1876

by Gore Vidal

  Blaine is the man of the hour—as of this minute. I am not listening to a very long nomination speech in favour of a former postmaster general called Jewell. The oratory, so far, has been tedious. The interior of the hall is stifling; but now the sun has begun to go down, and we are a bit more comfortable.

  Rumours abound. The latest: Blaine is a dying man. Last Sunday Blaine arrived at a church in Washington and fainted dead away. Sunstroke, his followers say. Something worse, say the others, naming all sorts of enticing diseases, each in its terminal phase. Most likely of the diseases is committee-itis. By appearing to be ill, Blaine has obliged the committee to postpone its investigation until after the convention. Then, worried, that he might be thought moribund, Blaine appeared in public with Secretary Fish the day before the convention. During this outing one of Blaine’s sons was heard to remark, “This ought to have a right good effect in Cincinnati.” So it has had.

  According to the program for today, we are to be favoured with sixteen speeches, putting in nomination the various leaders. I drink bottle after bottle of sarsaparilla and eat handfuls of popped corn, a novelty I have unexpectedly developed a liking for.

  Late afternoon. None of the speeches has caught fire, nor has any of the candidates. Nordhoff tells me to pay particular attention to a young Illinois lawyer and politician named Ingersoll. He will nominate Blaine, if the current speaker ever sits down. According to Nordhoff, Ingersoll is a proud agnostic, something not easy to be, I should think, in God’s very special Illinois wilderness.

  Ingersoll is reputed to have said, “Calvin was as near like the God of the Old Testament as his health would allow.” I warm to him.

  * * *

  —

  Warm to him? Ingersoll has set me afire. It is now a half-hour since Ingersoll stopped speaking, yet the demonstration for Blaine continues. Although I am immune—allergic to political oratory—I have never heard such a performance, nor has anyone else. I cannot recall a line of what he said—only the tone, the fierce exultation. How primitive we are at best.

  The Blaine forces are calling for a vote, but the chairman of the convention has just announced, “I am informed that the gaslights of this hall are in such condition that they cannot safely be lighted.” We adjourned on account of darkness. Blaine’s forces are in a rage. They blame the chairman. The followers of Bristow. The city of Cincinnati.

  * * *

  —

  June 15. The first ballot has just been taken. I am somewhat ill, after an all-night drinking session with the New York Reform delegation: elegant high-minded drinking, may I say, in the Gibson Hotel bar. Although eager for Bristow to win, the Reformers agree that had the balloting begun last night Blaine would have swept the convention, or as the editor of Harper’s Weekly said, “There has never been a better speech than Ingersoll’s in a worse cause.”

  The phrase of Ingersoll that everyone quotes (save me: was I listening or just hearing?) is his reference to Blaine as “the plumed Knight.” I suppose my ear rejected this image because of its silliness. Blaine is many marvellous things but hardly a knight; if anything fabulous, he is more dragon than plumed knight.

  To be nominated, the candidate must acquire at least 378 votes. The result of the first ballot was inconclusive…except for Conkling, who got only 99 votes and is now no longer a serious candidate. Blaine led the field with 285 votes; then Bristow, 213; Morton, 124; Hayes, the governor of Ohio, 61; Hartranft, the governor of Pennsylvania, 58; Jewell, Grant’s former Postmaster General, 11; and somebody named Wheeler of New York, 3.

  Word is now spreading that Conkling is about to withdraw. Who will get his 99 votes?

  “Morton,” says Nordhoff. “Certainly not Blaine. Ever!”

  5

  THE REPUBLICAN NOMINEE for president of the United States is one Rutherford Birchard Hayes, three times governor of Ohio, a general of no distinction in the late war, and a man entirely unknown to most of the convention that has just nominated him. When I came back to the house and told my host the news, he said, “The Governor is honest but a bigot. He is always campaigning against the Catholics.” My host is a Roman Catholic. “Even worse,” said the good man from Wiesbaden, pouring us each a mug of beer, “he is a Son of Temperance, and would outlaw alcohol.”

  I have spent most of the night preparing my piece for the Herald. It is not easy to say exactly what happened after Conkling’s collapse on the first ballot, but as far as I can tell, inexactly, Blaine not only held his own but continued to gain support until, by the sixth ballot, he had 308 votes. During this time, Morton mysteriously declined while Bristow’s candidacy never took fire.

  At some point between the sixth and seventh ballots, the anti-Blaine and pro-reform groups decided to drop Bristow and Morton and to take their chances with the dim governor of Ohio. On the seventh ballot New York abandoned Conkling to support, for the most part, Blaine. Yet the final vote was Hayes, 384; Blaine, 351; Bristow, 21. The anti-Conkling New Yorker Wheeler was then selected as vice-presidential candidate. Roscoe Conkling is now as dead politically as his friend Ulysses S. Grant.

  Nordhoff assures me that one of the chief reasons behind the last-minute coalition to support Hayes is that he is willing, unlike Grant, to withdraw Federal troops from the South, and allow that febrile region home rule.

  6

  I am literally breathless from too much crisscrossing of the country. Governor Tilden’s doctor has come and gone, and although he did nothing of a constructive or curative nature, I feel somewhat better, no doubt due to an enforced rest here in a most pleasant suite at the Delavan House in Albany.

  It is now June 27, and I lie in bed, scribbling these notes. The Democratic National Convention is meeting in St. Louis, without me.

  Jamie was upset when I told him that, first, I had no intention of going to Fremont, Ohio, to interview Rutherford B. Hayes, who is, this morning’s paper informs us, fifty-three years old, five feet eight inches tall, and weighs one hundred and seventy pounds—which is plainly wishful thinking on the part of the Governor, who must weigh, according to his photograph, about two hundred pounds; he has a long grizzled beard, an aquiline nose, and a fierce gaze. I have no desire to meet him, nor, as I told Jamie firmly in the bar of the Hoffman House, “have I the slightest desire to go to St. Louis.”

  “But, Charlie, you made Cincinnati sound so exciting.”

  “It was. But St. Louis will be boring. Tilden will be nominated on the first ballot.” I have become extraordinarily glib in my political pronouncements—the result, I suppose, of the excellent response to the last few pieces from Washington and Cincinnati, but then my style, as I continue to impress on Jamie, is only as good as the price he pays me. Lately, my words have been winged.

  “I shall compromise, dear boy. I’ll go to Albany, and write you a piece on Tilden’s reaction to his nomination.”

  “Reaction? How does a dead fish react to anything?” Jamie drank his third razzle-dazzle in one long swallow. “You should have done those Indians, Charlie. By God, I had a hunch and I was right.”

  “And I was right to come straight back to New York. I have no intention of losing my scalp, not even for the Herald.” This was the day that every newspaper in the country was filled with the lurid details of a brutal massacre by Sioux Indians of some two hundred Federal troops at a place in the Far West called Little Big Horn. Amongst those killed was a Civil War hero (Northern side) named General George A. Custer, whose book My Life on the Plains was a fair success a year or so ago.

  As usual, General Grant—I almost wrote “poor” General Grant—is being held responsible because of Belknap’s famed retrenchment at the War Department. In any case, the country talks of nothing but the victor at the Little Big Horn, a chief of the Sioux nation called Sitting Bull and of his colleague Chief Rain-in-the-Face who cut out the heart of a young Federal officer and ate it.

  “It’s a
pity you didn’t engage Mr. Mark Twain to report on the Indian tribes.”

  “You know, I never tried. Damn it! And I should’ve. And he’d have gone. I’m positive. Great God, what a story I would’ve had, with him to write it!”

  “Or, better yet, to be the subject of a story. ‘Mark Twain Scalped’—I see the headline now—’An Exclusive to the Herald by Sitting Bull.’ What joy you have denied us, Jamie!”

  That day I took the cars to Albany; had dinner with two of Tilden’s aides (Bigelow is at St. Louis); lost all my breath during the fish course; turned quite blue and was put to bed—and here I am. Everyone has been most considerate. Tomorrow, just as the balloting starts in St. Louis, I shall be with the Governor, waiting for the news.

  7

  THE LONG CRUCIAL DAY has come and gone. I seem in good health. At least, I have no trouble breathing. My legs, however, are curiously weak, and every now and then I see, for just an instant, objects mysteriously and disagreeably doubled. Tilden takes a tremendous interest in my symptoms, which is flattering when one considers what this day has meant to him.

  At noon I drove up to the Governor’s house in Eagle Street. The house is a comfortable if rather gloomy affair, the sort of place that someone retired from the wool trade might have built. Not surprisingly, Albany is much changed since I was last here forty years ago. On all sides new “Gothic” buildings are going up while the charming old brick Dutch houses are coming down.

  I was shown into the drawing room, though I suppose the word “parlour” suits better the taste of the retired wool merchant. I was greeted by the Governor’s sister, Mrs. William T. Pelton, born Mary Tilden. She and her husband are living with the Governor. In fact, “my husband found this lovely home for my brother just after he was elected governor. Would you believe it that they have no governor’s house up here? Which means that the poor governors must rent whatever they can find. It’s not at all expensive,” she added, as though I had asked. Mrs. Pelton is an amiable woman, with a face very like Tilden’s except that her colouring is a pleasant pink as opposed to his distinctive grey.

  “Do sit down. The Governor’s with Mr. Carter, a lawyer from the city. They’re working ever so hard but they’ll be down for lunch. You know Mr. Green, don’t you?”

  Green approached, with his usual forceful stride. This time I allowed my hand (to his visible disgust) to go absolutely limp, and so avoided the rolling and crushing of my old delicate bones. “Mr. Schuyler, we’ve been deeply impressed by your articles in the Herald.”

  “You’re very kind.” But, alas, this praise was cut short by the arrival of a messenger boy from the state capitol, the first of what must have been a hundred such interruptions in the course of the day. Green glanced at the message, thanked the boy, and sent him on his way.

  “Is it from St. Louis?” During the day, Mrs. Pelton’s attempts at emulating her brother’s sang-froid grew less and less convincing. She was enormously excited, and showed it.

  Green nodded. “Nothing very interesting yet.” He turned to me. “We’ve got a special telegraph line at the capitol, direct from St. Louis to the Governor’s office. But, as you see, he’s spending the day here.”

  “I do wish he’d let me sit by the wire.” Mrs. Pelton started nervously as a servant dropped a dish in the dining room.

  “I’m surprised the Governor should be practising law today of all days.”

  Green looked at me gravely, spoke slowly, to make absolutely certain that I got the story entirely straight. “It’s not by choice, Mr. Schuyler. There is a very complicated legal suit in which Mr. Tilden figures. A highly technical civil suit that goes back to the days when he was actively practising law. Mr. Carter is now handling the case but needs the Governor’s help, his advice, his recollection of the intricacies of the suit.” Green continued to explain, and I used this restful interlude to take, surreptitiously, my own pulse; I found it only a little fast.

  Then Tilden and Carter joined us. The Governor looked no more tired than when I saw him last. He was entirely at ease and showed none of the excitement that the rest of us kept betraying in small ways. Green bit his knuckles during lunch when there was nothing else to bite; while Mrs. Pelton fussed with the servants, and Carter kept remarking, at large, “The Governor’s concentration is truly amazing! Amazing! He recalls every detail of the case, after all these years.”

  The principal actor in this high drama was very much as always. He nibbled his biscuits, drank his tea, took his pills, controlled as best he could his belches while asking most solicitously about my health. But for once that ever-attractive subject did not hold my attention. Like everyone else, I wanted to know what was happening at St. Louis.

  “Yesterday was most lively, I’m told.” Tilden was mild. “ ‘Honest’ John Kelly arrived with one hundred and fifty loyal Tammany men, dedicated to my defeat.”

  “He’s mad. And a villain!” Green was properly partisan.

  “I doubt if he’ll do us much harm.” Tilden did wince as a plate was dropped just back of his chair. The maid fled in confusion. Mrs. Pelton sighed.

  “But surely,” I said, “you and Mr. Kelly were once allies.”

  Cold eyes like those of a fish behind the glass of an aquarium turned my way. “It is true that Mr. Kelly supported me for governor but…”

  “Kelly’s demands!” Green answered for his leader. “The patronage he wanted! The criminals he proposed for jobs.”

  “Hardly criminals. At least”—the curiously shaped upper lip arched to make the smallest of Tilden’s small smiles—“they must be presumed innocent until found guilty. Looking back, I see now that it was inevitable that we would one day come to a parting of the ways. But I am surprised at his bitterness.”

  “Did you know that he arrived in St. Louis with a banner saying ‘Tilden Can’t Carry New York’!” Green bit first a knuckle, then a roll.

  “I shall carry New York.” Tilden’s voice was soft, his face quite hard. “If I am nominated, of course,” he added with another miniature smile.

  “You know, Mr. Schuyler, our common friend President Van Buren used to say that he never knew anyone with as little ambition as me.”

  “He was not known as the ‘little magician’ for nothing.”

  “Meaning his magic wand touched me, and here I am?” Tilden looked amused. “But now tell us about General Hayes, Mr. Schuyler. After all, you come to us straight from the hurly-burly of Republicanism.”

  “I know nothing more of him, Governor, than what I have read in my own articles, and that is very little.”

  “One would have preferred an out-and-out true-blue Republican villain, like Blaine.” Tilden looked for a moment sad. “General Hayes appears to be an honest man.”

  “But no reformer!” This from the loyal Green.

  “No. There will be only one reform candidate this year.” Tilden swallowed a pill. “I find it most curious that Hayes appears to be repudiating General Grant. That was very pointed of him, wasn’t it? When he said he would definitely not seek a second term—if elected of course.”

  “I don’t think the occasion will arise!” Mrs. Pelton was not to be left out of the discussion. “What’s happening now? This very minute. At St. Louis?”

  Green looked at his watch. “Nothing. The convention has recessed until two o’clock. Then when the balloting begins…”

  “Mr. Carter and I will be trying to find our way through a most complicated legal labyrinth.” With that, Tilden and Carter withdrew, and I accompanied Green to the hideous state capitol, where we spent most of the day in the Governor’s office, reading on ticker tape the constant stream of messages from St. Louis.

  Finally, late in the day, the balloting began. To win, Tilden needed 492 votes. On the first ballot Tilden got 404 1/2 votes; Governor Hendricks of Illinois got 140 1/2 votes; the remaining hundred odd votes were divided amongst five c
andidates.

  I sat next to Green. He had a small notebook in which he kept careful count of each state’s vote.

  “Will he win?” After all, Blaine had been in the lead until the favourite sons’ votes had gone against him. The same thing could happen to Tilden.

  But Green was confident. “He’s going to win right now. On the second ballot.” So we sat in the ornate executive office until nine-thirty in the evening, staring at the ribbon of paper as it extruded numbers.

  It was all over on the second ballot. The first numbers came through: Tilden, 508, Hendricks, 75…but by then there was pandemonium in the office, and Green and I hurried back to the house in Eagle Street to congratulate the Democratic nominee for president.

  Green had hoped to be the first with the news, but someone else had already told the Governor. Tilden was in the parlour, holding a cup of tea in his left hand while well-wishers shook the right hand.

  I stood with the lawyer Carter during this tableau, and he told me that when their work was done in the early evening, “The Governor said, ‘Let’s go driving,’ and I said, ‘Aren’t you afraid the news will come while you’re away from the house?’ And he said, ‘We will know at exactly nine-thirty.’ Uncanny, isn’t it? Anyway, he drove me himself all about the town and I must say that I feared for my life. The horse was lively, but the Governor paid no attention to it. Instead he spoke quite beautifully of what the next president must do, with me all the while ready to jump out of that carriage if the horse should bolt. When we got back and the word came that he’d been nominated at nine-thirty, just as he’d predicted, all he said was, ‘Is that so?’ ”

  As the room filled with more and more people word came that the state capitol had been illuminated, that a brass band was playing, that the people had assembled to see “the president-to-be.” So Tilden and his party got into several carriages, and we drove to the capitol.