Part 18

July 14, 1900.

See also the Federalist (Lodge's edition), 452. Bryce, Studies in History and Jurisprudence, 308.

American Commonwealth, I, 80.

A REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION

Address delivered at the annual meeting of the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and the Graduate Schools of Applied Science and Business Administration, Harvard University, on October 8, 1908; printed in the Century Magazine for October, 1909.

A REVIEW OF PRESIDENT HAYES'S ADMINISTRATION

Many of our Presidents have been inaugurated under curious and trying circumstances, but no one of them except Hayes has taken the oath of office when there was a cloud on his title. Every man who had voted for Tilden,—whose popular vote exceeded that of Hayes by 264,000,—believed that Hayes had reached his high place by means of fraud. Indeed, some of the Hayes voters shared this belief, and stigmatized as monstrous the action of the Louisiana returning board in awarding the electoral vote of Louisiana to Hayes. The four men, three of them dishonest and the fourth incompetent, who constituted this returning board, rejected, on the ground of intimidation of negro voters, eleven thousand votes that had been cast in due form for Tilden. In the seventh volume of my history I have told the story of the compromise in the form of the Electoral Commission which passed on the conflicting claims and adjudged the votes of the disputed states, notably Florida and Louisiana, to Hayes, giving him a majority of one in the electoral college, thus making him President. When the count was completed and the usual declaration made, Hayes had no choice but to abide by the decision. Duty to his country and to his party, the Republican, required his acceptance of the office, and there is no reason for thinking that he had any doubts regarding his proper course. His legal title was perfect, but his moral title was unsound, and it added to the difficulty of his situation that the opposition, the Democrats, had a majority in the House of Representatives. None but a determined optimist could have predicted anything but failure for an administration beginning under such conditions.

Hayes was an Ohio man, and we in Ohio now watched his successive steps with keen interest. We knew him as a man of high character, with a fine sense of honor, but we placed no great faith in his ability. He had added to his reputation by the political campaign that he had made for governor, in 1875, against the Democrats under William Allen, who demanded an inflation of the greenback currency. He took an uncompromising stand for sound money, although that cause was unpopular in Ohio, and he spoke from the stump unremittingly and fearlessly, although overshadowed by the greater ability and power of expression of Senator Sherman and of Carl Schurz, who did yeoman's service for the Republicans in this campaign. Senator Sherman had suggested Hayes as candidate for President, and the nomination by the Republican national convention had come to him in June, 1876. While his letter of acceptance may not have surprised his intimate friends, it was a revelation to most of us from its outspoken and common-sense advocacy of civil service reform, and it gave us the first glimmering that in Rutherford B. Hayes the Republicans had for standard bearer a man of more than respectable ability.

His inaugural address confirmed this impression. He spoke with dignity and sympathy of the disputed Presidency, promised a liberal policy toward the Southern states, and declared that a reform in our civil service was a "paramount necessity." He chose for his Cabinet men in sympathy with his high ideals. William M. Evarts, the Secretary of State, was one of the ablest lawyers in the country. He had been one of the leading counsel in the defense of President Johnson in the impeachment trial, and had managed the Republican cause before the Electoral Commission with adroitness and zeal. John Sherman, the Secretary of the Treasury, was the most capable financier in public life. Carl Schurz, the Secretary of the Interior, was an aggressive and uncompromising reformer, who had served the Republican party well in the campaigns of 1875 and 1876. If these three men could work together under Hayes, the United States need envy the governors of no other country. They were in the brilliant but solid class, were abreast of the best thought of their time, had a solemn sense of duty, and believed in righteous government. Devens, the Attorney-General, had served with credit in the army and had held the honorable position of Justice of the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts. Thompson of Indiana, Secretary of the Navy, was a political appointment due to the influence of Senator Morton, but, all things considered, it was not a bad choice. McCrary of Iowa, as Secretary of War, had been a useful member of the House of Representatives. The Postmaster-General was Key of Tennessee, who had served in the Confederate army and voted for Tilden. This appointment was not so genuine a recognition of the South as would have been made if Hayes could have carried out his first intention, which was the appointment of General Joseph E. Johnston as Secretary of War. Considering that Johnston had surrendered the second great army of the Confederacy only twelve years before, the thought was possible only to a magnanimous nature, and in the inner circle of Hayes's counselors obvious and grave objections were urged. General Sherman doubted the wisdom of the proposed appointment, although he said that as General of the army he would be entirely content to receive the President's orders through his old antagonist. Although the appointment of Johnston would have added strength, the Cabinet as finally made up was strong, and the selection of such advisers created a favorable impression upon the intelligent sentiment of the country; it was spoken of as the ablest Cabinet since Washington's.

A wise inaugural address and an able Cabinet made a good beginning, but before the harmonious cooperation of these extraordinary men could be developed a weighty question, which brooked no delay, had to be settled. The Stevens-Sumner plan of the reconstruction of the South on the basis of universal negro suffrage and military support of the governments thus constituted had failed. One by one in various ways the Southern states had recovered home rule until, on the inauguration of Hayes, carpet-bag negro governments existed in only two states, South Carolina and Louisiana. In both of these the Democrats maintained that their candidates for governor had been lawfully elected. The case of South Carolina presented no serious difficulty. Hayes electors had been rightfully chosen, and so had the Democratic governor, Hampton. But Chamberlain, the Republican candidate, had a claim based on the exclusion of the votes of two counties by the board of state canvassers. After conferences between each of the claimants and the President, the question was settled in favor of the Democrat, which was the meaning of the withdrawal of the United States troops from the State House in Columbia.

The case of Louisiana was much more troublesome. Packard, the Republican candidate for governor, had received as many votes as Hayes, and logic seemed to require that, if Hayes be President, Packard should be governor. While the question was pending, Blaine said in the Senate: "You discredit Packard, and you discredit Hayes. You hold that Packard is not the legal governor of Louisiana, and President Hayes has no title." And the other leaders of the Republican party, for the most part, held this view. To these and their followers Blaine applied the name "Stalwarts," stiff partisans, who did not believe in surrendering the hold of the Republicans on the Southern states.

Between the policies of a continuance of the support of the Republican party in Louisiana or its withdrawal, a weak man would have allowed things to drift, while a strong man of the Conkling and Chandler type would have sustained the Packard government with the whole force at his command. Hayes acted slowly and cautiously, asked for and received much good counsel, and in the end determined to withdraw the United States troops from the immediate vicinity of the State House in Louisiana. The Packard government fell, and the Democrats took possession. The lawyers could furnish cogent reasons why Packard was not entitled to the governorship, although the electoral vote of Louisiana had been counted for Hayes; but the Stalwarts maintained that no legal quibble could varnish over so glaring an inconsistency. Indeed, it was one of those illogical acts, so numerous in English and American history, that resolve difficulties, when a rigid adherence to logic would tend to foment trouble.

The inaugural address and the distinctively reform Cabinet did not suit the party workers, and when the President declined to sustain the Packard government in Louisiana, disapproval was succeeded by rage. In six weeks after his inauguration Hayes was without a party; that is to say, the men who carried on the organization were bitterly opposed to his policy, and they made much more noise than the independent thinking voters who believed that a man had arisen after their own hearts. Except from the Southern wing, he received little sympathy from the Democratic party. In their parlance, fraud was written on his brow. He had the honor and perquisites of office which were rightfully theirs.

Once the troops were withdrawn from South Carolina and Louisiana, no backward step was possible, and although Hayes would have liked congressional support and sympathy for his act, this was not necessary. The next most important question of his administration related to finance. He and his Secretary of the Treasury would have been gratified by an obedient majority in Congress at their back. Presidents before and after Hayes have made a greater or less employment of their patronage to secure the passage of their favorite measures, but Hayes immediately relinquished that power by taking a decided position for a civil service based on merit. In a little over a month after the withdrawal of the troops from the immediate vicinity of the State House in Louisiana, he announced his policy in a letter to his Secretary of the Treasury. "It is my wish," he wrote, "that the collection of the revenues should be free from partisan control, and organized on a strictly business basis, with the same guaranties for efficiency and fidelity in the selection of the chief and subordinate officers that would be required by a prudent merchant. Party leaders should have no more influence in appointments than other equally respectable citizens. No assessments for political purposes on officers or subordinates should be allowed. No useless officer or employee should be retained. No officer should be required or permitted to take part in the management of political organizations, caucuses, conventions, or election campaigns." The mandatory parts of this letter he incorporated in an order to Federal office-holders, adding: "This rule is applicable to every department of the civil service. It should be understood by every officer of the general government that he is expected to conform his conduct to its requirements."

It must be a source of gratification to the alumni and faculty of Harvard College that its president and governing boards were, in June, 1877, in the judicious minority, and recognized their appreciation of Hayes by conferring upon him its highest honorary degree. Schurz, who had received his LL.D. the year before, accompanied Hayes to Cambridge, and, in his Harvard speech at Commencement, gave his forcible and sympathetic approval of the "famous order of the President," as it had now come to be called.

A liberal and just Southern policy, the beginning of a genuine reform in the civil service and the resumption of specie payments, are measures which distinguish and glorify President Hayes's administration, but in July, 1877, public attention was diverted from all these by a movement which partook of the nature of a social uprising. The depression following the panic of 1873 had been widespread and severe. The slight revival of business resulting from the Centennial Exposition of 1876 and the consequent large passenger traffic had been succeeded by a reaction in 1877 that brought business men to the verge of despair. Failures of merchants and manufacturers, stoppage of factories, diminished traffic on the railroads, railroad bankruptcies and receiverships, threw a multitude of laborers out of employment; and those fortunate enough to retain their jobs were less steadily employed, and were subject to reductions in wages.

The state of railroad transportation was deplorable. The competition of the trunk lines, as the railroads running from Chicago to the seaboard were called, was sharp, and, as there was not business enough for all, the cutting of through freight rates caused such business to be done at an actual loss, while the through passenger transportation afforded little profit. Any freight agent knew the remedy: an increase of freight rates by agreement or through a system of pooling earnings. Agreements were made, but not honestly kept, and, after a breach of faith, the fight was renewed with increased fury. As the railroad managers thought that they could not increase their gross earnings, they resolved on decreasing their expenses, and somewhat hastily and jauntily they announced a reduction of ten per cent in the wages of their employees.

This was resisted. Trouble first began on the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, where the men not only struck against the reduction, but prevented other men from taking their places, and stopped by force the running of trains. The militia of West Virginia was inadequate to cope with the situation, and the governor of that state called on the President for troops, which were sent with a beneficial effect. But the trouble spread to Maryland, and a conflict in Baltimore between the militia and rioters in sympathy with the strikers resulted in a number of killed and wounded. The next day, Saturday, July 21, a riot in Pittsburg caused the most profound sensation in the country since the draft riots of the Civil War. The men on the Pennsylvania and the Pittsburg, Fort Wayne and Chicago railroads, had struck, and all freight traffic was arrested. On this day six hundred and fifty men of the first division of the Pennsylvania national guard at Philadelphia arrived in Pittsburg, and, in the attempt to clear the Twenty-eighth Street crossing, they replied to the missiles thrown at them by the mob with volleys of musketry, killing instantly sixteen of the rioters and wounding many.

Here was cause for exasperation, and a furious mob, composed of strikers, idle factory hands, and miners, tramps, communists, and outcasts, began its work of vengeance and plunder. Possessed of firearms, through breaking into a number of gun shops, they attacked the Philadelphia soldiers, who had withdrawn to the railroad roundhouse, and a fierce battle ensued. Unable to dislodge the soldiers by assault, the rioters attempted to roast them out by setting fire to cars of coke saturated with petroleum and pushing these down the track against the roundhouse. This eventually forced the soldiers to leave the building, but, though pursued by the rioters, they made a good retreat across the Allegheny River. The mob, completely beyond control, began the destruction of railroad property. The torch was applied to two roundhouses, to railroad sheds, shops and offices, cars and locomotives. Barrels of spirits, taken from the freight cars, and opened and drunk, made demons of the men, and the work of plunder and destruction of goods in transit went on with renewed fury.

That Saturday night Pittsburg witnessed a reign of terror. On Sunday the rioting and pillage were continued, and in the afternoon the Union Depot and Railroad Hotel and an elevator near by were burned. Then as the rioters were satiated and too drunk to be longer dangerous, the riot died out: it was not checked. On Monday, through the action of the authorities, armed companies of law-abiding citizens, and some faithful companies of the militia, order was restored. But meanwhile the strike had spread to a large number of other railroads between the seaboard and Chicago and St. Louis. Freight traffic was entirely suspended, and passenger trains were run only on sufferance of the strikers. Business was paralyzed, and the condition of disorganization and unrest continued throughout the month of July. The governors of West Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, and Illinois called upon the President for United States troops, which were promptly sent, and in Indiana and Missouri they were employed on the demand of the United States marshals. Where the regular soldiers appeared order was at once restored without bloodshed, and it was said that the rioters feared one Federal bayonet more than a whole company of militia. The gravity of the situation is attested by three proclamations of warning from President Hayes.

Strikes had been common in our country, and, while serious enough in certain localities, had aroused no general concern, but the action of the mob in Baltimore, Pittsburg, and Chicago seemed like an attack on society itself, and it came like a thunderbolt out of a clear sky, startling Americans, who had hugged the delusion that such social uprisings belonged to Europe, and had no reason of being in a great, free republic where all men had an equal chance. The railroad managers had no idea that they were letting loose a slumbering giant when their edict of a ten per cent reduction went forth. It was due to the prompt and efficient action of the President that order was ultimately restored. In the profound and earnest thinking and discussion that went on during the rest of the year, whenever thoughtful men gathered together, many a grateful word was said of the quiet, unassuming man in the White House who saw clearly his duty and never faltered in pursuing it. It was seen that the Federal government, with a resolute President at its head, was a tower of strength in the event of a social uprising.

In the reform of the civil service Hayes proceeded from words to action. He reappointed Thomas L. James as postmaster of New York City, who had conducted his office on a thorough business basis, and gave him sympathetic support. The New York Custom-house had long been a political machine in which the interests of politicians had been more considered than those of the public it was supposed to serve. The President began an investigation of it through an impartial commission, and he and Sherman came to the conclusion that the renovation desired, in line with his letter to the Secretary of the Treasury and his order to the Federal officers, could not be effected so long as the present collector, Chester A. Arthur, and the naval officer, A. B. Cornell, remained in office. Courteous intimations were sent to them that their resignations were desired on the ground that new officers could better carry out the reform which the President had at heart. Arthur and Cornell, under the influence of Senator Conkling, refused to resign, and a plain issue was made between the President and the New York senator. At the special session of Congress, in October, 1877, he sent to the Senate nominations of new men for these places, but the power of Conkling, working through the "courtesy of the Senate," was sufficient to procure their rejection; and this was also the result when the same nominations were made in December.

In July, 1878, after the adjournment of Congress, Hayes removed Arthur and Cornell, and appointed Merritt and Burt in their places. During the following December these appointments came before the Senate for confirmation. Sherman decided to resign if they were rejected, and he made a strong personal appeal to Senators Allison, Windom, and Morrill that they should not permit "the insane hate of Conkling" to override the good of the service and the party. A seven hours' struggle ensued in the Senate, but Merritt and Burt were confirmed by a decisive majority. After the confirmation, Hayes wrote to Merritt: "My desire is that the office be conducted on strictly business principles and according to the rules for the civil service which were recommended by the Civil Service Commission in the administration of General Grant."

In three of his annual messages, Hayes presented strong arguments for a reform in the civil service, and he begged Congress, without avail, to make appropriations to sustain the Civil Service Commission. He sympathized with and supported Schurz in his introduction into the Interior Department of competitive examinations for appointments and promotions, and he himself extended that system to the custom-houses and post-offices of the larger cities.

All that was accomplished in this direction was due to his efforts and those of his Cabinet. He received neither sympathy nor help from Congress; indeed, he met with great opposition from his own party. A picture not without humor is Hayes reading, as his justification, to the Republican remonstrants against his policy of appointments the strong declaration for a civil service based on merit in the Republican platform, on which he had stood as candidate for President. Though his preaching did not secure the needed legislation from Congress, it produced a marked effect on public sentiment.