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Show HI Presidential Campaigns Remembered By A Printer -1876 Ijl I By LeROY ARMSTRONG i; 3 qEEMS to mo the name of James lii'l i O G BlaIn llad Deen looming more !f and more large ever since the I war. Ho waB not one of the mad rav-agers rav-agers of tho south, and yet he was j very strong for the results of the war. Hl In the newer adjustment of affairs I? i that followed tho election of Grant H 1 for I1L3 second term, there was a grow- R ins demand or tlle civl arm of sov- Hfk I ernment; for a hetter relation with the Hi' 1 states of tho late confederacy. Those Hit I men of the south were just bo much l American that they did not placidly HI assimilate punishment. It really didn't Hit I make them love the flag to have it HP crammed down their throats, espe- HP dally after they had declared their Hif willingness to accept it as their sym- HI hoi, and to ohey the laws it repre- H ; sented. And in the rising tide of na- HlK tlonallsm, the north seemed to look mw to Blaine and his friends rather than fjf to the advisers of Grant for the bet- Hlf termcnt of the nation. jjf So that as the Republican national 11 convention approached tho belief be- Brl came very general that Blaine would Hpl be the candidate. K' It was conceded, I think, that Blaine Mm was the strongest man in his party; mm that he very much oversized any of Hfj the others. And yet the demand for H ! his nomination did not rest on the ne-Ma ne-Ma I cessity for the selection of the strong-1 strong-1 f est candidate in the party. It was H . not believed possible that the Demo- H crats could win. They wore going K forward very steadily, but there was H a fixed bel'of in Republican minds H that the war was still too near; that 1 the Democratic party had been too H, , much shattered by the events of tho Bj sixties; and that no matter what B their platform might be, and whoever B they should choose as their candidate, B ;' the Republicans would retain control B of the country. B I I was setting type in Massillon, 1 I Ohio, when tho Republican national convention waB held, and Robert G. Ingorsoll made that famous speetih, nominating Blaine. Of course, it was tho old days of typo in cases. We had no type-setting machines, no matter mat-ter how well equipped the office; and I caught the "take" which included Ingersoll'a splendid apostrophe to his hero, his reference to the "white plume of Navarre," and his remarkably stately peroration. There has been nothing quite so good, I think, even in national convention oratory, and that is a place where the very flower of oratory should be heard. The thing thrilled me as I put in into cold and unfeeling types, and my eyes filled with tears from very appreciation of the eloquenco of It, so that It was more by sight than by feeling that I found the boxes. For It would never 1 do to show sentiment in a printing office. Those fellows wore mighty cold and passionless people those days. And yet Blaine was not nominated. There was a strong current of strength against him. I can not say oven now whether his nomination sliould have been. Bu must be believed that his nomination would have saved our national history the blot of the Haye3-Tilden Haye3-Tilden controversy. The struggle was a mighty one, for the followers of Blaine were about tho most aggressive people then known to the political game. And nearly tho whole pavty of the nation stood ready to light the fires of political poli-tical enthusiasm when Blaine's triumph tri-umph should be announced. I remember remem-ber as wo went from the office that final evening It was an afternoon1 paper we saw the preparation for an all-night jubilation, an extemporized demonstration approving the action of tho national convention. And it was so all over the country. But when I went to work in the morning, and found Hayes had been named Instead, I heard expressions on every side like that dissipating, dispiriting dis-piriting fizzle of the rocket when the stick comes down. We knew Hayes, for he was governor, and he had friends, for he had defeated a mighty strong Democrat in his state. But he did not measure with the Plumed Knight, and there was no U3e protending protend-ing that he did. But he was the candidate, can-didate, and while printers, having no home, were not supposed to have any share in government, I know we did take an active interest in the coming election, and there was a growing debate de-bate in every assembling at the office. There was a growing sentiment of attention to the Democratic campaign, too. Men of capacity were in charge of Tilden's candidacy, and that wise old gentleman of Gramercy Square was himself conceded to be one of the strong men of the nation. It seemed ipo3sible the judgment of futures fu-tures would have to be reversed. That sentiment grow as the days passed. We read the "flimsy" on which tho telegraph was written, laying the separate sheets on a square of white cardboard, so the dark written lines would show through; and we read much more than the campaign managers man-agers had transmitted to the telegraphers. tele-graphers. We saw that Tilden was coming, and coming strong. I had lost a little, perhaps, of the religious sentiment sen-timent which at the beginning mixed with my political beliefs; so that there was a degree of admiration for the game so well played that a Democrat Dem-ocrat could win to the presidency in eleven years after the war. Add to that the disappointment at the defeat of Blaine, and tho consequent coolness for Hayes, and I think you have pretty nearly the view of the country's attitude the Republican attitude as the election approached. It was impossible to arouse the activity ac-tivity for Hayes that would have leaped spontaneous and unpurchased in tho service of Blaine. And, on the other hand, every faction of the Democrats had unitod in support of their candidate. They were good debaters, de-baters, and the character of their leadership lead-ership -iade disparagement lmpos sible. And so the election drew on. The nearer it came, the more fixed became the belief that the Democrats would win. And against that, on the very eve of the balloting, I heard for the first time that threat of keeping the presidency no matter which way the election went. It shocked me a good deal, and it made Republicans everywhere every-where wonder if it were rlgnt to reverse re-verse the will of the voters of the nation. We didn't sleep much those days. I had drifted to Altoona, Pa., and was working at night. The telegraph was all the news any one wanted in the papers, and they wanted all of that. And the best it could show them was that Tilden had certainly carried the country by a tremendous popular vote, and that he seemed to have a majority ma-jority in the electoral college. Even the bold statement of Mr. Chandler that "Hayes has 185 votes and is elected" did not convince any one. It was clear as day that if Florida Flor-ida and Louisiana had elected Democratic Demo-cratic governors, they had also chosen tho Tilden electors. And It waa equally clear that the Republican national na-tional committee had determined tc count those states for the Democratic state ticket, and for the Republican national ticket. And it didn't seem right. That is the iplain truth about the matter as it appealed to a printer in 187G. Because those people had voted on the one ballot. They did not scratch. They did not separate their candidates. candi-dates. They voted the Democratic ticket clear through. ' And if their candidates for governor were elocted, then Hayes did by no manner of means have the 185 electoral votes claimed by his managers. And all this without regard to Oregon's part in that memorable, loyalty-disturbing struggle. We tried to be indifferent, as printers print-ers will. We tried to pretend we didn't care; that it didn't make any difference to us. But it did. We were citizens of the nation. Most Republican Republi-can fellows, like myself, had been bred to the religious view. Our cause was righteous and we couldn't feel it was either possible or necessary to invoke anything but the everlasting right. And we did so confidently believe be-lieve in the nation that we would rather have seen the Democrats have control bitter as that would have been than to have retained the government gov-ernment by sharp practice or fraud. And I do not believe that was a journeyman printer's view alone I am sure it was the sentiment of the Republicans Re-publicans of the United States 'the people who had furnished the armies and the money for every victory that had been won under the Stars and Stripes. There were weary months of discussion, discus-sion, of bitterness, of ohargos and counter Qharges as the winter wore away; and that remarkable innovation, innova-tion, the -electoral commission, proceeded pro-ceeded with its labors. No one can read that now ancient record -? avoid tho conclusion that the Democrats Demo-crats had all the better of the argument. argu-ment. They certainly had elected their candidate for the Presidency, and nothing but the might of the party in power could take it away from them. Years later I heard Congressman Springer of Illinois excuse tho Demo- , cratic acquiescence in the verdict of the electoral commission by the state- i . ment that President Grant had trained I cannon on the capitol, and that if the Democrats had rebelled at any stage of the game, they would have been bombarded. Springer is dead; but his explanation neveir satisfied men of either party. In the first place, we felt it would have been better to be 3hot to pieces than to have permitted a national wrong. And then, we didn't believe President Grant would have done anything of the sort. But the whole matter was left to the electoral commission, made up of seven Democrats and eight Republicans; Republi-cans; and every question bearing on the Issues was dedded on a strict party vote. There could have been but one result. Hayes was declared elected. It was one of tho quizzical inci dents of the event that March 4 fell on a Sunday that year, and there was much discussion as to the legality of an inauguration on the Sabbath; so that the telegraph bore the surprising sur-prising statement that he had taken the oath tvflce and plenty of other statements that he had taken it three times, in order to be really president. The matter was settled, so far as the presidential succession was con-corned; con-corned; but there followed such a flood of passionate discissions as I have never known, not even in this fair year of 1912. The New York Sun led in the anti-Hayes crusade, and printed, his picture day after day with the word "Fraud" black across his broad and intellectual brow. One former Union general, always a Democrat, Demo-crat, made very public tender of his services at the head of ten thousand men to march to Washington and wrest the government by force from the party that could not hold it by votes. I But power, added to time, is a great 1 pacificator; and as the days passed ) the storm subsided, and the odminia-tration odminia-tration of Hayes became secure. There were some changes In federal offices that made enemies of men who had helped in the settlement. But maybe the party gained as much as it lost, foi the new blood was aggressive; aggres-sive; and there was another era of dragooning in the south an era that doesn't add anything to the glory of the party, nor to the good record of the nation. And yet, taken by and large, Hayes made a good President. He was by no means so strong as his counsellors. It reminded us of Llncqln's famous statement that he "didn't have any influence in-fluence with his administration." It was a grim jest In Lincoln's casa, for IBHIHEtarHHMHHHHHIIE he certainly was Prealdent all through his occupancy of that office. But it was no merry jest with Hayes. He could no more stand against his advisers ad-visers than the sunflower can stand erect before the storm. And as the close of his term approached ap-proached there was none so poor to do him the reverence of demanding his re-election. But that brings us to another Presidential campaign. For all this time the name of Grant was sounding in the ears of the nation. na-tion. The general was going around the world. He was the guest of king3 everywhere. He was far the most notable of Americans. His regime had been productive of pront for many who did neither him nor Mb party nor the service of the country any good. But his was a name to conjure with. And we who set the types for the papers knew that "the . man on horseback" was coming again. |
