第73章

Mr. Phelps complained to me, half seriously, half jocosely, of what is really a crying abuse in the United States --namely, that there is no proper reporting of the proceedings of the Houses of Congress in the main journals of the country which can enable the people at large to form any just idea as to how their representatives are conducting the public business. He said: ``I may make a most careful speech on any important subject before Congress and it will not be mentioned in the New York papers, but let me make a joke and it will be published all over the United States. Yesterday, on a wager, I tried an experiment: I made two poor little jokes during a short talk in the House, and here they are in the New York papers of this morning.''

During this visit to Washington I met at the house of my classmate and dear friend, Randall Gibson, then a senator from Louisiana, a number of distinguished men among them the Vice-President, Mr. Hendricks, and General Butler, senator from South Carolina.

Vice-President Hendricks seemed sick and sore. He had expected to be a candidate for the Presidency, with a strong probability of election, but had accepted the Vice-Presidency; and the subject which seemed to elicit his most vitriolic ill will was reform in the civil service. As we sat one evening in the smoking-room at Senator Gibson's he was very bitter against the system, when, to my surprise, General Butler took up the cudgels against him and made a most admirable argument. At that moment, for the first time, I felt that the war between North and South was over; for all the old issues seemed virtually settled, and here, as regarded this new issue, on which I felt very deeply, was one of the most ardent of Confederate soldiers, a most bitter pro-slavery man before the Civil War, one who, during the war, had lost a leg in battle, nearer me politically than were many of my friends and neighbors in the North.

Senator Jones of Florida, who was present, gave us some character sketches, and among others delineated admirably General Williams, known in the Mexican War as ``Cerro Gordo Williams,'' who was for a time senator from Kentucky. He said that Williams had a wonderful gift of spread-eagle oratory, but that, finding no listeners for it among his colleagues, he became utterly disgusted and went about saying that the Senate was a ``d----d frigid, respectable body that chilled his intellect.''

This led my fellow-guests to discuss the characteristics of the Senate somewhat, and I was struck by one remark in which all agreed--namely, that ``there are no politics in executive session.''

Gibson remarked that the best speech he had ever heard in the Senate was made by John Sherman.

As regards civil-service matters, I found on all sides an opinion that Mr. Cleveland was, just as far as possible, basing his appointments upon merit. Gibson mentioned the fact that a candidate for an important office in his State, who had committed three murders, had secured very strong backing, but that President Cleveland utterly refused to appoint him.

With President Cleveland I had a very interesting interview. He referred to his visit to Cornell University, said that he would have liked nothing so well as to go more thoroughly through its various departments, and, as when I formerly saw him, expressed his regret at the loss of such opportunities as an institution of that kind affords.

At this time I learned from him and from those near him something regarding his power for hard work. It was generally understood that he insisted on writing out all important papers and conducting his correspondence in his own hand, and the result was that during a considerable period of the congressional sessions he sat at his desk until three o'clock in the morning.

It was evident that his up-and-down, curt, independent way did not at all please some of the leading members of his party; in fact, there were signs of a serious estrangement caused by the President's refusals to yield to senators and other leaders of the party in the matter of appointments to office. To illustrate this feeling, a plain, bluff Western senator, Mr. Sawyer of Wisconsin, told me a story.

Senator Sawyer had built up a fortune and gained a great influence in his State by a very large and extensive business in pine lumber, and he had a sort of rough, quaint woodman's wit which was at times very amusing.

He told me that, some days before, two of his most eminent Democratic colleagues in the Senate were just leaving the Capitol, and from something they said he saw that they were going to call upon the President. He therefore asked them, ``How do you like this new President of yours?'' ``Oh,'' answered the senators in chorus, ``he is a very good man--a very good man indeed.'' ``Yes,''

said Senator Sawyer, ``but how do you LIKE him?'' ``Oh,''