Blythe Harding

“ During the tragedy the people will be the actors, and Garfield, the Electoral Commission, and the "machine" politicians will be the spectators—a very select audience. Admission free. The stage will be rather large, about the size of the United States. Lots of room for the audience. After the play there will be a procession to the White House in Washington. The actors will invite their special friends to it. I don't think Garfield, the Electoral Commission, or the Republican "machine" engineers, will get cards of invitation. They will, perhaps, be asked to a free lunch in Ohio. ”

“ They were enraged, however, to think these politicians could imagine them so dead daft. I think, too, at one time they were within an ace of letting themselves out. If they had, there would have been bad work!
They did better to wait.
—To be sure; but what kills one is to see these same wire-pullers putting up a man like Garfield for President. Why, he's got the rottenest record of the whole lot. You hear them say he's a statesman. Yes, indeed! and I'm Sultan of Turkey. He's nothing more than a common political hack, and an unsafe one at that. ”

“ Well, but what had Garfield particularly to do with this?
—First of all he said in Congress: "The Commission is clothed with power to hear and determine the vote of any state." * * * He declared on his honor (!) that the Commission had power to go down into the states and review the act of every officer, to open every ballot box, and to pass judgment on every ballot cast by seven millions of Americans. He said they had all the powers of the Senate and House of Representatives to examine into everything. ”

“ Schurz, whom Hancock caught trying to make himself invisible at Gettysburg, among them. It was a regular Quakers' meeting. Finding they could make no head against it, and that the thing was spreading and getting to look like a revolution, what did they do? Why, they sent for the man whom Garfield wanted to beggar and disgrace, and besought him to take the thing in hand and restore order. They gave him full power.
And how did he act?
—Like a brave soldier, a true citizen and a real gentleman. ”

“ So that, if General Hancock had nothing outside his pay, this soldier (?) who ran away from the field to go "jobbing" in Congress, would the next day have made a beggar of the man who really saved the Union!
[Pg 16] Do you think good, honest Republican voters (I don't mean the "machine" men) , know or remember anything about it?
—We live so fast that I expect many of them have let it drop out of their minds. ”

“ He makes treaties, weeds out old political hacks, and sends them on embassies where they cannot annoy him, and have nothing to do; appoints Judges of the Supreme Court like Joe Bradley, when he wants to play eight-to-seven, commands the army and navy, gets fifty thousand dollars a year, takes all the presents he can get, lives in the White House, and does a kind of general housekeeping business for the country. ”

“ Then is the great bootist afraid of the "machine?"
—I don't think he's afraid of anything. But he knows there's no use kicking against that.
By the way, you said Hayes had been put into office without being elected, had Conkling anything to do with that?
—No. He's too proud a man to stoop to any dirty work. He has held Hayes' administration at arm's length, and never gone near them except when he was on the "kick."
Then who did put Hayes into office?
—There were a good many in the job. Thirty-three in Florida and seventy-two in Louisiana; Garfield and John Sherman, chief "engineers." ”

“ His hide is too thick for that. He would be a mule, only he isn't quite big enough.
Ah! You have a strange way of expressing yourself. But tell me, who were his "friends" as you call them?
—The same men that "worked" Grant.
What do you mean by "working" Grant?
—Putting a pair of "blinkers" on him, and then stealing everything they could lay their hands on; and then when they were going to be turned out, stealing the presidency so as to get another "hack" at the "swag." ”