USA > Maine > Maine; a history, Volume II > Part 31
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"Dingley, "Dingley," 85-86.
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Mr. Dingley's most distinguishing characteristics were unshakable seriousness and unwearying industry. He had not the faintest trace of humor. A joke was something that he could not comprehend, he not only never made one himself but he seemed unaware of the existence of such a thing. Perhaps no man ever lived who more closely followed the old Greek rule, "Know thyself." Cool, methodical and sober-minded, "he understood the scope of his capacity better than even his most intimate friend. He did not seek to overcome the impossible, but concentrated his indomitable energy in an effort to develop and improve every faculty and gift with which nature had endowed him. His patience was inexhaustible. His confidence in himself never wavered. Realizing that he was not pos- sessed of the weapons of brilliancy, wit, and satire, he determined to lead and command by the accuracy of his information, the fullness of his knowl- edge, and in the skill and tact with which he presented his subject."
Representative Boutelle after speaking of Mr. Dingley in somewhat similar terms, said: "So my colleague became pre-eminently the student of the House of Representatives. It was my fortune to live in the same hotel with him during a long period of years, and I do not recall a single instance when I have entered his apartment while he was there that I did not find him seated with a pad upon his knee, surrounded by documents, laboriously but intelligently searching out the bases upon which the great questions agitating the American public were to be decided in Congress."
Thomas B. Reed, who in spite of his real admiration for Dingley could never refrain from quizzing him, said that he would rather have a pad and pencil on his knee than a pretty girl. When Mr. Dingley went on a vacation trip and others carried a rod or gun he took his beloved pad and pencil. This extreme studiousness was not a matter merely of duty or of ambition but of personal taste as well. Mr. Payne of New York said:
"It is related of him that long before he had reached his 'teens he read the speeches of Webster and Clay with more avidity than would most boys pursue Scott's novels. Entering the House of Representatives in the fiftieth year of his age, he was splendidly equipped for a career of great usefulness and honor. His mind was a storehouse of useful knowledge on all public questions. But better far than this, he had formed a lifelong habit of untiring research. He had learned to take nothing for granted. He must verify the truth for himself. To him to know was a delight, and the toil by which he reached that goal, so irksome to others, had become the keenest pleasure."
Mr. Dingley had need of all his attainments and ability as a scholar, for in various matters which are most important for success in American public life he was deficient. He was small in stature with a weak and sometimes harsh voice. He had little imagination, no brilliancy, and no personal magnetism. Yet he came to be the floor leader of the House of Representatives. This was partly due to his character. He never misrepre- sented an opponent or distorted a fact, and the whole House felt that he
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was honest and sincere. If not magnetic he was unaffected and kindly. Busy as he was he was always glad to furnish information from his great store to all who asked for it.
He never indulged in personalities nor allowed himself to be provoked. He knew well the disadvantages of engaging in quarrels. When a member of the staff of the Lewiston Journal wished to reply in kind to some per- sonal attack he would say, "Young man, write out what you have to say as hotly as you please, and then notice that such stuff is excellent to kindle the fire."
Had Mr. Dingley been only an industrious, sincere and kindly man, he might have won the respect and regard of the House, he would never have become its leader. But to his industry were joined analytical ability and a marvellous memory. The range of his knowledge was astounding. Representative Payne said of him, "He knew something about everything, he knew everything about many things." A Democratic Representative said of him: "I know no one who possessed so thorough and so complete a knowledge of this Government and of all of its departments and institu- tions as did Mr. Dingley. His knowledge in this direction was amazing, both for its breadth and its accuracy. He was fully equipped to be the chairman of any committee of this House. He had also the rare faculty of utilizing his vast learning both for the purposes of discussion and for the preparation of statutes and revenue bills. In him was successfully blended the thoughtful student and the practical man of affairs."
Mr. Dingley's appointment in 1897 as chairman of the committee of ways and means imposed on him the responsible duties of leader of the House. In this position he was most successful. His fairness, courtesy and readiness to oblige won the esteem of his opponents to an unusual degree and they had no wish to delay legislation merely for the sake of giving annoyance. Mr. Dingley's control over the Republicans was almost complete. This was due to his readiness to compromise on minor matters, his kindliness and freedom from envy, his tact and his unobtrusive ways. He never humiliated his colleagues by making public parade of his leader- ship. When a speech was necessary to check incipient mutiny he appealed not, as is often done in such cases, to partisan prejudice but to the reason and calm consideration of his followers.
In the congressional memorial services an opponent closed his speech by saying: "In their future conflicts his party associates will sorely miss his calm, thoughtful speeches and his tactful and discreet leadership. The Democratic side will miss his unfailing courtesy, his uniform fairness, and his considerate kindness. The whole House will miss his great learning, his valuable instruction. His friends will miss a kind, sincere, gentle soul, undemonstrative, unpretentious, but as true as steel. His country will miss a wise, pure, patriotic statesman."
The Democratic convention was not held until August 12. Again the ME .- 37
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question rose of a new departure and an alliance with disaffected Republi- cans, but it was understood that the Conservatives would control and many Democrats joined the Republicans, declaring that reliance upon old issues meant utter failure. The Machias Union, an old school copperhead paper, asked, "Is it at all likely that the American people will give their attention seriously to the new political questions every day demanding solution," financial reform, an equitable tariff, reconciliation of North and South, "until the old political prejudices and the party names that kept them alive, are alike forgotten?"
"The Resolutions of '98 were well enough in their day, although at this distance of time we may be permitted to doubt whether they were worth the expenditure of so much intellect in discovering and describing their real force and extent ; but they and their cognate doctrines have been settled and passed out of the public mind, and, we submit, are not now before the people of Maine for their consideration in this campaign.
"In the days of Democratic success, a Western Democratic Congress- man said the Whig party should be encouraged and preserved. 'It was good for the discipline of the Democratic party and to win bets on.' The question is now for the Democrats at Portland to say whether they will longer assist as grooms in keeping the Republican party in racing order. We fear they cannot imitate the Whigs in furnishing winnings, as nobody is fool enough to venture his money on their feebleness." The Whig quoted the article and remarked: "It is very evident that the incantations of the little knot of politicians at Portland, Tuesday, will fail to set the Democratic pot boiling with any vigor."
The Portland Press headed its account of the convention with the well worn quotation De mortuis nil nisi bonum. The Advertiser said: "The delegates assembled here Monday night, and next morning conversed quietly at the hotels and on the street corners, with sober faces and sub- dued voices; and when the convention met Tuesday morning every one imagined that the flag raised at half mast on the City Hall, as a token of respect to the memory of the late Councilman Swett, was intended to betoken the moribund condition of the party assembled under its folds. Mr. Hubbard even made a speech-accepting the omen, and interpreting it to signify the decease of American liberty, which in the orator's esti- mation is a synonym for the Democratic party. In the meantime the patient's friends are like the hard hearted husband who advised his expir- ing wife not to try to talk but to go on with her dying. A Greeley Repub- lican, whose letter we printed yesterday, wants the Democratic party to move out of the way, and the Machias Union, speaking the opinion of the sturdy Democracy of Washington county, openly advised the disbandment and dissolution of the party." The convention, however, did not take this advice but put forth a platform and nominated a candidate. The platform spoke of many things but some paragraphs were conveniently obscure.
The Republicans had met the charges against their party by pointing
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out that Democrats as well as Republicans had been concerned in the wrong doings of Congress. The convention made the counter charge that as the Republicans had full control of the Government they were responsible for all public misconduct, including the seduction of the Democrats. "The woman tempted me and I did eat!" Two ballots were taken for the nom- ination of a candidate. On the first, Joseph Titcomb of Kennebunk received 136 votes, Artemus Libby of Augusta 106, other gentlemen 33. On the second ballot Mr. Titcomb received 198 out of 338 votes and was nomi- nated. The Whig said of the candidate:
"Mr. Titcomb is a graduate of Bowdoin in the Class of 1844, and is now about fifty years of age. He is a wealthy ship-owner of Kennebunk, and a successful and highminded business man. He was a member of the State Senate in 1850, since which time he has not been in public life, although he has continued an unflinching supporter of the Democratic party. Personally he is regarded as a courteous, cultivated and agreeable gentleman."
After this handsome tribute to an opponent the Whig made the cruel comment : "If the leaders had any hope of success they would have chosen a very different style of man."
There was a third candidate in the field representing the "Liberal" and other dissatisfied Republicans. This was ex-Governor Joseph H. Williams of Augusta. The Machias Union declared itself in his favor but he obtained only a small following.
The campaign was a very quiet one. There were no public meetings. The Belfast Journal in endeavoring to get the Democrats to the polls uttered the pathetic plea, "We owe it to the excellent and high minded gentleman whom we have in nomination for governor, to poll at least a respectable vote." And this the Democrats did. The official returns gave Dingley 45,244 votes, Titcomb 32,924, Williams 2,160; there were 625 scattering.
In 1874 both parties renominated their candidates of the year before without open opposition. The Republican committee on resolutions, of which Thomas B. Reed was chairman, reported a platform strongly favor- ing a return to specie payments. It also declared that "this convention views with lively satisfaction the increasing indications that the vast water power of the State is being more understood and appreciated as our strong- est reliance for the increase of our wealth and population, and expresses its earnest sympathy for all judicious measures which tend to encourage capital and labor to engage in manufactures in Maine as the most effective means of developing its agricultural, maritime and commercial interests." The convention also adopted a resolution offered from the floor by Joshua Nye strongly endorsing "judicious prohibition." The Democratic conven- tion denounced inflation and protection and approved civil service reform. The vote in September increased between fourteen and fifteen thousand over that of the year before, the Republican gain being about two thousand
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the greater. There were 52,958 Dingley votes, of which 2,093 were cast for Nelson Dingley instead of Nelson Dingley, Jr. Mr. Titcomb received 41,898 votes; there were 444 scattering.
Senator Hamlin's term would expire on March 4, 1875 and there was a sharp though not a very close fight over the question of his re-election. He had expressed an unwillingness to run again and ex-Governors Perham and Washburn and Josiah H. Drummond of Portland announced them- selves candidates for the succession. But many office holders who owed their appointment to Mr. Hamlin and who feared that a new Senator might want their places for his own friends urged him to run again and he decided to do so. The election of the Legislature seemed to assure the choice of Mr. Hamlin but the Portland Press worked vigorously against him and even hinted at a bolt should he receive the caucus nomination. Speaker Blaine wrote a public letter praising the Senator's character and services to the party and urging his re-election. A "Kennebecker" under- stood to be Anson P. Morrill published a letter in reply.
It was urged that Mr. Hamlin had done his work, that he had long held office and should make way for younger men. It was also said that he had not protested against corruption, that he was identified with the machine and that the recent disasters to the Republican party showed the need of a change of men. Mr. Hamlin's friends replied that his ability and integrity were unquestioned, they showed that some of the criticisms made against him were without foundation, they laid stress on the advantage to Maine of being represented by an experienced Senator and declared that a period of defeat was no time for experimenting with untried men.
The opponents of Mr. Hamlin were under certain disadvantages locally. Messrs. Drummond and Washburn were both residents of Portland, and Cumberland county was therefore divided. Mr. Perham might have ob- tained more support from his own county of Oxford had not Mr. Hamlin been by birth an Oxford man and a frequent visitor to it.
Late in the contest Judge (afterward Chief Justice) John A. Peters was proposed as a compromise candidate. The Democrats were anxiously watching for a Republican split, and Judge Peters, an old Douglas Demo- crat, might hope for an endorsement from them.
But when the Republican legislative caucus met for the nomination it was clear that Hamlin was the favorite. Mr. Wilson of Bangor, formerly a law partner of Judge Peters, stated that the Judge, as befitted his posi- tion, had taken no part in the canvass, that he had been brought forward "at the instance and with the approval of leading members of the Repub- lican party, men of the very highest reputation for character and integrity who believed that Judge Peters represented ideas which ought to be engrafted on the principles of the Republican party," but the speaker added that he believed that the further use of Judge Peters' name would rightly be regarded as a factious opposition to the will of the majority and that he therefore withdrew it.
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When the vote in the caucus was taken it stood, Hamlin 79, Drum- mond 19, Perham 19, Washburn 18, Kent 1." At the election by the Legislature, all the regular Republicans voted for Hamlin and he was chosen by a large majority. The Democrats supported John C. Talbot.
According to custom, Governor Dingley was entitled to a nomination for a third term but he declined being a candidate. He urgently advocated economy and the Argus declared that he had thereby offended the politi- cians. Many persons were mentioned to succeed him but the convention, fearing perhaps a long and bitter contest, took none of them but united on a soldier, General Selden Connor, who was nominated on the first ballot by a practically unanimous vote.
Selden Connor was born in Fairfield, Maine, on January 25, 1839. He graduated from Tufts in 1859 and entered on the study of law at Wood- stock, Vermont. At the outbreak of the war he promptly enlisted and served with distinction, chiefly as major and lieutenant-colonel of the Seventh Maine, colonel of the Nineteenth Maine and commander of a brigade. His thigh bone was broken at the Wilderness, a few weeks later he was made a brigadier-general but was unable to return to active service. In 1866 he again broke his injured leg and was confined to the house for two years. From 1868 to 1874 he was assessor of internal revenue. He was then appointed collector for the Augusta district and was holding that position when nominated for Governor.
In its platform the convention showed a leaning toward protection, declaring that "The great industries of the country, agricultural, manu- facturing, mining and commercial, are entitled to encouraging legislation and such incidental protection and development as wise systems of revenue may rightfully afford." The Granger movement was becoming formidable and the convention paid tribute to its power by urging the Legislature to examine and ascertain "whether any form of property either corporate or individual, have escaped their legitimate share of the public burdens." Recent school laws and the expense they entailed had called forth much opposition and criticism, but the convention took a firm stand, declaring that "Our system of public education must be continued, improved and advanced so that every child in the State may have all the culture needed for honorable advancement and success in life." On the liquor question the convention said, "Temperance among the people may be wisely pro- moted by prohibitory legislation and it is a source of congratulation that the policy of prohibition, always upheld by the Republicans of Maine, is now concurred in by a vast majority of the people of the State."
The Democratic convention met the Republican nomination of a soldier by themselves nominating by an overwhelming majority General Charles W. Roberts of Bangor, their candidate in 1870. The platform denounced the Republican national administration as guilty of usurpation and corruption
"Given by Mr. Wilson. Judge Kent was not a candidate.
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and demanded "a tariff for revenue to meet the wants of the government economically administered." It declared that the administration had "by adverse legislation and a vitiated currency crippled our leading interest as a ship building State and driven from the ocean a large portion of the mercantile marine engaged in the foreign commerce of the country."
One of the delegates, Solon Chase of Turner, a former Republican, offered as an amendment certain resolutions, taken from the Democratic platform in Ohio, favoring soft money, but they failed to pass.
In 1876 Maine for the first time presented a candidate for the presi- dential nomination. James G. Blaine had won a high reputation by his work as Speaker and by skillful leadership of the minority when the Demo- crats obtained control of the House in the winter of 1875-1876. An inci- dent in this session exerted great influence on his future career. He defeated a bill for releasing the ex-Confederates from the disabilities imposed by the Fourteenth Amendment, because Jefferson Davis was included in its operation. His speech on the question caused the Demo- crats, who had been previously well disposed toward him, to become bitterly hostile and it alienated the more conservative Republicans with whom Mr. Blaine had been accustomed to co-operate. "On the other hand, it must be said that his course gained him immense popularity in his own party,- great and lasting, but not universal popularity. From the moment when he delivered the speech until the time of his death he was the most conspic- uous Republican in all the land, the man whose partisans were more ardent, devoted, and numerous than were those of any other man. But he was also the man of all others upon whom the whole party could not unite, and the man whom his political opponents would take the greatest delight in defeating.""2ยช
In the spring his conduct in the Little Rock and Fort Smith Railroad affair was investigated by a hostile committee, and some influential Repub- lican papers were not satisfied with Mr. Blaine's clever and brilliant defense. Men like George F. Hoar, though believing that Mr. Blaine was innocent of wrong, thought that the suspicions which had been raised made it inad- visable to nominate him. Finally just before the meeting of the convention he was prostrated by an attack, the result of the extremely hot weather and the mental strain which he had been under, and the convention might well doubt if it were wise to nominate a man who might prove totally unable to bear the strain of a national campaign and, should he be elected, of the presidency. His friends, however, knew no hesitation. At the convention his name was presented by Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll in a ringing speech in which Blaine was compared to a plumed knight, a phrase which was taken up in admiration by his friends and in ridicule by his opponents and became almost a second name. For six ballots Mr. Blaine led the field, on the seventh almost all the anti-Blaine delegates united on Governor Hayes
"Stanwood, "Blaine," 142.
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of Ohio, and he was nominated, receiving five more than the necessary number of votes. The nomination for the vice-presidency went to William A. Wheeler of New York.
Hayes was agreeable to the reformers yet not obnoxious to the stal- warts, as the special followers of Grant, and the men who had most influ- enced his administration, were called. He had taken a leading part in an Ohio campaign, showing much ability in his discussion of the financial question. But apart from this he was not well known in the country. The Argus declared that he had done little in Congress and that his election would mean a continuation of Grantism. It asked "If Governor Hayes is not an easy going, good lord good devil sort of man is it not strange that all the Belknaps, Babcocks, Brothers and Brothers-in-law (of the Presi- dent) are for him, don't these sharpers know their men?" The Argus said that Mr. Wheeler was far better qualified for the presidency than Hayes but was not nominated for that very reason.
In June, 1876, Mr. Bristow, the Secretary of the Treasury, resigned, and Maine received one of the most important places in the Cabinet by the appointment of Senator Lot M. Morrill as his successor. The Republican State convention requested Governor Connor to appoint Mr. Blaine to fill the vacancy until the Legislature should act and he promptly did so. The convention approved the Republican nomination for President and Vice- President, endorsed the national platform and reaffirmed the principles formerly set forth by the Republican State conventions in regard to pro- hibition and the development of the resources of Maine. Governor Connor was renominated by acclamation.
The Democrats nominated on the first ballot by a large majority, John C. Talbot of Machias. Other gentlemen voted for were John M. Goodwin of York (who had previously declined) and Abraham Sanborn of Bangor. It is said that the managers had intended to nominate Farley of New Castle, "that their little slate was smashed, but that the lively scene that would otherwise have ensued was prevented by some scientific political engineering during the noon recess." In its platform the convention called for reform and declared that "we are opposed to any inflation of our national currency, and that gold and silver form the only safe basis of our monetary system."
The Democratic national convention had not yet met and the State convention resolved "That in accordance with the sentiment of the Democ- racy of Maine this convention declare Samuel J. Tilden, the able, zealous, intrepid and successful Reform Governor of the Empire State, to be its first choice for President and recommend his nomination by the National Democratic Convention as eminently fit and proper." The convention also resolved that the customary requirement in the national convention of a two-thirds vote to nominate "being at variance with the well-established Democratic principle of majority control," should be abandoned. The ad-
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vice as to the two-thirds rule was not taken, but Mr. Tilden was nom- inated. Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana was nominated for the vice- presidency.
The Republicans under the lead of Mr. Blaine, who, according to his custom, earnestly supported the party candidate without regard to his own preferences, made a vigorous campaign. Among the able speakers brought from other States were James A. Garfield, John A. Kasson and Robert G. Ingersoll.
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