My Memories of Eighty Years [41]
He was very curious to know about Mr. Tilden, and especially as to the truth of a report that Mr. Tilden had a stroke of paralysis, and appealed to me, as I was just from New York. I narrated a story which was current at the time that Mr. Tilden had denied the report by saying to a friend: "They say I cannot lift my left hand to my head." He then put his right hand under the left elbow and shot the left one easily up to his face and said: "See there, my left has reached its goal."
I saw that Mr. Evarts was embarrassed at the anecdote and discovered afterwards that the distinguished guest had recently had a similar stroke on his left side and could propel his left arm and hand only with the assistance of his right.
My old bogie of being put into office arose again in the senatorial election of 1882. The legislature, for the first time in a generation, was entirely leaderless. The old organization had disappeared and a new one had not yet crystallized.
Mr. Evarts was anxious to be senator, and I pledged him my support. Evarts was totally devoid of the arts of popular appeal. He was the greatest of lawyers and the most delightful of men, but he could not canvass for votes. Besides, he was entirely independent in his ideas of any organization dictation or control, and resented both. He did not believe that a public man should go into public office under any obligations, and resented such suggestions.
A large body of representative men thought it would be a good thing for the country if New York could have this most accomplished, capable, and brilliant man in the United States Senate. They urged him strongly upon the legislature, none of whose members knew him personally, and Mr. Evarts would not go to Albany.
The members selected a committee to come down to New York and see Mr. Evarts. They went with the idea of ascertaining how far he would remember with gratitude those who elected him. Their visit was a miserable failure. They came in hot indignation to my office and said they did not propose to send such a cold and unsympathetic man as their representative to Washington and earnestly requested my consent to their nominating me at the caucus the next morning.
The committee telephoned to Albany and received the assent of every faction of their party to this proposition. Then they proposed that when the caucus met, Mr. Evarts, of course, should receive complimentary speeches from his friends. Meanwhile others would be nominated, and then a veteran member, whom they designated, should propose me in the interest of harmony and the union of the party, whereat the sponsors of the other candidate would withdraw their man, and I be nominated by acclamation. My answer was a most earnest appeal for Mr. Evarts. Then Mr. Evarts's friends rallied to his support and he was elected.
I place Mr. Evarts in the foremost rank as a lawyer, a wit, and a diplomat. He tried successfully the most famous cases of his time and repeatedly demonstrated his remarkable genius. As a general railway counsel and, therefore, as an administrator in the retaining of distinguished counsels, I met with many of the best men at the bar, but never any with such a complete and clarified intellect as William M. Evarts. The mysteries of the most complicated cases seemed simple, the legal difficulties plain, and the solution comprehensible to everybody under his analysis.
Mr. Evarts was the wittiest man I ever met. It is difficult to rehabilitate in the sayings of a wit the complete flavor of the utterance. It is easier with a man of humor. Evarts was very proud of his efforts as a farmer on his large estate in Vermont. Among his prizes was a drove of pigs. He sent to Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite a copy of his eulogy on Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Waite's predecessor, and at the same time a ham, saying in his letter: "My dear Chief Justice, I send you to-day one of my prize hams and also my eulogy on Chief Justice Chase, both the products of my pen."
The good things Mr. Evarts said would be talked of long after
I saw that Mr. Evarts was embarrassed at the anecdote and discovered afterwards that the distinguished guest had recently had a similar stroke on his left side and could propel his left arm and hand only with the assistance of his right.
My old bogie of being put into office arose again in the senatorial election of 1882. The legislature, for the first time in a generation, was entirely leaderless. The old organization had disappeared and a new one had not yet crystallized.
Mr. Evarts was anxious to be senator, and I pledged him my support. Evarts was totally devoid of the arts of popular appeal. He was the greatest of lawyers and the most delightful of men, but he could not canvass for votes. Besides, he was entirely independent in his ideas of any organization dictation or control, and resented both. He did not believe that a public man should go into public office under any obligations, and resented such suggestions.
A large body of representative men thought it would be a good thing for the country if New York could have this most accomplished, capable, and brilliant man in the United States Senate. They urged him strongly upon the legislature, none of whose members knew him personally, and Mr. Evarts would not go to Albany.
The members selected a committee to come down to New York and see Mr. Evarts. They went with the idea of ascertaining how far he would remember with gratitude those who elected him. Their visit was a miserable failure. They came in hot indignation to my office and said they did not propose to send such a cold and unsympathetic man as their representative to Washington and earnestly requested my consent to their nominating me at the caucus the next morning.
The committee telephoned to Albany and received the assent of every faction of their party to this proposition. Then they proposed that when the caucus met, Mr. Evarts, of course, should receive complimentary speeches from his friends. Meanwhile others would be nominated, and then a veteran member, whom they designated, should propose me in the interest of harmony and the union of the party, whereat the sponsors of the other candidate would withdraw their man, and I be nominated by acclamation. My answer was a most earnest appeal for Mr. Evarts. Then Mr. Evarts's friends rallied to his support and he was elected.
I place Mr. Evarts in the foremost rank as a lawyer, a wit, and a diplomat. He tried successfully the most famous cases of his time and repeatedly demonstrated his remarkable genius. As a general railway counsel and, therefore, as an administrator in the retaining of distinguished counsels, I met with many of the best men at the bar, but never any with such a complete and clarified intellect as William M. Evarts. The mysteries of the most complicated cases seemed simple, the legal difficulties plain, and the solution comprehensible to everybody under his analysis.
Mr. Evarts was the wittiest man I ever met. It is difficult to rehabilitate in the sayings of a wit the complete flavor of the utterance. It is easier with a man of humor. Evarts was very proud of his efforts as a farmer on his large estate in Vermont. Among his prizes was a drove of pigs. He sent to Chief Justice Morrison R. Waite a copy of his eulogy on Chief Justice Salmon P. Chase, Waite's predecessor, and at the same time a ham, saying in his letter: "My dear Chief Justice, I send you to-day one of my prize hams and also my eulogy on Chief Justice Chase, both the products of my pen."
The good things Mr. Evarts said would be talked of long after