The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian/11 Governor, 1904
CHAPTER XI
Governor, 1904
EARLY in January of 1904 the Board of Pardons
recommended to me the pardon of Alphonse F.
Cutaiar, who had been convicted of murder in
the first degree and sentenced to be hanged, but
whose sentence was subsequently commuted to imprisonment
for life. His pardon had been asked for by forty-four
clergymen, twenty-two members of the legislature,
a mayor of Philadelphia, a senator of the United States
and two hundred and nine other citizens. The murder
was accompanied with some of the most dramatic features
in the annals of crime. James E. Logue was one of the
most famous professional burglars of his day and, as a
result of his skill, he owned a house No. 1250 North Eleventh
Street, in the City of Philadelphia, where, in his absence
in the pursuit of his profession, lived his wife, Johannah,
dressed in silks and adorned with jewelry and diamonds.
In the house also lived Cutaiar, a nephew, who there
conducted the trade of a barber. On the 22d of February,
1879, Logue had gone to a distant city upon a professional
engagement, and his wife, who had been drinking to some
extent, was seen in the house at 8 P. M. She had on her
person diamond earrings worth $250, a diamond finger
ring worth $80, a plain ring with the letters “J. L. to J. L.”
inscribed on it and, two days before, her husband had
given her a hundred dollars in cash and four $1,000 coupon
bonds. She was seen no more. A short time afterward
Cutaiar married, and his young wife, brought into the
kitchen, complained of a stench there which he attributed
to dead rats. Logue employed detectives and spent
considerable money in advertising and search, but in vain, and in time the disappearance of his wife was forgotten. In
1895, after the lapse of sixteen years, the house was sold.
The purchaser, wanting to make repairs, removed the floor
of the kitchen and underneath were the bones of Johannah
Logue, with the remains of her caba and clothing and the
plain gold ring on her finger. All of the articles of value
which she had possessed were missing. Because of his
evil reputation and calling, suspicion was directed toward
Logue, but he was able to give a conclusive proof of his
absence. Then Cutaiar was arrested. On the trial he
was defended by Hampton L. Carson, who afterwards
became my able attorney general, and he did all that
could be done for his cause, but he was convicted. He
made three statements.
The first, April 14, 1895, would, if believed, have resulted in the hanging of Logue. It was to the effect that Logue had been jealous of his wife, employed a young man to tempt her, that in New York he beat and choked her until she fell dead, that he sent the body in a trunk and when no one was about put it under the kitchen floor, all of which he had confessed to Cutaiar.
The second statement made in writing April 17th was that she came to the house drunk and had to go to New York that night; that he, Cutaiar, helped her up to her room and there tied her hands and feet fast with a piece of rope while she was unconscious, so that she could not go out and get more to drink; that he went up again to her room later in the evening and found her dead; that he put the body on the floor of another room and went back to his work; that when Logue returned Logue took the watch, earrings and pin, and that at Logue's suggestion they two put her under the floor.
The third statement, made the same day, was that Logue had nothing to do with the matter, that he alone put the body under the floor, and that he took the diamonds and watch and threw them into the river.
After a careful reading of the testimony, I wrote an opinion refusing the pardon and saying:
The human mind is so constituted that in its narrations it depends rather upon memory than imagination. All false statements are apt to have much truth blended with them to make them credible. Even novels, which are admittedly works of imagination, describe real persons, scenes and incidents. When Cutaiar told the false story concerning Logue he described a death caused by no weapon. The jury may not have been far from the truth if they came to the conclusion that when he said: “He began beating her. He struck her on the side of the face with one hand and on the other side of the face with his fist, and than choked her until she fell on the floor, from which she never recovered,” and continued: “her face was all kind of black and her eyes bulging and staring-like and open-like, she had suffocated,” he was describing events and conditions he had actually seen.
I entertained not the slightest doubt that it was a brutal murder for money. Some months afterward I made an inspection of the Eastern Penitentiary and, when it had been completed, the warden took me to some of the cells to see the inmates. He unlocked a door and disclosed two cells, an outer and an inner, the latter reached through a door so low that a man entering would have to stoop. On invitation I stepped inside, leaving the warden in the corridor. Inside, a man perhaps fifty years of age, with light hair, blue eyes and sandy complexion smilingly greeted me and asked me to look at the shop where he did his work as a shoemaker. I stooped and entered the inner compartment and he followed and stood at the door. The sharpened shoemaker's knife with which he cut the leather lay on the table within his easy reach. Then his smile ceased, he looked me in the face and said:
“I am Cutaiar.”
He was the murderer whose pardon I had refused. On the instant there flashed across my mind that dramatic scene in Victor Hugo's novel Quatre—vingt—treize, where the captain, being rowed by a volunteer on a dangerous trip across a rough sea, saw the man suddenly drop his oars and on inquiring the reason was answered: “I am the brother of the man you had shot yesterday.” I quietly and blandly made my way out of the cell with the feeling that the warden had shown little judgment.
Strange to say, I some time afterward came into the possession of a letter written to a lady at Bryn Mawr by Cutaiar in which he described the same scene. In it he said:
I know it will surprise you very much to learn that I received a visit from no less a personage than the Governor of Pennsylvania. . . . I invited him into my cell and into my workshop in the rear of the cell. . . . We were alone for several minutes, except for one of the inmates, who stood at some distance, and this inmate tells me that the governor did not seem to pay any attention to the patterns but kept looking into my face as I was turned to one side.
The Chief Justice wrote to me:
My dear Governor:
I have read you memm. on the Cutaiar case with very great satisfaction. The most discreditable feature in the administration of justice in Pennsylvania is the reckless abuse of the pardoning power by the Board of Pardons and especially its more or less open assumption to re-try questions of fact and of law after juries and courts have passed upon them in the due and regular course of law. I am more than pleased to have at last a governor who does not feel bound to acquiesce tamely in whatever recommendation that irresponsible board may make, but who examines and decides the cases for himself. As a lawyer, a judge and a responsible executive, you have set a precedent which ought to be followed.
- Very sincerely yours,
- James T. Mitchell.
- Very sincerely yours,
After I came away the efforts in behalf of a pardon for Cutaiar were renewed and were finally successful. Thinkingthat perhaps I would interfere, his wife, from a respectable family in New Jersey, and his daughter, an agreeable looking girl, came to see me, but I told them my responsibility was over and that I would in no way interpose.
One day this letter came to me:
Lebanon, 3/24/1903.
Hon. Governor Pennypacker,
Dear Sir: Having been found guilty of murder 1st degree in last term Oyer & Terminer Courts, March Session, 1903, knowing I have done deed in cold blood and my punishment death, I humbly ask your favor to speed execution. I see no reason why man should be made wait knowing it must come sooner or later. I have fully reconciled myself to my fate and again ask you speed in execution. Hoping you will grant my last favor on earth, I remain
- Your humble servant as long as
- Life shall last,
- David Shaud.
Surely a more remarkable communication was never written. I had the matter examined and this was the solution. A zealous preacher had wrestled with him and succeeded in converting him. Uncertain, however, about a relapse, and, feeling that it was unwise to take chances, he prevailed upon the convict to write the letter to me. The case took its regular course.
Who was “A Lawyer” who wrote the letter to the Record, before mentioned, I never learned. It is a law of nature that most of the mischief that besets our lives is done in secret. It is the habit of both the hyenas and the bedbugs to prowl in the night. The germs of typhoid fever and cholera perish when the sunlight is turned on them. I was told, however, that the letter came from an organization calling itself “The Yellow Cats,” having its lair in Lancaster County, of which Justice J. Hay Brown was a member.
Some days after my return from Washington, there came to me the following paper which had been circulated for signatures among the members of the Philadelphia Bar:
| Philadelphia, | |
| December 18th, 1903. |
Hon. Samuel W. Pennypacker, Governor.
Sir: As old friends, neighbors and professional associates, we feel in the present situation we should submit for your consideration our views in regard to your letter announcing your intention of accepting the nomination of the next Republican State Convention to the office of associate justice of the Supreme Court of of Pennsylvania, should it be tendered you. It is unnecessary to dwell upon the calamity of an impairment of public respect for that tribunal nor upon our deep professional solicitude in that regard, knowing that you are in full sympathy therewith. Nor do we concern ourselves with the political aspects of matters nor with the loss to the commonwealth of your services as governor. We present our views simply as lawyers jealous of the honor of our profession. The announcement of your candidacy, immediately after the appointment of a Democrat to the office of associate justice of the Supreme Court is accepted by the people of Pennsylvania as conclusive proof that a seat on the Supreme Bench has been made the subject of a political arrangement, and that your choice was not governed by considerations of fitness for the office, but by the purpose to secure the place for yourself. We do not think for a moment that you would knowingly enter into any such barter, but for the chief executive of the state to seek the assistance of influential politicians for a transfer to the Bench, even if coupled with the promise not to use the power of the office to that end, must be regarded as an impropriety.
It is impossible in the nature of things that the mere knowledge that such a wish is cherished should not operate as official pressure; and the influence of the office, direct and indirect, and all the power of those hoping to profit by the change, would combine for its accomplishment.
Even though these views may be mistaken, yet we think the precedent a most evil one, which may be followed hereafter by officials less trustworthy.
It is in view of the mischiefs which may follow and of the possible impairment of the confidence of the people of Pennsylvania in their highest court that we feel constrained to present this remonstrance. We beg to assure you that, not only do we cordially sympathize with you in your desire to return to the Bench, for we should have been glad under any other circumstances to join in furthering your wishes, but we are unable to do so now, as we cannot shut our eyes to the fact that, if you become an associate justice of the Supreme Court in the manner proposed, you will forfeit a large share of the respect and esteem of the profession and weaken the faith of the people in the disinterested administration of justice.
We do, therefore, most respectfully but earnestly entreat you to reconsider your avowed intention, and to continue to the expiration of your term of office as governor to safeguard and protect the interests of the people of this great commonwealth, to whose honor and welfare we know you are sincerely devoted.
We remain, with great respect and cordial personal regards,
- Your obedient servants,
| Samuel Dickson | J. I. Clark Hare |
| William S. Price | M. Hampton Todd |
| Henry R. Edmunds | Thomas Leaming |
| John R. Read | John Cadwalader |
| John Marshall Gest | William H. Staake |
| John Hampton Barnes | G. Heide Norris |
| Dimner Beeber | Joseph de F. Junkin |
| J. Levering Jones | Richard C. Dale |
| Francis Rawle | Henry Budd |
| Charles C. Townsend | John G. Johnson |
| J. B. Townsend, Jr. | Frank P. Prichard |
| Russell Duane | Wm. Righter Fisher |
| George S. Graham | Edward W. Magill |
| George Wharton Pepper | N. Dubois Miller |
| Frank M. Riter | John Douglass Brown |
| C. Berkeley Taylor | Wm. Rotch Wister |
| J. Percy Keating | Walter George Smith |
| Albert B. Weimer | Theodore M. Etting |
| John J. Ridgway | Sussex D. Davis |
| Charles Biddle | J. Rodman Paul |
| William Drayton | Wm. Rudolph Smith |
| W. W. Montgomery | |
Nothing that occurred during my whole term gave me so much pain as this communication. It was a revelation. These gentlemen had seen me tested for fourteen years, and yet, while asserting their favorable experience, were unwilling to trust me to determine a question of professional propriety. They were ready to believe an anonymous correspondent of a partisan sheet and to treat as naught their own experience. Many of them, including Dickson, had privately told me of their approval of my course with the newspapers. W. Righter Fisher had read law in my office. And yet, when the inevitable war followed, they deserted to the enemy almost at the first fire. It was a warning to me that in the trials of life it is unsafe to rely even upon friendship, upon long association, upon the judgment of men accustomed to reason. It was a justification of Warren in his dread of the North American.
The singular weakness of the document, the fact that the question they raised had already been determined in a way contrary to their thought was of little moment. The fact stared me in the face that, so far as they were concerned, I was left to fight my battles as I might alone. With respect to its contents, there is only need to point out that my letter to the Ledger did not announce an “intention of accepting the nomination,” that it did not announce a “candidacy” and that it did not express a “desire to return to the Bench.” These were only the mistaken newspaper interpretations, and the word “barter” was taken from the editorial of the Record, with that journal's unsound analysis of its own assumed facts. The standard of ethics which it was suggested that I ought to maintain, i. e., “that the mere knowledge that such a wish is cherished” operates “as official pressure” and, therefore, that I ought not to entertain such a wish, is an impossible standard. A few years later Charles E. Hughes went from the governorship of New York to the Supreme Court of the United States and not one of these friends of mine made a whimper about the possible impairment of the confidence of the people in the court. Moreover, my letter expressed no such wish. If their statement that they would be glad “under other circumstances” to further my wishes was intended as an implied promise, then I never heard that any one of them endeavored to carry it into effect. To do what they evidently wanted me to do, and to decline in advance a nomination which might never be tendered, would have been, had I complied, to have placed myself in a preposterous position. Carson, who, alone with Quay, knew of the conclusion I had reached, agreed with me that they had no right whatever to force from me a declaration of purpose. My answer ran:
I much appreciate the kindly feeling which pervades your letter. Its main effect has been to sadden me. If you do not care to judge me by the acts of my judicial and gubernatorial life, and you feel that past conduct is not a safe guide by which to determine what may be done in the future, I may at least ask you to suspend all inferences until the facts are disclosed.
- Sincerely yours,
- Samuel W. Pennypacker.
- Sincerely yours,
This ought to have been enough, for a man with his eyes open, to have given a cue, but it was not, and they went along, printed their Round Robin and helped the newspapers in their futile campaign. The next step soon followed. J. Hay Brown so far forgot his obligations as to give to the North American an interview in which he said:
“I cannot say more than that the Bench ever relies upon the Bar to sustain and protect it, and I have faith to believe that the lawyers of the state, and the people who are their clients, will deliver it from what the press, in reflecting the sentiment of all decent people, justly regards as the governor's menace to its safety.”
Here was presented a fine opportunity for Mr. Dickson, Mr. Johnson and Mr. Graham. A justice of the highest court, from the bench, by a publication in a discreditable sheet, sought openly to affect the action of the convention of a political party. With what effect, assured that they stood upon safe ground, could they have discanted upon the “impairment of public respect for that tribunal!” But it passed as a neglected opportunity.
Quay, broken in health, was in Florida. He was not quite satisfied with my determination of the matter and scolded over it. I believe that he knew that he would soon die and that he wanted what he regarded as an obligation he had undertaken in my interest to be assured while there was time. He wrote asking me if my mind was fully made up and advising that in that event no intimation of the purpose be given until the meeting of the convention. No doubt his plans would be helped by such silence. While Tray, Blanche and Sweetheart were yelping upon the wrong trail the real game was safe in its covert.
I wrote to him February 19, 1904:
Dear Senator:
Of course the public talk has made all of the men about me uneasy concerning their positions and naturally they want me to remain. As I told you in Washington, I have definitely given up all thought of going to the Supreme Court at this time. The bar are against it and the better class of people feel that it would be a desertion of my present office and duties. It would give a vantage ground of opposition to the ticket and perhaps endanger senators and representatives. It would be discussed in such a way as to be injurious to the court, and I am under obligations not to harm either party or court. Most of the satisfaction of being a member of the court would disappear if I felt I went there without professional approval. If the party people in Philadelphia have plans they want to accomplish they may feel assured that while I am here they will receive fair consideration. If matters run along as they are now, without my speaking until the meeting of the convention, and then some one else is nominated, it will be said you have wisely curbed my ambition, and I shall be entirely content. I owe you much anyhow. And if this be the last opportunity, very well. You will never hear me complain.
At this juncture, when a committee with Dickson as chairman, and Dimner Beeber and Alexander Simpson, Jr., as secretaries, was endeavoring to arouse the lawyers of the state in support of the newspaper crusade, Quay appeared on the scene in a new rôle. From St. Lucie, in Florida, he issued this proclamation:
It may now be taken for granted that Governor Pennypacker will say nothing publicly upon the proposition that the Republican party shall nominate and elect him to the Supreme Court judgeship. But something should be said by some one to wash away the existing misrepresentation. I am fully informed, better informed than Governor Pennypacker, of the facts surrounding the proposition, and in view of the recent publications, anonymous and judicial, it seems to be proper that they should be enlightened. Their criticisms upon the Governor are unwarranted. The accusations of Mr. Justice Brown and the anonymous writers in his train are malicious and mendacious.
Governor Pennypacker never was, and is not now, a candidate for the Republican nomination for the Supreme Court. He has not sought, nor will he seek, that nomination. He has not signified that he will accept it if tendered to him, and if he is wise he will keep his counsel upon that question. If he declines, his enemies will say, some of them, that they have driven him from the field; others that he is declining a nomination which was never tendered and is not accessible; if he says he will accept, and the convention should fail to give him its suffrage, the situation would be still more disagreeable.
The documents in the case are few, an anonymous letter to the Philadelphia Record, a Democratic newspaper; an anonymous letter to the Philadelphia Press, and an interview from Judge Brown in the guise of Magister Morum of the Bench and Bar. The letter in the Record confines itself to two allegations: First, that the appointment of Mr. Justice Samuel Gustine Thompson was made in order that Governor Pennypacker should secure the judgeship for himself as soon as he can. This is false. The anonymous writer says he knows it to be a fact. Let him produce the evidence. Second, that Governor Pennypacker conspired with Senator Quay to trade two years of his term as governor for twenty-one years' term on the Supreme Court Bench. This is also false. If it is true let the anonymous writer produce the evidence of its truth.
The letter to the Press is devoted to the proposed appointment of Lyman D. Gilbert. Judge Weiss of Harrisburg and Mr. Gilbert both know that the statements of the Press writer are false. These are practically:
First, that the Governor sought to dicker or trade with Mr. Gilbert to attain the high office of Supreme Justice. This is false. Even if the Governor were disposed to dicker, Mr. Gilbert had nothing to deliver. I cannot imagine any action of Mr. Gilbert in the connection discussed that could prevent or promote the nomination or election of Governor Pennypacker. If the vacancy were a factor in results, it would only be necessary to leave it open until the Republican Convention met. Here again the anonymous writer must produce his evidence or stand convicted.
Second, that a conference was held at the Executive Mansion, after which Mr. Gilbert was told that he would be appointed to the vacant judgeship if he would agree not to be a candidate for the nomination, and that if Lieutenant Governor Brown became governor he would appoint Gilbert attorney general. This is also false. If it is true let the anonymous gentleman produce his evidence.
Third, that he was told Judge Thompson or D. T. Watson would be appointed if he, Gilbert, did not accept. This is false, as is the inference that Lieutenant Governor Brown was a party. If true, let us have the evidence.
This is the substance of all the charges against Governor Pennypacker in this connection. I declare them false, and the anonymous correspondents of the Press and Record and Mr. Justice Brown must establish their case by evidence or stand convicted libelers. To use a homely but apposite expression, they must “put up or shut up.” When they attempt to “put up,” I will have something to say, more in detail. In the meantime, as the Record declares its correspondent “high and reputable” and the Press declares its correspondent “high and responsible,” it would be fair for their “high” writers to take off their masks and show their faces to the people of the state whose governor they traduce.
Only an extract from the interview of Justice Brown has penetrated here, but newspaper comments indicate that he has descended from his judicial perch to snarl at Governor Pennypacker in obedience to a call upon him to interfere for the protection of the Bench, which he declares is menaced. He is certainly answering a call intended for some one else. There is no reason within my recollection why the Bench should distinguish him as its special representative to prevent our chief executive from passing between the wind and their nobility. He was nominated and elected, as Governor Pennypacker will be nominated and elected if at all, by a Republican State Convention and the Republicans of the state. Even in his case there wereevil-disposed persons who said that he was not selected for pre-eminent qualifications, nor in obedience to the clamorous demands of the people, but that he was, so to speak, taken by the scruff of the neck and the seat of his inexpressibles by a friend or two and catapulted over the sacred pole which divides the Supreme Court from common mortals. Yet the Bench did not regard his unconventional entrance as a menace to its safety, nor when Justice Potter was appointed by his business partner to his high position did the Supreme Court flee in terror at his unceremonious entrance. On the contrary, he was deservedly popular. Every member of that court has gone upon the Bench, as the governor may go on it, by a nomination and election by his party. Every one of them was desirous and has endeavored to get there, and they were sent there to judicially administer justice, not to trail their gowns in the gutters of politics and to dictate the nomination and election of their associates. This, in my opinion, is the sentiment of the people in this contention of Justice Brown. If he is of a contrary opinion, let him resign his judgeship and go before the next Republican State Convention and before the people and test the question. He will be wiser afterward, and I can assure him the convention will be no more of a machine-made convention than the similar bodies which nominated him and his associates to their present positions. Were it not that Justice Brown in his interviews fences me, in common with many hundreds of Republicans in Pennsylvania outside of the fellowship of “decent people,” I might enter upon the ethics of the situation and the delicacies that accompany the high place he occupies. There is certainly a question whether the people have a right to take an officer from a place to which they have called him and command him to another. There is also a question whether, granted the right to take a judge from the court of common pleas and place him in the Supreme or Superior Court, the principle will not apply in the case of a governor and whether the acceptance of his office by a governor creates an implied contract with the people that he shall fill his allotted term, any more than does the acceptance of his office by a common pleas judge. This is pertinent, for five of the present members of the Supreme Court were elevated from the common pleas bench. But, I leave those matters for solution to the “decent people.” I have received but one letter from a judicial officer upon the Pennypacker controversy. It was from Judge Brown.
M. S. Quay.
This open letter was as much of a surprise to me as it was to everybody else. Never before had Quay been known to give publicity in advance to his views upon a measure yet to be determined. It showed his loyalty, courage, vigor and capacity for expression. It presented my cause with an effectiveness which it would have been impossible for me to have given. It threw the line of assault into confusion. It pointed out to the lawyers what it is remarkable they had not seen for themselves, that since an appointment comes from one source of power, the governor, and an election from another source of power, the people, there was no real connection between them, and that I could have avoided the whole ground of their censure by simply leaving the judicial office vacant until the election. The condemnation of the impropriety of Brown, which might with good grace have been given by Dickson, Simpson and Beeber, while they were reading lessons in dialectics, had been administered by a United States Senator who had placed him on the Bench, and Brown never uttered a word thereafter.
The convention met on the 5th of April. None of the men around me, save Carson, had any intimation of what I was going to do. I doubt whether the political leaders, save Quay, were any better informed. On the 2d of April the Committee of Lawyers published another long pronunciamento. On the 5th, the headline of the Record said: “Pennypacker's Excuse to Run is Made to Order,” and the headline of the Press said: “Pennypacker Will Accept Nomination.” In the morning the eighty-six delegates from Philadelphia met and unanimously endorsed my nomination. At 4 P. M. David H. Lane, with a committee, came to the department and officially tendered to me the nomination. The time to speak had come. My response had been roughly written on a loose sheet of office paper. Lane made a neat and sensible speech, and then I read:
In view of the possibility of some such action as you have taken, I have given careful consideration to the subject in a conscientious effort to reach a correct conclusion. I have examined the matter in all of its relations, so far as I have been able to understand them, and I have concluded not to be a candidate and not to permit my name to be presented to the convention. In so doing I want further to say to you that this expression of consistent confidence, coming from the people of the city which you represent, and wherein my judicial work was done, will ever be one of the grateful memories of my life.
All had the feeling that they were participating in an event of solemnity. Lane, aided by David Martin and Henry F. Walton, tried to persuade me, but the die was cast. My last chance of completing the current of my life, as I had chosen it for myself, had departed forever. Never for an instant have I since regretted the decision. To have accepted the nomination would have been to have done not a wrong but a weak thing, and it remains a satisfaction to me to know that, when tested again, as I had been in youth when most of my friends went home and left me to go alone to Gettysburg, the inherited instincts which constitute character were not found wanting.
Walton besought me to let him have the scrap of paper from which I had read. He framed it and hung it in his home. A good speaker, stout and agreeable, he had participated in many campaigns; a good lawyer, he had a considerable practice; he had several times been speaker of the House, and now is prothonotary of the courts of common pleas in Philadelphia. When the bill for an appropriation to build a fire-proof building for the Historical Society of Pennsylvania was under consideration, he had come to me and said it would be passed or not as I wished, and it was passed. After my declination had been received, John P. Elkin was nominated without opposition. These events, which I saw from the inside, have been narrated in detail partly because they illustrate the character and methods of Quay, who Senator Thomas C. Platt of New York, himself an expert, says was the ablest politician the country has ever produced. A review of these events shows with entire plainness the following facts:
A vacancy in the Supreme Court in which, professionally and otherwise, I took a great interest was filled, while I was governor, for twenty-one years by the selection of a man whom I had declined to appoint. The committee of the bar were so wearied with the chase after an ignis fatuus, and their feet were so clogged with the mire of the swamps, that they accepted without a murmur the selection of a man whom most of those they represented had denounced as a ring politician of such type that he was unfit even for executive office. The press, which would have opposed anybody, good or bad, favored by Quay, had been kept for four months upon a trail that led nowhere. My efforts to be decent, the pathos of the committee of lawyers, and the malice of the newspapers, had each contributed its part toward the completion of the plans of this master in the manipulation of men. If this be not genius, where will we find it? It ought to be added that Elkin was elected by a large majority, as I would have been, and has made an upright and unusually capable judge, who has won the approval of the entire profession. The lawyers over the state who signed a protest numbered one hundred and six, a small percentage of the whole bar. The newspapers, after the close of this episode, were, I think, rather more cautious about telling their readers what I intended to do. In a vein of playfulness Quay sent me from Florida these excerpts:
Et interrogatum est ab omnibus “ubi est ille J. Hay Brown?” Et respondum est ab omnibus “non est inventus.”
Et interrogatum est ab omnibus “ubi est ille high and reputable writer?” et respondum est ab omnibus “non est inventus.”
Et interrogatum est ab omnibus “ubi est ille high and responsible writer?” Et respondum est cum cachino “non est inventus.”
Deinde iteratum est ab omnibus cum cachinatione undulante et trepidante “non sunt inventi.” Murder as a Fine Art.
Rudolph Blankenburg in Philadelphia and Henry Watterson in the Louisville Courier-Journal, both made efforts to reply to Quay's letter. The platform adopted by the convention set forth:
“We heartily endorse the wise, bold, fearless, honest, economical and efficient administration of Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker,” and the convention selected me as a delegate to the National Republican Convention to nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency.
A versifier wrote:
| Surprise and consternation reign, |
| For after weeks of stress and strain |
| And labor which was all in vain. |
| The boys who split the welkin |
| With ringing Pennypacker cries, |
| Their programme must forthwith revise, |
| And shifting round contrarywise, |
| Must raise the roof for Elkin. |
It is a pleasure to turn from the literature of journalism to the literature of the schools of learning.
The University of Pennsylvania on February 22d conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Laws. In presenting me, J. Levering Jones said to the provost, Charles C. Harrison:
Patient and reflective in temperament, industrious in mental habit, with the inherent tastes of a scholar, at the bar he was not satisfied merely to advise a client or formulate arguments before the court; he remained the indefatigable student of history, ever examining the great events of the past and their significance that he might adequately comprehend the social forces that determine legislation and laws. Hence the bench was congenial to him and he adorned it with the soundness of his judgment, the ripeness of his learning, the simplicity of his manner and by the uprightness of his character.
Literature is indebted to his contributions, for they are the product of persevering and profound research. He has illuminated the early history of the Quakers and the Germans, along the shores of the Delaware, and delved into the musty archives of four nations that he might with fidelity depict The Settlement of Germantown and eloquently describe the life and civic virtues of the learned Pastorius.
Since 1886 he has been a trustee of the University, active in promoting its interests, pleading always in its behalf, giving without measure time and service. We give generous praise to those who thus labor in the cause of education, opening the eyes that they may see more and farther; instructing the ears that they may hear more perfectly; awakening all the senses that they may more swiftly appreciate; enriching the mind that it may more wisely and efficiently understand.
Strong and steadfast in conviction; faithful in friendship; loyal in principle; passionately devoted to Pennsylvania and its institutions, he has ever performed with honor the responsible duties that have devolved upon him. For his eminent services as a citizen and his lofty qualities of heart and mind, we, the Trustees present Samuel Whitaker Pennypacker to the Provost that he may receive the degree of Doctor of Laws.The winter of 1903-04 was severe and the Susquehanna, the most impressive of the rivers of Pennsylvania, was frozen across, giving beautiful displays of ice effects which could be seen from the windows of the executive mansion. The thaw came in the early part of March, the waters rose to a great height, piling cakes of ice in huge masses. On Sunday, March 6th, in the afternoon, while the rain was still falling in torrents, I was called to the telephone and informed that near Goldsborough, a few miles below Harrisburg, fourteen people were on an island in the river, that the waters were rapidly rising and had reached the second stories of the houses in which they had taken shelter, that the ice was piled up between them and the shore, making them inaccessible, and that unless relieved they would soon be drowned. It was a situation in which I did not know what to do. I so told the man at the other end and asked him what he had to suggest. He said he thought I could perhaps get the life-saving people at the station at Atlantic City to come up. I could have done so, no doubt, but meanwhile the people on the island would have been drowned. I sent for Captain John C. Delaney and told him to go down there at once and see what could be done. He soon returned with the report that the situation was hopeless. At the same time I sent for James M. Shumaker, who at once had a plan, which was to take the riggers who were at work on the Capitol, and used to moving around with little support, with their tackle and necessary apparatus, down there. Shumaker was the right man in the right place, and that the very thing to do. He was put in charge of the arrangements. Senator E. K. McConkey of York, a fine fellow who, within a few years died of heart disease, who had arrived on the scene, assisted. They fastened ropes to the shore, one man went out on the ice a short distance and there stood at the rope. Another went a little further and so on until they had a living chain reaching to the edge of the current. Then with a boat they took the people out of the upper windows of the house and brought them all, including a grandmother seventy-five years old, over the ice piles in safety to the shore. It was a thrilling and dramatic incident and here was a man equal to an emergency, who was willing to do his duty and, when occasion required it, more than his duty, deserving well of the state. Those rescued were the families of John and George Burger, who had been caught by the waters on Shelly's Island.
Since Roosevelt had postponed his participation in the ceremonies of University Day for a year, the authorities of that institution invited me to deliver the oration on the 22d of February. It gave me the opportunity to present the thought which had never before been suggested, but which I then and have since emphasized, that the public career of George Washington was essentially a Pennsylvania career, beginning and ending in this state, though he was born and died in Virginia. At the same time that the University conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Laws, it conferred degrees upon the Baron von Sternberg, Ambassador from Germany to the United States, a slightly built, sandy and affable German with whom, through a number of occasions of meeting, I established an acquaintance; Chief Justice Mitchell and James Whitcomb Riley, the Hoosier Poet, whom I then encountered for the only time, a small man with a bald head, a big mouth, a genial smile, and who wore glasses.
A vicious system had grown up in the state of providing for the maintenance of the peace by the appointment of what were called “Coal and Iron Police.” It began with the railroads and mining corporations, but had gradually extended so as to include corporations in various sorts of business. These police were selected, paid and discharged by the corporations, but were commissioned by the state and exercised its authority to make arrests. This most delicate power of the state had to a great extent been transferred to the officials of one of the parties to the controversies which every once in a while arose. With entire propriety, the working men engaged in struggles with their employers, resented the intrusion of these police and their interference was more likely to cause than to prevent violence. During the last year of Stone's administration 4,512 of these police had been appointed, and, while during my first year they had been lessened to 186, the situation was still bad enough. The commissions had been issued for indefinite periods of time and there were unknown numbers of men within the state who, after being discharged, still held these evidences of authority. In April of 1904, I took hold of the matter. I required, before appointment, affidavits to be filed, giving the records and characters of the men and the necessity for their appointment, restricted the commissions to a term of three years, and determined at the next legislative session to endeavor to do away with the entire system.
During my whole term as governor, all attempts to make use of the office and its incumbent for advertising purposes were, as I have written, resisted and thwarted and, therefore, all invitations to pitch the first ball at baseball games and to do like things were declined. On the 13th of April, however, I went to Shamokin Dam in Snyder County, along with Hunter and other officials of the Highway Department, and there, with a pick and a shovel, in the presence of a crowd, began the good roads movement and the improvement of the roads by the state. I made a little speech to the onlookers and then began to throw the dirt.
A commission, of which Governor William A. Stone was the chairman, for the purpose of erecting a Capitol in the place of that which had been burned, had been organized August 20, 1901, but more than a year had been occupied in the selection of the plans and the preparatory arrangements, so that little of the work had been done when I became Governor and assumed the responsibility for the progress of the building. I laid the corner-stone May 5, 1904, which covered a copper box containing contemporaneous records and suitable inscriptions, using a silver trowel presented to me for the purpose. A cornerstone had been placed by Governor Daniel H. Hastings in the structure begun in 1898, but since that was a cheap brick building, practically abandoned, being regarded as insufficient, it was thought best to begin anew.
On the 24th of May I made an address in the morning at the dedication of the new court house in Norristown and, in the afternoon, introduced by Wayne MacVeagh, I took a pick and broke ground for the erection of the new building of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania at 1300 Locust Street, Philadelphia.
On the 28th of May, Senator Quay died. I have endeavored to make an analysis of his character and present his achievement in a paper, prepared at the request of the Legislature of Pennsylvania, and it appears in my Pennsylvania in American History. The feature of his career which impresses me most forcibly is its pathos. Here was a man with a lineage, identified with the state since its foundation, whose forefathers had borne the commissions of the province in the French and Indian and the Revolutionary wars, with a capacity for statecraft, conceded to have been unsurpassed, with literary attainments and skill, with generous instincts and a kindly tolerance for even his enemies, without those elementary impulses which are gratified with the accumulation of money, who devoted his whole life to the advancement of the interests of the state and accomplished very much in her behalf, a soldier who fought for her with distinguished honor, and a statesman who won for her great rewards; and yet ever followed by the persistent abuse of the faithless and incompetent, he failed to receive the appreciation which was his due. A brave knight, he won his many successes only by continuous battle against heavy odds. It is easy to win the applause of the crowd—to give them uphft is a difficult process. Had we given him support, as Kentucky gave it to Henry Clay and Massachusetts gave it to Daniel Webster, in spite of their many delinquencies, it would have been well for the reputation and the welfare of the state. I had seen him a few months before his death. He sent me a telegram from Atlantic City asking me to come down there. I dined with him and he and I were pushed around over the boardwalk in a rolling chair. He talked to me about the family, his people, about his experiences in life and during the whole three hours not one word concerning the politics of the state. I understood that he had sent for me in order to say farewell to one for whom he felt a sympathy and to whom he had shown a friendship. If there was anything of a personal character which he would have liked to have accomplished he never mentioned the subject, and so displayed a delicacy of which few men would have been capable.
On Decoration Day, the 30th, Roosevelt made an address at Gettysburg from a platform near the spot where Lincoln had spoken. It was the first time he had ever been upon that field. Mrs. Roosevelt and their little daughter, Ethel, came with him and it became my duty to look after and endeavor to entertain the young lady, a hearty and agreeable little girl, who afterward wrote to me a pretty note. It rained throughout the entire ceremonies, but the people stood under their umbrellas and listened. The necessity of introducing the President gave me the opportunity to express my own thought concerning the significance of that decisive battle and I said:
The Battle of Gettysburg, momentous in its exhibition of military force and skill, tremendous in its destruction of human life, had consequences which in their effect upon the race are limitless. As the seeds of the cockle are sown with the wheat, so in the constitution adopted by the fathers in 1787 lay the germs of an inevitable struggle. Two antagonistic forces grew in vigor and strength, side by side, in one household, and, like Ormuzd and Ahriman, they must strive for the mastery. Upon this field the struggle came to a determination and the issue between them was here decided with cannon and musket. The rebellion was undertaken by the followers of the doctrines of Calhoun and Davis with the purpose to rend the nation asunder and break it into fragments. Alas for the futility of the expectations of men! The Lord who holds the peoples in the hollow of his hand, and who, since the dawn of history, has taken them up by turns in the search for one fit for broad domination, did not forsake us. The extraordinary powers exercised for the maintenance of the national life in that dire time of war became fixed as the principles of the national government. The flame of strife but tested the virtue of the metal. The blows intended to dissever only welded the sovereignties together more firmly for future wider effort. The nation, as it exists today, arose when Pickett failed to drive the Philadelphia Brigade from the stone wall on Cemetery Hill. A seer, sitting on that dread day upon the crests of Big Round Top, could have figured, in the clouds of smoke rolling over the Devil's Den and the Bloody Angle, the scenes soon to occur in Manila Bay, at Santiago and San Juan Hill, the beaming of a new light at Hawaii and in the far Philippines, the junction of the two mighty oceans and the near disappearance of English control of the commerce of the world.
The presidential office is so great a station among men that those who fill it are not to be regarded as personalities. Their individuality is lost in its immensity. They become the manifestations of certain impulses and stages of development of the national life. Jackson represented its rough, uncouth and undisciplined strength. Lincoln looms up above all other Americans bearing the burden of woe and suffering which fate laid upon his broad shoulders in its time of stress and trial. Blessed be his memory forevermore! No people can look forward to the fulfilment of such a destiny as events seem to outline for us save one alert and eager with the enthusiasm and vigor of youth. No other President has so stood for that which, after all, typifies our life — the sweep of the winds over broad prairies, the snow-capped mountains and the rushing rivers, the Sequoia trees, the exuberance of youth conscious of red blood, energy and power, pointing our bow of promise, as does Theodore Roosevelt. He has hunted in our woods, he has enriched our literature, he has ridden in the face of the enemy, he has maintained our ideals. Upon this day, devoted to the memories of the heroic dead — in Pennsylvania a sad Decoration Day[1] — the achievements of the prolific past and the promise of the teeming future confront each other. Today for the first time Theodore Roosevelt treads the field made immortal by the sword of George Gordon Meade and hallowed by the prose dirge of Abraham Lincoln.
Philander C. Knox, then in the Cabinet, wrote: “I have heard the President and Mrs. Roosevelt both express their very high appreciation of the way in which you presented him at Gettysburg.”
John Hay wrote: “I was greatly struck with it when I saw it in the newspapers and have read it again with the greatest interest and renewed admiration.”
Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks wrote: “It was a perfect gem.”
General Daniel E. Sickles, who was there, wrote: “You said a great deal worth remembering, in a short space of time. . . . The charm is perfect.”
And Edward Everett Hale, who was also present, published in the Boston Christian Register a report in which he said:
The occasion was attended by gentlemen and ladies of distinction from every quarter. Governor Pennypacker, whom I heard called, by one who had a right to speak, the most sagacious and reliable governor of the state since Benjamin Franklin was its president, introduced the President in a speech apt indeed for its memories.
The following day I attended the funeral of Senator Quay and heard the services in the Presbyterian Church at Beaver, where he had lived his home life and the people were most able to understand and appreciate his character. Clergymen of different denominations participated and the Rev. J. R. Ramsey delivered the funeral sermon.
The death of Quay left Senator Boies Penrose as the titular head of the Republican party in the state. On the 3d of June, along with Dr. Henry D. Heller, the quarantine physician, Charles H. Heustis, health officer, Lieutenant Governor William M. Brown, Senator Penrose and many others, I went down the Delaware River upon the tugboat which had been given my name to inspect the quarantine station. On the way I took occasion to have a talk with Penrose and told him in effect that circumstances had imposed a certain responsibility upon him and me and that he could depend upon me to do all that properly could be done to maintain the control of the state by the Republican party, and that in my view it could be best accomplished by endeavoring to work out certain results. Penrose is a large man, tall and stout, dark in complexion, with a heavy growth of hair on his head, a graduate of Harvard, intelligent and able to make a clear and convincing speech, cynical in his philosophy, given to self-indulgence and mentally slothful. I never knew him to indicate that he was looking further than the results of the next election. I never knew him to urge support of a man or a measure upon the ground that the man was the most capable for the position or that the measure was likely to produce beneficial results, but his thought seemed ever to be to ascertain what would tide over an existing emergency in some political combination. Had I followed his advice I would, on one occasion, have appointed a judge who within two weeks thereafter was arrested upon a charge of embezzlement.
Soon after Quay's death I said to him:
“Senator, there will be a great contest in this state over the election of the next governor and you had better be making your arrangements now in preparation for it.” His reply was:
“Nonsense, there is not a sign of disturbance anywhere in the state. It would cost $250,000 and there is not a man in the state who would be willing to spend the money. If Durham and I cannot manage the next convention and election we ought to go and hide our heads.”
He turned to Israel W. Durham, who was present, and Durham agreed with him. I insisted upon my view.
“Why, do you know anything?” he inquired.
“No, I do not know a thing, but let me tell you this—there are a lot of uneasy people all over the state whom Quay had suppressed. He had beaten them so often that they feared to enter a contest with him. You are untried. They will be up in arms and you will have to fight for your seat before you can hold it and their opportunity will come over the governorship.”
This process of reasoning made no impression on him and it marks the difference between him and Quay, who would have foreseen the situation which arose.
There was a vacancy in the United States Senate to be filled. If Quay ever had the thought that his son Richard might succeed him there, as J. Donald Cameron had followed his father, he never even gave me a hint of his wish. Richard R. Quay, a bright, dapper little fellow, who had shown an aptitude for making money, had done nothing in public life which would justify such a selection. His appointment could only have been made by subordinating duty to friendship. The newspapers, as is their wont, proceeded at once to determine the person who should be selected and the manner in which it should be done. In their view, if the governor did not call the legislature together in special session for the purpose he would be a violator of the constitution, and they cited an argument of my attorney general in support of the proposition. Among their selections were William Flinn, Joseph C. Sibley, John Dalzell, Francis Robbins, Henry C. Frick and John P. Elkin. In an interview in the executive mansion at Harrisburg, at which were present Penrose, Robert McAfee and other party leaders, the Senator offered to me tentatively a list of about six names. We talked over the matter at some length. George T. Oliver of Pittsburgh was the only one who was satisfactory in my view, and most of the men suggested I would not have appointed under any circumstances. Finally I said to Penrose:
“The proper man to send to the Senate is Philander C. Knox.”
His name was not on the list. The interview then ended. A day or two later, I was invited to dine with The Farmers' Club at the farm of A. J. Cassatt in the Chester Valley. There were present, among others, George F. Baer, Wayne MacVeagh and Senator Penrose. When the dinner was over Penrose asked me to walk out on the lawn and there he told me that “they” had talked it over and had concluded to ask me to appoint Knox.
“I will do it at once,” I replied; “that suits me exactly.”
I had determined, if Knox were willing to accept, with the
risk of the election by the legislature, to make the appointment
without an understanding.”
We were in a cordial good humor and the Senator further said to me: “Durham and I have talked over the matter and have concluded that when the next vacancy occurs in the Supreme Court of the United States or in the Supreme Court of the state, to insist upon your having the place.”
This fact further illustrates the difference in the methods of Quay and Penrose. Quay never would have made such a promise unnecessarily and unrequested, and if he had made it, would have seen that it was fulfilled.
I made the appointment at once.
Knox, through his intelligence, experience and knowledge of the law, soon took a commanding position in the Senate and the state never was more worthily represented there.
He made a mistake in accepting the position of Secretary of State under President Taft, a place in which the incumbent, if he fails, is sure to get the blame, and if he succeeds is sure to have some one else receive the credit. I accompanied the appointment with an opinion giving my view of the effect of the provisions of the Constitutions of the United States and of the state differing from that which had been expressed by Mr. Carson and been supported by the newspapers, which latter had no care to have the state well represented, and only sought to embarrass Penrose and the Republican party. Unable to meet the arguments of my paper, which no lawyer undertook to do, they sought to take it out of me by calling me a “violator of the constitution,” an “anarchist,” a “nullifier,” and by saying I had committed a “palpable malfeasance” and a “violation of law.” In fact, I was as much abused by these interested commentators for selecting the most capable man in the state to represent it in the Senate as I was later for seeing to it that Pennsylvania had the most beautiful and most inexpensive state capitol in the country.
On the 11th of June I went to Pittsburgh to deliver an address and accept for the state the monument to Colonel Alexander Le Roy Hawkins and the dead of the Tenth Pennsylvania Regiment, which was the only regiment from the thirteen original states to participate in the war with Aguinaldo in the Philippines.
About this time I made an order that no more justices of the peace would be appointed without a statement in detail of the age, occupation and qualifications of the applicant, accompanied by certificates from residents of the neighborhood of his integrity and ability to perform the duties of the office.
It was a busy time and events crowded upon each other rapidly. On the 20th of June I was in Chicago as a delegate to the National Republican Convention. My rooms were in the Auditorium Hotel, where an agreeable impression was made by the Pompeiian room fitted up entirely with eastern ornamentation and a disagreeable impression was made by seeing the young men and young women, evidently of the cultivated classes, coming in to drink highballs and cocktails together as though it were quite the thing. The newspapers, in their efforts to suppress me because of the legislation making them responsible for negligence, had succeeded in producing the opposite result, and had given me an undeserved prominence. Governors Odell of New York, Herrick of Ohio, and Murphy of New Jersey came to my rooms, and it was reported: “The Governor was the striking figure in the hotel lobby and was the object of much attention.” The Pennsylvania delegation held a caucus and determined to vote as a unit. At this caucus I offered the following resolution:
Resolved, That the Republicans of Pennsylvania, in unison with the people, rejoice in the achievements and deplore the death of Matthew Stanley Quay. A soldier, he won the medal of honor for distinguished services on the field of battle; a scholar, he could impress a thought and turn a phrase with deft skill; a political leader of capacity unexcelled, he entered the stronghold of the foe and achieved a presidential victory under the most adverse conditions; a Senator, his wise counsel and keen intelligence were ever sought and always potent; a statesman, he prevented the passage of the force bill and in time of stress preserved the principle of protection to American industries to the lasting benefit of the country; an exemplar of bold and steadfast integrity, his last contest was a successful effort to compel the national government to keep faith with the down-trodden and the helpless. May he find in the grave that longed-for peace which ingratitude denied to him while he was alive!
Somebody called for a standing vote and every delegate arose to his feet, although many of them were of independent proclivities, and voted in favor of the resolution. To Pennsylvania was accorded the opportunity to make one of the nominating speeches. It is the broadest field in America upon which a man may address his fellow men, and in these conventions is determined who shall guide the destinies of the nation for a period of four years. Penrose came to me and generously asked me to make the speech. I told him he was called upon, as the leader of the party in the state, to do it himself, but he insisted, and the truth is, I was not disinclined to make the effort. The convention was held in the wigwam with an audience of 30,000 people sitting, as in an amphitheater, with tiers rising one above another until they reached the rear and the top. A board and carpeted passage-way ran out from the platform toward the center so as to enable the speaker to approach as near as possible his hearers. "Uncle Joe" Cannon presided, and in his Western breezy way he presented those who were to speak. He adopted all kinds of antics to secure attention and maintain silence. On one occasion he lay flat and pounded on the boards of the floor with his heavy gavel. If the speaker failed to make himself heard distinctly, a buzz started in the audience, and thereafter he was utterly lost, a mere figure with twisting features and moving arms. There were very few who could stand the test. A man from California whose name I do not know, with a voice like the roaring of a bull, made the crowd laugh and listen. Elihu Root nominated Roosevelt. It was a good speech, but he could not be heard even by our delegation, whose location was very near to the stand, and, therefore, at the time was ineffective. I was called on the second day from my place on the platform where I sat apart from the delegation as one of the vice presidents of the convention.
It is to be hoped that my readers, if I ever have any, will look with lenity upon the introduction into these memoirs of some of my short speeches. If their eyes be wide open they will see that I am endeavoring to impress them, as I ever did my listeners, with the facts that show the great importance in American life of our own state. It is only the simple truth that I have been the first who, upon every possible occasion, in the face of those who have been taught and would rather think otherwise, has boldly asserted these facts and rigidly insisted upon their acceptance. All of my writing predecessors have been more or less explanatory and exculpatory and to that extent weak. It is a satisfaction to know that a result has been accomplished. William U. Hensel, Martin G. Brumbaugh and others have since adopted the same tone and it is to be hoped the time is near when our people will be inspired with a proper appreciation of and pride in their own wonderful influence upon broad affairs. On this occasion and to this vast audience I said:
My voice is peculiar, but there are tones in it which are penetrating and reach far. Members of our delegation told me that they could hear easily, and certain it is that there was no whispering in the audience and that they gave attention to the address. At its close there came what was called an ovation of applause and Fairbanks came to my rooms to offer his thanks.
Chauncey M. Depew also made a speech in behalf of the nomination of the vice president.
About this time the Philobiblon Club, at my suggestion, brought out the edition de luxe and facsimile reproduction of The Chronicles of Nathan Ben Saddi, the satire upon Franklin, Norris, Isaac Wayne and others about the time of the French and Indian War. I may be forgiven for repeating that it is probably the brightest bit of literature the colonies produced, and that for it I wrote the preface, giving such facts concerning its origin as could be ascertained. On the 27th of June I made an address at the laying of the corner-stone of the Homeopathic Insane Asylum at Rittersville, near Allentown, in which Dr. Heysinger was very much interested. It always seemed to me absurd to talk about a homeopathic insanity and there was later much unfavorable comment upon the cost of the building, and the fact that it had not been completed even at the expiration of the term of my successor.
At the close of July I went to the camp of the National Guard at Gettysburg and was again much chattered about by the quidnuncs because I adhered to my rule of review from a barouche, and there again I inspected every member of every regiment and the culinary and other departments. The adjutant general, Stewart, one of the most capable and energetic of men, had it in mind to arrange for a permanent annual encampment there, but I felt called upon to interfere with him and put an end to the plan. Colonel John P. Nicholson, chairman of the Battlefield Commission, was much opposed to it, and my opinion was that we ought not to force any later uses or associations upon the field where the most fateful of American battles was fought.
On the 1st of August Governor Robert E. Pattison died. I knew him well; a tall man, with dark eyes, he had the wonderful fortune to be twice elected as a Democrat to the position of governor of this Republican state. Mentally he was painstaking, but not vigorous, and he was not very successful in the office or financially afterward. He was of the type of men who always meet with mild good will and approval. Stone and I were both pall-bearers and attended the funeral. I issued a public proclamation.
During this summer the International Exposition at St. Louis, to commemorate the Louisiana Purchase, was opened. I determined that Pennsylvania should take a prominent part and that the opportunity should be seized to bring before the people of the state and the nation the importance of what she did at the time of the purchase in contrast with other parts of the country. Her vote in Congress was unanimous for the purchase, but the fact had never been pointed out except by Henry Adams, who describes her as the potent factor in the government at this period. Without this purchase we never could have been much of a nation.
The legislature appropriated the sum of $300,000 for the state's participation. I appointed a commission of representative men to take charge of the matter consisting, together with those selected by the legislature, as follows:
Samuel W. Pennypacker, president; Henry F. Walton, chairman of executive committee; James H. Lambert, executive officer; Frank G. Harris, state treasurer; Bromley Wharton, secretary; George J. Brennan, secretary; William M. Brown, New Castle; E. B. Hardenbergh, Honesdale; Isaac B. Brown, Harrisburg; John M. Scott, Philadelphia; John C. Grady, Philadelphia; William C. Sproul, Chester; William P. Snyder, Spring City; J. Henry Cochran, Williamsport; Cyrus E. Woods, Greensburg; Theodore B. Stulb, Philadelphia; John Hamilton, Philadelphia; William B. Kirker, Bellevue; William Wayne, Paoli; John A. F. Hay, Clarion; Fred T. Ikeler, Bloomsburg; Wm. H. Ulrich, Hummelstown; A. F. Cooper, Homer City; Frank B. McClain, Lancaster; George D. Hartman, Wilkes-Barre; Wm. S. Harvey, Philadelphia; Morris L. Clothier, Philadelphia; Joseph M. Gazzam, Philadelphia; George H. Earle, Jr., Philadelphia; Charles B. Penrose, Philadelphia; George T. Oliver, Pittsburgh; H. H. Gilkyson, Phœnixville; Hiram Young, York; James Pollock, Philadelphia; James McBrier, Erie.
I selected as Pennsylvania Day the 20th of August, the one hundred and tenth anniversary of Wayne's victory at the Fallen Timbers, in order to enforce attention to the fact that it was Wayne who won for us the whole Middle West. There was much opposition to this date among the commission for the reason that it was in the very midst of the hottest part of the season and, therefore, likely to interfere with the pleasures of the occasion, but I was inexorable upon this point. An artistic building was erected at a cost of $96,145.64, and it was visited by more people than all of the other state buildings together, due in large part to the presence of the Liberty Bell. The exhibits were most creditable and received many medals from the National Commission.
We left Philadelphia on the 18th with a large party which included my staff, Mrs. Pennypacker, Mrs. Carson and many of the commissioners and their wives, and the next day arrived in St. Louis, where, for the first time, I saw the Mississippi River, and we put up at the Jefferson Hotel. On the ménu for dinner there appeared “Boiled Owl.” I was sorely tempted to try what the thing was like, but the price was four dollars and I forebore. We concluded that night to go out in automobiles and take a preliminary look at the fair. We had gone about four squares when one of the most violent of thunder-storms let loose upon us, the bolts of lightning striking and splintering the poles beside us on the street, and we hurried back to the hotel, wet to the skin. In the morning, escorted by the famous City Troop, with John C. Groome at its head, I was driven out to the Pennsylvania Building, which we examined. The day proved to be fully as hot as had been anticipated and all were uncomfortable, but endured their martyrdom for the good of the state. There I delivered an address setting forth in detail Pennsylvania's part in the creation of the West and the securing of the lands of the Mississippi Valley. It has often been reprinted; it appears in my Pennsylvania in American History and it produced the effect which had been intended. In the evening Mrs. Pennypacker and I held a reception attended by Governor David R. Francis, the president of the Exposition. In connection with the exercises I had reproduced A. J. H. Duganne's poem Hurrah for Pennsylvania, up to that time almost unknown, and it was rendered with great effect by a lady elocutionist. After examining the Exposition, we left St. Louis on the night of the 23d. When the State Commission closed its labors it returned $30,000 to the treasury, an event almost without precedent.
This successful effort to enhance the reputation of the state was a gratification to all of its decent citizens. There was, however, a fly in the ointment. The North American was lying in wait for a chance. When my proclamation was issued, calling upon all of our citizens and their descendants who could, to be present, the newspaper reporter, either through design or accident copied the reference to the anniversary of the Battle of Fallen Timbers as the one hundredth instead of the one hundred and tenth. The editorials followed saying that I made the battle occur after the death of Wayne. An examination of the original proclamation in the office of the Secretary of the Commonwealth disclosed, however, that it was the newspaper reporter who made the mistake and this plan of attack fell flat. Those in charge of the agricultural display had, because of his supposed knowledge of the subject, employed a Democratic professor at the State College and he bought a quantity of seeds, for which he paid $22.60, and placed them on exhibition. The man and the seeds had both been removed in May. The North American got hold of the story and cunningly exploited it on the 19th of August, just in time to reach the Exposition on Pennsylvania Day, and as far as possible soil the demonstration. To make a sensation, it gave to the subject nine columns and seventeen pictures, with caricature and other nonsense. It talked of “unparalleled fraud” and “graft,” though this suggestion in connection with a sum of $22.60 was supremely silly. It concocted an interview with a member of the Commission, which he denied, in which he was made to say that not a leaf of Pennsylvania tobacco was in the exhibit, although our display of tobacco received the highest award at the Fair. Indignant at the baseness of the scheme and the way in which it was carried out, I did what I could at the moment and telegraphed to the Ledger branding the publication as a malicious falsehood, intended to harm the state. There is an honor among the members of this fraternity, as in another, which bands them together, and the Ledger suppressed the dispatch and endeavored to excuse the North American.
On the 17th of September thirteen monuments to the soldiers of Pennsylvania regiments who fought in the Battle of Antietam were dedicated and handed over to the custody of the United States Government. I was present with my staff and made an address.
During this month there occurred two events of a personal nature which made an impression on me. A boy in a junk store in a Maryland town came across, amid the old iron, a stove plate with the name Pennybacker on it and he wrote to me about it. I bought it—a rather elaborate piece, with the inscription “D. Pennybacker. His Redwell Furnace, Sept. 24th, 1787.” He was an iron master and the grandfather of the late Judge Isaac S. Pennybacker, United States Senator from Virginia, of whom President Polk, in his journal, speaks in terms of the warmest friendship. A day or two later I received a letter from Thomas Gatewood, a messenger in the public buildings in Pittsburgh, who had been a slave in the family of Senator Pennybacker, and I had some correspondence with him.
On the 3d of October I presided at a meeting in the Academy of Music in Philadelphia, tendered by the United Irish League to John E. Redmond, the Irish Parliamentary leader, accompanied by two members of Parliament—Captain A. J. C. Donehan of Cork, and Patrick O'Brien of Kilkenny. Archbishop Ryan, an exceedingly able, bland and persuasive man, participated.
On the 6th of October I was at York to attend the fair, the guest of Senator E. K. McConkey. At the horse race the driver of the leading horse, as he approached the goal, gently dropped the lines. His arms fell to his side and he rolled out upon the track dead.
On the 18th of November Mrs. Pennypacker and I, upon the invitation of Mr. George W. Atherton, the president of the State College, attended the dedication of the Carnegie Library connected with that institution. Mr. and Mrs. Carnegie and Mr. and Mrs. Charles M. Schwab were there and since we spent a day or two with them in the same house we reached a stage of acquaintance. We found Schwab healthy, hearty and earnest, and Carnegie shrewd and agreeable. The latter gave much attention to Mrs. Pennypacker and told her many incidents of his early life, and she has never been willing to listen to critical comments concerning him since. The coat of my evening suit of clothes was missing and I was compelled to appear at the table in street costume. Mrs. Pennypacker made her own explanations to account for my costume and Mr. Carnegie accepted and covered them up with both graciousness and adroitness. Carnegie, Schwab and I made addresses and Mrs. Carnegie expressed pleasure at seeing and hearing such an exhibition of state pride—a feeling, she said, utterly non-existent in New York.
On Sunday, December 4th, I had a personal adventure. William D. Hunsicker, the farmer at Pennypacker's Mills, drove me in a buggy, with a rather wild horse, “John,” to Phœnixville. A mile from that town the elevated divide between the Perkiomen Creek and the Schuylkill River falls abruptly toward the river. There is a very long, steep and dangerous hill, the road in the valley below crossing a ravine and small stream by means of a narrow uncovered and unprotected bridge. Deep gulleys parallel the road on each side. As a general thing travelers make a detour of about a mile to avoid this sudden descent. For some reason Hunsicker concluded to drive down the hill. At the very top the breech-band broke, letting the harness fall upon the heels of the horse. He gave a kick, knocking the shafts to pieces, and started on a wild run. “We are in for it, Hunsicker. Keep in the middle of the road if you can,” were the only words uttered. The wagon swayed to and fro toward the gulleys. Hunsicker's hat flew in one direction and mine in another. My umbrella was tossed into a gutter. When we reached the little bridge, where Hunsicker succeeded in bringing the horse to a stop, “John” was badly injured and the wagon a wreck, but neither of us had a scratch. It was an experience to be remembered but not to be repeated.
- ↑ Quay lay dead.