USA > Ohio > The Western Reserve of Ohio and some of its pioneers, places and women's clubs, Vol. I > Part 13
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Henry Clay was an old man and Stephen A. Douglas who, Senator Benton said, "Was too near the ground ever to be Pres- ident." Congress was convened under a calm, never again to be agitated. Fillmore was desirous of succeeding himself. In regard to the Fugitive Slave Act he reminded them of their constitutional obligations. President Pierce was proposed by Benjamin Butler and was full of gay promise; he declared, "No prominence should be given to any subject set at rest by the Compromise acts." But in December Mr. Douglas introduced the Nebraska Bill and all its woes. Some one said, "The Com- promise Bill of 1850 suspended that of 1820." An address was issued written by Mr. Chase and endorsed by Giddings, Gerrit Smith, Chase, Sumner, Edward Wade and De Witt, all in the House of Representatives. It was written for Ohio only. Ohio had taken a decided lead against the Nebraska Bill. Nebraska was what was left of the Louisiana Purchase and as large as all the free states with Virginia added. "No northern man emigrated to a southern state, no free man would labor beside one degraded by being the chattel of another," said Senator Wade. Senator Butler, of South Carolina, said to him, "You believe in July Fourth, that makes the slave equal and why should not equals work side by side." This brought up slavery directly and a man from North Carolina told of his old colored mammy whom he loved as his real mother and he could not take her to Nebraska, the enemies of this measure forbade him. Senator Wade replied, "We are willing you should take the old lady there but we are afraid you will sell her when you get her there." It was followed by a roar of laughter and pre- vented further sentiment on the slave question.
Joshua R. Giddings succeeded Elisha Whittlesey in the Senate. He resigned when the law of Petition was rejected but was re-elected unanimously.
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Butler, of South Carolina, talking about "bleeding Kansas," "was full of wine or liquor, scattering the loose expectoration of his speech over his person, desk and surroundings," said Sumner. It was a graphic, condensed and painful speech.
At the recess the Senators went out, leaving Sumner in his seat, many Southerners sitting about him. Then Preston Brooks, a kin of Butler, struck Sumner with a stout cane; a second blow felled him to the floor, then he beat him until he was unconscious. Not a man went to his rescue or made a sign of disapproval. E. B. Morgan, of Aurora, N. Y., entered the Senate chamber and ran to his aid. Then Brooks desisted and Sumner was borne out from his foes. He never recovered. He had some spinal trouble and walked with a cane. In the investi- gation Tombs said he saw the whole transaction and approved it. Wade arose and said, "When a Senator says he approves of an attack on an unarmed man and almost murdered for expressing his opinions, I am here to meet you. No one can die in a better cause than in the cause of free speech on this floor. Let us come armed for the contest."
James Webb came to see Senator Wade at his home and he said, "Tell Toombs it is a rifle and thirty paces." He was a deadshot and had a rifle in the city. Pin a paper to Toombs and Wade's bullet would certainly cut it. The next day and the next day passed and no calls. On the third day both were in their seats. Toombs reached over to Wade and touched him on the shoulder and said, "Wade, what is the use of two men making damned fools of themselves?" "None at all," said Wade, "but some men cannot help it." And they were good friends from that day. Brooks was saved from expulsion by friends from the South. He resigned but was re-elected. A league was formed to meet the Southerners on their own terms, and hearing of it, their tones were modified.
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When the raid of John Brown at Harpers Ferry was known the South cried, "To arms! To arms!" Wade addressed the Senate. Mr. Sherman had recommended a certain book. "What does the book say? It has an economic view of slave and free industries. It has been endorsed by many men in Congress, but condemned by the South. It is drawn from the census of the United States. Has it come to this, that we cannot let the people read the facts it presents, and are to institute a censor- ship of the press in free America? Sherman has been in the other branch of Cangress for four years. He is very active and a very worthy member."
Lincoln received 180 electoral votes, Douglas 12. Mr. Lin- coln was not elected to carry on the war; had few of the qual- ities, save courage, firmness and purpose. Seward offered to write his inaugural address. Cameron would plan his adminis- tration. Blair published what would be done, but Lincoln sup- pressed it when printed.
Thad Stevens said, "Nobody comes made for the Senate but to get into it." Wade and Stevens saw clearly the point of the war. The most of human good is reached collaterally. Congress was called to provide ways and means. It called for 25,000 regulars and 500,000 volunteers. Duties on imports were increased to two hundred and fifty millions, and fifty millions of re-issue of treasury notes.
The Bull Run disaster was investigated. Senator Wade went in a carriage with three others only to see the soldiers fleeing to the Capital. He stood up and pointed his rifle at them, when an orderly went galloping by with passports from General Scott. They returned to Congress to ask for a committee of investigation. On this committee were four of the House and of the Senate, Chandler and Wade. Their first report was given
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April, 1863. Wade seldom missed a session of the committee. He urged Edwin Stanton for the war office. Lincoln appointed him. The army thrilled under his first touch. Some of the things he did were abolition of slavery in the District of Colum- bia, confiscation of rebel property, for example, slaves. All cotton seized and sold, this would give it to foreign claims and prevent their intervening, seizure of railroads and telegraph lines for public service.
The national credit, based on its revenues, floated nine hundred billions of paper, gold ceased to be money, it became a commodity.
What would Lincoln have accomplished had there not been a brave, firm, wise and far-seeing Congress to advise, create, compel, reward, punish, pay premiums, bounties, prizes? Noth- ing of this was, or is yet, seen. They did not see Seward, Sec- retary of War, waving off the eager crowd, English and French restrained from blocking the blockade. Other troubles were, Hendricks wrote Jeff Davis of an improved firearm to sell. Some took the arming of slaves greatly to heart. There was the dismembering of Virginia, her great men abandoned her, her small men found in this an opportunity for West Virginia.
They began to criticise Lincoln. Mr. Greeley, of the New York Tribune, was searching with a lantern for one to succeed him. Mr. Wade said, "If we fail it will be because we are unworthy to succeed; disaster will come and still greater ones, perhaps, and the end is not yet; the task it imposes is for human kind, the accumulated work of the dead centuries; its hope is the hope of all the ages to be born. If we cast down those who alone must lead us we had better hide at once from our shattered nationality. Our President forms his own judg- ments and will execute them."
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Only once did Senator Wade criticise the President. That was when he advised forming a new state in Richmond with its own officers, and the other secession states doing the same. The papers did not dare publish the Wade-Davis manifesto. It went out as a circular and produced a wide sensation. Wade had received his third election or his career in the Senate would then have closed. It enacted the Homestead Law. The national banks were an immense step forward. Schenck and Garfield were fresh from the battlefield. Lincoln met them and he issued a call for 300,000 more men, and the reply was, "We are coming, Father Abraham, three hundred thousand strong, shouting the battlecry of freedom." Lincoln and McClellan, the latter on the strength of his failures, twenty-two hundred thousand to eighteen hundred thousand. The Thirteenth Amendment, abolishing slavery from the Constitution.
The opening of 1864 saw Grant weltering through the Wil- derness and "fighting it out on this line if it takes all summer," it led the war to a sudden end. Lee surrendered to Grant and he said take your horses but the war horse is useless for agri- cultural purposes; he is always hearing the bugle call. Of the leaders, eleven great states full, only one was imprisoned. That was their President, Jefferson Davis.
When President Andrew Johnson asked Wade, "What would you do with the rebels?" Wade said, "Hang one dozen of the leaders." But which ones? He named twelve, "but they are no guiltier than the rest."
Johnson was opposed to reconstruction. Mr. Lincoln had appointed him military governor of Tennessee. He said the states were still in the Union. Congress rejected it. Wm. H. Seward came forward and said that reconstruction work was the work of the President and when Congress convened there
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was the returned South, clamoring for their old places, on the old terms. His policy was rejected by Congress and he and it were subjects of scorn. This course delayed the return to order and restoration. The impeachment of President Johnson was very imposing but the President was acquitted. Wade voted he was guilty on the counts presented. That was his judgment. This Fortieth Congress terminated his public career. Allen G. Thurman took his place. With his sons in the army, Mrs. Wade came to the capital to be with her husband. They had pleasant rooms on Four and Half street. He was always at home and in good humor. Mrs. Wade wrote his letters, read to him in her fine quiet elocution. Many men once in office come to Wash- ington to live, not so Senator and Mrs. Wade.
They returned to Jefferson, Ashtabula Co., O., to live in their old home. Here at 70, he and his wife renewed their former life. He aided the canvass for General Grant in 1868. Some thought Grant would offer him a place in his Cabinet. He also aided in the canvass of 1875 and was an elector to the convention of 1876. He was sent to inspect the Pacific railroad. His report was satisfactory. He kept no journal. At the end of the campaign notes and letters were destroyed. A useful life is his own fitting monument. Content to do his work and then leaving it. He died at Jefferson, March 2, 1878.
A HARVEST HOME EXCURSION
An invitation to a wedding in Denver led Mrs. Rose to wish to take advantage of this excursion. Mr. R. said, "I despise them, a crowd and filthy air; do not think of it."
Three of these excursions were given and to know how much of a crowd there was, she visited the ticket agent. He said, "We sold but one ticket. I think ten were sold in Chicago."
At noon she asked Mr. Rose if one made a crowd and told of this incident. He replied, "You are, now, too late for the wedding." Therefore she went out of town to visit her married daughter. In a few days she got this telegram: "If you go to Denver on the excursion be home on Monday." She said, "I am to go, it seems." She was ready and a sister of one of her son's partners, Miss Williams, went as far as Harper, Kans. She was a middle-aged lady of fine disposition.
They took the night train to Chicago and had the day until five P. M. for sight-seeing.
The W. C. T. U. official in the depot gave them the address of the Manual Training School and the Cooking School, on Mich- igan avenue. When they entered the Manual Training School, a lad was kindly directed to show them the boys at work.
When at the forge Mrs. Rose said to one of them, "Do you use lead or iron?" He replied, "Most schools use lead that it may be used many times. This is lead, but we are promised iron to use next year." "Your skill would need to be greater if you used iron, and it is of that material you will use when you work in a factory." He smiled at her interest in the work, but she had studied it in her essay to the paper on the necessity of scholars of America competing with those of foreign countries.
MR. WM. G. ROSE, EX-MAYOR OF CLEVELAND
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Then they went to the Cooking School, two blocks farther, and many were entering it. They took seats several rows back from the front. A chef from one of the large hotels was giving the best way to make meat broth and soups. He was dressed in white cap and apron. He said, "Get a bone, not less than three pounds, have the butcher crack it for you into small pieces, put it into hot water, skim it well, strain it through a good sieve, allow three hours for boiling." Just then several ladies entered and were hunting for seats. Mrs. Rose said, "Let us go, it is a good time to leave; we cannot give an hour to this work." The lady at the door asked why they left and they said they had other business for the few hours in the city. Slight as it was their visit revealed many important truths, one was the desire of women to know the best and easiest way of cooking.
When on the train, in a chair car, they passed through miles and miles of prairies, billows of grass. Mrs. Rose asked the conductor why those groups of dingy two-story houses were vacant and he replied, "It is some real estate boom, but the people would not come. It is lonesome out here on the prairie."
As they approached the Kansas River, a few cottonwood trees, with short trunks and leafless branches, were on its bor- der and the earth was white as chalk; occasionally a clump of sycamore or thorn trees. It was too late in the season to see fields of grain or grass.
But Kansas City was all life and bustle. The depot was full of emigrants and it was here she was to part with her com- panion. Mrs. W. had friends in the town and they took the street car to find them. Off the main lines there was little at- tention paid to sidewalks or cleanliness. After a vain search, they spent hours in the large furniture and dry goods stores. The time passed swiftly and they parted to take different trains.
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Mrs. Rose passed through Topeka and was glad to hear that there was "twenty minutes for dinner." It was here her sister and husband lived, when he was building the Southern Pacific railroad, and this town was once called "Lane City" from his partner.
The passengers went up a flight of stairs to the dining room. She waited impatiently to be served, but as she was not noticed, she went down stairs and bought a bowl of baked beans and a slice of pie. She was going to the cars when a lady called out: "Mrs. Rose, come in here. I did not know you were on the train. What a joy." This was a relative by marriage, and a friend. "Get your sleeper changed to the one above mine." She did, for the Englishman who was to occupy it was glad to get a lower berth.
In the morning she was told, "twenty minutes for break- fast." Her friends left the car, but there was no porter and no stool by which she could climb down. Finally, the porter came and she had but ten minutes now. She went to the first restaurant, bought coffee and rolls and returned to the car. It began to move. The brother of her friend said: "Where are the folks?" "They are left." And so they were. The hat and cloaks hung from the hooks, the satchel and other things were there. They sped on, and their sister, who had come to as- sist with the children, was not there to help in changing cars for Pueblo or the Gorge.
Mrs. Rose arrived safely in Denver. Her friends, with a carriage, were at the depot. "Are you too tired to take the ex- cursion to Georgetown at nine in the morning?" "Of course not, that is what I am here for." Therefore an early to bed and early to rise was planned. At the depot she met many old friends. Mrs. Rickoff, who had published the Appleton Readers,
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and who was getting up illustrated cards for the Kindergartens; Francis Fisher Wood, who has brought to New York sterilized milk from the dairies of Vermont. She also met many Boston friends.
When they entered the mine at Georgetown, Mrs. Edna Cheny walked ahead. The clay between the railroad tracks was slippery and soon their dresses were in a dreadful condition. Many turned back, but three had gone to see the process of dig- ging gold and kept on to the very wall, where great holes were bored into the earth, powder put in, then a fuse and then the operator went backward and waited for the explosion. They mounted the ridge of earth next to the wall and examined the places where great rocks had been split and saw the half filled dummy cars.
On reaching the entrance, all of the company were waiting for them seated in the cars, therefore those soiled dresses were not seen by them. A boy brought photographs, three for a quar- ter, and boxes of minerals, also a quarter, and Mrs. Rose pur- chased of both. The lady to whom she was consigned, a rela- tive by marriage, said: "The cars that are open have better air, but the soot will blacken you dreadfully. Let us take the open car." Some ladies came into their car and said: "Nearly every- body is sick, so we came in here."
At 10:30 they arrived at Denver and were taken in car- riages to their friends. "Oh, come and look at yourself in the glass, you are as black as can be." So she was, but she had had an experience. The little five-year-old said: "Mother, you never got me pretty stones like these, or pictures," and she was given some.
The next day they visited the mints, under the direction of the vice president. Governor Hill was president.
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The process was very complicated. First, the copper had to be extracted, then the iron, and when the gold appeared it was in fine dust. No one was allowed to touch it, but the bars of gold, weighing fifty pounds, they were told, "they could have one if they could carry it away." Many tried, but not one was able to lift it from the floor. The next day they accepted an invitation from the president of Colorado University to a re- ception at his home from 8 to 10 p. m. Mrs. Rose said: “Can any one, who is not a member of the Association for Advance- ment of Women, go?" "Why not join it?" "But it has ad- journed. I do not see how I can."
Someone said: "See Mrs. Antoinette Brown Blackwell, she is in the next car." "I will," said Mrs. Rose. "She knew me in Oberlin, when I was 16 years old."
Mrs. B. said: "I think we can call the directors together and vote you in."
"But what shall I wear? This hat will never do."
A lady, the wife of a minister, said: "Wear my hat," and she put it on her.
It was just beautiful with its violet lining, and had colored trimmings. "This just suits you and makes you look ten years younger."
"And, Aunty," said her niece, "try my bead cape." She did, and she was beautiful.
"Thank you, I shall go."
When evening came no one came to her room. She had had her hair dressed. At last she ventured to the elevator; it was stopping for ladies in full dress. "The carriages are at the door." She ran to her niece's apartments and she said: "We had forgotten it, but I will get the hat, you put on the cape." She did, and then the hat, and walked to the elevator and then to the front door.
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"How will we make room for you?" said one. "It is full, but never mind, we do not ride far." The hat touched the roof of the coach, but she bent her head and did what she could to protect it. She was glad to meet in the parlors some who had known her in her young days at Oberlin, from one of whom she had bought a piano.
Mrs. Blackwell presented her with her certificate of mem- bership. President Slocum, once a student of Johns Hopkins, gave an account of Richard T. Ely's views on natural monop- olies. They stood while four young ladies passed sherbert with macaroons. Then the plates were put down on window sills or on tables. It was delightful; the freedom from stiffness, the good talks and the Western style of beauty and good taste.
At the thirteen receptions given in Denver, some had new and pretty ways of announcing their guests. One with broad yellow ribbons went from each plate to a centerpiece of flowers; on each was written the name in chalk. Another, was the ice cream, a box and the matches, all of ice cream.
Edna Cheny and Julia Ward Howe had a parlor talk at the home of the niece of Mrs. Rose.
They left Colorado Springs for the Garden of the Gods in carriages and she was anxious to hear their explanation of this singular freak of nature from these distinguished ladies. When they stood at the foot of a group of these gods not a word was spoken .. Mrs. Cheny, as she was inquired of as to her explana- tion, said: "It is beyond our ken, ask the scientists."
These "balancing rocks" and "bears" and other fantastic groups are of a red sandstone as soft as brick, and the elements of ages have washed away the softer parts until these weird fig- ures remain.
They went to the Cave of the Winds, where an attendant struck on the stalactites and produced well known hymns, Rock
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of Ages Cleft for Me, and Nearer My God to Thee. Each pen- dant had a distinct note of its own. The whole musical scale was there, a very unusual phenomena.
Castle Rock near Denver is similar. Mrs. Rose, when in the steam car for home, crowded to its utmost capacity, mo- tioned a seat beside her to an elderly lady. She was from near Castle Rock. "What do you think of this formation?" said she to her. "Oh, it is not from rains, for rains are a scarce article in this region. I am going back to Newton, Kans., where we can depend a little on the weather. All last summer we watered the cattle from a well; some were too weak to stand, and this summer we have used our suds from washing on our garden, but it did not amount to anything; everything died."
"But see the acres they have here; think of 260 acres on that farm."
She replied: "Oh, yes, they take acres by the thousand, but one of ours in Kansas is worth a hundred here. Alfalfa is about all they can raise; it is a coarse clover."
"Where do they keep their cattle?" she asked. "I have seen none and only one horse with his head on the fence, as if asleep."
"This is the time of the year they send their cattle to the mountains or into the valleys."
I was surprised that the chestnut and hickory trees had to be planted in Denver from seed and protected for five years by the sycamore or cottonwood. She said: "Yes, that is what is done; no doubt great fires ravaged this country once."
"But I see no fruit except at that Englishman's place at the entrance to the Mesa on the way to the Garden of the Gods. Why is that?"
"Well, now, do you not understand, it is the lack of rain. Some day these great gullies washed by a downpour will have
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irrigation can go on all the year whichreservoirs of water from round. It is better than to depend on rains; it is more method- ical. But we have silver to sell and it ought to be money equal to gold, not 16 to 1. Then we would have these things. It is coming; do you see these palaces of houses and no slums? Everybody gets work here."
"Have you always lived in Kansas?"
"No. Forty years ago I lived in Zanesville, O., but I mar- ried my husband out here and have raised a family, and Kansas is a good place to live in. Ohio is too conservative; it is not a woman's suffrage state. They let foreigners take the offices and bring old country customs among them. We of the West have more freedom. They let women vote here in Kansas, and Lawrence once had not a person in its jail. No work for lawyers or judges. Of course men will never let women vote until they have to and are ashamed of the whole business of politics."
The time passed so rapidly that when Newton was called and the old lady said goodbye, she was fairly lonesome. It was better than reading the newspaper to hear that woman talk.
The car was crowded. At the next station, a woman seated herself by her. "Are you a lover of this Western country?" said Mrs. Rose. "I should say not. It is perfectly dreadful as far as I have seen it. I have just come from the southern part of Colorado. My sister lives there. I have been on a visit to her for three weeks. She went there as a bride four years ago. The first thing she showed me was a stove to burn cow dung. A sort of double grate. There is no wood and coal is very high priced. There is no smell about it, for it is a dry cake. All have to keep cows, of course, but the thought of it made me wish I was at home.
"Then it is so lonesome; her husband went three miles to
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the next neighbor and when he got lost, as to compass, he sat down and took off his socks and shoes and changed his hose to the other foot."
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