#benjaminharrisonanecdotes

[generalharrison]

George Alfred Townsend on Harrison’s Speech at the Ohio Society of New York

Ben Harrison, senator from Indiana, who is a native of Ohio, showed his metal in a considerable speech, delivered with a vigor and style that carried to my mind the idea that he was an abler man than his distinguished ancestor, the President of the United States. In appearance he does not generally impress people as he goes about the streets, with his head somewhat down and no particular “get-up” about him. But when he rises to speak you see that he is broad-shouldered, full-chested, healthy and strong, square-headed, firmly planted on his feet, aggressive, loud and incisive--very much of a leader of men. In all he made the strongest impression of any speaker of the night.

Quoted in History of the Ohio Society of New York, 1885 - 1905 by James H. Kennedy.

George Alfred Townsend, known by his pen name “Gath,” was a correspondent during the American Civil War. At the time of Harrison’s speech, he was working for the Cincinnati Enquirer.

[generalharrison]

Gov. Joseph B. Foraker Corresponds with President-elect Harrison

Joseph Benson Foraker (1846-1917), Governor of Ohio (1886-1890)

Notes of a Busy Life (1916)

Pages 426-428

I had numerous letters from him after he was elected, all of the same general character as the following:

Benjamin Harrison. 674 Delaware Street.

Hon. J. B. Foraker, Indianapolis, Ind., Nov. 22, 1888.

Columbus, Ohio. My Dear Governor: — You will know without elaborate explanations from me why I have been so slow in acknowledging your telegram of congratulations, and I am sure you will not impute it to any lack of interest or appreciation either of the friendly words in which you express your satisfaction in my election or of the good work which you gave to our Indiana campaign. I shall be glad to see you at any time, or have from you, in the frankest and most confidential way, any suggestions which you may desire to make.

With kindest regards to Mrs. Foraker.

Very truly yours,

Benj. Harrison.

I answered the foregoing letter as follows:

Nov. 24, 1888.

Dear General: — . . . Responding to your kind invitation to frankly make any suggestion I may wish to make, allow me to insist that you give yourself no concern about "golden bridges" for Southern Democrats to retreat over.

We can well afford to let them take the chances of swimming the creek. Every true-hearted Republican, and to such you owe your election, and upon meeting the expectations of such you must depend for the success and popularity of your administration, feels that we will fail in our duty if we hesitate to throw about the elective franchise every safeguard that legislation can appropriately supply.

Of course, we should be kind, as we have been, but we must be firm. Beware of men who have "fits." They always have them at the wrong time.

Use your own good sense, and have in all things the courage of your honest convictions.

Hastily, but truly, and with regards to your family.

J. B. Foraker.

Hon. Benj. Harrison.

The allusion to "golden bridges" has reference to some editorials the "saintly" Richard Smith was publishing at the time in which he advised President Harrison to build a "golden bridge," something like Hayes had done, on which Southern Democrats could retreat into the Republican Party.

That my advice was well received is indicated by the fact that he did not waste any time on such sentimental suggestions. We continued our correspondence in much the same way from time to time all the while he was in the White House. I quote only one more letter, and I quote that, not so much to show our relations, as to show how the President felt about his work after he had fairly entered upon it; his experience in that respect being interesting because, no doubt, like that of all other Presidents:

Executive Mansion. Washington, D. C.

March 27, 1889. Dear Governor: — I am much obliged for your kind letter. It is very pleasant to have your commendation of the little work I have been able to do up to this time.

It is a growing wonder to me that a President is able to do anything well in the rush and confusion that surges around him. People complain of the slowness that attends appointments, and yet they do not give me an unemployed hour.

With kind remembrances to Mrs. Foraker.

Sincerely yours, Hon. J. B. Foraker. 

Benjamin Harrison.

[generalharrison]

Gov. Joseph B. Foraker on the Republican Failure in 1892, and His Own Failure to Win a Senate Seat

Joseph Benson Foraker (1846-1917), Governor of Ohio (1886-1890)

Notes of a Busy Life (1916)

Pages 425-426

...The "hurrah boys" had lost interest and the result was a Democratic victory. The lesson of all this is plain. You cannot do much in politics without issues and a candidate who is not afraid to discuss them, and they must be issues that are important enough to call for plain talk that the whole people will note and understand. Failing in this, the "hurrah boys" become indifferent and the "sober and conservative" classes too frequently forget all about the election until they read its results the day afterward.

In discharging the duties of his office Harrison was an excellent President, but, as Mr. Hayes says [in his recently published diary], he lacked tact. He had a grouchy way of meeting people and lost friends and made enemies. Consequently on election day there was "lack of interest." Defeat was his reward and his party's disaster.

Some of us foresaw all this at Minneapolis and in a conscientious endeavor to serve the best interests of the party, and not as a lot of "unscrupulous bosses," tried to nominate somebody else. It was not an agreeable thing to do, but duty commanded, and we did the best we could.

In the Senatorial contest with Senator Sherman a few months before a great many revenue agents, national bank examiners, and others holding positions under the Federal government flocked into Columbus and made themselves active in opposition to my candidacy.

Governor Foster was then Secretary of the Treasury. Senator Sherman had helped to secure him this appointment as a token of his appreciation for Governor Foster's support in the National Convention of 1888. The Governor had a natural aptitude and a great liking for practical politics. He had an opportunity in this contest to show his appreciation for what Senator Sherman had done for him, and, therefore, made it known early that, while he had no personal antagonism to me, yet he favored Sherman's re-election.

I felt some resentment, and in the course of a speech I was called on to make at the time I referred to these government officials who were so intermeddling, as "everybody from grandfather's hat to Baby McKee." This was construed by some to indicate a hostile feeling toward President Harrison; but it was not so, and if it had been it would not change the fact that neither personal nor political dislike had anything to do with my opposition to his renomination at Minneapolis. On the contrary, my relations with General Harrison were cordial, not only before, and while he was President, but afterward until his death.

[generalharrison]

Booker T. Washington Meets Ex-President Harrison

Booker T. Washington (1856-1915), President of the Tuskegee Institute

Up from Slavery (1901)

Pages 278-279

From Holland we went to Belgium, and made a hasty trip through that country, stopping at Brussels, where we visited the battlefield of Waterloo. From Belgium we went direct to Paris, where we found that Mr. Theodore Stanton, the son of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, had kindly provided accommodations for us. We had barely got settled in Paris before an invitation came to me from the University Club of Paris to be its guest at a banquet which was soon to be given. The other guests were ex-President Benjamin Harrison and Archbishop Ireland, who were in Paris at the time. The American Ambassador, General Horace Porter, presided at the banquet. My address on this occasion seemed to give satisfaction to those who heard it. General Harrison kindly devoted a large portion of his remarks at dinner to myself and to the influence of the work at Tuskegee on the American race question. After my address at this banquet, other invitations came to me, but I declined the most of them knowing that if I accepted them all, the object of my visit would be defeated. I did, however, consent to deliver an address in the American chapel the following Sunday morning, and at this meeting, General Harrison, General Porter, and other distinguished Americans were present.

[generalharrison]

Cleveland’s View of Harrison, Recounted

Recollections of Grover Cleveland (1909) by George F. Parker

Parker served as an unofficial biographer for Cleveland. He corresponded with the former president beginning at least in 1891, and continuing until Cleveland’s death. After that, he secured access to Cleveland’s letters and wrote his biography.

Pages 246-248

Benjamin Harrison, both a successor and predecessor, he had mixed opinions, and yet all of them were either favorable or apologetic. He criticized the attitude of his administration on the silver question, and yet, knowing the difficulties surrounding it and the forces to be dealt with, he realized how strong had been the conflict between public duty and private opinion on the one hand, and the greed of interests and partisan demands on the other. He never entirely forgave President Harrison for permitting the surplus, carefully built up by himself and bequeathed as a public legacy, to be dissipated by idle and unjust pension laws and by extravagant appropriations, the demand for which he himself had so successfully resisted.

But it was in commenting upon the judicial appointments of his successor that he broke into real enthusiasm. He used to say that no President in the country's history had excelled Benjamin Harrison in the care he showed, in the absolute determination, to get the best men available for filling vacancies or new positions on the bench of the Federal courts. He was especially earnest in his approval of the breadth of view shown in the first appointments to the Circuit Court of Appeals, and each successful assertion of their authority by the new judges was followed by him with interest. He often said, in respect to Harrison's whole judicial policy:

I cannot see how he does it. I thought I realized the importance of the Federal courts, resisting mere party pressure and giving to my appointments the most jealous care, but I must confess that Harrison has beaten me.

General Harrison had the reputation of being a cold man, when, in fact, this effect came largely from shyness. Of commanding ability, certainly the greatest lawyer his State has thus far produced, he came slowly and painfully to his own. Few men have done more hard and unrequited work for party and country in their early careers before commanding recognition. If a difficult speaking canvass was to be made or a hopeless candidacy was to be accepted, Harrison was sure to be called upon, because nobody else could equally well meet such an emergency. All this, together with his tastes and his retired nature, cut him off from the society of all except a few close friends.

When the time for the inauguration of 1889 came around, President Cleveland, who was a stickler for official etiquette and so never overlooked anything that ought to be done, gave special attention to the comfort of his successor and his family. Soon after the two men returned from the Capitol, Harrison, seldom demonstrative or enthusiastic, seeing about him all the preparations and evidences of thoughtfulness, said to a friend: 

Well, whatever else may happen, I shall at least know how to go out of office when my time comes. 

Four years later, to a day, the White House was swept, garnished, amply furnished with eatables and drinkables by the man who showed how well he had learned the lesson of how to provide for the advent of the man who had taught it.

[generalharrison]

Sayings by Thomas B. Reed in the New York Sun

New York Sun December 14, 1902 Page 28

SAYINGS BY THOMAS B. REED. - MORE EXAMPLES OF THE WIT OF THE LATE SPEAKER. - Sarcasm Inspired by His Dislike of Gen. Harrison – Comments on Debate in Congress – Mr. Reed’s Suppressed Humor – Uprightness of His Character.

To everybody in Washington who had intimate acquaintance with the late Thomas B. Reed his aversion for the late President Harrison was well known. In December, 1892, after Harrison had been defeated for reelection by Cleveland Mr. Reed attended a dinner in Washington. Before the seating of the party a friend greeted Mr. Reed in the reception room. After a few trifling remarks the friend ventured to express some regrets to Mr. Reed upon the defeat of his party. The big Speaker heard the condolences with a serious face. Then his features relaxed, he swung back his arms and clapped his hands behind over the spikes of his black coat, and with the most amicable drawl responded: “Thank you. But curses are not all unmixed; they come to us sandwiched with benefactions. This election we have just had, and which my party has lost, is not without its compensations for defeat. To me personally the outcome is gratifying, for it gives me the great satisfaction of knowing that for four years I can go to the White House to call upon the President of the United States without invoking the aid of the police to preserve the peace.” This bitterness of Mr. Reed’ feeling toward President Harrison tinged most of his comments upon that statesman. Neither appeared to desire or attempt to reach an amicable attitude toward the other. If Harrison did not indulge in severe remarks about Reed it was not because he did not feel and resent his criticism, but rather that a very high sense of regard for the dignity of his office restrained him. Mr. Reed was not constantly indulging in open sarcasm at Harrison’s expense, but he seldom let pass a private opportunity to convey his opinion that Harrison was a narrow and puny person.

HARRISON AND CHILE

An instance was made known on the day Harrison sent to the Congress his message carrying an ultimatum to Chile growing out of the controversies incidental to the revolution in that country, resulting in the overturning of President Balmaceda. Chile had been addressed sharply by the Department of State, with urgent representations about the importance of prompt reparation for various offences against American rights and honor, and the replies were provoking tardy and unsatisfactory. To bring Chile to a definite position it was deemed to be wise and necessary to intimate that further disregard of the demands of the United States would compel the Government to resort to strenuous measures to support its demands. The message meant compliance with our demands on the alternative of war. While the message of the President was being read in Congress came the news that Chili [sic] had accepted the remonstrances of our Minister and agree to repair the damages inflicted upon the national honor and the persons and property of our citizens in Chile. Mr. Reed listened to the message without a frown and without applause. When the silver-tongued Breckinridge  of Kentucky boldly intimated, during the brief debate on the question of reference, that the President had sent his ultimatum to Chile after he had learned that Chile had yielded to the arguments of our Minister, Mr. Reed was not one of the Republicans who defended the Administration. After adjournment of the House a newspaper correspondent seeking opinions about the message went to Mr. Reed, then occupying a seat on the floor. “Nothing,” was his reply to an inquiry as to what he thought of the message, particularly with reference to the passages touching the Chilean question,” nothing—for publication.” He was urged to express his opinion for the private gratification of the newspaper man. His eyes snapped with a mixed fire as he unfolded his heart, with the injunction: “If you publish what I have said to-morrow, I’ll come to your office and kill you.” His view of the message was given in a low voice, packed with infinite scorn: “I do not think the President ought to have written such a message to those little Chileans. They do not wish to fight us; we do not want to fight them. What we ought to do is to charter a ship, not too large or too safe, put Harrison on board of it and send him down to fight the Chileans. He’s just about their size.”

[generalharrison]

I have often wished that those who sometimes called President Harrison 'a human iceberg,' could have seen him at [Christmas] time, and at many another time when he threw aside official reserve. For he was a man who enjoyed his family and his intimates to a marked degree.

Colonel W. H. Crook, Memories of the White House: The Home Life of Our Presidents from Lincoln to Roosevelt, edited by Henry Edward Rood (1911)

[generalharrison]

From "The Sunny Side of the Street" (1905) by Marshall P. Wilder

45-53

While Mr. Harrison was president I became pleasantly acquainted with his son Russell, who, having read of President Cleveland's very kind treatment of me when I went to him with a letter of introduction from Henry Ward Beecher, wanted me to meet his father and gave me a letter to that effect. My visit to the White House was quite impressive to me. Soon after I reached Chamberlain's, at Washington, a messenger arrived and informed me that the President had received my letter of introduction and desired me to call the next morning at ten o'clock, which I did.

After passing the sentinels at the door I was taken into the room of Mr. Private Secretary "Lije" Halford, who greeted me cordially and said: "Mr. Wilder, the president will see you." I was ushered into Mr. Harrison's presence, and the following conversation ensued:

"Mr. President, this is Mr. Wilder."

"How do you do, Mr. Wilder?"

"How do you do, Mr. President?"

A profound silence followed; it seemed to me to be several minutes long; then I said:

"Good-day, Mr. President."

"Good-day, Mr. Wilder."

After leaving the room I turned to Mr. Halford, raised my coat-tails and asked:

"Won't you please kick me?"

Of course I had to refer to the incident in my monologue that season, for it isn't every day that a professional entertainer is invited to call at the White House. But I did not care to tell exactly what occurred, so I adopted an old minstrel joke and said:

"I called on the president the other day. I walked in, in a familiar way, and said, 'How do you do, Mr. President?' He said, 'Sir, I cannot place you.' 'Well,' I replied, 'that's what I'm here for.' "

I afterward heard that President Harrison was very cold and lacked cordiality; still later I discovered, with my own eyes and ears, that he had a kind heart and genial nature. One summer while I was at Saratoga I was asked by Mr. W. J. Arkell to Mount McGregor, to meet President Harrison at dinner and to become a member of a fishing party. The occasion was the president's birthday, and the invitation was the more welcome when I learned that a list of the people at the Saratoga hotels had been shown the president, who had himself selected the guests for his birthday celebration. At Mount McGregor I found, as one always finds, wherever the President of the United States is staying a few days, thirty or forty newspaper correspondents, all of whom I knew and most of whom professed to doubt my ability to make the president laugh. This did not worry me, for I don't love trouble enough to look ahead for it, and dinner time, when the laughing was to begin, was a few hours distant.

We all went by carriage to a stream about five miles away and all helped fill the president's basket with fish, for which he got full credit, in the next day's newspapers. My own contributions were few and small, for I never was a good fisherman. So I was grateful when Russell Harrison took me to a little pool where he was sure we would have great luck. But not a bite did either of us get. Then I recalled something that a veteran fisherman played on me when I was too young to be suspicious; it was to beat the water to attract the attention of the fish. Russell kindly assisted me at beating the water, but the fish beat us both by keeping away.

When we got back to the hotel and to the banquet it was announced that there were to be no speeches, but the president would make a few remarks and I would be called on for a few stories. Consequently I had no mind or appetite for dinner, for most of the guests were newspaper men who had been surfeited with stories ever since they entered the business, and the most important listener would be the president, who the boys had said I couldn't make laugh.

I was still mentally searching my repertoire, although I had already selected a lot of richness, when the president arose and made some general remarks. But it was impossible for him to forget that at this same place Mount McGregor, Ex-President Grant breathed his last, so Mr. Harrison's concluding remarks were on the line that any other whole-hearted American would have struck in similar circumstances. As I am a whole-hearted American myself, they struck me just where I live, and I am not ashamed to confess that they knocked me out.

So, when I was called upon, I declined to respond. Several friends came to my chair and whispered : "Go ahead, Marsh." "Don't lose the chance of your life; don't you know whatever is said at this dinner will be telegraphed all over the United States?" But I held my tongue or it held itself. There is a place for every thing; a table at which the President of the United States had just been talking most feelingly of the pathetic passing of another president was no place for a joke much less for a budget of jokes, so instead of making the president laugh I allowed the newspaper men to have the laugh on me. In the circumstances they were welcome to it.

I allowed the newspaper men to have a laugh on me. Nevertheless I succeeded, for the president succeeded in breaking the strain upon him, and later in the day at his own cottage he transfixed me with a merry twinkle of his eye and said:

"Marshall, what's this story you've been telling about your visit to the White House?"

I saw I was in for it, so I repeated the minstrel joke, already recorded. He laughed so heartily that there wasn't enough unbroken ice between us to hold up a dancing mosquito, so I made bold to tell him that some men insisted that he did not appreciate humor. Then he laughed again; I wish I could have photographed that laugh, for there was enough worldly wisdom in it to lessen the number of cranks and office seekers at the White House for years to come. But I hadn't much time to think about it, for we began swapping yarns and kept at it so long that I suddenly reminded myself, with a sense of guilt, that I was robbing the ruler of the greatest nation on earth of some of his invaluable time. Never mind about my own stories that evening, but here is one that President Harrison told me, to illustrate the skill of some men in talking their way out of a tight place.

There was a man in Indiana who had a way of taking his own advice, though he generally had to do things afterward to get even with himself. He was a hog dealer, and one season he drove a lot of hogs to Indianapolis, about a hundred miles distant, though he could get nearly as good a price at a town much nearer home. Arrived at Indianapolis, he learned that prices had gone down, so he held on for a rise, but when offered a good price he stood out for more, and insisted that if he did not get it he would drive the hogs back home, which he finally did, and sold them for less than was offered him in the city. When one of his friends asked him why he had acted so unwisely he replied:

"I wanted to get even with them city hog-buyers."

"But did you?"

"Well, they didn't get my hogs."

"But what did you get out of the transaction?"

"Get? Why, bless your thick skull, I got the society of the hogs all the way back home."

I had long been puzzled as to the origin of the word "jay," as applied to "easy marks" among countrymen, and I told the president so. He modestly admitted that I had come to the right shop for information; then he told me this story:

"Winter was coming on and a blue jay made up his mind that he would prepare for it. He found a vacant hut with a knot-hole in the roof, and he said to himself, 'Here's a good place to store my winter supplies,' so he began to collect provender. His acquaintances who passed by saw what he was doing; then they laughed and took a rest, for they knew how to get in by the side door. Whenever he dropped a nut or a bit of meat through the knot-hole they would hop in below and gobble it. So, Marshall, next time you hear any one called a 'jay' I'm sure you'll know what it means."

The next morning, when we all met on the president's special train en route to Saratoga, my newspaper friends twitted me anew on not having made the president laugh, but I said: "Now, boys, you wait." Then I was so impudent as to approach the president and say:

"Mr. President, I am very glad to have had you with me on this fishing trip, and I hope whenever you want to go off on a similar affair you will let me know it. At the foot of the mountain a band of music and escort of troops are waiting for me, and in the hurry I may not be able to say good-bye to you, so I say it now."But not one eyelash of the president quivered as he shook hands with me and replied: "Glad to have met you, Mr. Wilder," so the newspaper boys certainly did have the laugh on me.

But the day was still young. Arrived at the Saratoga depot, all hurried into carriages. Waiting until all were seated and started in procession, I found an open landau and gave the driver the name of my hotel. "All right, Mr. Wilder," was the reply, which did not startle me, for I am pretty well known in Saratoga by the cabbies and the police. I said:

"Make a short cut, get out of the crowd and get me to the hotel as soon as possible, so I may avoid the parade." He endeavored to get out, but he got in; and in trying to extricate himself he succeeded in driving through the band and past the troops and finally beside the carriages of the president and his guests. I took advantage of the occasion; as I passed the president I stood up (though it made little difference whether I sat or stood, for not much of me was visible over the top of the carriage door) and I bowed my prettiest. The president raised his hat, as did the other guests, and I led that procession down Saratoga's Broadway, the sidewalks of which were crowded with New York and Brooklyn people who knew me and to whom I bowed, right and left, to the end of the route, where one of the newspaper men said :

"Marsh usually gets there."