Senator Hoar on Harrison’s Aptitudes
The result was the nomination of Mr. Harrison. It was a nomination quite agreeable to me. I had sat near him in the Senate for six years, my seat only separated from his by that of John Sherman, who, for a large part of the time, had been President pro tempore. So Sherman’s seat was not then occupied and Harrison and I were next neighbors. I had become very intimate with him, and had learned to respect him highly as a very able, upright and wise man, although he developed, as President, an ability which I think his most intimate friends had not known before. Our relations then, and afterward, were exceedingly cordial. He was a wise, pure, upright and able President, and an eloquent orator, capable of uttering great truths in a great way, and able to bring them home to the understanding and conviction of his countrymen. He lacked what gave Mr. Blaine so great a charm, the quality of an agreeable and gracious manner. He had little tact in dealing with individuals. If a man travelled three thousand miles across the continent to say something to President Harrison, he would find himself broken in upon two minutes after the conversation began with a lecture in which the views in opposition to his were vigorously, and, sometimes roughly, set forth. He did this even when he was of the same way of thinking and meant to grant the gentleman’s request. Blaine would refuse a request in a way that would seem like doing a favor. Harrison would grant a request in a way which seemed as if he were denying it. An eminent Western Senator said to me once what, of course, was a great exaggeration, that if Harrison were to address an audience of ten thousand men, he would capture them all. But if each one of them were presented to him in private, he would make him his enemy.
Autobiography of Seventy Years in two volumes (1903) by George Frisbie Hoar
