. Had dinner with President Smith at his home in
the
evening.
October
28,
This
morning
Professor
James
W.
Silver,
head of the
history depart-
ment in the
University
of
Mississippi,
came to drive me to Oxford and
the
university
an
eighty-five-mile
drive. It is
through rolling country
over a
perfect
road. We lunched well at the Mansion in Oxford and
then on to the
university,
where I was
lodged
at the Alumni Hotel.
At three o'clock I had a conference on
history.
I sat and smoked and
talked and answered
questions.
At
night
I delivered
my
lecture on
Jefferson.
Afterward went to the home of one of the
professors,
where
several of them assembled with their wives.
Stayed
late.
November
/;, 1953
Visit with Truman
The
increasing hysteria
of the
McCarthy
crowd in
summoning
Truman
before the committee is without
precedent.
Truman was out when I
arrived,
but I had a
long
chat with Mrs.
Truman,
who looks well and
happy,
and I
enjoyed
her sense of humor in
talking
about
protocol.
Margaret
came
in,
slender and in blue. . . . Truman breezed
in,
look-
ing youthful, buoyant,
confident. We chatted for about
forty
minutes.
He seemed
pleased
when I
congratulated
him on his
speech
last
night
at New York
University
in which he attacked the
hysteria
of the times
321
POSTSCRIPT
and of the un-American
proceedings.
He ascribes the bitter attacks on
him to his Labor
Day speech
and his
speech
in St. Louis.
Of Admiral
Leahy
he
spoke warmly.
But he said when
plans
were
being
made about the atomic bomb
Leahy
told
him,
"The damn
thing
will not
go
off." When soon afterward it did
go
off he said he never
reminded
Leahy
of his
pessimism.
November
27,
Today
I had luncheon at the New York
Times,
the
guest
of Arthur
Hays Sulzberger.
I did not have
any
intimation that it was to be a
birthday surprise
for me four
days
ahead of time! Nor did I know
until
they brought
in a cake with one candle a
generous gesture.
Among
the
guests
were Turner
Catledge,
Anne O'Hare
McCormick,
the famous Times writer on international
affairs,
Cyrus Sulzberger,
the
international
correspondent,
Ben
Fine,
the education
editor,
and Theo-
dore Fred
Kuper.
A
very pleasant
affair. There were differences of
opinion
on Truman's
speech,
but none as to the
absurdity
of the
charge
of
disloyalty.
I noticed that the staff did not hesitate to
disagree
with
the
publisher
that men are
intellectually
free on the
greatest paper
in the world.
November
23,
This
evening
on television I saw and heard President Eisenhower. He
seemed thinner in the face than before he became
President,
and he
looked far from
happy.
Indeed,
he seemed
downright
mad. He
spoke
of the Americanism he knew as a
boy
in a little town in Kansas and
then said an American citizen has a
right
to his
opinion
and he need not
fear to
express
it in the
presence
of the most
powerful.
And when he
said that a man accused of a crime has a
right
to face his accuser who
cannot hide in shadows he was
apparently aiming
at
McCarthyism
and
taking
a slam at his
Attorney
General who made the atrocious
charge
against
Truman. . . . He did not smile
during
the
speech
and he seemed
in
deadly
earnest. If he can muster the confidence and
courage
to actu-
ally
take command and take a stand
against pro-fascist proceedings
he
will have the
country
behind him. He is not an
inspiring speaker,
but his
earnestness
tonight
was
impressive.
December
5,
This afternoon met Gabriela
Mistral,
the Chilean
poetess
who won the
Nobel Prize for Literature a few
years ago.
She had not been in Chile
during my
fourteen
years
there. She was made a
permanent
Chilean
consul and has resided in different
countries,
and I had not seen
her,
3"
POSTSCRIPT
though
she said this
evening
that we had met in
Spain
she was stationed
in Madrid
just
before the war there. I had understood that she was in
poor
health and I had
pictured
her as
very
old and
frail,
but her
appear-
ance and manner this
evening gave
no such
impression.
She wore a blue
checked suit. Her
iron-gray
hair was
given
a
boyish
cut. Her
eyes
and
voice denoted
perfect
health. She
speaks
her
mind,
uses sarcasm
often,
and has her likes and dislikes
strongly developed.
I mentioned a certain
woman in
Santiago.
She smiled and chuckled. "I left Chile to
get away
from
her,"
she said. She talked with
animation,
very amusing during
the
three hours I was there.
Victoria
Kent,
the
Spanish deputy,
was also there. When I went to
Spain
she was a
very interesting
member of Azana's
party
in the Cortes.
She could not have been
thirty
and had the animation and charm of a
brilliant woman. I have often wondered what became of her and was
delighted
to see her. She is
just
as brilliant and
interesting,
and the
twenty years
have been kind to her.
Indianapolis,
December 12
Arrived in
Indianapolis
at 8:
50
this
morning
and was met at the station
by
Evans Woolen of the Fletcher Trust
Company,
whose father had
been
my good
friend. The old
station,
which I had not seen for
thirty-
five
years,
has
scarcely changed
since in
my boyhood
I saw President
Harrison and his Cabinet
emerging
in
couples
for the funeral of the
President's wife. After
registering
at the
Claypool,
I was driven about
town
by
Woolen,
through
the northern
region, country
in
my youth
and now built
up
with
pretentious
houses,
and out to old Fairview
Park,
now the
large campus
of Butler
University.
After I returned to the
hotel an old friend of school
days
called,
and in the midst of our chat
the
phone rang
and a woman announced that she and her
sister,
whose
brother was a friend of mine more than
fifty-five years ago
and died
half a
century ago,
would like to see me.
They
amazed me
by showing
me two
pictures
I had
given
their brother one of me when about thir-
teen
years
old and the other a
picture
of
myself
and a friend taken in
Lebanon
sixty-three years ago.
I was
holding
a
campaign picture
of
Elaine and
my
friend one of Harrison. We had differed on which the
Republicans
should nominate in
1892.
I would have
given
much for
this
picture
but the woman seemed so
pleased
to have them that I did
not have the heart to ask for it.
At 12:
30
came the luncheon of the Indiana Historical
Society,
where
I was to
speak
on
"History's Warning Finger."
It was a
slanting
attack
on the
McCarthyism
and cowardice of these
days
and a
warning
that
our freedoms are
fading.
The
speech
was cheered at
length
at the close
323
POSTSCRIPT
and
many
came
up
to
say
that we need more such
plain
speaking.
I
was
persuaded
to
stay
for the Indiana Pioneers dinner in the
evening.
New
York,
December
27,
1953
Spent
an hour and a half with Eduardo Irarrazaval in his
apartment
at
the Gotham this
morning.
He is en route back to Chile after four
months
in Paris. Most of our conversation was on conditions in Chile. . . . He
thinks our flirtation with Peron most
dangerous
and that if we take
Peron to our bosom all South American countries will
adopt
Peronism
and we lose
any
influence we
may
have. He returns to Chile in a few
days.
As Minister of
Foreign
Affairs,
the last under Gonzalez
Videla,
he
impressed
me as a man of
great integrity
and vision and our relations
were warm and
understanding throughout.
January 24,
Attended a luncheon in honor of Theodore Fred
Kuper.
There were
three hundred men and women at the tables. Before we went
in,
Ben
Fine,
education editor of the
Times,
came to me to ask if I would
speak
briefly
about
my
old friend
Kuper
and I was
glad
to do it. The lunch was an im-
pressive
tribute to the man I have described as
having
"a
genius
for
friendship."
April 4,
Took the five o'clock train to
Washington,
where I
speak
at the
Women's National Democratic Club tomorrow.
Twenty years ago
I
spoke
a number of times before the club when
Daisy
Harriman,
since
minister to
Norway,
was
president.
She now has a
charming
house in
Georgetown
and her dinners are unusual. The
guests,
after
dinner,
re-
main at the table in
general
conversation.
Tonight
she had an
interesting
group including
Justice
Black of the
Supreme Court,
Senator
Jackson,
Senator
Moody,
and
Mowrer,
the brilliant
press correspondent.
I was
seated between
Justice
Black and the
charming
and brilliant wife of
Senator
Douglas.
Justice Black,
who is
partial
to
my
books on American
political history,
amazed me
by praising my Vergniaud
as a book all
Americans should read. Senator
Jackson,
who is on the
McCarthy
com-
mittee,
was
given rough
treatment because of the
naming
of Sears as
counsel for the committee in the
controversy
between
McCarthy
and
the
Army
when Sears is a militant advocate of
McCarthyism.
. . .
Jackson
is an attractive
young
man and took all the
ribbing
in
good
part.
I was told that
Washington
is torn wide
open
on
McCarthyism.
Mrs. Harriman and Alice Roosevelt were close friends
years ago
and
3
2
4
POSTSCRIPT
are still friends of a
sort,
though
not as before. Alice is a
McCarthyite
and her
group
is of this
persuasion.
April
Up
late and in
my
room until 12:
30
the hour for the luncheon at the
club. ... At the
speakers'
table was Senator
Fulbright,
a brilliant fel-
low. Mrs. Woodrow
Wilson,
who
very
seldom
goes
out
now,
appeared
today.
I had not seen her since
1935,
when we were luncheon
guests
at
her house. Had a
long
talk with her.
The
speech
seemed to
go
off with a
bang.
It was a
strong
attack on
the un-American antidemocratic trend under
McCarthyism.
Was
given
an ovation at the close until I had to
get up
and bow. The women asked
that
copies
be
printed
and Senator
Fulbright
took
my copy
and will
try
to
get
it in the
Congressional
'Record. It was such a
vigorous speech
that I doubt if he succeeds.
May
20
y 1954
I went to Louise Crane's to meet
Jose
Antonio
Aguirre,
the President
of the
Basques.
He looks even
younger
than when I last saw him in the
embassy
in
Santiago.
I sat with him at the buffet dinner and he told the
amazing story
of his
escape during
the war to
Germany,
where he
posed
as a Panamanian
physician
and remained undetected for months
until he crossed over into
Belgium.
Norman Thomas was there and he
expressed appreciation
for the editorial I wrote on Debs at his death.
He is
tall, slender,
white-haired.
Very agreeable.
May 26, 1954
Lunch at the
Century today
with
Joe
Barnes. Present:
Barnes,
Geoffrey
Parsons,
chief editorial writer of the Herald
Tribune,
an old and much-
cherished
friend,
Vincent
Sheean,
the
writer,
and William L.
Shirer,
correspondent
in Berlin
just
before the war. All
warmly sympathetic
toward
my position
in,
and book
on,
Spain.
I have never had such an
interesting
conversational session. We sat down at one and left at four.
July 8,
Tonight
we went with Colonel
Hartfield,
Fannie
Hurst,
the
novelist,
Helen Wessel and others to
Jones
Beach to see scenes from Arabian
Nights,
presented by Guy
Lombardo. We had dinner at the South
Shore Terrace. The audience faces the narrow
strip
of water and the
Emperor's palace
and much of the
spectacle
is on and under the water.
The
night
was cool and the smell of the sea
invigorating.
I
enjoyed
3*5
POSTSCRIPT
talking
with
Fanny
Hurst,
who is a
great
woman as well as a
successful
novelist.
She told me about her first
meeting
with Dreiser. She had
just
ven-
tured into the hurricane of New York from the more conventional life
of St.
Louis,
her home.
Having
a wish to write and
publish,
she went to
see Dreiser in his offices at some women's
magazine.
"I found him
with
his foot on a shoeshine stand and a
boy busy blackening
and
shining
his
shoes,
and that made a
great impression
on
me,"
she said. When she
explained
that she wished to write
something
for his
magazine
he
grunted
and for a moment was silent. Then he
said,
"Come to
my apart-
ment in the
morning
and I'll see what I can do." This rather alarmed
her. Dreiser had a
reputation
that made a visit to his
apartment
seem a
gamble
with virtue. But she went. He lived then in the
apartment
on
Eleventh Street with which I was familiar.
Apparently
his intentions
were honorable and he ended
by inviting
her to submit a
story.
October
20, 1954
This afternoon we took Chavela Edwards to the
Village
to the studio
of Luis
Quintanilla,
and since Luis was
captivated
with her
beauty
and
enthusiasm and she with his courtliness and
art,
more than two hours
passed pleasantly.
Luis
displayed
his
work,
many pictures
of fruits and
flowers which I had not known he
painted.
Then the
portraits.
Those
of
literary
celebrities were
amusing.
He had asked them what
they
would have liked to be and thus he
painted
them and most were fan-
tastic.
Dorothy
Parker had wanted to be a
homebody,
so he
produced
a
picture
of a
lady
with her face but in a
pose
she had never known
a
plain
woman at her
knitting.
Luis
proudly brought
out her letter
to
him,
a
very witty
one.
October
22, 1954
Dinner
tonight
with Allan Nevins of Columbia
University
at the Fac-
ulty
Club.
Again
we had Abraham
Flexner,
the
distinguished
educator
and writer. After dinner we went to the
library building
for Nevins'
seminar,
walking
all over the
lot,
climbing
stairs,
and Flexner told me
that he is
eighty-eight years
old!
Amazing,
since his mind is alert and
young.
The students are
working
on their final thesis and Nevins
gave
us an
interesting
talk on his excursion to Boston to look over the
papers
of the Adams
family.
October
23,
Sybil
and I had dinner with Eleanor Roosevelt at her town house on
6znd
Street,
though
we had
difficulty getting
in. The
bell,
rung
three
326
POSTSCRIPT
times,
brought
no result. The window in the basement was
open
and
Sybil appealed
to the cook.
Finally
Mrs. Roosevelt
appeared, laughing.
We found three other
guests,
an Indian and his wife and an old
family
friend who was an
early
law
partner
of Roosevelt. We dined at a table
in the
living
room,
Mrs. Roosevelt
doing
the
serving. Soup,
delicious
ham,
a
salad,
cheese and ice cream with
angel
food cake. Mrs. Roosevelt
never looked better is much
better-looking
than she used to be. We
talked some
politics, especially
New York
politics.
On international
affairs she was
very
acute and
interesting.
She foresees a
grave problem
when atomic
energy
is
applied
to
industry
and a machine can do the
work of
fifty
men. Will it mean
great unemployment?
Or if work
hours are reduced to almost
nothing,
will these millions loaf and unless
they
find some
way
to
employ
themselves,
will
they
not
degenerate?
She had no solution.
October 2
This
morning
I
spoke
as a United States
delegate
to the
Congress
of
All the American
Republics,
which is
part
of Columbia
University's
bicentennial celebration. I had
prepared
to discuss all the
freedoms,
but I delivered
only
the
parts
on
popular
education,
academic freedom
and
something
no one else has touched
upon,
freedom from
want,
and
I
proposed
a Marshall Plan for South America. I was
surprised by
the
warmth of
my greeting
when introduced and was astonished
by
the
reaction to the
speech,
since
every succeeding speaker
referred to it
and Eduardo
Santos,
the brilliant
journalist
and former President of
Colombia,
in the course of a
good
and
eloquent speech
based on
mine,
referred to
my speech
a number of times. I was
congratulated by many,
including
Ricardo
Alfaro,
former President of Panama. A
young
man
introduced himself as the son of
Secretary
of State Dulles a fine-
looking
and most
agreeable chap.
April
2-
Last
night
went to
Washington by
train to meet Colonel Hartfield and
party coming
in the
morning by plane
for a drive to Charlottesville for
my
lecture on the Bill of
Rights
at the
University
of
Virginia.
In our
party
were
Hartfield,
Mr.
Brown,
lawyer
for the New York
Telephone
Company, Judge
Walter of the New York
Supreme
Court and Mr.
Watson,
eighty-six years
old,
who
graduated
from the
University
of
Virginia
Law School in
1894.
The drive
through Virginia
was a
delight,
the
day bright,
the
pastures green
and
dogwood
in blossom. We had
lunch at
Culpeper
and reached Charlottesville about three o'clock and
327
POSTSCRIPT
went to the
charming Farmington Country
Club,
where we
stayed.
The house was
designed by
Jefferson.
The
surroundings
beautiful,
the
rooms
pretty
and the food excellent. At six o'clock we went to the
home of the Dean of the Law School for a buffet dinner. The lecture
was in a
large
hall of the
university,
which was filled.
My
lecture
plain speaking
on the defiance of the Bill of
Rights today-ended
with
a
long
ovation. We returned to the club and had drinks and talk until
midnight.
I was awakened in the
morning by
the
rapturous singing
of birds an
experience
I have not had for
years.
On the
morning
of
Thursday
we drove to Monticello and
Ashlawn,
lunched at the club
and drove back to
Washington. My party barely caught
the
plane
for
New York and I went in search of a hotel.
May 8,
Agustm
Edwards of Chile came to see me this afternoon.
He,
like all
intelligent
Chileans,
is alarmed
by
the
desperate
state of Chile's
economy
and finances. The dollar has reached the
appalling figure
of one to
435
pesos
and when I went to Chile in
1939
it was one to
35.
The conditions
are
just
made for chaos and Peronists and Communists. Some drastic eco-
nomic and financial reforms are
imperative,
but were
any
Chilean to
undertake
them,
politics, jealousies
and
suspicions
would intervene to
defeat them. Edwards has the
go-ahead sign
from President Ibafiez to
negotiate
with the Klein
organization
of economic
experts,
who
put
Peru's house in
order,
to take over the task in Chile. The President's
consent is the best
proof
that conditions are
desperate.
June 22,
Lloyd
Paul
Stryker,
foremost trial
lawyer
and author of two or three
fine
biographies,
died
yesterday
after a stroke. He wrote me about
The
Tragic
Era when it came
out,
but I did not meet him
personally
until a few months
ago
at a small luncheon. His defense of
Alger
Hiss
was masterful and he
hung
the
jury.
Hiss must have been an ass to take
another
lawyer
in the second trial.
Stryker
told me that the excuse of
Hiss was that a fair trial was
impossible
in New
York,
that he would
try
for a
change
of venue to New
England
and he
thought
it advisable to
get
a New
England lawyer. Stryker
did not believe Hiss
guilty.
When
he went to him the
lawyer
asked,
"Are
you guilty?
That I must
know,"
and Hiss denied
guilt. Stryker
was a
genius
as a trial
lawyer.
He was
dramatic. He was
devastating
in cross-examination and he was brilliant.
No one in
my
time has been so
great
as a trial
lawyer except
Max
Steuer,
whom I also
knew,
but Steuer was not the orator that
Stryker
was.
328
POSTSCRIPT
September
Patricia
Costello,
an old friend in
Santiago,
where her Cuban husband
was with the
U.N.,
came to call
today.
A
remarkably
attractive and
bright
woman. She tells an
amusing story
about
Hemingway,
who lives
in Cuba. She was introduced at a cocktail
party
and told him that it was
an enormous
pleasure
and he beamed. That she liked his book The Old
Man and the Seaand he beamed. And then she asked him if it was auto-
biographical,
and to her amazement he turned his back
upon
her. When
I
suggested
that the Old Man was old and in the last
stage
of
decrepi-
tude and he resented the
implication
that he was the Old
Man,
she said
it was
true;
that he later told a friend of hers that she had been
beastly
rude to him. "She asked if the
story
was
autobiographical/'
he said.
October
28,
Spent
almost two hours with Bernard Baruch at his home this after-
noon. He had been a
good
friend from
my
arrival in New York in
1923,
but I had not seen him since
my
return from Chile. He is now
eighty-
four
years
old and still active. I found him
looking
in
good
health
though
he has been hard of
hearing
for some
years.
He seated me close to
him,
directly facing
him to hear better. Much talk about
long
dead
days.
His
hostility
to Truman is hot as
ever,
but his enthusiasm for Stevenson
is
promising.
I could not determine what he thinks of
Jimmy Byrnes's
queer
actions
during
the last few
years.
He thinks the new face we have
put
on at home is in
contempt
of
morals and common
sense,
observing
that civilizations are wrecked
from
within,
as in the case of Rome. Baruch
brought
in Scotch and
soda and
cigars, though
he himself does not drink until after five and
he had cut down on his
smoking.
A
delightful
afternoon.
November
4,
Attended
Mayor Wagner's
luncheon for President Castillo Armas of
Guatemala at the Waldorf. While in the
lobby waiting
to
go up
I ran
into General
Crittenberger
for an
exchange
of news. Met
many
old
friends
during
the cocktail
period
and after the luncheon. As we were
leaving
found
myself
close to Cardinal
Spellman,
to whom I was intro-
duced. Since we
occupy
the
opposite poles
on Franco I
expected
some
coldness. He astonished me with his
cordiality
and said I am a master
of the
English language,
and I wondered if he based it on
My
Mission
to
Spain.
3*9
POSTSCRIPT
November
16,
My
entire
day
at the Manhattan Club. After lunch Colonel Hartfield
stayed
to
go
over with me the
request
that I act as chairman of the
committee to raise
money
for the
improvement
of Woodrow
Wilson's
birthplace
and the
purchase
of some
adjoining property belonging
to
the
place
where Wilson was born.
December 8
? 7^55
Recently
I
agreed
to serve on the committee
supporting
Adlai E.
Stevenson for the Presidential nomination and
today
I attended a
dinner for one hundred
people
interested,
on the roof of the Pierre. Ran
into Eddie
Miller,
who so
long
was Under
Secretary
of State for South
America,
and chatted with him. Also with Marshall
Field,
who
pre-
sided,
and Ambassador Ellsworth
Bunker,
who was in
Argentina,
one
man who did not kowtow to Peron.
Febrmry 7, 1956
Attended a
meeting
of the Committee for Stevenson for the West Side
of this town from Greenwich
Village
to iioth Street. I have had the
chairmanship
wished
upon
me and while I have made it clear that I
am not an
organizer, they say
others will do that and I am to deal
solely
in
policies.
April 3, 1956
Called
by appointment
on President Truman this
morning. Looking
in
the
pink
of
condition,
his
eyes sparkling, complexion pink,
his voice
vibrant,
he
gave
me a warm
greeting.
Mrs. Truman was in the room
looking
more
happy
than in the White
House,
also
looking young.
She admitted she is
happier
as it is. The President was
working
out his
itinerary
for his
European trip
next month with
my
old friend Wood-
ward,
once Chief of Protocol and later ambassador to Canada. He is
to
accompany
Truman.
They
are
visiting England,
France,
Belgium,
Holland and
Italy.
He had written me that there are too
many
men
posing
in the Senate
and the House as Democrats who
ought
to be seated across the aisle
with the
Republicans they
serve. He
expanded
on this theme this morn-
ing.
He
says
the Truman
Library
for the
housing
of all his
papers
is
progressing.
He has
arranged
for an office there for himself as
long
as
he lives after the
library
has been
given
to the Nation.
Commenting
330
POSTSCRIPT
on the
importance
of the Presidential
papers,
I told him that Charles
Evans
Hughes
had told me Mrs.
Harding
had
gone
to the White House
immediately
after
Harding's
death and
destroyed
all his
papers.
This
interested
Truman,
who had not known it. He had tried to see the
Harding papers
and could not find them.
I
suspect
he is
making
his
European journey, lasting
until the eve of
the Democratic
Convention,
to avoid
complications
and his involve-
ment.
Lexington, Kentucky, May 21, 1956
Arrived in
Lexington
about nine this
morning.
Until dark the train
jour-
ney
was
delightful
because of the vivid
greenery
and the woods. Hoi-
man Hamilton met me at the station and took me to the
Lafayette
Hotel. After lunch he drove me about town and I
thought Lexington
fascinating
and
beautiful,
rich in historical association.
Impressive
to
me the
large
number of fine old
Georgian
mansions a
century
and
more old. I had not realized that
Jefferson
Davis had attended
college
here before
going
to West Point until a
three-story
brick residence
painted
white was
pointed
out to me as his
lodging place.
Nor did I
realize that Mrs. Lincoln had her education here till I was shown the
large
brick house that was a
girls'
school when she was a student here.
At
six-thirty
back to the
Lafayette
Hotel to the Gold
Room,
where
I
spoke
for an hour on the aftermath of the Civil War. This was on the
program
of the Civil War Roundtable. The
speech
went off well and
will be
published.
After the lecture a dozen
very congenial
men took
me to the attractive home of Holman
Hamilton,
where we
ate,
drank
and
swapped
stories until late.
August 26, 1956
Saw the convention on television more
completely
than if I had been
in it. Candidates for President were nominated. The best
speech
made
by
Senator
Kennedy
of
Massachusetts,
who nominated Stevenson.
November
77, 1956
Yesterday
went
by
train to Princeton to
speak
at a dinner
arranged by
Professor
Monroe,
of the Woodrow Wilson School of International
Studies at the
university,
on how to remove the barriers to understand-
ing
between the Latin Americans and the North Americans. I was met
at the
station,
put up
at the Princeton
Inn,
and
immediately
driven to
331
POSTSCRIPT
the Nassau Tavern for cocktails before dinner there. At the cocktail
party
I found Hallet
Johnson,
my
counselor in Madrid. He is
living
in
Princeton in the former house of the late
university president.
Also
there was Dr. Whittaker from
Pennsylvania University.
. . . The din-
ner was excellent. Dr. Whittaker
presided
and made a
generous
intro-
duction.
My speech
went over
satisfactorily.
. . .
January 4,
Eduardo
Irarrazaval,
who was Gonzalez Videla's last
Foreign
Minister
and who has been here
undergoing
an
eye operation, phoned
me
yester-
day
and I had an
interesting
visit with him for an hour and a half at the
Gotham Hotel. Our chat
ranged
over old incidents when I was ambassa-
dor. He is
pessimistic
over the fate of the Klein
plan
to
put
Chile on its
economic and financial feet. The Minister of
Economy
in office at first
was
completely
in accord with the Klein
plan,
but
intrigue
entered in
and the Minister was removed. All
this,
together
with the
approaching
congressional
elections
there,
adds to the confusion. It was a
pleasure
to see this
very
able,
courageous,
honest man with whom I had the
most
perfect
relations.
January
This
evening
Gonzalez
Videla,
President of Chile from
1946
to
1952,
and his wife came to call. He looks
chipper
and
happy
and his beautiful
wife never was more attractive.
They say
that the cost of
living
in
Chile is so
high they
marvel how the
poor
can eat. He
says
the
political
parties
that lost
public
confidence,
making easy
the election of
Ibafiez,
have
by
no means recovered that
confidence,
but he took
exception
to
my suggestion
that with
parties
out dictators come
in,
by saying
the
Chileans are
democratic and would not tolerate a
dictatorship.
The fine
housing
projects
so
wonderfully sponsored by
Mrs. Gonzalez
Videla,
she tells
me,
are
making
no
progress
because of increased costs. . . .
He
brought
me a
photograph
of himself in his Presidential
regalia,
flat-
teringly
inscribed.
Marie,
the
cook,
who
usually
serves us dinner at
6:30,
did not
get away
until
8:30.
February 28,
Had a
very
interesting
visitor for three hours this afternoonDoris
Dana,
the
companion
and friend of Gabriela
Mistral,
who died
recently,
making
Miss Dana her executor. She had been with Gabriela Mistral in
332
POSTSCRIPT
Rome and
Mexico,
and here Gabriela lived in Miss Dana's house on
Long
Island. She corrected not a few
myths.
I knew that Chile had made
the
poetess
a consul for life with
permission
to choose her own
posts,
but I did not know that Chile at first overlooked the matter of
salary
until
Unamuno,
the
Spanish
philosopher,
made an
open protest.
I had
assumed the
press story
that she chose Gabriela for a name because of
her admiration for D'Annunzio was
true,
but the
story
was not true
and she hated
D'Annunzio.
I was told that her
biography
will be written
by
the brilliant Chilean
literary
critic,
Hernan Diaz
Arrieta,
who
signs
his criticisms "Alone."
He was a
great
friend of Gabriela Mistral and in Rome
stayed
for two
months with her and Miss Dana.
When the Nobel Prize
money
came the
poetess
wished most of it
allotted to
charity,
with a
good part
for the
village
of her
birth,
where
most of the
people
were
miserably poor,
but in the distribution the
village
was left out and
got only
a few dolls for children. This distressed
her and she told Miss Dana she wished to be buried in this remote vil-
lage.
"If
they got
no
money they
at least shall
have
my
bones."
Miss Dana leaves for Chile in
April.
She said there is an enormous
amount of
unpublished
manuscript, including
a
long poem, descriptive
and
philosophic,
about Chile and its towns and cities.
Unhappily
she did
not like
Santiago
and this
appears
in the
poem.
She never felt comfor-
table there and rather feared it. She
preferred
the
provinces.
April 7,
Went to New Haven to take
part
in a
panel
discussion before the
John
Dewey Society
of Yale
University.
Since
everyone
is
traveling today
I was unable to
get
a
place
in the chair car and went in the
day
coach,
which was crowded. I was to be met at the
station,
but after
making
myself conspicuous
to attract the attention of
anyone looking
for
me,
without
effect,
I
got
Yale
by phone
and learned that the affair was to
be in
Dwight
Hall. Called a taxi and went to
Dwight.
There I found
the
pleasant young
man who missed me at the station and found the
affair was at
one-thirty
instead of one.
My young
friend took me to
a restaurant for lunch. ... I
spoke
first on the
panel
. . . Well re-
ceived. Professor
Harper
followed. Meanwhile Mr. Gerhard
Seger,
the German-born
journalist
now
living
here,
was lost en route. He
ap-
peared just
in time and he followed
my
line
exactly.
Then
questions
from the
students, keen, wise,
penetrating questions
that
promise
well
333
POSTSCRIPT
for the
oncoming generation.
. . . The
John
Dewey Society
is
doing
a fine
job
on the
young
men at Yale. I was
deeply impressed by
them.
May 28,
This
evening
went to Columbia
University
for a
reception
for Eduardo
Santos,
former President of Colombia and editor of a
great
newspaper
at
Bogota.
He went into exile when the
dictatorship
took over and stole
his
paper,
and now with the
victory
for
democracy
in the
overthrow
of the dictator he is on his
way
back. I recalled to him the dinner I
gave
in
Santiago
in his honor on the
night
of the
1944
election
here,
since he
had
expressed
a wish to
get
the returns on American soil.
[My father's
last
book,
Chile
Through Embassy
Windows,
did not
ap-
pear
until
February 1958,
a month
after
his death.
However,
a
Spanish
translation was
published
in Chile in
July 1957. My father
loved Chile
and said
so,
and the Chileans
deluged
him with letters
of appreciation.
A street in the
capital
was named
for him,
and a
-foundation
to
help
poor
students was set
up by
Chileans and
given
his name. The
University of
Chile invited him to come to
Santiago
as a
guest
and to
give
a lecture in the Hall
of
Honor
of
the
university. My father
was
delighted
and
deeply
touched. He
hoped
to be able to
accept
the invi-
tation to
go
to Chile later in the
year,
but his health did not
permit
his
making
the
trip.
He died on
January 21, 1958,
at the
age of seventy
-nine.
A little over a
year
before,
on his
birthday,
he wrote the
following
in
his
diary.}
November
20, 1956
Seventy-eight years ago
in the little
Quaker
town of Westfield in Ham-
ilton
County,
Indiana,
I was born into a home
sorely
stricken
by
the
death of
my
idolized
four-year-old
sister
just
one week before. I am
afraid there was no hilarious
celebration over
my
advent. The
seventy-
eight years
since have had
many lights
and shadows.
Happily
I
enjoyed
the
lights
and never mourned over the shadows. The world on which
I
opened
my eyes
then
passed long ago.
. . . Two terrible wars have
been
fought
in those
years
and ancient
monarchical
dynasties
have
faUen and out of Russia has come
Communism. . . . And
now,
with
the
hydrogen
bomb
ready
to
demolish cities like New York and Lon-
don and to
exterminate the
human
race,
it is not
stupid
to conclude
that we are not
moving forward,
for the new Dark
Age
casts a shadow
on the
happiness
of man.
334
POSTSCRIPT
My
health is
good exceedingly good
for
my age, though fifty-five
years
ago
I could not
get
life insurance, I sit at
my typewriter
writing
books,
articles and
speeches
as
forty years ago,
and I
get just
as much
thrill out of
my
work now as I did then.
335
Index
Abbot, Willis, 219
Adams,
Franklin
P., 109
Adams,
Wayman,
168
Aguirre,
Jose
Antonio, 325
Alderman,
President
(University
of
Virginia),
1
34, 135, 192
Aldrich,
Nelson
W.,
68
Alfonso
XIII,
King,
271, 275
Alhambra, 274
All That Glitters Is Not
Gold,
8
American
Academy
of Arts and
Letters, 172, 224
American
Tragedy, An, 156-157, 159,
162, 183
Anderson, Maxwell,
109
Arabian
Nights, 325
Archer, William, 83
Ariel, 199
Arliss,
George,
129
Astor
Library, 127
Asturias, 270
Atherton, Gertrude,
238
Atlanta
Journal, 239
Atlantic
Monthly, 95
"Authoritative Pronouncements of
Democratic
Principles,"
197
Avila,
Spain,
274
Azafia, Manuel, 268, 277, 279,
280
Bailey, Joseph
W.,
69-70
Baker,
Frank
P., 46-47
Baker,
Newton
D., 128, 212, 225-226,
236
Baker,
Ray
Stannard, 125
Balfour, Arthur, 130
Barkley,
Alben
W., 186, 244
Barnard,
George Gray, 41
Baruch, Bernard, 125,
186, 215,
222,
329
Beck, James M., 104-106, 127
Benavente, Jacinto, 278
Benet,
William
Rose, 165
Ben-Hur,
22
Bennett, Arnold, 83
Beveridge,
Albert
J., 14, 19, 24, 26, 27-
28, 44, 60, 64-65, 95-96, 97-99,
102, 103-104,
106, 126, 127, 128,
218
Beveridge,
Mrs. Albert
J., 218-219
Bibesco,
Prince
Antoine,
272
Bibesco,
Princess
Elizabeth,
272, 274
Black,
Hugo,
180, 198, 324
Blaine, James G., 55
Blair,
Frank
P.,
102
Bobbs,WiU,
168
Boland,
Harry,
99
Boone
County,
Indiana, 2, 9
Borah,William
Edgar,
73, 76, 127,
2
37
Boston
Globe, 123
Boston
Herald, 104
Boston
Transcript, 127
Bowers,
Christopher,
2, 5-6
Bowers,
Claude
appointed
Ambassador to
Spain,
262
337
INDEX
Bowers,
Claude
(cont.)
attacked
by press
in
Chile, 309
beginning
of
political
career, 57-65
boyhood,
1-26
defeat as a
youthful publisher,
32-
33
early literary project,
27-33
editorial writer for
Indianapolis
Sentinel, 40
editorial writer on Fort
Wayne
Journal-Gazette, 91
education, 34-48
engaged
to
Sybil
McCaslin,
68
extracts from
diary, 320-335
family background,
i, 2, 5-7, 9
first novel
rejected,
51-52
first
political
disillusionment, 45-46
Franco
press
and, 280,
281
friendship
with Franklin D. Roose-
velt, 249-252
impressions
of
Chile, 304-305
interest in the Irish
leaders, 99-101
introduction to
newspaper
work,
40
marriage,
68
nominated for
Congress,
57-59
resigns
as Ambassador to
Chile,
317
youth, 27
ff.
Bowers,
Mrs.
Claude, 68, 114,
116,
132, 160, 162, 164,
211, 243, 280,
326
Bowers,
Gertrude
(sister), i,
7, 334
Bowers, Juliet (mother), 7
Bowers,
Lewis
(father), 7
Bowers,
Patricia
(daughter),
211, 320
Boyd,
Ernest,
166
Brandeis, Louis, 75, 289
Breckinridge,
William C.
P., 14, 37
Breen, Pat, 99
Bricker, John, 298
Brill, Abraham, 164
British
Eloquence, 36
Brougham,
Lord,
27
Broun,
Heywood, 109
Bryan,
William
Jennings, 14, 42, 43-
47 86-87, 120-122,
188
Bryan,
Mrs. William
Jennings, 86-87
Bryce,
John, 214
Buckley,
Charles
A., 141
Bulwark, The, 172
"Burial of Count
Orgaz,
The,"
273
Burke,
Frank
B., 37-38
Butler,
Nicholas
Murray,
129, 134,
191,210,215,242-243
Butler, Sarah, 191
Byrd, Harry, 236, 244
Byrd,
Richard, 312
"Cabbages
and
Kings," 91
Cain, James M.,
no
Callahan, Dan,
99-100
Cannon, Joe,
61-62
Cardenas, Ambassador,
262
Caro, Jose Maria, 303, 314-315, 319
Casement,
Roger, 82-85
Catholic
Church, 121, 201-203,
20
4>
257,271,279
CEDA,
the Catholic
party, 269-270,
279-280
Cerda,
Aguirre, 306-308
Chamberlin,
Clarence
D., 143
Chautauqua corporation, 104
Chesterton, Gilbert, i, 83, 217
Chicago News,
no
Chile, 198, 304-319
Chile
Through Embassy Windows,
334
Choate,
Joseph
H., 75
Christian Science
Monitor, 219
Churchill, Winston,
215-217, 298, 301
Cincinnati
Enquirer,
60
Cincinnati
Post, 77
Civil
War,
126
Clark,
Champ, 37, 89, 152
Clark,
Mrs.
Champ,
202
Clark,
Grace
Julian, 209
Clay, Henry,
66,
67
Clayburgh,
Alma, 172, 238
Clemenceau,
Georges
E.
B., 130
338
INDEX
Cleveland,
Grover
S., 7, 8, 18, 41, 42,
105
Cobb, Frank, 106, 107
Gobbet,
William, 103
Cockran, Bourke, 14, 45
Cohalen,
Daniel
F., 99
Colby,
Bainbridge,
120, 226, 229-230
Columbia
University,
191, 327
"Commoner, The,"
see
Bryan,
Wil-
liam
Jennings
Congress
of All the American Re-
publics,
327
Congressional
Library,
132
"Conning
Tower, The," 109
Conqueror,
The, 238
Coolidge,
Calvin, 135, 136, 138
Cornell, Katharine, 257-258
Cornfield, The, 30
Cornhill
Magazine, 30
Costello, Patricia,
329
Coudert,
Amelia
Kiissner, 50
Coughlin,
Father,
261
Cox, James
M., 94,
126, 188, 235, 299-
300
Coxey's Army, 42
Crawford,
William
H.,
118
"Cuba
Libre," 30
Cummings,
Homer
S.,
120
Curie, Madame, 144
Curley,
Will, 233
Curran, John Philpot,
36,
8 1
Current
History,
210
Curry,
John F., 253
Curtis,
Cyrus,
216
Dana, Doris, 332-333
Daniels,
Josephus,
121
Daughters
of the
Confederacy,
143
Davidson, Jo, 73,
211,
307
Davis, Jefferson, 331
Davis, John
W., 105, 122-124, 127,
129, 176,
1
80, 216, 222, 235, 244-
M5
Davis, Norman, 129,
222
Davis,
Richard
Harding,
44
Dawes,
Charles Gates, 135, 138-139
Debs,
Eugene
V., 50, 52-56,
101-102
Declaration
of
Independence,
135
Democratic
Editorial Association,
224
Democratic
Party, 7, 35, 37, 4
6
57>
6o
>
62-64, 69-72, 75, 79-81,
92-95, 96-
97,
102, 105,
in, 112-124, 145,
149-152, 173-181, 185-189,
192,
195-197, 199-201,
210-212,
220-
221, 226-227, 229, 230, 235-238,
239-246, 252-255,
256,
260, 285,
289-290, 294-295, 296, 298-299
Democratic
Sentinel, 40, 41
Depew,
Chauncey
M., 14
De
Valera, Eamon, 99-101
Devoy,
John, 84-86, 99
De
Wolfe, Elsie,
181
Dewey, George,
44
Dewey,
Thomas, 298
Diaz, Porfirio,
18
Dodd,
William
E., 103-104, 127
Donnan, Laura, 34-36
Dos
Passos, John, 267
Dougherty,
Cardinal, 312
Douglas, Stephen
A.,
66
Doyle,
Michael
Francis,
261
Dreiser,
Theodore, 49,
121, 152, 153-
172, 183, 223-224, 239, 326
Dresser, Paul, 49, 153,
1 68
Dublin, Ireland, 82, 84-85
Dulles, John
Foster, 320
Duncan, John
S.,
20-21
Dunn, Jacob
Piatt, 40
Easter Rebellion,
82-86
Eastman, Max, 169
Eaton,
Peggy,
67
Ederle, Gertrude, 144
Edinburgh Review,
26, 27, 33
Edwards,
Agustin,
328
Edwards, Chavela, 326
Eisenhower,
Dwight
D., 317-318, 322
El
Greco, 273, 274
Encyclopedia
of American
Biog-
raphy,
1 8
English
Theatre,
15, 217
339
INDEX
Estrada, Genaro, 272
Everett, William, 37
Farley,
James A., 237-238, 245, 253-
254, 256, 260, 261, 285, 289, 296-
297, 298-299
Federalists, 157
Fenner, Oscar, 319
Fernandez,
Joaquin,
297, 301-302,
308
Field,
Eugene, 53
Fine, Ben, 322
Finley,
John, 134, 219
Financier
y The, 169
Fischer, Alice, 50, 53
Flexner, Abraham,
326
Flood,
Henry, 87
Flynn,
Ed, 204, 206, 290
Foley, Surrogate,
186,
187, 189, 231,
232
Ford,
Ford
Madox, 164-165
Ford,
Henry, 135
Fort
Wayne,
Indiana, 21, 78, 91, 95,
99,
101
Fort
Wayne, Journal-Gazette, 90, 91,
103, 106, 153
Franco, Francisco, 293
Franklin, Indiana, 46
Franklin,
Sidney, 267
Friends of Irish
Freedom, 99,
100
Fulbright,
J. William, 325
Gaelic
American, 84
Galsworthy,
John, 83
Gannett, Lewis,
128
Garfteld, James R., 242-243
Garner, Jack, 235, 236, 240, 241, 247,
254-255
Gaujot,
Ernest, 76
Genius, The, 153, 154, 156
Gentleman
-from Indiana, The, 23, 24
Gerard, James W.,
185, 187
Gerry,
Peter
Goelet, 186,
226
Gibboney,
Stuart
G., 133
Gibbons, Cardinal,
81-82
Gladstone,
William
E.,
257
Glass, Carter, 94-95, 116,
131, 180,
222
Glynn,
Martin, 189
Gold Medal for
Literature, 172, 224
Gonzalez
Videla, Gabriel,
309, 310,
311, 317, 332
Gonzalez
Videla,
Mrs.
Gabriel,
332
Gooding,
David,
47
Grahame,
George, 271
Granada,
Spain, 274
Grant,
Percy, 165
Gray,
Isaac
Pusey, 17-18
Greenslet, Ferris, 104, 219
Greenwich
Village, 155, 158, 159
Griffiths, John L., 19-20,
26
Guffey, Joseph
F., 142
Guggenheim,
Simon,
216
Hamilton, Alexander, 39, 126,
134,
139, 195, 196
Hamilton, Holman,
193, 331
Hamilton
County,
Indiana, i,
334
Hanna, Mark, 46
Hansen,
Harry,
no
Hapgood,
Norman, 233
Harcourt, Alfred,
198
Harding,
Warren
G., 102, 112,
193
Harding,
Mrs. Warren
G.,
33
1
Harriman,
Daisy, 324
Harris, Frank,
160
Harrison,
Benjamin, 7, 8, 17, 20, 27-
29, 3> 32, 35
Harrison, P.,
117,
228
Harrison,
William
Henry, 49, 67
Hawes,
Harry
B., 181,
186
Hawley, Congressman,
221
Hearst,
William
Randolph,
107, 233-
234, 241
Heaton,
John, 108, 112,
127, 128, 231
Held, Anna,
16-17
Hemingway,
Ernest,
267, 320, 329
Hendricks,
Thomas
A.,
59
Hennessy,
M., 123
Henry,
Prince
(Germany), 67
Hibben, Paxton,
15-16
Hill, Isaac,
197
340
INDEX
History of
the
Girondins, 315
Hitler,
Adolph,
279, 281-283
Hoey,
James A., 174
Hoover, Herbert, 149, 150, 198, 200,
237, 312
Hopkins,
Sis,
see
Melville,
Rose
House,
Edward
Mandell,
129, 130-
13^,235
House
of
a Thousand
Candles, The,
25
Houston, Texas, 35, 192-198
Howe, Louis, 239, 246, 255
HuU, Cordell, 97, 119, 185, 186, 238,
239, 245,
260, 262,
263,
282, 283,
286-287, 289, 291, 292, 293, 295-
296, 301, 302
Hurley,
Pat, 259
Hurst, Fannie, 325-326
Ibaiiez, Carlos, 319
Ickes,
Harold
L., 289
Inclan, Valle, 278
Indianapolis,
Indiana, 13-26, 41-44,
.
47
Indianapolis
Journal, 3, 40
Indianapolis
News, 3, 14
Indianapolis
Sentinel, 3, 40, 41, 43, 46
Indianapolis
Star, 127
Ingersoll,
Robert
G., 36-37
International Book
Review, 127
International
Telephone
and Tele-
graph Corporation,
263-264
Irarrazaval, Eduardo, 324, 332
Irish-American Historical
Society,
257
Irish
Orators, The, 82, 89, 99, 270
Irish
Volunteers, 85
Irvington,
Indiana, 38
Jackson, Andrew, 67,
102,
157, 178-
179, 192
Jackson,
Robert
H., 295
Jacksonian
Democracy, 102-103, 176,
178-180
James, Ollie, 70-72,
81
Jarpa,
Ernesto
Barros, 308, 319
Jefferson, Thomas, 39, 102, 126, 133,
i35, 157, 175, 179, 195, i9^ 328
Jefferson
and
Hamilton, 73, 105, 124,
125-129, 134, 135, 138, 143, 177,
238,244,249
Jefferson
Centennial
Commission,
J35> 136*
r
3
8
^
Jefferson Foundation,
128
Jefferson
in
Power, 267, 290
Jeffersonian Democracy,
102, 105,
119-120, 135, 176, 179-180, 185,
195-196,
200
Jeffersonian Democrat, 39
Jennie Gerhardt, 156
Joffre, Marshal, 130, 131
John Dewey Society, 333-334
Johnson, Andrew,
208-210
Jolietville, Indiana,
i
Jones, Jesse, 193
Jones, Mother, 77-79
Johnson, Hallet, 332
Joss, F., 24
Jimenez, Juan Ramon, 278
Julian,
George
W., 38-39, 209
Jusserand, Jules, 212-215
Kahn, Otto, 166,
168
Kearney,
Phil, 183
Kendall, Amos,
102
Kennedy,
John F., 331
Kent, Victoria,
323
Kentucky
Resolution,
126
Kern, John W., 40, 46, 48, 60, 62-65,
70,76-81,83,87-89,214
Key,
Pittman, 181, 186, 189, 190
King,
Rufus, 148
Kings College,
126
King's Henchman, The,
166
Kirby,
Rollin,
1
10, 23
1
Kitchen
Cabinet,
102
Koshetz, Nina, 167
Krock, Arthur, 106, 108, 148
KuKluxKlan, 112-113, 114, 119-121,
203, 205
Kuper,
Theodore
Fred, 133, 322, 324
34*
INDEX
La
Follette, Fola,
211
LaFollette,
Robert
M., 72-73,
211
Lamb, John E., 53, 55-57, 62-64, 7
1
Langsdale, George, 19, 27, 43
Lasky,
Jesse L.,
128
League
of
Nations, 91-93, 94-95* 99,
100, 144, 236, 276, 277, 299-300
Leahy,
Admiral,
322
Lebanon, Indiana, 2,
7,
10,
1
1,
39
Lehman,
Herbert
H., 244, 253, 299
Leibel, Vincent, 145, 147
Lerroux,
Alejandro, 268-270, 278-
280
Levy, Jefferson M., 132, 133
Lewis, James Hamilton, 70-71, 72,
124, 250
Lincoln, Abraham, 98, 196, 209
Lindbergh,
Charles
A.,
143, 144
Lippmann,
Walter, 108, 195
Literary
Guild,
152,
210, 219
Littleton, Martin,
132
Littleton,
Mrs.
Martin, 132, 133
Lloyd George,
David, 5, 130, 217, 294
Lodge, Henry
Cabot, 33, 39, 69-70,
74, 96, 139
London
Times, 131, 132
Long, Huey, 246-248
Longworth,
Alice
Roosevelt, 192,
225, 324
Longworth, Nicholas, 135,
221
Louisville Courier-
Journal,
108
Love, Tom,
114
Lucrece, 257-258
Lula the
Pauper,
8
Lyons, Father, 134
MacArthur,
Douglas
A.,
317
Mack, Norman, 185, 256
MacManus,
M.
J.,
100
Madariaga,
Salvador
de, 41
Madison,
Dolley, 67
Madison, James, 126,
133
Madrid,
265-268, 270, 271-272, 274-
276
Madrid,
University
of,
274-275
Magnificent Ambersons, The, 14, 23-
24,26
Maine, 44
Major,
Charles, 25
Man Who Came to
Dinner,
The, 109
Manning, 134, 135
Marbury,
Elisabeth,
181-184,
l8
7, 235
Marie, Queen
of
Romania,
144
Marion
Club,
61
Marlowe, Julia, 25
Marshall, T.,
90, 93-94
Marshall,
Thomas
R., 62-64
Martin, Tom, 70
Martine, Senator,
82
Martinet, Sadie,
15
Masaryk, 163
Masters,
Edgar
Lee,
222-224
Maurois, Andre, 199
McAdoo,
William
Gibbs,
86-87,
112-
113, 114, 115-117, 121,
125, 127,
130, 149-151. 212-213, 245-246
McCarthy, Joseph, 248
McCaslin,
Sybil,
see
Bowers,
Mrs.
Claude
McCormick,
Anne
O'Hare,
322
Melville, Rose, 50
Mencken,
Henry,
162
Merz,
Charley,
108
Meyer, Eugene,
222
Michelson, Charles, 224
Midwest
Portraits,
no
Military
Park,
Indianapolis, 44
Millay,
Edna St.
Vincent,
166
Miller,
Joaquin,
28,
30-32
Mills,
Ogden, 243, 256
Mistral, Gabriela,
322-323, 332-333
Mitchell, Charles,
216
Mitchell,
William
D., 259
Moley, Raymond, 252,
260
Monroe, James,
239
Monsieur
Beaucaire, 24
Monticello, 132, 133
Montpelier, 133
Moody,
Mrs. W.
V.,
223
Morgan, J.
Pierpont, 75-76
Morgenthau,
Henry, 259
342
INDEX
Morse,
Samuel
M., 40
Moscowitz, Belle,
228
Munsey,
Frank, 230
Murphy,
Charles,
188
Murphy,
Frank, 255
Mussolini, Benito, 279,
281,
282
My Crystal
Ball
y
182
My
Mission to
Spain, 329
National
Recovery
Act
(NRA), 285,
287, 288-289
Neidlinger's
Hall, 45
Nevins, Allan, in, 222,
326
New, John G, 40
New
Republic, 73, 108, 127
New York
Evening Post,
216
New York Herald
Tribune, 104, 127,
128, 162, 164, 176
New York
Journal, 233
New York
Times, 104, 108, in, 140,
143, 150, 152, 219, 231, 316, 322
New York
World, 40, 94, 106, 107-
110, in, 125, 126, 127, 129, 143,
145-147, i54-
J
55> i77
l8
7> !94>
197,
200, 210, 214, 229, 230, 231-
232, 250
Nicholson, Meredith,
25,
180
Niezer, Charles,
100
Nobel Prize for
Literature, 278
Normand, Mabel, 158
Occidental
Literary
Club, 53
Ochs,
Adolph,
231, 232
O'Connell, Daniel, 257
Oliver, Frank, 141, 171,
201
Olney,
Richard, 42
"On the Banks of the
Wabash," 153
Owens,
Ruth
Bryan,
244
Paderewski,
I.
J., 129, 130
Palma,
Arturo
Alessandri, 313-314
Parker,
Alton
B.,
57, 79-80
Parker,
Dorothy, 326
Parnell,
Charles
S., 257
Party
Battles
of
the
Jackson Period,
The, 103-104, 105, 125, 152, 225,
249
Payne,
John Barton, 131
Payne-
Aldrich, Robert, 72-73
Pearl
Harbor, 307
Pearse, Padhraic, 84-85
Pena,
Hugo, 319
Penna, Phil, 51
Penrose, Boise,
73, 78
Pericelli, 239
Philadelphia
Public
Ledger, 127
Phillips,
Wendell, 55
Phillips,
William,
262
Pierre
Vergniaud:
Voice
of
the
French
Revolution, 315
Pittman,
Key, 292
Plunkett,
Sir
Horace, 84
Polk, Frank,
83-84,
86
Pollard, Harold, in, 144
Pollard,
Crystal
Herne, 144
Porcupine's Gazette, 103
Porter,
Albert
G., 17
Postman
Always Rings Twice, The,
IlO-Ill
Prince
of India, The,
22
Progressive (Bull Moose)
Party, 230
Prohibition, 62, 94-95, 115, 144, 146,
147, 149-150, 187-190, 229, 243
Proskauer,
Joseph
H., 186, 187, 188,
189, 190
Pulitzer, Herbert,
231
Pulitzer,
Joseph,
107,
128, 231
Pulitzer,
Ralph,
106, 108-109,
122-
123, 187, 197, 232
Pulitzer
Building,
The,
107
Pulitzer
Prize, 127
Quintanilla, Luis,
320, 326
Ralston,
Samuel
M., 11-12, 39-40, 93,
97H3
Ralston,
Mrs. Samuel
M., 97
Raskob, John J., 199
Rayburn,
Sam, 244, 255, 316
Reed, James A.,
70-71, 87,
88,
151,
181, 192.
343
INDEX
Reedy,
William
Marion, 223
Reinhardt, Max,
166
Republican Party, 7, 46, 59,
68,
70, 72-
75, 95-9<5> 98, ioo, 105, 112, 120,
150, 173, 175, 20O, 201, 208-210,
22O-22I, 298
Richards, Laura,
35-36
Richardson, Helen, 166-167, 169, 171
Riley,
James Whitcomb, 22, 26, 28,
3^-32,53
Ringling,
John,
206
Ringling
Brothers
Circus,
206
Rios, Juan Antonio,
301-302, 308, 309
Robinson,
Joseph
T., 199
Robles, Jose
Maria
Gil,
269-270, 279-
280
Roosevelt, Eleanor, 235, 251, 253, 259-
260,
312,326-327
Roosevelt, Franklin, Jr.,
267
Roosevelt,
Franklin
D., 94, 119, 127,
145, 148-149, 177-178, 186, 210,
215, 227-228, 229, 235-238, 240-
246, 249-250, 251-253, 254, 256,
259, 260, 261-264, 281, 283, 285-
303
Roosevelt, Nicholas, 104
Roosevelt, Theodore, 20,
67, 68, 95,
192, 215, 229, 230
Root, Elihu,
74-75,
2 1 1-2 1 2
Roper,
Dan, 131, 239, 263, 289
Rose, David,
47
Rossa, O'Donovan, 84
Rossetti, Minister, 307
Russell,
Monsignor,
81
Ryan,
Thomas
Fortune,
135
St.-Jean-de-Luz,
280-281
Salisbury,
Robert
A., 30
Sandburg, Carl, 198
Sangamon Journal
(Springfield, IU.) 5
98
Santiago, Chile,
304-305
Santos, Eduardo,
327, 334
Saturday Evening Post,
216
Saturday's
Children, 109
Schoellkopf, Walter,
286
Schwab, Charlie,
216
Scudder, Janet, 50
Seabury, Judge, 240-241
Sells, Cato, 114
Seville,
Spain, 274
Seward,
William
H.,
67
Sharp,
William
G.,
212
Shaver, Clem, 176
Shortridge High School,
34, 35, 36,
39> 48
Shouse, Jouett, 224, 236, 244
Sickles,
Daniel
F.,
67
"Sidewalks of New
York, The,"
193,
206
Silver, James W., 321
Sinclair,
Upton, 250
Sister
Carrie, 153, 156,
162
Sketches
of My
Own
Times, 33
Smith, Al, 113, 119, 121,
145, 149-152,
i73~*75 i??-
1
?, 181,
187-191,
X
94>
I
97~
I
99 200-206, 222,
229,
2
33 235-236, 238, 243-246, 252,
253
Smith,
Mrs.
Al,
204-205
Smoot-Hawley
bill,
220
Smuts, Jan, 212,
222
Socialist
Party, 55,
101
Spain, 265-284, 291
Spaan, Henry
N.,
20-22
Spanish
Adventures
of Washington
Irving, The, 267
Spanish
Civil
War,
280-284, 291
Spanish Republic, 267-269, 276, 279-
280,
283, 284, 291
Speirs,
Janet,
320
Spellman,
Francis,
329
Spoon
River
Anthology, 222-223
Spring-Rice, Cecil,
83, 214
Stallings, Laurence, 109-110
Statute of
Virginia
for
Religious
Freedom,
133, 135
Steed, Wickham,
131, 132
Stevens, Thad, 142,
210
Stevenson,
Adlai
E.,
45
Stoic, The, 169, 171-172
Stone,
William
J., 87
344
INDEX
Strachey, Lytton,
104
Stryker,
Lloyd
Paul, 328
Sullivan,
Mark, 149, 150
Sulzberger,
Arthur
Hays,
322
Sulzberger, Cyrus,
322
Sulzer,
William, 188, 189
Swope,
Gerard,
216
Swope,
Herbert
Bayard,
106, 108,
216, 252
Taf
t,
William Howard, 68,
211-212
Taggart
organization,
46
Taggart,
T., 47, 64, 113
Tagore
(Hindu poet),
223
Tammany
Hall, 113, 141, 177,
182,
187, 230
Tanner,
Corporal,
10
Tarkington,
Booth, 14,
161
Taylor,
Deems,
166
Teapot
Dome
scandal, 71, 119
Tedeschini,
Cardinal, 270-271
Terre
Haute, Indiana, 48, 49-51, 56,
59, 153,
168
Terre Haute
Gazette, 48, 50
Terre Haute House, 50
Terre Haute
Star, 50, 57
Terre Haute
Tribune, 50
Thomas, Norman, 325
Thomas
Jefferson
Memorial Founda-
tion,
133
Thompson,
Genevieve,
202
Thompson,
Richard
W., 49
Thurman,
Allen
G.,
8
Tilden,
Samuel
J., 251
Titan, The, 156, 169
Toledo,
Spain,
273-274
Tomlinson's Hall
(Indianapolis),
13,
14, 19, 44, 45, 47
Tosca,
Joaquin,
305
Tragic Era, The, 127, 141, 152, 176,
181, 192,
208-210, 217,
220, 249
Trinity
Church, 134
Trout, Dave, 3-4
Truman,
Harry
S, 192, 283,
321-322, 330
Truman,
Mrs.
Harry
S, 321, 330
Truman, Margaret,
317
Tucker, Henry
St.
George,
239
Tumulty,
Joe, 94, 124
Turmoil, The,
161
Turpie,
David, 32-33
Turtle,
The
> 15-16
Twelve
Men, 156
Unamuno, 278
Uncle Tom's Cabin, 53
Underwood,
Oscar
W., 113,
122
United
Mine Workers, 76
United States
Chamber
of Com-
merce,
288
Untermyer,
Samuel, 75-76
Van Buren,
Martin, 67, 250
VanDoren, Carl, 152,
166, 219
Van Doren, Mark,
166
Vanderlip,
Frank, 259
Vergniaud, 324
Villa Alemana, Chile, 310
Vina del
Mar,
Chile, 3
1 1
Virginia,
University
of, 134, 135*
J
9
2
Virginia
Resolution,
126
Viviani, Rene, 130, 131
von Welczeck,
Count, 271
Voorhees,
Daniel W., 8, 49
Wadsworth, James
W., i44-
J
47
Wagner,
Harr, 30-31
Wagner,
Robert
F., 145-148,
l8l
186, 187, 189, 190, 232, 249,
252,
253
Walker, James,
144, 241, 244
Wallace,
Henry,
198, 312
Wallace, Lew,
22
Walsh, Frank,
166
Walsh,
Thomas
J., 70,
119, i34>
l8o
185, 204, 239, 244
Warburg,
Felix, 134, i35i
I
3
6
Warner Brothers, 127,
128, 129
Warrum, Henry,
37~3
8
> 47
Washington,
D.
G, 66-90
345
INDEX
Wassermann, Jakob,
166
Watson, James,
211
Watterson,
Henry,
108
Webster, Daniel, 66,
68
Weigel,
Father, 302
Welles, Stunner, 283, 292, 293, 301,
318
Westfield, Indiana, i, 334
What Price
Glory?,
no
Wheeler, Burt, 239
When
Knighthood
Was in
Flower,
25
While Rome
Burns, 109
White,
William
Allen, 251
Whitestown, Indiana, 2, n, 45
Wickersham,
George,
216
Williams, Dixon,
112
Williams, John
Sharp,
69-70, 74
Willkie, Wendell, 298
Wilson, Woodrow, 69, 79, 86-89, 92-
93, 94, 95, 96, 101,
107,
121, 122,
125, 130-132, 134-135* i44 I5
1
-
152, 212-215, 230, 299
Wilson,
Mrs.
Woodrow,
125, 131,
193.
J
94> 3
2
5
Women's National Democratic
Club,
22
5> 3
2
4
Woollcott, Alexander, 109
Woodward,
William
E., 165
Woolen, Evans, 323
World to
Win, A, 250
World's
Illusion, The,
166
Wylie,
Elinor, 165
Yale
University, 333-334
Yeats,
William
Butler, 256-257
Young Jefferson, 315
Zamora, Alcala, 267-268, 270
Zangwill,
Israel, 83
Zapallar,
Chile, 311
Zuloaga, Ignacio,
281-282
346
! COX I INUhD FROM FROM FLAP
|
and its
rediscovery
of
Jefferson
and
Jack-
son,
for which Bowers was
largely respon-
sible. In
1928,
he was
keynote speaker
and
chairman of the Democratic National
Convention.
Finally,
Bowers writes blunt-
ly
and
honestly
about the
foreign policy
of the New Deal. From
1933
until
1939.
when he
resigned,
he was U.S. Ambas-
sador to
Spain.
In
1939
he was
appointed
Ambassador to Chile where he served for
fourteen
years.
In these memoirs Bowers
brings
to life
dozens of
figures
who
shaped
the
politics
and the culture of his time.
Among
them
are
F.D.R.,
Al
Smith,
Cordell
Hull,
Harry
S.
Truman,
Theodore Dreiser all
of whom Bowers describes with unusual
humility
and
understanding.
Claude Bow-
ers had a rare
capacity
to see and under-
stand the
signs
of his own
times,
and his
record of them makes this a historical doc-
ument of
prime importance.
My Life
is
the last and most
personal
book of a writer
whose rank as a historian is
solidly
based
on such
major
books as The
Tragic Era,
Jefferson
and
Hamilton, forty
Battles
of
the
Jackson Period,
and
My
Mission to
Spain.
j
\CKI- i W<:SK;N BY BEX \ > f INC.,