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12
THE SUNNY SOUTH. .
FORGOTTEN HISTORY.
Continued from Ninth page.
Lewis, Senator from Virginia, to Henry
Wilson. “The gentleman from Virginia has
the floor,” said the Chairman. “Virginia
changes her entire vote from John F. Lewis
to Henry Wilson.” That settled it. In five
minutes enough changes of complimentary
votes had been made to nominate Henry ^Wil
son. On the other hand, the vote of Tennes
see was ready to change from Horace May
nard to Schuyler Colfax, and undoubtedly, if
this change had been made before that of
Virginia there would have been a stampede to
Colfax and he would have been nominated.
The Liberal Republican Convention, which
gave Mr. Greeley his first nomination, met
on the ist of May, as was evidenced by the
first sentence in the speech of Mr. Carl
Schurz, who started the oratory. “This is
moving day,” said he. Mr. Schurz had
changed in four years from the stanch admirer
and great champion of Grant, whom he
eulogized extravagantly in the Convention
of 1868, to the arch-detractor of the great
soldier, whom he denounced in all ‘ his
speechs in 1872, making them ring out with
the refrain, “Any man to beat Grant.”
Schurz was, however, much disappointed and
much chagrined with the result of the Cin
cinnati Convention. He did not approve of
Greeley’s nomination, and in the words I
have quoted he meant that while Greeley was
not a very good candidate he was good
enough to beat Grant with. I once asked
Gen. Grant if he knew why Schurz had un
dergone such a violent change of attitude
toward him. He replied that he couldn’t tell,
unless it was that he hadn’t offices enough
to give Schurz—that Schurz was the worst
office beggar he ever saw—that he hung about
the White House day after day wanting to
control every dollar’s worth of patronage in
the West, and much in the East, too. “I was
glad to have him turn against me, because
then he couldn’t bother me.” Greeley was
afterwards nominated by the Democrats in
Baltimore in a Convention which left little
behind it that was worth remembering. He
made a splendid personal campaign, full of
mental and physical energy, and made a series
of speeches which have never been equaled
for cogency and compactness. He was very
confident of success at first, chiefly because
he loved during his whole life to surround
himself with flatterers, who purposely kept the
truth from him. It is quite certain, indeed,
that up to the last of September he believed
he would be elected. The October elections,
however, convinced him that his cause was
h jpeless. Ohio, Indiana and Pennsylvania
spoke to him in thunder tones, and told him
what to expect in November. Mr. Greeley
died about three weeks after the November
election, and before the electoral vote had
been counted. His death reduced the num
ber of electoral votes cast for him to three
out of the sixty-six which had been carried
for him in November, as against eighty car
ried by Seymour four years before. Grant
profited by the Greeley movement to the extent
of eighty electoral votes, receiving 294 in
1872, as against 214 in 1868.
1876.
§ The Republican Convention of 1876 met
in Cincinnati on the 14th of June. Mr.
Blaine’s nomination was fully expected, al
though it had been vigorously opposed by
some of the leading newspapers and their edi
tors—notably the New York % “Tribune,” the
Chicago “Tribune,” the Cincinnati “Com
mercial,” and the Cincinnati “Gazette.”
Strange to say, every one of these opposing
editors were, three months later, the stanchest
friends of Mr. Blaine, lavishing upon him
the most obsequious worship, although
they never pretended that the original cause
of their hostility—the Little Rock and Fort
Smith Railroad matter—had been explained
or contradicted. Nothing could have been
more bitter than their censure in 1876 or
more fulsome than their praise in 1880. Ros-
coe Conkling was there at the head of the
New York delegation, panting for revenge
for the “turkey gobbler strut” speech by
Blaine on the floor of the House some years
ago. He allowed his name to be put forth
as a candidate for the sole purpose of keeping
the New York delegation] from Blaine, and
when the proper time came he gave all his
votes—eighty-one—to Hayes to effect his
nomination. There were seven ballots taken.
Blaine led off with 285 votes; Hayes with 61.
The rest were scattered between Morton,
Conkling, Bristow and Hartranft. The last-
named gentleman was merely used as a stalk
ing horse for the Pennsylvania delegation, to
be voted for by it until its vote would make
the nominee, and thus make a basis for a
demand for a Pennsylvania Cabinet officer.
On the seventh ballot Blaine received 351
votes; Hayes 384; it took 379 to nominate,
and Hayes, with only five votes to spare, was
declared the nominee. There had been an
adjournment over night on the representation
that the gas fixtures were out of order; but
the real reason was a desire by the anti-
Blaine men to agree upon a candidate upon
whom they could concentrate. But what had
most to do with Blaine’s defeat was a rule
reported by Mr. Cessna, of Pennsylvania,
which prevented any State from changing its
vote “until the next ballot.” This prevented
a stampede to Blaine, like that at Philadel
phia to Wilson, and a stampede had been
agreed upon as part of the Blaine programme.
The sunstroke incident of the Sunday before
the Convention met had very little effect
upon Blaine’s chances, although the anti-
Blaine men made the most of it. The great
est event of this Convention was the speech
of Robert G. Ingersoll putting Mr. Blaine in
nomination. Mr. Blaine has been put in
nomination in three conventions—in 1876 in
the best speech of the kind ever heard; in
1880 in the worst speech of the kind ever
heard, and in 1884 in a speech which would
hardly be considered either very good or very
bad. The speech of 1880—or rather, the essay
of 1880—was read from manuscript by Mr.
Joy, a railroad man from Michigan, who
.blundered in the start by naming him James
F. Blaine. It was an awfully dreary effort.
The speech of 1884 was made by Judge West,
of Ohio—a blind man, but not entirely with
out ability as an orator. The Ingersoll speech
was carefully prepared, of course. Ingersoll
and his brother, Ebon C.had come to Cincinna
ti a few days before the Convention. Ebon kept
urging Robert to prepare his speech, but
Robert kept promising to do so, but always
postponing. Finally, the night before the
speech was delivered, Robeit got out of bed,
lit the gas in his room at the Burnet House,
sat down at a table and wrote the speech.
Then he went back to bed. In the morning
he read the speech to his brother, who pro
nounced it splendid. The delivery ot that
speech showed Col. Ingersoll as great in
improvisation as well as in preparation. An
incident which he could not possibly have
foreseen prompted a few sentences of ex
tempore utterance, which were quite as good
as the best that he had written. While he was
waiting for his “turn” on the platform, Mr.
Loring, of Massachusetts, made a speech
seconding the nomination of Mr. Bristow.
“Nominate Benjamin H. Bristow,” said he,
“and the loyal people of Massachusetts will
give 50,000 majority for the Republican
ticket.” Ingersoll caught this sentence, and
after making his bow as the successor of Mr.
Loring on the stand said: “Massachu
setts may be satisfied with the loyalty of Ben
jamin H. Bristow. So am I. But if the State
of Massachusetts can not give 50,000 majori
ty for any man (emphasis on ‘any’) nomi
nated by this Convention, I am not satisfied
with the loyalty of Massachusetts. She should
rent out Faneuil Hall for a Democratic meet
ing house, and sell Bunker Hill for a Con
federate monument.” He then proceeded
with his prepared speech, which he had care
fully memorized. He was in splendid voice
and manner, and called forth storms of ap
plause, only equaled since in the Convention
of 1880, when Mr. Conkling was nominating
Gen. Grant. Blaine and Ingersoll subse
quently became estranged on account of some
private business enterprise, and when Blaine
died, Ingersoll and he were bitter enemies.
Conkling helped to nominate Hayes, but he
did not admire him very long. Hayes began
to talk of men like Conkling as “machine
politicians,” and Conkling didn’t like it very
well. One day somebody mentioned to
Conking that the newly elected President
always spoke of his administration in the first
person plural—“we,” instead of “I.”
“Yes,” said Conkling, with all the scorn he
could summon to the expression, “there are
three classes of people who always say ‘we*
instead of ‘I’—editors, potentates and men
with a tape-worm.”
In the Democratic Convention of 1876 six
candidates were named—Thomas F. Bayard,
of Delaware ; Thomas A. Hendricks, of In
diana; Joe Parker, of New Jersey; Samuel J.
Tilden, of New York; William Allen, of
Ohio, and Winfield S. Hancock, of Pennsyl
vania. There was nothing very notable in the
proceedings. Tilden’s nomination had been
for some time a thing assured. On the first
ballot Tilden received a majority of the votes
cast—417—but'the two-thirds’ rule necessi
tated another ballot, and his vote was in
creased to 535 out of a total 744. The nota
ble event of this great gathering was the
speech of Henry Watterson in praise of Til
den. Mr. Watterson was chosen as temporary
Chairman, and on taking his seat delivered a
splendid oration, which elicited frequent ap
plause and great admiration. It was in the
campaign for Tilden’s nomination that the
now familiar phrase “bar’l o’ money,” to in
dicate the possession and use of funds, with
which to promote political success, was first
used. Its original appearance was in the col
umns of the “Globe-Democrat,” in a dis
patch sent by me from Jefferson City in a re
port of the proceedings of a convenion called
to elect delegates to St. Louis Convention. I
represented a delegate as saying that Tilden
had “a bar’l o’ money,” and was bound
to get the nomination. What he did say was
“a bedtick full o’ money,” but I changed it
to “bar’l” as a more expressive term, and
“a more tenderer word,” as Sam Weller
says, and, above all, as a word of one syllable
instead of two, and, therefore, more likely
to “catch on.” It caught like fury. “Har
per’s Weekly,” in almost every issue during
the campaign, had a cartoon on its first page
with Mr. Tilden and a keg with a $ on it.
The country press and the city press used the
term, and still use it, to express the idea for
which it was originally intended. It has
evidently taken up its permanent abode in the
political literature of this counry.
("CONCLUDED NEXT WEEK.)
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HOW STEWART’S FELL.
Passing of New York’s Oldest and Largest
Business Firm—How the Vast Commer
cial Machine Went to Rack and Ruin
Under the Hilton Management.
I T TOOK A. T. Stewart more than
half a century to build up that mag
nificent commercial institution which
in its day was the pride of New York
and the wonder of the country. Less
than twenty years, however, was re
quired for it to dwindle away to nothing at
all.
With the recent failure of Hilton, Hughes
& Co., came the climax and disastrous end
of one of the oldest and most interesting bus
iness houses in the metropolis. The story
of how Alexander T. Stewart, a young Irish
man with a capital of $5,000, began in a
modest way to sell dry goods on lower Broad
way about seventy-five years ago, of how his
business increased and multiplies until it
yielded him a royal revenue and gained for
him the title of “merchant prince,” is a
familiar one to most people. The latter his
tory of the business, however, is not so famil
iar.
When Mr. Stewart died in 1876, he was
doing a business of over $200,000,000 a year.
His retail business was housed in a beautiful
and artistic structure which cost $2,750,000.
His customers were the wealthy people of
New York and surrounding cities, who took
a certain pride in making their purchases
there. His wholesale business was immense.
He had not less than fourteen mills and man
ufactories in various parts of the world. On
his foreign pay roll there were 1,100 persons,
in his New York stores were 2,000 employes,
and in his American factories, 6,500 hands
found work. His profits were several million
dollars each year,and at the time of his death,
his fortune was estimated to be about $50,-
000,000.
Mr. Stewart’s only partner was William
Libbey, an old employe, who had become
general manager with a percentage interest
in the business. When the old merchant
died, Judge Henry Hilton, who was first his
legal adviser, and then his social guide and
intimate friend, was given lull control of the
settlement of the estate. His reward for this
was to be $1,000,000, but Mrs. Stewart, who
was then seventy years of age and in feeble
health, turned over to him instead of this
sum the v»st dry goods business entire.
The firm of Hilton & Libbey continued
until 1882, when Libbey was dropped arid
two more old employes, Groocock and Syl
vester, were taken in. That firm did not last
long, for a year later Groocock retired and
the firm became Sylvester, Hilton & Co.
Judge Hilton had retired, though the name
being continued by his son, Henry G. Hil
ton. Edward J. Denning, another old em
ployee, was the other member of the firm.
All this time the business had been steadily
shrinking, but in spite of the fact that many
of the mills and factories had been closed, it
was still a paying business. When Judge
Hilten retired in 1883, he drew out $5,500,-
000 as profits, for in the meantime he had
obtained practical] possession of the whole
Stewart fortune.
In 1886 two new members were admitted
to the firm, one of whom was Albert B. Hil
ton, and the other John M. Hughes, respec
tively, a son and a son-in-law of the judge.
Three years later the firm was again reor
ganized and still another son of Judge Hil
ton,Frederick H.,was admitted. Mr. Denning
was the managing partner. He had been
trained under A. T. Stewart and understood
JUDGE HENRY HILTON.
his business methods. He did what he could
to revive the business, but he was heavily
handicapped. The Hilton boys were young
men who were fond of amusements and lived
rather a gay life. They did not attend strictly
to business, and one of them was eventually
retired from the firm on account, it was said,
of his extravagances. This left four mem
bers in the firm.
During the business depression of 1892,
the firm found that $1,250,000 was needed to
keep it from going into bankruptcy. Judge
Hilton, who stood behind the firm and in
dorsed all its paper, was called upon to fur
nish the amount. Although several times
a millionaire, he could not produce the ready
money and in order to get it he was forced to
go to Hetty Green. It was a hard bargain
that Hetty drove—the hardest that Wall
street had heard of for years. She took a
blanket mortgage on the Stewart block, a
property worth at least $5,000,000. The
mortgage was for five years at six per cent.,
so for the use of $1,250,000 in cash Judge
Hilton must pay $375,000.
The crash was averted then, but from that
time on the firm was regarded as somewhat
shaky and the recent failure was not much of
a surprise to the trade. It means, however,
that a vast business has been frittered away
and that a firrr that for half a century had
been considered almost as stable as the gov
ernment itself has passed out of existence.
Clarence P. Skinner.
“I have heard your preacher half a dozen
times,” said the boy who was whittling a
stick. “You pay him $3,000 a year. He
ain’t a bit better’n our’n, and all we pay him
is $900.”
“Yes, but our preacher says eyether and
nyether, and yourn’ don’t,” replied the boy
who was sharpening his knife on his shoe.—
Chicago Tribune.