第57章
Similar attacks continued to appear in the anti-administration papers for a considerable time afterward, and at first they were rather trying to me. I felt that nothing could be more unjust, for I had strained to the last degree my influence with my associates who supported General Grant in securing concessions to those who differed from us. Had these attacks been made by organs of the opposite political party, I would not have minded them; but being made in sundry journals which had represented the Republican party and were constantly read by my old friends, neighbors, and students, they naturally, for a time, disquieted me. One of the charges then made has often amused me as I have looked back upon it since, and is worth referring to as an example of the looseness of statement common among the best of American political journals during exciting political contests. This charge was that I had ``sought to bribe people to support the administration by offering them consulates.'' This was echoed in various parts of the State.
The facts were as follows: An individual who had made some money as a sutler in connection with the army had obtained control of a local paper at Syracuse, and, through the influence thus gained, an election to the lower house of the State legislature. During the winter which he passed at Albany he was one of three or four Republicans who voted with the Democrats in behalf of the measures proposed by Tweed, the municipal arch-robber afterward convicted and punished for his crimes against the city of New York. Just at this particular time Tweed was at the height of his power, and at a previous session of the legislature he had carried his measures through the Assembly by the votes of three or four Republicans who were needed in addition to the Democratic votes in order to give him the required majority. Many leading Republican journals had published the names of these three or four men with black lines around them, charging them, apparently justly, with having sold themselves to Tweed for money, and among them the person above referred to. Though he controlled a newspaper in Syracuse, he had been unable to secure renomination to the legislature, and, shortly afterward, in order to secure rehabilitation as well as pelf, sought an appointment to the Syracuse postmastership. Senator Conkling, mindful of the man's record, having opposed the appointment, and the President having declined to make it, the local paper under control of this person turned most bitterly against the administration, and day after day poured forth diatribes against the policy and the persons of all connected with the actual government at Washington, and especially against President Grant and Senator Conkling.
The editor of the paper at that time was a very gifted young writer, an old schoolmate and friend of mine, who, acting under instructions from the managers of the paper, took a very bitter line against the administration and its supporters.
About the time of the meeting of the convention this old friend came to me, expressed his regret at the line he was obliged to take, said that both he and his wife were sick of the whole thing and anxious to get out of it, and added: ``The only way out, that I can see, is some appointment that will at once relieve me of all these duties, and in fact take me out of the country. Cannot you aid me by application to the senator or the President in obtaining a consulate?'' I answered him laughingly, ``My dear ----, I will gladly do all I can for you, not only for friendship's sake, but because I think you admirably fitted for the place you name; but don't you think that, for a few days at least, while you are applying for such a position, you might as well stop your outrageous attacks against the very men from whom you hope to receive the appointment?''
Having said this, half in jest and half in earnest, Ithought no more on the subject, save as to the best way of aiding my friend to secure the relief he desired.
So rose the charge that I was ``bribing persons to support the administration by offering them consulates.''
But strong friends rallied to my support. Mr. George William Curtis in ``Harper's Weekly,'' Mr. Godkin in ``The Nation,'' Mr. Charles Dudley Warner and others in various other journals took up the cudgels in my behalf, and I soon discovered that the attacks rather helped than hurt me. They did much, indeed, to disgust me for a time with political life; but I soon found that my friends, my students, and the country at large understood the charges, and that they seemed to think more rather than less of me on account of them. In those days the air was full of that sort of onslaught upon every one supposed to be friendly to General Grant, and the effect in one case was revealed to me rather curiously. Matthew Carpenter, of Wisconsin, was then one of the most brilliant members of the United States Senate, a public servant of whom his State was proud; but he had cordially supported the administration and was consequently made the mark for bitter attack, day after day and week after week, by the opposing journals, and these attacks finally culminated in an attempt to base a very ugly scandal against him upon what was known among his friends to be a simple courtesy publicly rendered to a very worthy lady. The attacks and the scandal resounded throughout the anti-administration papers, their evident purpose being to defeat his relection to the United States Senate.