There were several delegations which were controIled by federal office-holders. It is at this point that patronage becomes overwhelmingly effective. Several of those office-holders were shown telegrams from Washington, which meant their removal unless they did as directed by Senator Conkling. When the convention met the next day, the office-holders kept their heads on their shoulders, and my dear and valued old friend, Andrew D. White, was elected chairman of the convention.
I asked the leader of the federal crowd from Westchester how he explained my getting into the convention. "Oh," he said, "that was easy. Our people gained so many delegates by offers of patronage and threats of removal that when I told them you had bought my delegates away from me, they believed it without question, and we are all safe in our places in the Custom House."My success was entirely due to the farmers' indignation at federal dictation, and the campaign did not cost me a dollar.
Roscoe Conkling was created by nature for a great career. That he missed it was entirely his own fault. Physically he was the handsomest man of his time. His mental equipment nearly approached genius. He was industrious to a degree. His oratorical gifts were of the highest order, and he was a debater of rare power and resources. But his intolerable egotism deprived him of vision necessary for supreme leadership. With all his oratorical power and his talent in debate, he made little impression upon the country and none upon posterity. His position in the Senate was a masterful one, and on the platform most attractive, but none of his speeches appear in the schoolbooks or in the collections of great orations.
The reason was that his wonderful gifts were wholly devoted to partisan discussions and local issues.
His friends regarded his philippic against George W. Curtis at the Republican State convention at Rochester as the high-water mark of his oratory. I sat in the seat next to Mr. Curtis when Conkling delivered his famous attack. His admirers thought this the best speech he ever made, and it certainly was a fine effort, emphasized by oratory of a high order, and it was received by them with the wildest enthusiasm and applause.
The assault upon Mr. Curtis was exceedingly bitter, the denunciation very severe, and every resource of sarcasm, of which Mr. Conkling was past master, was poured upon the victim. His bitterness was caused by Mr. Curtis's free criticism of him on various occasions.
The speech lasted two hours, and it was curious to note its effect upon Mr. Curtis. Under the rules which the convention had adopted, he could not reply, so he had to sit and take it. The only feeling or evidence of being hurt by his punishment was in exclamations at different points made by his assailant. They were: "Remarkable!""Extraordinary!" "What an exhibition!" "Bad temper!" "Very bad temper!"In the long controversy between them Mr. Curtis had the advantages which the journalist always possesses. The orator has one opportunity on the platform and the publication the next day in the press. The editor--and Mr. Curtis was at that time editor of Harper's Weekly--can return every Saturday and have an exclusive hearing by an audience limited only by the circulation of his newspaper and the quotations from it by journalistic friends.
The speech illustrated ConkIing's methods of preparation. I used to hear from the senator's friends very frequently that he had added another phrase to his characterization of Curtis. While he was a ready debater, yet for an effort of this kind he would sometimes devote a year to going frequently over the ground, and in each repetition produce new epigrams, quotable phrases, and characterizations.
There used to be an employee of the State committee named Lawrence.
He was a man of a good deal of receptive intelligence and worshipped the senator. Mr. Conkling discovered this quality and used Lawrence as a target or listening-post. I have often had Lawrence come to my office and say: "I had a great night. The senator talked to me or made speeches to me until nearly morning." He told me that he had heard every word of the Curtis philippic many times.
Lawrence told me of another instance of Conkling's preparation for a great effort. When he was preparing the speech, which was to bring his friends who had been disappointed at the convention to the support of General Garfield, he summoned Lawrence for clerical work at his home. Lawrence said that the senator would write or dictate, and then correct until he was satisfied with the effort, and that this took considerable time. When it was completed he would take long walks into the country, and in these walks recite the whole or part of his speech until he was perfect master of it.
This speech took four hours in delivery in New York, and he held the audience throughout this long period. John Reed, one of the editors of the New York Times, told me that he sat on the stage near Conkling and had in his hands the proofs which had been set up in advance and which filled ten columns of his paper.
He said that the senator neither omitted nor interpolated a word from the beginning to the end. He would frequently refer apparently to notes on his cuffs, or little memoranda, not that he needed them, but it was the orator's always successful effort to create impression that his speech is extemporaneous, and the audience much prefer a speech which they think is such.
Senator Conkling held an important position in a critical period of our country's history. If his great powers had been devoted in the largest way to the national constructive problems of the time, he would have been the leader of the dominant party and president of the United States. Instead, he became the leader of a faction in his own State only, and by the merciless use of federal patronage absolutely controlled for twelve years the action of the State organization.
