1876 Read Free Page A

lavish new Court House. Piously I deplored corruption.
    What did I think of General U.S. Grant, whose second term as president is due to end in a year’s time?
    I was wary. The corruption of General Grant’s Administration is a matter of some poignancy to me. My capital was administered by the banking house of Jay Cooke, which collapsed in the fall of 1873, bringing on a panic whose effects are still with us—as my capital is not.
    Certain Wall Street criminals, among them Jay Gould and Jim Fisk—how well I know their names!—in an attempt to corner gold, brought on a thousand bankruptcies. Whether or not General Grant himself was involved in any of this is a disputed point. Certainly he is known to take large gifts from men like Gould and Fisk. If Grant is not himself a criminal he is a fool. Yet the Republican party protects him, cherishes him, is loath even to let him go now after two terms.
    “Do you think General Grant will want a third term?” From the Times , a newspaper particularly devoted to the Grant Administration.
    “Since I have never met the General, I can hardly say. But ...”
    Deliberately I set out to make—well, not my fortune but at least a place for myself where I can survive without fear of poverty the few years left me. “But,” I repeated, “as you know, I am a Democrat, of the Jackson-Van Buren persuasion ...”
    This caused some interest. There was a marked coolness from the reporters representing the Republican interest (the majority, I fear), but keen sympathy from the others.
    “Do you favour Governor Tilden for the Democratic nomination?”
    Favour him! All my hopes are based upon that fragile figure obtaining the presidency next year. “Indeed I do. I am not, of course, au courant ...” Mistake to use French but the phrase was out.
    Odd. In France I think only in French. Now—in this hotel room—what language do I think in? English? No. A mélange!
    “I hardly know as much about New York’s affairs as you gentlemen, but I do know that Mr. Tilden’s breaking up of the Tweed ring so pleased the honest people of that state that last year they made him governor. After all, he has stopped the rich stealing from the poor—”
    “But that sounds communist, sir.” From the Times .
    “I had no idea that honesty and communism were the same.” This evoked some applause. I find it fascinating that communism should so distress the overcoats. Obviously the uprising in Paris frightened the New York burghers—certainly it frightened us Parisians when the Communards seized the city as the Germans withdrew; even more frightening, however, was the revenge of the burghers, who butchered untold thousands for being Communards. I myself saw a child of five slaughtered in a street of Mont Rouge. The world revolution that began in 1848 is not yet finished.
    At this point I raised my own banner: “When I last saw Mr. Tilden in Geneva, two summers ago—” The excitement that I had meant to create was now palpable: the overcoats positively steamed. The desultory interview with the expatriate author of successful books unknown to the newspaper press now came alive.
    “ You are a friend of the Governor?”
    “Hardly. But we do correspond. We were first introduced by Mr. Gallatin, who lives in Geneva.” Patiently I spelled the name; explained that Gallatin’s father had been secretary of the treasury under Jefferson.
    “I was struck by Mr. Tilden’s, by the Governor’s, extraordinary brilliance, by his intellectual grasp of every subject that he chooses to consider.” This was true enough. Samuel J. Tilden is indeed a most intelligent if narrow man, and though of a cold and formal temperament, he is by no means wholly lacking in charm.
    We dined nearly every day for a week on a terrace overlooking Lac Leman. Sometimes we were joined by Gallatin, whose bright European realism was often too much for the dour Americanism of S.J. Tilden.
    At one point Tilden suddenly began to describe in