I mention this dinner, as I did the visit to Mr. Grenfell, because of its connection with a very interesting transaction. The guests at the dinner were Sir Julian Pauncefote, afterward Lord Pauncefote, the British Ambassador to the United States, who was then at home on a brief visit; Sir Seymour Blaine, an old military officer who had won, as I was told, great distinction in the East, and two Spanish noblemen.

The soldier told several very interesting stories of his military life, and of what happened to him in his early days.

Of these I remember two. He said that when he was a young officer, scarcely more than a boy, he was invited by the Duke of Wellington, with other officers, to a great ball at Apsley House. Late in the evening, after the guests had left the supper room, and it was pretty well deserted, he felt a desire for another glass of wine. There was nobody in the supper room. He was just pouring out a glass of champagne for himself, when he heard a voice behind him. "Youngster, what are you doing?" He turned round. It was the Duke. He said, "I am getting a glass of wine." To this the Duke replied, "You ought to be up-stairs dancing. There are but two things, Sir, for a boy like you to be doing. One is fighting; the other dancing with the girls. As for me I'm going to bed." Thereupon the Duke passed round the table; touched a spring which opened a secret door, in what was apparently a set of book-shelves, and disappeared.

Sir Seymour Blaine told another story which, I dare say, is well known. But I have never seen it in print. He said that just before the Battle of Talavera when the Duke, then Sir Arthur Wellesley, was in command in Spain, the English and French armies had been marching for many days on parallel lines, neither quite liking to attack the other, and neither having got the advantage in position which they were seeking. At last, one day, when everybody was pretty weary with the fatigues of the march, the Duke summoned some of his leading officers together and said to them: "You see that clump of trees (pointing to one a good distance away, but in sight from where they stood)—when the head of the French column reaches that clump of trees, attack. As for me I'm going to sleep under this bush." Thereupon the great soldier lay down, all his arrangements being made, and everything being in readiness, and took his nap while the great battle of Talavera— on which the fate of Spain and perhaps the fate of Europe depended—was begun. This adds another instance to the list of the occasions to which Mr. Everett refers when he speaks of Webster's sleeping soundly the night before his great reply to Hayne.

"So the great Conde' slept on the eve of the battle of Rocroi; so Alexander slept on the eve of the battle of Arbela; and so they awoke to deeds of immortal fame!"

But this dinner of Mr. Frewen's had a very interesting consequence. As I took leave of him at his door about eleven o'clock, he asked me if there were anything more he could do for me. I said, "No, unless you happen to know the Lord Bishop of London. I have a great longing to see the Bradford Manuscript before I go home. It is in the Bishop's Library. I went to Fulham the other day, but found the Bishop was gone. I had supposed the Library was a half-public one. I asked the servant who came to the door for the librarian. He told me there was no such officer, and that it was treated in all respects as a private library. But I should be very glad if I could get an opportunity to see it." Mr. Frewen answered, "I do not myself know the Bishop. But Mr. Grenfell, at whose house you spent Sunday, a little while ago, is his nephew by marriage. He is in Scotland. But if I can reach him, I will procure for you a letter to his uncle." That was Friday. Sunday morning there came a note from Mr. Grenfell to the Bishop. I enclosed it to his Lordship in one from myself, in which I said that if it were agreeable to him, I would call at Fulham the next Tuesday, at an hour which I fixed. I got a courteous reply from the Bishop, in which he said that he would be glad to show me the "log of the Mayflower," as he called it. I kept the appointment, and found the Bishop with the book in his hand. He received me very courteously, and showed me a little of the palace. He said that there had been a Bishop's palace on that spot for more than a thousand years.

I took the precious manuscript in my hands, and examined it with an almost religious reverence. I had delivered the address at Plymouth, the twenty-first of December, 1895, on the occasion of the two hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the landing of the Pilgrims upon the rock. In preparing for that duty I read carefully, with renewed enthusiasm and delight, the noble and touching story as told by Governor Bradford. I declared then that this precious history ought to be in no other custody than that of their children.

There have been several attempts to procure the return of the manuscript to this country. Mr. Winthrop, in 1860, through the venerable John Sinclair, Archdeacon, urged the Bishop of London to give it up, and proposed that the Prince of Wales, then just coming to this country, should take it across the Atlantic and present it to the people of Massachusetts. The Attorney-General, Sir Fitzroy Kelley, approved the plan, and said it would be an exceptional act of grace, a most interesting action, and that he heartily wished the success of the application. But the Bishop refused. Again, in 1869, John Lothrop Motley, the Minister to England, who had a great and deserved influence there, repeated the proposition, at the suggestion of that most accomplished scholar, Justin Winsor. But his appeal had the same fate. The Bishop gave no encouragement, and said, as had been said nine years before, that the property could not be alienated without an Act of Parliament. Mr. Winsor planned to repeat the attempt on his visit to England in 1887. When he was at Fulham the Bishop was absent, and he was obliged to go home without seeing him in person.

In 1881, at the time of the death of President Garfield, Benjamin Scott, Chamberlain of London, proposed again in the newspapers that the restitution should be made. But nothing came of it.

When I went abroad I determined to visit the locality on the borders of Lincolnshire and Yorkshire, from which Bradford and Brewster and Robinson, the three leaders of the Pilgrims, came, and where their first church was formed, and the places in Amsterdam and Leyden where the emigrants spent thirteen years. But I longed especially to see the manuscript of Bradford at Fulham, which then seemed to me, as it now seems to me, the most precious manuscript on earth, unless we could recover one of the four gospels as it came in the beginning from the pen of the Evangelist.

The desire to get it back grew and grew during the voyage across the Atlantic. I did not know how such a proposition would be received in England. A few days after I landed I made a call on John Morley. I asked him whether he thought the thing could be done. He inquired carefully into the story, took down from his shelf the excellent though brief life of Bradford in Leslie Stephen's "Biographical Dictionary," and told me he thought the book ought to come back to us, and that he should be glad to do anything in his power to help. It was my fortune, a week or two after, to sit next to Mr. Bayard at a dinner given to Mr. Collins, by the American consuls in Great Britain. I took occasion to tell him the story, and he gave me the assurance, which he afterward so abundantly and successfully fulfilled, of his powerful aid. I was compelled, by the health of one of the party with whom I was travelling, to go to the Continent almost immediately, and was disappointed in the hope of an early return to England.

After looking at the volume and reading the records on the flyleaf, I said: "My Lord, I am going to say something which you may think rather audacious. I think this book ought to go back to Massachusetts. Nobody knows how it got over here. Some people think it was carried off by Governor Hutchinson, the Tory Governor; other people think it was carried off by British soldiers when Boston was evacuated; but in either case the property would not have changed. Or, if you treat it as booty, in which last case, I suppose, by the law of nations ordinary property does change, no civilized nation in modern times applies that principle to the property of libraries and institutions of learning."

The Bishop said: "I did not know you cared anything about it."

"Why," said I, "if there were in existence in England a history of King Alfred's reign for thirty years, written by his own hand, it would not be more precious in the eyes of Englishmen than this manuscript is to us."

"Well," said he, "I think myself that it ought to go back, and if it depended on me it would have gone back before this. But many of the Americans who have been here have been commercial people, and did not seem to care much about it except as a curiosity. I suppose I ought not to give it up on my own authority. It belongs to me in my official capacity, and not as private or personal property. I think I ought to consult the Archbishop of Canterbury. And, indeed," he added, "I think I ought to speak to the Queen about it. We should not do such a thing behind Her Majesty's back."

I said: "Very well, when I go home I will have a proper application made from some of our literary societies, and ask you to give it consideration."

I saw Mr. Bayard again and told him the story. He was at the train when I left London for the steamer at Southampton. He entered with great interest into the matter, and told me again he would do anything in his power to forward it.

When I got home I communicated with Secretary Olney about it, who took a kindly interest in the matter, and wrote to Mr. Bayard that the Administration desired he should do everything in his power to promote the application. The matter was then brought to the attention of the Council of the American Antiquarian Society, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Pilgrim Society of Plymouth and the New England Society of New York. These bodies appointed committees to unite in the application. Governor Wolcott was also consulted, who gave his hearty approbation to the movement, and a letter was despatched through Mr. Bayard.

Meantime, Bishop Temple, with whom I had my conversation, had himself become Archbishop of Canterbury, and in that capacity Primate of all England. His successor, Rev. Dr. Creighton, had been the delegate of Emanuel, John Harvard's College, to the great celebration at Harvard University in 1886, on the two hundred and fiftieth anniversary of its foundation. He had received the degree of Doctor of Laws from the University, had been a guest of President Eliot, and had received President Eliot as his guest in England.

The full story of the recovery of the manuscript, in which the influence of Ambassador Bayard and the kindness of Bishop Temple, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, had so large a part, is too long to tell here. Before the question was decided Archbishop Temple consulted Her Majesty, Queen Victoria, who took a deep interest in the matter, and gave the plan her cordial approval. I think, as I had occasion to say to the British Ambassador afterward, that the restoration of this priceless manuscript did more to cement the bonds of friendship between the people of the two countries than forty Canal Treaties. In settling Imperial questions both nations are thinking, properly and naturally, of great interests. But his restoration was an act of purest kindness. The American people, in the midst of all their material activities, their desire for wealth and empire, are a sentimental people, easily and deeply stirred by anything that touches their finer feelings, especially anything that relates to their history.

The Bishop was authorized to return the manuscript by a decree rendered in his own Court, by his Chancellor. The Chancellor is regarded as the servant of the Bishop, and holds office, I believe, at his will. But so does the King's Chancellor at the King's will. I suppose the arrangement by which the Chancellor determines suits in which his superior is affected may be explained on the same ground as the authority of the Lord Chancellor to determine suits in which the Crown is a party.

I was quite curious to know on what ground, legal or equitable, the decree for the restoration of the manuscript was made. I wrote, after the thing was over, to the gentleman who had acted as Mr. Bayard's counsel in the case, asking him to enlighten me on this subject. I got a very courteous letter from him in reply, in which he said he was then absent from home, but would answer my inquiry on his return. After he got back, however, I got a formal and ceremonious letter, in which he said that, having been employed by Mr. Bayard as a public officer, he did not think he was at liberty to answer questions asked by private persons. As the petition and decree had gone on the express ground that the application for the return of the manuscript was made by Mr. Bayard, not in his official, but only in his private capacity, as he had employed counsel at my request, and I had been responsible for their fees, I was, at first, inclined to be a little vexed at the answer. On a little reflection, however, I saw that it was not best to be too curious on the subject; that where there was a will there was a way, and probably there was no thought, in getting the decree, on the part of anybody concerned, to be too strict as to legalities. I was reminded, however, of Silas Wegg's answer to Mr. Boffin, when he read aloud to him and his wife evening after evening "The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," which Silas had spoken of at first, as "The Decline and Fall of the Russian Empire." Mr. Boffin noticed the inconsistency, and asked Mr. Wegg why it was that he had called it "The Decline and Fall of the Russian Empire" in the beginning. To which Mr. Wegg replied that Mrs. Boffin was present, and that it would not be proper to answer that question in the presence of a lady.

The manuscript was brought to Massachusetts by Mr. Bayard, on his return to the United States at the end of his official term. It was received by the Legislature in the presence of a large concourse of citizens, to whom I told the story of the recovery. Mr. Bayard delivered the book to the Governor and the Legislature with an admirable speech, and Governor Wolcott expressed the thanks of the State in an eloquent reply. He said that "the story of the departure of this precious work from our shores may never in every detail be revealed; but the story of its return will be read of all men, and will become a part of the history of the Commonwealth. There are places and objects so intimately associated with the world's greatest men or with mighty deeds that the soul of him who gazes upon them is lost in a sense of reverent awe, as it listens to the voice that speaks from the past, in words like those which came from the burning bush, 'Put off thy shoes from off they feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.'

"The story here told is one of triumphant achievement, and not of defeat. As the official representative of the Commonwealth, I receive it, sir, at your hands. I pledge the faith of the Commonwealth that for all time it shall be guarded in accordance with the terms of the decree under which it is delivered into her possession as one of her chiefest treasures. I express the thanks of the Commonwealth for the priceless gift, and I venture the prophecy that for countless years to come and to untold thousands these mute pages shall eloquently speak of high resolve, great suffering and heroic endurance made possible by an absolute faith in the over-ruling providence of Almighty God."

The Bishop gave the Governor of Massachusetts the right to deposit the manuscript either in his office at the State House or with the Massachusetts Historical Society, of which Archbishop Temple and Bishop Creighton, who succeeded Bishop Temple in the See of London, were both Honorary members. The Governor, under my advice, deposited the manuscript in the State House. It seemed to him and to me that the Commonwealth, which is made up of the Colony which Bradford founded, and of which he was Governor, blended with that founded by the Puritans under Winthrop, was the fitting custodian of the life in Leyden of the founders of Plymouth, of the voyage across the sea, and of the first thirty years of the Colony here. It is kept in the State Library, open at the spot which contains the Compact made on board the Mayflower—the first written Constitution in history. Many visitors gaze upon it every year. Few of them look upon it without a trembling of the lip and a gathering of mist in the eye. I am told that it is not uncommon that strong men weep when they behold it.

CHAPTER XXII SILVER AND BIMETALLISM

I was compelled, by the state of my health, to be absent from the country in the campaign which preceded the Presidential election of 1896, except for the last week or two. But, of course, I took a very deep interest indeed in the campaign. Mr. Bryan's theories, and those of his followers in many parts of the country, had thoroughly alarmed the business men of the Northern and Eastern States. But in the new States of the Northwest, especially in those that contained silver mines, a large majority of the people, without distinction of party, had become converts to the doctrine that the United States should coin silver at a ratio compared to gold of sixteen to one, and make the silver so coined legal tender in the payment of all debts, public and private. The price of silver as compared with that of gold had been constantly falling for several years past. This was attributed to the effect of the legislation which demonetized silver except to a limited amount. Several eminent Republicans, both in the Senate and in the House, as well as many others in private station, left the Republican Party on that issue. Several States that had been constantly and reliably Republican became Democratic or Populist, under the same influence.

The Democratic Platform of 1896 demanded the immediate restoration of the free coinage of gold and silver at the present ratio of 16 to 1, without waiting for the consent of any other nation. That doctrine was reaffirmed and endorsed in the Democratic National Platform for 1900.

There were two theories among the persons who desired to maintain the gold standard. One was entertained by the persons known as Gold Monometallists. They insisted that no value could be given to any commodity by legislation. They said that nothing could restore silver to its old value as compared with gold; that its fall was owing to natural causes, chiefly to the increased production. They insisted that every attempt to restore silver to its old place would be futile, and that the promise to make the attempt, under any circumstances, was juggling with the people, from which nothing but disaster and shame would follow. They justly maintained that, if we undertook the unlimited coinage of silver, and to make it legal tender, under the inevitable law long ago announced by Gresham, the cheaper metal, silver, would flow into the country where it would have a larger value for the purpose of paying debts, and that gold, the more precious metal, would desert the country where there would be no use found for it as long as the cheaper metal would perform its function according to law. From this, it was claimed, would follow the making of silver the exclusive basis of all commercial transactions; the disturbance of our commercial relations with other countries, and the establishment of a standard of value which would fluctuate and shrink as the value of silver fluctuated and shrunk. So that no man who contracted a debt on time could tell what would be the value of the coin he would be compelled to pay when his debt became due, and all business on earth would become gambling. They, therefore, demanded that the Republican Party should plant itself squarely on the gold standard; should announce its purpose to make gold the exclusive legal tender for the country, and appeal to the people for support in the Presidential election, standing on that ground.

To them their antagonists answered, that the true law was stated by Alexander Hamilton in his famous Report, accepted by all his contemporaries, and by all our statesmen of all parties down to 1873 or thereabouts, and recognised in the Constitution of the United States. That doctrine was, that the standard of value must necessarily be fixed by the agreement of all commercial nations. No nation could, without infinite suffering and mischief, undertake to set itself against the rule adopted by the rest of mankind. It was best, if the nations would consent to it, to have two metals instead of one made legal tender, at a ratio to be agreed upon by all mankind, establishing what was called Bimetallism. If this were done, the Gresham law could not operate, because there would be no occasion for the cheaper metal to flow into any one country by reason of its having a preference there in the payment of debts; and nothing which would cause the more precious metal to depart from any country by reason of its being at a disadvantage. If such a rule were adopted, and a proper ratio once established, it would be pretty likely to continue, unless there were a very large increase in the production of one metal or the other. If the supply of gold in proportion to silver were diminished a little, the corresponding demand for silver by all mankind would bring up its price and cure the inequality. So, if the supply of gold were to increase in proportion to silver, a like effect would take place.

If, however, the nations of the world were to agree on one metal alone, it was best that the most precious metal should be taken for that purpose.

The above, in substance, was the doctrine of Alexander Hamilton, the ablest practical financier and economist that ever lived, certainly without a rival in this country.

The duties specially assigned to me in the Senate and in the House related to other matters. But I made as thorough and faithful a study as I could of this great question, and accepted Hamilton's conclusions. I believed they were right in themselves, and thought the reasons by which they were supported, although the subject is complex and difficult, likely to find favor with the American people. Silver has always been a favorite metal with mankind from the beginning. While gold may be the standard of value, it is too precious to be a convenient medium of payment for small sums, such as enter into the daily transactions of ordinary life. It is said that you can no more have a double standard, or two measures of value, than you can have a double standard, or two measures of distance. But the compensating effect may be well illustrated by what is done by the makers of clocks for the most delicate measurements of time, such as are used for astronomical calculations. The accuracy of the clock depends upon the length of the pendulum and the weight which the pendulum supports. If the disk at the end of the pendulum be humg by a wire of a single metal, that metal expands and shrinks in length under changing atmospheric influences, and affects the clock's record of time. So the makers of these clocks resort to two or three wires of different metals, differently affected by the atmosphere. One of these compensates for and supplements the other, so that the atmospheric changes have much less effect than upon a single metal.

Beside the fact that I thoroughly believed in the soundness of bimetallism, as I now believe in it, I thought we ought not to give our antagonists who were pressing us so hard, and appealing so zealously to every debtor and every man in pecuniary difficulties, the advantage, in debate before the people, of arraying on their side all our great authorities of the past. We had enough on our hands to encounter Mr. Bryan and the solid South and the powerful Democratic Party of New York and the other great cities, and every man in the country who was uneasy and discontented, without giving them the right to claim as their allies Alexander Hamilton, and George Washington, and Oliver Ellsworth, and John C. Calhoun, and Daniel Webster, and Henry Clay, and Thomas H. Benton. I was, therefore, eager that the Republican Party should state frankly in its platform what I, myself, deemed the sound doctrine. It should denounce and condemn the attempt to establish the free coinage of silver by the power of the United States alone, and declare that to be practical repudiation and national ruin. But I thought we ought also to declare our willingness, if the great commercial nations of the earth would agree, to establish a bimetallic system on a ratio to be agreed upon.

Some of the enemies of the Republican Party, who could not adopt the Democratic plan for the free coinage of silver, without contradicting all their utterances in the past, denounced this proposal as a subterfuge, a straddle, an attempt to deceive the people and get votes by pledges not meant to be carried out.

I believed then, and I believe now, that we were right in demanding that the Republican Party should go into the campaign with the declaration I have stated.

It is true that you cannot give value to any commodity by law. It is as idle to attempt to make an ounce of silver worth as much as an ounce of gold by legislation, as it is to try to make one pound weigh two pounds, or one yard measure two yards. You cannot increase the price of a hat, or a coat, or a farm, by act of Congress. The value of every article, whether gold or silver, whether used as money or as merchandise, must depend upon the inexorable law of demand and supply. But you can, by legislation, compel the use of an article, which use will create a demand for it, and the demand will then increase its price. If Congress shall require that every soldier in the United States Army shall wear a hat or coat of a particular material or pattern, or shall enact that every man who votes shall come to the polls dressed in broadcloth, if there be a limited supply of these commodities, the price of the hat or the coat or the broadcloth will go up. So, when the nations of the world joined in depriving silver of one of its chief uses—that of serving the function of a tender for the payment of debts, the value of silver diminished because one large use which it had served before was gone. Whether this doctrine be sound or no, it was the result of as careful study as I ever gave in my life, to any subject, public or private. It was not only the doctrine of the Fathers, but of recent generations. It was the doctrine on which the Republicans of Massachusetts, a community noted for its conservatism and business sagacity, had planted the Commonwealth, and it was the doctrine on which the American people planted itself and which triumphed in the election of 1896.

I have been accused, sometimes, of want of sincerity, and, by one leading New England paper, with having an imperfect and confused understanding of the subject. Perhaps I may be pardoned, therefore, for quoting two testimonials to the value of my personal contribution to this debate. One came from Senator Clay of Georgia, one of the ablest of the Democratic leaders. After I had stated my doctrine in a brief speech in the Senate one day, he crossed the chamber and said to me that, while he did not accept it, he thought I had made the ablest and most powerful statement of it he had ever heard or read. The other came from Charles Emory Smith, afterward a member of President McKinley's Cabinet and editor of the Press, a leading paper in Philadelphia. I have his letter in which he says that he think an edition of at least a million copies of my speech on gold and silver should be published and circulated through the country. He also said, in an article in the Saturday Evening Post, June 14, 1902:

"In the great contest over the repeal of the Silver Purchase Act he made the most luminous exposition, both of what had been done, and the reasons for it; and what ought to be done, and the grounds for it, that was heard in the Senate."

It occurred to me that I could render a very great service to my country, during my absence, if I could be instrumental in getting a declaration from England and France that those countries would join with the United States in an attempt to reestablish silver as a legal tender.

It was well known that Mr. Balfour, Leader of the Administration in the House of Commons, was an earnest bimetallist. He had so declared himself in public, both in the House and elsewhere, more than once.

There had been a resolution, not long before, signed by more than two thirds of the French Chamber of Deputies, declaring that France was ready to take a similar action whenever England would move. I, accordingly, with the intervention of Mr. Frewen, the English friend I have just mentioned, arranged an interview with Mr. Balfour in Downing Street. We had a very pleasant conversation indeed. I told him that if he were willing, in case the United States, with France and Germany and some of the smaller nations, would establish a common standard for gold and silver, to declare that the step would have the approval of England, and that, although she would maintain the gold standard alone for domestic purposes, she would make a substantial and most important contribution to the success of the joint undertaking, that it would insure the defeat of the project for silver monometallism, from which England, who was so largely our creditor, would suffer, in the beginning almost as much as we would, and perhaps much more, and would avert the panic and confusion in the business of the world, which would be brought about by the success of the project.

I did not state to Mr. Balfour exactly what I thought the contribution of England to this result ought to be. He, on the other hand, did not tell me what he thought she would do. I did not, of course, expect that England would establish the free coinage of silver for her own domestic purposes. But I thought it quite likely that she would declare her cordial approval of the proposed arrangement between the other countries, and would reopen her India mints to the free coinage of the rupee, and maintain the silver standard for the Queen's three hundred million subjects in Asia. This contribution, I thought, if Great Britain went no farther, would give great support to silver, and would ensure the success of the concerted attempt of the other commercial nations to restore silver to its old place.

Mr. Balfour expressed his assent to my proposal, and entered heartily into the scheme. He said he would be very happy indeed to make such a declaration. I suggested to him that I had been authorized to say, by one or two gentlemen with whom I had talked, that, if he were willing, a deputation of the friends of Bimetallism would wait upon him, to whom he could express his opinion and purpose. He said he thought it would be better that he should write a letter to me, and that if I would write to him stating what I had said orally, he would answer it with such a statement as I desired. I told him I was going to Paris in a few days, and that I would write to him from Paris when I got there. The matter was left in that way. The next day, or the next day but one, a luncheon was given me at White's, the club famous for its memories of Pitt and Canning and the old statesmen of that time, and still the resort of many of the Conservative leaders of to-day. There were present some fifteen or twenty gentlemen, including several members of the Government. A gentleman who had known of my interview with Mr. Balfour, and sat at the table some distance from me, made some allusion to it which was heard by most of the guests. I said that I did not like to repeat what Mr. Balfour had said; that gentlemen in his position preferred, if their opinions were to be made public, to do it for themselves, rather than to have anybody else do it for them. To this, one member of the Government— I think it was Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, but I will not undertake to be sure—said: "It is no secret that Mr. Balfour's opinions are those of a majority of Her Majesty's Government."

I went to Paris, and wrote at once the letter that had been agreed upon, of which I have in my possession a copy. I at once secured an introduction to M. Fougirot, the Member of the French Assembly who had drawn and procured the signatures to the resolution to which I just referred. That is, I am told, a not uncommon way in France of declaring the sense of the House in anticipation of a more formal vote. He entered heartily into the plan. He thought Germany would at once agree, at any rate, he was sure that Belgium, Spain, Italy and all the European commercial powers would come into the arrangement, and that the whole thing would be absolutely sure if Great Britain were to agree. I waited a week or two for the letter from Mr. Balfour. In the meantime I got a letter from Mr. Frewen, who told me that Mr. Balfour had shown him the letter he had written to me; that it was admirable, and eminently satisfactory. But no letter came. I waited another week or two, and then got another letter from Mr. Frewen, in which he said that he had taken no copy of Mr. Balfour's letter, and had returned the original, and asked me, if I had no objection, if I would give him a copy of it. I answered that I had heard nothing, whereupon Mr. Frewen wrote a note to Mr. Balfour, telling him that I had not heard. Mr. Balfour said that he had, after writing the letter, submitted it to a meeting of his colleagues; that one of them had expressed his most emphatic disapproval of the plan, and that he did not feel warranted in taking such a step against the objection of one of his colleagues. I gathered, from what I heard afterward, that Mr. Balfour wished he had sent he letter without communicating its contents. But of this I have no right to be sure. Mr. Balfour sent Mr. Frewen the following letter, which is now in my possession. It was, I suppose with his approval, sent to me.

10 DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL, S. W. August 6, 1896.

DEAR MORETON FREWEN.

I think Senator Hoar has just reason to complain of my long silence. But, the truth is that I was unwilling to tell him that my hopes of sending him a letter for publication had come to an end, until I was really certain that this was the case. I am afraid however that even if I am able now to overcome the objections of my colleagues, the letter itself would be too late to do much good. Please let me know what you think on this subject.

Yours sincerely, ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR.

I never blamed him. He was in the midst of a good deal of difficulty with his Education Bill. Certainly there can be no obligation on the Leader of the English House of Commons to do anything that he is not sure is for the interests of his own country, or his own party, for the sake of benefitting a foreign country, still less for the sake of affecting its politics. Indeed, I suppose Mr. Balfour would have utterly and very rightfully disclaimed any idea of writing such a letter, unless he thought what was proposed would benefit England. When I went back to London, an offer was made me later to arrange another interview with Mr. Balfour, and see if something else could not be devised. This I declined. I thought I had gone as far as I properly could, with a due sense of my own dignity. The exigency at home had pretty much passed by.

A day or two after I got to Paris, after I had seen M. Fougirot, I cabled my colleague, Mr. Lodge, at St. Louis, where the delegates to the convention to nominate a President were then gathering, stating my hope that our convention would insert in its platform a declaration of the purpose of the Republican Party to obtain, in concert with other nations, the restoration of silver as a legal tender in company with gold, and that I had reason to feel sure that such a plan could be accomplished. This cable reached St. Louis on the morning the convention assembled. I do not know how much influence it had, or whether it had any, in causing the insertion of that plank in the platform. Such a plank was inserted. In my opinion it saved the Presidential election, and, in my opinion, in saving the Presidential election, it saved the country from the incalculable evil of the free coinage of silver.

After I came home, at the next winter's session, I told the story of what I had done, to a caucus of the Republican Senators. A Committee was thereupon appointed by John Sherman, President of the Caucus, to devise proper means for keeping the pledge of the National platform and establishing international bimetallism in concurrence with other nations. The Committee consisted of Messrs. Wolcott, Hoar, Chandler, Carter and Gear. They reported the Act of March 3, 1897, authorizing a commission to visit Europe for that purpose, of which Senator Wolcott was chairman.

A Commission was sent abroad by President McKinley, in pursuance of the pledge of the Republican National platform, to endeavor to effect an arrangement with the leading European nations for an international bimetallic standard. Senator Wolcott of Colorado, who was the head of this Commission, told me he was emboldened to undertake it by the account I had given. The Commission met with little success. I conjecture that the English Administration, although a majority of the Government, and probably a majority of the Conservative Party, were Bimetallists and favored an international arrangement on principle, did not like to disturb existing conditions at the risk of offending the banking interests at London, especially those which had charge of the enormous foreign investments, the value of which would be constantly increasing so long as their debts were payable, principal and interest, in gold, the value of which, also, was steadily appreciating.

It has been the fashion of some quite zealous—I will not say presumptuous, still less ignorant or shallow writers on this subject—to charge bimetallists with catering to a mischievous, popular delusion, for political purposes, or with shallowness in thinking or investigating. I have had my share of such criticism. All I have to say in reply to it is that I have done my best to get at the truth, without, so far as I am concerned, any desire except to get at and utter the truth. In addition to the authority of our own early statesmen, and to that of the eminent Englishmen to whom I have referred, I wish to cite that of my pupil and dear friend, General Francis A. Walker, who is declared by abundant European, as well as American authority, to be the foremost writer on money of modern times. He was a thorough believer in the doctrine I have stated.

He pointed out the danger, indeed the ruin, of undertaking to reestablish silver without the consent of foreign nations. But he declared that the happiness and, perhaps, the safety of the country rested on Bimetallism. He said:

"Indeed, every monometallist ought also to be a monoculist. Polyphemus, the old Cyclops, would be his ideal. Unfortunately our philosophers were not in the Garden of Eden at the time when the Creator made the mistake of endowing men with eyes in pairs. Perhaps it would not be too much to say that there are probably few men whose eyes do not differ from each other as to every element affecting vision by more than the degree from which gold and silver varied from the French standard of fifteen and a half to one for whole decades."

The German Imperial Parliament passed a resolution, in June, 1895, in favor of Bimetallism, and the Prussian Parliament passed a resolution favoring an international bimetallic convention, provided England joined it, May 22, 1895.

The great increase in the gold product of the world, and the constant diminution in the value of silver, have put an end to the danger of the movement for the free coinage of silver, and made the question purely academic or theoretic, at any rate for a good while to come. The same causes have diminished the desire for a bimetallic standard, and make the difficulty of establishing a parity between silver and gold, for the present, almost insuperable. So the question which excited so much public feeling throughout the world for nearly a quarter of a century, and endangered not only the ascendancy of the Republican Party, but the financial strength of the United States, has become almost wholly one of theory and ancient history.

After leaving Paris I spent a few delightful weeks at Innsbruck in Austria, and Reichenhall in Germany, both near the frontier between those two countries. The wonderful scenery and the curious architecture and antiquity of those towns transport one back to the Middle Ages. But I suppose they are too well known now, to our many travellers, to make it worth while to describe them. I went to those places for the health of a lady nearly allied to my household. She was under the care of Baron Liebig, one of the most famous physicians in Germany, the son of the great chemist. I got quite well acquainted with him. He was a very interesting man. He had a peculiar method of dealing with the diseases of the throat and lungs like those under which my sister-in-law suffered. He had several large oval apartments, air-tight, with an inner wall made of porcelain, like that used for an ordinary vase or pitcher. From these he excluded all the air of the atmosphere, and supplied its place with an artificial air made for the purpose. The patients were put in there, remaining an hour and three quarters or two hours each day—I do not know but some of them for a longer time. Then they were directed to take long walks, increasing them in length day by day, a considerable part of the walk being up a steep hill or mountain. I believe his method was of very great value to the patient who was in my company. The Baron thought he could effect a complete cure if she could stay with him several months. But that was impossible.

CHAPTER XXIII VISITS TO ENGLAND 1899

I visited England again in 1899. I did not go to the Continent or Scotland. My wife consulted a very eminent London physician for an infirmity of the heart. He told her to go to the Isle of Wight; remain there a few weeks; then to go to Boscombe; stay a few weeks there; then to Malvern Hills, and thence to a high place in Yorkshire, which, I believe, is nearly, if not quite, the highest inhabited spot in England. This treatment was eminently advantageous. But to comply with the doctor's direction took all the time we had at our command before going home.

We had a charming and delightful time in the Isle of Wight. We stayed at a queer little Inn, known as the "Crab and Lobster," kept by Miss Cass, with the aid of her sister and niece. We made excursions about the island. I saw two graves side by side which had a good deal of romance about them. One was the grave of a woman. The stone said that she had died at the age of one hundred and seven. By its side was the grave of her husband, to whom she had been married at the age of eighteen, and who had died just after the marriage. So she had been a widow eighty-nine years, and then the couple, separated in their early youth, had come together again in the grave.

We found a singular instance of what Americans think so astonishing in England, the want of knowledge by the people of the locality with which they were familiar in life, of persons whose names have a world-wide reputation. In a churchyard at Bonchurch, about a mile from our Inn at Ventnor, is the grave of John Stirling—the friend of Emerson—of whom Carlyle wrote a memoir. Sterling is the author of some beautiful hymns and other poems, including what I think is the most splendid and spirited ballad in English literature, "Alfred the Harper." Yet the sexton who exhibited the church and the churchyard did not seem to know anything about him, and the booksellers near by never had heard of him. The sexton showed, with great pride, the grave of Isaac Williams, author of the "Shadow of the Cross" and some other rather tame religious poetry. He was a devout and good man, and seemed to be a feeble imitator of Keble. I dare say, the sexton first heard of Sterling and saw his grave when we showed it to him.

The scenery about Boscombe and the matchless views of the Channel are a perpetual delight, especially the sight, on a clear day, of the Needles.

We did not find it necessary to obey the doctor's advice to go to Yorkshire. After leaving Boscombe, I spent the rest of my vacation at Malvern Hills, some eight or nine miles north of Worcester, and some twenty miles from Gloucester.

The chief delight of that summer—a delight that dwells freshly in my memory to-day, and which will never be forgotten while my memory endures—was a journey through the Forest of Dean, in a carriage, in company with my friend—alas, that I must say my late friend!—John Bellows, of Gloucester. He was, I suppose, of all men alive, best qualified to be a companion and teacher of such a journey. He has written and published for the American Antiquarian Society an account of our journey— a most delightful essay, which I insert in the appendix. He tells the story much better than I could tell it. My readers will do well to read it, even if they skip some chapters of this book for the purpose. I am proud and happy in this way to associate my name with that of this most admirable gentleman.

I visited Gloucester. I found the houses still standing where my ancestors dwelt, and the old tomb in the Church of St. Mary de Crypt, with the word Hoare cut in the pavement in the chancel.

My ancestors were Puritans. They took an active part in the resistance to Charles I., and many traces are preserved of their activity in the civic annals of Gloucester. Two of my name were Sheriffs in those days. There were two other Sheriffs whose wives were sisters of my direct ancestors. Charles Hoar, my direct ancestor, married one of the Clifford family, the descendant of the brother of Fair Rosamond, and their arms are found on a tomb, and also on a window in the old church at Frampton-on-Severn, eight miles from Gloucester, where the Cliffords are buried. The spot where fair Rosamond was born, still, I believe, belongs to the Clifford family.

I got such material as I could for studying the history of the military operations which preceded the siege and capture of Worcester and the escape of Charles II. Several of the old houses where he was concealed are shown, as also one in Worcester from which he made his escape out of the window when Worcester was stormed, just as Cromwell's soldiers were entering at the door.

Shakespeare used to pass through Gloucester on his way to London. Some of his celebrated scenes are in Gloucestershire. The tradition is that Shakespeare's company acted in the yard of the New Inn, at Gloucester, an ancient hostelry still standing, a few rods only from the Raven Tavern, which belonged to my ancestors, and is mentioned in one of their wills still extant. I have no doubt my kindred of that time saw Shakespeare, and saw him act, unless they had already learned the Puritanism which came to them, if not before, in a later generation.

I purchased, some years ago, some twenty ancient Gloucestershire deeds, of various dates, but all between 1100 and 1400. One of them was witnessed by John le Hore. It was of lands at Wotton-under-Edge in Gloucestershire. I have in my possession a will of Thomas Hore of Bristol, dated 1466, in which he mentions his wife Joanna, and his daughters Joanna and Margery, and his sons Thomas and John. These names—Thomas, John, Joanna and Margery—are the names of members of the family who dwelt in the city of Gloucester in later generations. So I have little doubt that Thomas was of the same race, although there is a link in the pedigree, between his death and 1560 or 1570 which I cannot supply. This Thomas bequeaths land at Wotton-under-Edge, so I conjecture that John also was of the same race. A large old black oak chest bound with iron, bequeathed by Thomas to Bristol in 1466, is still in the possession of the city.

I was very much gratified that the people of the old City of Gloucester were glad to recognize the tie of kindred which I, myself, feel so strongly. I received a handsome box, containing a beautifully bound copy of an account of the City from the Traders' Association of the City of Gloucester. This account of the matter appears in the Echo, a local paper of July 4, 1899.

GLOUCESTER CITY. GLOUCESTER TRADERS' ASSOCIATION. INTERESTING PRESENTATION

On Monday evening a largely attended public meeting was held in the Guildhall under the auspices of the Gloucester Traders' Association for the purpose of hearing addresses on "The municipal electricity supply." Mr. D. Jones (president) occupied the chair, and there were also present on the platform the Mayor (Mr. H. R. J. Braine), City High Sheriff (Mr. A. V. Hatton), Councillors Holborook, Poole and several members of the association.

The Chairman said that in his position as president of the association it was his pleasurable duty to present a copy of their guide to Mr. G. F. Hoar, the distinguished member of the United States Government, who had always taken a great interest in their historic City.—The presentation consisted of a handsomely carved box made by Messrs. Matthews and Co. from pieces of historic English oak supplied by Mr. H. Y. J. Taylor. On the outside of the cover are engraved the City arms, and a brass plate explaining the presentation. A beautifully printed copy of the well-known guide, bound in red morocco, has been placed within, and on the inside of the cover there is the following illuminated address:

"To the Hon. G. F. Hoar, of Worcester, Mass., Senator of the United States of America. Sir,—The members of the Traders' Association, Gloucester, England, ask your acceptance of a bound copy of their guide to this ancient and historic City, together with this box made from part of a rafter taken from the room in which Bishop Hooper was lodged the night before his burning, and from oak formerly in old All Saints' Church, as souvenirs of the regard which the association entertains for you and its recognition of your ardent affection for the City of Gloucester, the honored place of the nativity of the progenitor of your family, Charles Hoar, who was elder Sheriff in 1634; and may these sincere expressions also be typical of the sterling friendship existing between Great Britain and America."

"Senator Hoar had been unable to attend the meeting, and the presentation was entrusted to the American Vice-Consul, Mr. E. H. Palin, to forward to him. Remarking on the presentation, the Mayor expressed his regret that Mr. Hoar had been unable to accept the high and important position of American Ambassador which had been offered to him. Addresses on the installation of the electric light were then given by Mr. Hammond, M.I.C.E., and Mr. Spencer Hawes."

I was invited by the Corporation of the City to visit them in the fall and receive the freedom of the City, which was to be bestowed at the same time on Sir Michael Hicks-Beach. But I had arranged to return to the United States before the time fixed for the ceremonial. So I was deprived of that great pleasure and honor.

I had a great longing to hear the nightingale. I find in an old memorandum that I heard the nightingale in Warwickshire in 1860, somewhere about the twentieth of May. But the occurrence, and the song of the bird, have wholly faded from my memory. When I was abroad in 1892 and '96 I hoped to hear the song. But I was too late. Mrs. Warre, wife of the Rector of Bemerton, George Herbert's Parsonage, told me that the nightingales were abundant in her own garden close to the Avon, but that they did not sing after the beginning of the nesting session which, according to a note to White's "History of Selborne," lasts from the beginning of May to the early part of June. Waller says:

Thus the wise nightingale that leaves her home, Pursuing constantly the cheerful spring, To foreign groves does her old music bring.

There are some counties in England where the bird is not found. It is abundant in Warwickshire, Gloucester and the Isle of Wight. It is not found in Scotland, Derbyshire or Yorkshire or Devon or Cornwall. Attempts to introduce it in those places have failed. The reason is said to be that its insect food does not exist there.

I utterly failed to hear the nightingale, although I was very close upon his track. On the night of the fifth of June at Freshwater, close to Tennyson's home, we were taken by a driver, between eleven and twelve at night, to two copses in one of which he said he had heard the nightingale the night before; and at the other they had been heard by somebody, from whom he got the information, within a very few days. But the silence was unbroken, notwithstanding our patience and the standing reward I had offered to anybody who would find one that I could hear. Two different nights shortly afterward, I was driven out several miles past groves where the bird was said to be heard frequently. Nothing came of it. May 29, at Gloucester, I rode with my friend, H. Y. J. Taylor, Esq., an accomplished antiquary, out into the country. We passed a hillside where he said he had heard the nightingale about eleven o'clock in the daytime the week before. Shakespeare says:

The nightingale, if she should sing by day, When every goose is cackling, would be No better a musician than the wren.

But the nightingale does sometimes sing by day. Mr. Taylor says that on the morning he spoke of the whole field seemed to be full of singing birds. There were larks and finches and linnets and thrushes, and I think other birds whose name I do not remember. But when the nightingale set up his song every other bird stopped. They seemed as much spellbound by the singing as he was, and Philomel had the field to himself till the song was over. It was as if Jenny Lind had come into a country church when the rustic choir of boys and girls were performing.

The nightingale will sometimes sing out of season if his mate be killed, or if the nest with the eggs therein be destroyed.

He is not a shy bird. He comes out into the highway and will fly in and out of the hedges, sometimes following a traveller. And the note of one bird will, in the singing season, provoke the others, so that a dozen or twenty will sometimes be heard rivalling one another at night, making it impossible for the occupants of the farmhouses to sleep.

The superstition is well known that if a new-married man hear the cuckoo before he hear the nightingale in the spring, his married peace will be invaded by some stranger within the year. But if the nightingale be heard first he will be happy in his love. It is said that the young married swains in the country take great pains to hear the nightingale first. We all remember Milton's sonnet:

O nightingale, that on yon bloomy Spray Warbl'est at eve, when all the woods are still, Thou with fresh hope the Lover's heart dost fill, While the jolly hours lead on propitious May, They liquid notes that close the eye of Day, First heard before the shallow Cuckoo's bill Portend success in love; O, if Jove's will Have linkt that amorous power to thy soft lay, Now timely sing, ere the rude bird of hate Foretell my hopeless doom in some Grove nigh; As thou from year to year hast sung too late For my relief; yet hadst no reason why, Whether the Muse, or Love, call thee his mate, Both them I serve, and of their train am I.

I had a funny bit of evidence that this superstition is not entirely forgotten. A very beautiful young lady called upon us in London just as we were departing for the Isle of Wight. I told her of my great longing to hear the nightingale, and that I hoped to get a chance. She said that she had just come from one of her husband's country estates; that she had not seen a nightingale or heard one this year, although they were very abundant there. She said she had seen a cuckoo, which came about the same time. I suppose she observed a look of amusement on my countenance, for she added quick as lightning, "But he didn't speak."

I made this year a delightful visit to Cambridge University. I was the guest of Dr. Butler, the Master of Trinity, and his accomplished wife, who had, before her marriage, beaten the young men of Cambridge in all of the examinations. Dr. Butler spoke very kindly of William Everett, with whom he had been contemporary at Cambridge. He told me that Edward Everett, when he received his degree at Oxford, was treated with great incivility by the throng of undergraduates, not because he was an American, but because he was a Unitarian. I told this story afterwards to Mr. Charles Francis Adams. He confirmed it, and said that his father had refused the degree because he did not wish to expose himself to a like incivility.

I dined in the old hall of Trinity, and met many very eminent scholars. I saw across the room Mr. Myers, the author of the delightful essays, but did not have an opportunity to speak to him. I was introduced, among other gentlemen, to Aldus Wright, Vice or Deputy Master, eminent for his varied scholarship, and to Mr. Frazer, who had just published his admirable edition of Pausanias.

A great many years ago I heard a story from Richard H. Dana, illustrating the cautious and conservative fashions of Englishmen. He told me that when the Judges went to Cambridge for the Assizes they always lodged in the House of the Master of Trinity, which was a royal foundation, the claim being, that as they represented the King, they lodged there as of right. On the other hand the College claims that they are there as the guests of the College, and indebted to its hospitality solely for their lodging. When the Judges approach Cambridge, the Master of Trinity goes out to meet them, and expresses the hope that they will make their home at the College during their stay; to which the Judges reply that "They are coming." The Head of the College conducts them to the door. When it is reached, each party bows and invites the other to go in. They go in, and the Judges stay until the Assize is over. This ceremony has gone on for four hundred years, and it never yet has been settled whether the Judges have a right in the Master's house, or only are there as guests and by courtesy. I suppose that in the United States both sides would fight that question until it was settled somehow. Each would say: "I am very willing to have the other there. But I want to know whether he has any right there." I asked about the truth of this story. Dr. Butler said it was true and seemed, if I understood him aright, to think the Judges' claim was a good one. Mr. Wright, the Deputy Master, to whom I also put the question, spoke of it with rather less respect.

CHAPTER XXIV A REPUBLICAN PLATFORM

I have had occasion several times to prepare the Republican platform for the State Convention. The last time I undertook the duty was in 1894. I was quite busy. I shrunk from the task and put it off until the time approached for the Convention, and it would not do to wait any longer. So I got up one morning and resolved that I would shut myself up in my library and not leave it until the platform was written. Accordingly I sat down after breakfast, with the door shut, and taking a pencil made a list of topics about which I thought there should be a declaration in the platform.

I wrote each at the top of a separate page on a scratch- block, intending to fill them out in the usual somewhat grandiloquent fashion which seems to belong to that kind of literature. I supposed I had a day's work before me.

It suddenly occurred to me: Why not take these headings just as they are, and make a platform of them, leaving the Convention and the public to amplify as they may think fit afterward. Accordingly I tore out the leaves from the scratch- block, and handed them to a secretary to be put into type. The whole proceeding did not take fifteen minutes.

The sense of infinite relief that the Convention had when, after listening a moment of two, they found I was getting over what they expected as a rather tedious job, with great rapidity, was delightful to behold. I do not believe there was ever a political platform received in this country with such approval, certainly by men who listened to it, as that:

PLATFORM

"The principles of the Republicans of Massachusetts are as well known as the Commonwealth itself; well known as the Republic; well known as Liberty; well known as Justice.

Chief among them are:

An equal share in Government for every citizen.

Best possible wages for every workman.

The American market for American labor.

Every dollar paid by the Government, both the gold and the silver dollars of the Constitution, and their paper representatives, honest and unchanging in value and equal to every other.

Better immigration laws.

Better naturalization laws.

No tramp, Anarchist, criminal or pauper to be let in, so that citizenship shall not be stained or polluted.

Sympathy with Liberty and Republican government at home and abroad.

Americanism everywhere.

The flag never lowered or dishonored.

No surrender in Samoa.

No barbarous Queen beheading men in Hawaii.

No lynching.

No punishment without trial.

Faith kept with the pensioner.

No deserving old soldier in the poorhouse.

The suppression of dram drinking and dram selling.

A school at the public charge open to all the children, and free from partisan or sectarian control.

No distinction of birth or religious creed in the rights of American citizenship.

Devotion paramount and supreme to the country and to the flag.

Clean politics.

Pure administration.

No lobby.

Reform of old abuses.

Leadership along loftier paths.

Minds ever open to the sunlight and the morning, ever open to new truth and new duty as the new years bring their lessons."

I ought to explain one phrase in this platform, which I have since much regretted. That is the phrase, "No barbarous Queen beheading men in Hawaii." It was currently reported in the press that the Queen of Hawaii, Liliuokalani, was a semi- barbarous person, and that when Mr. Blount, Mr. Cleveland's Commissioner, proposed to restore her government and said that amnesty should be extended to all persons who had taken part in the revolution, she had said with great indignation, "What, is no one to be beheaded?" and that upon that answer Mr. Blount and Mr. Cleveland had abandoned any further purpose of using the power of the United States to bring the monarchy back again. That, so far as I knew, had never been contradicted and had obtained general belief.

I ought not to have accepted the story without investigation. I learned afterward, from undoubted authority, that the Queen is an excellent Christian woman; that she has done her best to reconcile her subjects of her own race to the new order of things; that she thinks it is better for them to be under the power of the United States than under that of any other country, and that they could not have escaped being subjected to some other country if we had not taken them; and that she expended her scanty income in educating and caring for the children of the persons who were about her court who had lost their own resources by the revolution. I have taken occasion, more than once, to express, in the Senate, my respect for her, and my regret for this mistake.

CHAPTER XXV OFFICIAL SALARIES

When I was in the House the salaries of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States were raised to ten thousand dollars a year, and a provision for a retiring pension, to be continued for life to such of them as became seventy years old, and had served ten years on the Bench, was enacted.

But it is always very difficult indeed to get salaries raised, especially the salaries of Judges. That it was accomplished them was due largely to the sagacity and skill of Mr. Armstrong of Pennsylvania. He was a very sensible and excellent Representative. His service, like that of many of the best men from Pennsylvania, was too short for the public good. I had very little to do with it myself, except that I talked the matter over a good deal with Mr. Armstrong, who was a friend of mine, and heartily supported it.

After I entered the Senate, however, I undertook to get through a bill for raising the salaries of the Judges of the United States District Courts. The District Judges were expected to be learned lawyers of high reputation and character, and large experience. Very important matters indeed are within the jurisdiction of the District Courts. They would have to deal with prize cases, if a war were to break out. In that case the reputation of the tribunals of the United States throughout the world would depend largely on them. They have also had to do a large part of the work of the Circuit Courts, especially since the establishment of the Circuit Courts of Appeals, as much of the time of the Circuit Judges is required in attendance there.

I had great difficulty in getting the measure through. But at last I was successful in getting the salaries, which had ranged from $1,500 to $4,000 in different districts of the country, made uniform and raised to $5,000 a year.

Later I made an attempt to have the salaries of the Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States increased. My desire was to have the salary of the Associate Judges fixed at $15,000, being an increase of fifty per cent., that of the Chief Justice to be $500 more. I met with great difficulty, but at last, in the winter of 1903, I succeeded in getting through a measure, which I had previously reported, which increased the salary of the Associate Judges to $12,500, and that of the Chief Justice to $13,000. The same measure increased the salaries of the District Judges from $5,000 to $6,000, and that of the Circuit Judges from $6,000 to $7,000 a year.

The salary of Senators and Representatives is shamefully small. This is a great injustice, not only to members of the two Houses, but it is a great public injury, because the country cannot command the service of able men in the prime of life, unless they have already acquired large fortunes. It cannot be expected that a lawyer making from $25,000 to $50,000 a year, or a man engaged in business, whose annual income perhaps far exceeds that amount, will leave it for $5,000 a year. In that way he is compelled not only to live frugally himself, but what is more disagreeable still, to subject his household to the live in the humblest style in a costly and fashionable city, into which wealthy persons are coming from all parts of the country.

The members of Congress have a great many demands upon them, which they cannot resist. So a Senator or Representative with $5,000 a year, living in Washington a part of the year and at home the other part, cannot maintain his family as well as an ordinary mechanic or salaried man who gets $2,500 or $3,000 a year, and spends all his time in one place.

The English aristocracy understand this pretty well. They give no salary at all to the members of their House of Commons. The result is that the poor people, the working people and people in ordinary life, cannot get persons to represent them, from their own class. That will soon be true in this country, if we do not make a change. I suppose nearly every member of either House of Congress will tell you in private that he thinks the salary ought to be raised. But the poor men will not vote for it, because they think the example will be unpopular, and the rich men do not care about it.

CHAPTER XXVI PROPRIETY IN DEBATE

The race of demagogues we have always with us. They have existed in every government from Cleon and the Sausage-maker. They command votes and seem to delight popular and legislative assemblies. But they rarely get very far in public favor. The men to whom the American people gives its respect, and whom it is willing to trust in the great places of power, are intelligent men of property, dignity and sobriety.

We often witness and perhaps are tempted to envy the applause which many public speakers get by buffoonery, by rough wit, by coarse personality, by appeal to the vulgar passions. We are apt to think that grave and serious reasonings are lost on the audiences that receive them, half asleep, as if listening to a tedious sermon, and who come to life again when the stump speaker takes the platform. But it will be a great mistake to think that the American people do not estimate such things at their true value. When they come to take serious action, they prefer to get their inspiration from the church or the college and not from the circus. Uncle Sam likes to be amused. But Uncle Sam is a gentleman. In the spring of 1869, when I first took my seat in Congress, General Butler was in the House. He was perhaps as widely known to the country as any man in it except President Grant. He used to get up some scene of quarrel or buffoonery nearly every morning session. His name was found every day in the head-lines of the newspapers. I said to General Banks one day after the adjournment: "Don't you think it is quite likely that he will be the next President of the United States?" "Never," said General Banks, in his somewhat grandiloquent fashion. "Why," said I, "don't you see that the papers all over the country all full of him every morning? People seem to be reading about nobody else. Wherever he goes, the crowds throng after him. Nobody else gets such applause, not even Grant himself."

"Mr. Hoar," replied General Banks, "when I came down to the House this morning, there was a fight between two monkeys on Pennsylvania Avenue. There was an enormous crowd, shouting and laughing and cheering. They would have paid very little attention to you or me. But when they come to elect a President of the United States, they won't take either monkey."

The men who possess the capacity for coarse wit and rough repartee, and who indulge it, seldom get very far in public favor. No President of the United States has had it. No Judge of the Supreme Court has had it, no Speaker of the House of Representatives, and, with scarcely an exception, no eminent Senator.

CHAPTER XXVII THE FISH-BALL LETTER

In August, 1890, the Pittsburg Post, a Democratic paper, made a savage attack on me. He attributed to me some very foolish remark and declared that I lived on terrapin and champagne; that I had been an inveterate office-seeker all my life; and that I had never done a stroke of useful work. Commonly it is wise to let such attacks go without notice. To notice them seriously generally does more harm than good to the party attacked. But I was a good deal annoyed by the attack, and thought I would make a good-natured and sportive reply to it, instead of taking it seriously. So I sent the editor the following letter, which was copied quite extensively throughout the country, North and South; and I believe put an end, for the rest of my life, to the particular charges he had made:

UNITED STATES SENATE, WASHINGTON, D. C., Aug. 10, 1890.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PITTSBURG POST;

My Dear Man: Somebody has sent me a copy of your paper containing an article of which you do me the honor to make me the subject. What can have put such an extravagant yarn into the head of so amiable and good-natured a fellow? I never said the thing which you attribute to me in any interview, caucus or anywhere else. I never inherited any wealth or had any. My father was a lawyer in very large practice for his day, but he was a very generous and liberal man and never put much value upon money. My share of his estate was about $10,500. All the income-producing property I have in the world, or ever had, yields a little less than $1,800 a year; $800 of that is from a life estate and the other thousand comes from stock in a corporation which has only paid dividends for the last two or three years, and which I am very much afraid will pay no dividend, or much smaller ones, after two or three years to come. With that exception the house where I live, with its contents, with about four acres of land, constitute my whole worldly possessions, except two or three vacant lots, which would not bring me $5,000 all told. I could not sell them now for enough to pay my debts. I have been in my day an extravagant collector of books, and have a library which you would like to see and which I would like to show you. Now, as to office-holding and working. I think there are few men on this continent who have put so much hard work into life as I have. I went one winter to the Massachusetts House of Representatives, when I was twenty-five years old, and one winter to the Massachusetts Senate, when I was thirty years old. The pay was two dollars a day at that time. I was nominated on both occasions, much to my surprise, and on both occasion declined a renomination. I afterward twice refused a nomination for Mayor of my city, have twice refused a seat on the Supreme Bench of Massachusetts, and refused for years to go to Congress when the opportunity was in my power. I was at last broken down with overwork, and went to Europe for my health. During my absence the arrangements were made for my nomination to Congress, from which, when I got home, I could not well escape. The result is I have been here twenty years as Representative and Senator, the whole time getting a little poorer year by year. If you think I have not made a good one, you have my full authority for saying anywhere that I entirely agree with you. During all this time I have never been able to hire a house in Washington. My wife and I have experienced the varying fortune of Washington boarding houses, sometimes very comfortable, and a good deal of the time living in a fashion to which no mechanic earning two dollars a day would subject his household. Your "terrapin" is all in my eye, very little in my mouth. The chief carnal luxury of my life is in breakfasting every Sunday morning with an orthodox friend, a lady who has a rare gift for making fish-balls and coffee. You unfortunate and benighted Pennsylvanians can never know the exquisite flavor of the codfish, salted, made into balls and eaten on a Sunday morning by a person whose theology is sound, and who believes in all the five points of Calvinism. I am myself but an unworthy heretic, but I am of Puritan stock, of the seventh generation, and there is vouchsafed to me, also, some share of that ecstasy and a dim glimpse of that beatific vision. Be assured, my benighted Pennsylvania friend, that in that hour when the week begins, all the terrapin of Philadelphia or Baltimore and all the soft-shelled crabs of the Atlantic shore might pull at my trousers legs and thrust themselves on my notice in vain.

I am faithfully, GEO. F. HOAR

CHAPTER XXVIII THE BIRD PETITION

Before the year 1897 I had become very much alarmed at the prospect of the total extinction of our song-birds. The Bobolink seemed to be disappearing from the field in Massachusetts, the beautiful Summer Red Bird had become extinct, and the Oriole and the Scarlet Tanager had almost disappeared. Many varieties of songbirds which were familiar to my own boyhood were unknown to my children. The same thing seems to be going on in other countries. The famous Italian novelist, Ouida, contributed an article in the North American Review a few years ago in which she described the extermination of the Nightingale in Italy. The Director of the Central Park, in one of his Reports, stated that within fifteen or twenty years the song-birds of the State of New York had diminished forty- five per cent.

One afternoon in the spring of 1897, Governor Claflin called on me at my Committee Room in the Capitol and told me a lady had just visited his daughter at her rooms who had on her head eleven egrets. These egrets are said to come from the female White Heron, a beautiful bird abounding in Florida. They are a sort of bridal ornament, growing out on the head of the female at pairing time and perishing and dropping off after the brood is reared. So the ornament on the horrible woman's head had cost the lives of eleven of these beautiful birds and very likely in every case the lives of a brood of young ones.

When I went home I sat down after dinner and wrote with a pencil the following petition.

_"To the Great and General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts:

"We, the song-birds of Massachusetts and their playfellows, make this our humble petition:_

"We know more about you than you think we do. We know how good you are. We have hopped about the roofs and looked in at the windows of the homes you have built for poor and sick and hungry people and little lame and deaf and blind children. We have built our nests in the tress and sung many a song as we flew about the gardens and parks you have made so beautiful for your own children, especially your poor children, to play in.

"Every year we fly a great way over the country, keeping all the time where the sun is bright and warm; and we know that whenever you do anything, other people all over the great land between the seas and the great lakes find it out, and pretty soon will try to do the same thing. We know; we know. We are Americans just as you are. Some of us, like some of you, came from across the great sea, but most of the birds like us have lived here a long while; and birds like us welcomed your fathers when they came here many years ago. Our fathers and mothers have always done their best to please your fathers and mothers.

"Now we have a sad story to tell you. Thoughtless or bad people are trying to destroy us. They kill us because our feathers are beautiful. Even pretty and sweet girls, who we should think would be our best friends, kill our brothers and children so that they may wear plumage on their hats. Sometimes people kill us from mere wantonness. Cruel boys destroy our nests and steal our eggs and our young ones. People with guns and snares lie in wait to kill us, as if the place for a bird were not in the sky, alive, but in a shop window or under a glass case. If this goes on much longer, all your song-birds will be gone. Already, we are told, in some other countries that used to be full of birds, they are almost gone. Even the nightingales are being all killed in Italy.

"Now we humbly pray that you will stop all this, and will save us from this sad fate. You have already made a law that no one shall kill a harmless song-bird or destroy our nests or our eggs. Will you please to make another that no one shall wear our feathers, so that no one will kill us to get them? We want them all ourselves. Your pretty girls are pretty enough without them. We are told that it is as easy for you to do it as for Blackbird to whistle.

"If you will, we know how to pay you a hundred times over. We will teach your children to keep themselves clean and neat. We will show them how to live together in peace and love and to agree as we do in our nests. We will build pretty houses which you will like to see. We will play about your gardens and flower-beds,—ourselves like flowers on wings,—without any cost to you. We will destroy the wicked insects and worms that spoil your cherries and currants and plums and apples and roses. We will give you our best songs and make the spring more beautiful and the summer sweeter to you. Every June morning when you go out to the field, Oriole and Blackbird and Bobolink will fly after you and make the day more delightful to you; and when you go home tired at sundown, Vesper Sparrow will tell you how grateful we are. When you sit on your porch after dark, Fife Bird and Hermit Thrush and Wood Thrush will sing to you; and even Whip-poor-will will cheer up a little. We know where we are safe. In a little while all the birds will come to live in Massachusetts again, and everybody who loves music will like to make a summer home with you."

I thought it might, perhaps, strike the Legislature of Massachusetts and the public more impressively than a sober argument. The whole thing took only fifteen or twenty minutes. The petition was signed by all the song-birds of Massachusetts, and illustrated by Miss Ellen Day Hale with the portraits of the signers. It was presented to the Massachusetts Senate by the Honorable A. S. Roe, Senator from the Worcester District. The Legislature acted upon it and passed the following Statute:

"Whoever has in his possession the body of feathers of any bird whose taking or killing is prohibited by section four of chapter two hundred and seventy-six of the acts of the year eighteen hundred and eighty-six, or wears such feathers for the purpose of dress or ornament, shall be punished as provided in said section: provided that his act shall not be construed to prohibit persons having the certificate provided for in said sections from taking or killing such birds; and provided, further, that this act shall not apply to Natural History Associations, or to the proprietors of museums, or other collections for scientific purposes.

"Approved June 11, 1897."

The Statute was copied in several other States. I think the petition helped a good deal the healthy reaction which, owing largely to the efforts of humane societies and Natural History Associations and especially of some very accomplished ladies, has arrested the destruction of these beautiful ornaments of our woods and fields and gardens, "our fellow pilgrims on the journey of life," who have so much of humanity in them and who, like us, have their appointed tasks set to them by the great Creator.

CHAPTER XXIX THE A. P. A. CONTROVERSY

One very unreasonable, yet very natural excitement has stirred deeply the American people on several occasions in our history. It came to us by lawful inheritance from our English and Puritan ancestors. That is the bitter and almost superstitious dread of the Catholics, which has resulted more than once in riots and crimes, and more than once in the attempt to exclude them from political power in the country. This has sometimes taken the form of a crusade against all foreigners. But religious prejudice against the Catholics has been its chief inspiration.

I just said that this feeling, though absolutely unjustifiable, was yet quite natural, and that it came to us by lawful inheritance. I have always resisted it and denounced it to the utmost of my power. My father was a Unitarian. I was bred in that most liberal of all liberal faiths. But I have believed that the way to encounter bigotry is by liberality. If any man try to deprive you of your absolute right, begin to defend yourself by giving him his own. Human nature, certainly American human nature, will never, in my opinion, long hold out against that method of dealing.

Our people, so far as they are of English descent, learned from their fathers the stories of Catholic persecution and of the fires of Smithfield. Fox's "Book of Martyrs," one of the few books in the Puritan libraries, was, even down to the time of my youth, reverently preserved and read in the New England farmhouses.

So it was believed that it was only the want of power that prevented the Catholics from renewing the fires of Smithfield and the terrors of the Inquisition. It was believed that the infallibility and supremacy of the Pope bound the Catholic citizen to yield unquestioning obedience to the Catholic clergy in matters civil and political, as well as spiritual. There was a natural and very strong dread of the Confessional.

This feeling was intensified by the fact of which it was partly the cause, that when the Irish-Catholics first came over they voted in solid body, led often by their clergy, for the Democratic Party, which was in the minority in the New England States, especially in Massachusetts. England down to a very recent time disqualified the Catholics from civil office.

Our people forgot that the religious persecution, of which they cherished the bitter memory, was the result of the spirit of the age, and not of one form of religious faith. They forgot that the English Protestants not only retaliated on the Catholics when they got into power, but that the Bishops from whose fury, as John Milton said, our own Pilgrim Fathers fled, were Protestant Bishops and not Catholic. They forgot the eight hundred years during which Ireland had been under the heel of England, and the terrible history so well told by that most English of Englishmen, and Protestant of Protestants, Lord Macaulay.

"The Irish Roman Catholics were permitted to live, to be fruitful, to replenish the earth; but they were doomed to be what the Helots were in Sparta, what the Greeks were under the Ottoman, what the blacks now are at New York. Every man of the subject caste was strictly excluded from any public trust. Take what path he might in life, he was crossed at every step by some vexatious restriction. It was only by being obscure and inactive, that he could, on his native soil, be safe. If he aspired to be powerful and honoured, he might gain a cross or perhaps a Marshal's staff in the armies of France or Austria. If his vocation was to politics, he might distinguish himself in the diplomacy of Italy or Spain. But at home he was a mere Gibeonite, a hewer of wood and a drawer of water. The statute book of Ireland was filled with enactments which furnish to the Roman Catholics but too good a ground for recriminating on us when we talk of the barbarities of Bonner and Gardiner; and the harshness of those odious laws was aggravated by a more odious administration. For, bad as the legislators were, the magistrates were worse still. In those evil times originated that most unhappy hostility between landlord and tenant, which is one of the peculiar curses of Ireland. Oppression and turbulence reciprocally generated each other. The combination of rustic tyrants was resisted by gangs of rustic banditii. Courts of law and juries existed only for the benefit of the dominant sect. Those priests who were revered by millions as their natural advisers and guardians, as the only authorised dispensers of the Christian sacraments, were treated by the squires and squireens of the ruling faction as no good-natured man would treat the vilest beggar."