said he, ``without a good drink just before I go on the platform I can't make a speech.'' I attempted to quiet him and to show him the difficulties in the case. I said:
``Colonel ----, you have been with our young men here all day, and no doubt have had a fairly good time; but in our meetings here there is just now need of especial care.
You will have in your audience to-night a large number of the more sedate and conservative citizens of Syracuse, church members, men active in the various temperance societies, and the like. There never was a campaign when men were in greater doubt; great numbers of these people have not yet made up their minds how they will vote, and the slightest exhilaration on your part may cost us hundreds of votes.'' He answered: ``That's all very well, but the simple fact is that I am here to make a speech, and Ican't make it unless I have a good drink beforehand.'' Isaid nothing more, but, as he still pressed the subject on the mayor and the other member of the committee, I quietly said to them as I left the carriage: ``If that man drinks anything more before speaking, I will not go on the stage with him, and the reason why I don't will speedily be made known.'' The mayor reassured me, and we all went together into the large room adjoining the stage, I keeping close watch over the orator, taking pains to hold him steadily in conversation, introducing as many leading men of the town to him as possible, thus preventing any opportunity to carry out his purpose of taking more strong drink, and to my great satisfaction he had no opportunity to do so before we were summoned into the hall.
Arrived there, I made my speech, and then the orator of the evening arose. But just before he began to speak he filled from a water-pitcher a large glass, and drank it off. My thought at the moment was that this would dilute some of the stronger fluids he had absorbed during the day and cool him down somewhat. He then went on in a perfectly self-possessed way, betrayed not the slightest effect of drinking, and made a most convincing and effective speech, replete with wit and humor; yet, embedded in his wit and humor and rollicking fun, were arguments appealing to the best sentiments of his hearers. The speech was in every way a success; at its close I congratulated him upon it, and was about to remind him that he had done very well on his glass of cold water, when he suddenly said to me: ``Mr. White, you see that it was just as I told you: if I had n't taken that big glass of gin from the pitcher just before I started, I could not have made any speech.''
``All 's well that ends well,'' and, though the laugh was at my expense, the result was not such as to make me especially unhappy.
But this campaign of 1884 ended as I had expected. Mr.
Cleveland was elected to the Presidency.
CHAPTER XIII
HENDRICKS, JOHN SHERMAN, BANCROFT, AND OTHERS--1884-1891The following spring, visiting Washington, I met President Cleveland again.
Of the favorable impression made upon me by his career as Governor of New York I have already spoken, and shall have occasion to speak presently of his Presidency. The renewal of our acquaintance even increased my respect for him. He was evidently a strong, honest man, trying to do his duty under difficulties.
I also met again Mr. Cleveland's opponent in the previous campaign--Mr. Blaine. Calling on Mr. William Walter Phelps, then in Congress, whom I had known as minister of the United States at Vienna, and who was afterward my successor at Berlin, I made some reference to Mr. Blaine, when Mr. Phelps said: ``Why don't you go and call upon him?'' I answered that it might be embarrassing to both of us, to which he replied: ``Idon't think so. In spite of your opposition to him at Chicago, were I in your place I would certainly go to his house and call upon him.'' That afternoon Itook this advice, and when I returned to the hotel Mr.
Blaine came with me, talking in a most interesting way.
He spoke of my proposed journey to Virginia, and discussed Jefferson and Hamilton, admiring both, but Jefferson the most. As to his own working habits, he said that he rose early, did his main work in the morning, and never did any work in the evening; that, having been brought up in strongly Sabbatarian notions during his boyhood in Pennsylvania, he had ever since, from the force of habit, reserved Sunday as a day of complete rest.
Speaking of the customs in Pennsylvania at that time, he said that not even a walk for exercise was allowed, and nothing was ever cooked on the sacred day.
I met him afterward on various occasions, and could not but admire him. At a dinner-party he was vexatiously badgered by a very bumptious professor, who allowed himself to speak in a rather offensive manner of ideas which Mr. Blaine represented; and the quiet but decisive way in which the latter disposed of his pestering interlocutor was worthy of all praise.
Mr. Blaine was certainly the most fascinating man Ihave ever known in politics. No wonder that so many Republicans in all parts of the country seemed ready to give their lives to elect him. The only other public man in the United States whose personality had ever elicited such sympathy and devotion was Henry Clay. Perhaps his nearest friend was Mr. Phelps, to whom I have referred above,--one of the best, truest, and most winning men I have ever known. He had been especially devoted to Mr. Blaine, with whom he had served in Congress, and it was understood that if the latter had been elected Mr. Phelps would have been his Secretary of State.
