Mr. Clapp, of the Boston Journal, with a manliness that did him infinite credit, declared publicly in its columns that he had been all wrong, and that I was right. The Worcester Spy, edited by my dear friend and near kinsman, Evarts Greene, had with the rest of the press attacked my vote. Mr. Greene himself was absent at the time, so the paper was then in charge of an associate. When Mr. Greene returned I asked him to spend an afternoon at my house. That was before my letter came out. I had sent to Washington for all the engineers' reports and other documents showing the necessity of every item of the bill. Mr. Greene made a careful study of the bill and agreed with me.

The Boston Herald also obtained all the material from Washington and sent it to a very able gentleman who, though not taking any part in the ordinary conduct of the Herald, was called upon for services requiring special ability and investigation. They asked him to answer my letter. He spent five days in studying the matter, and then wrote to the managing editor of the paper that Mr. Hoar was entirely right, and that he should not write the article desired. The Herald, however, did not abandon its position. It kept up the war. But I ought to say it so far modified its action that it supported me for reelection the next winter.

The Springfield Republican saw and seized its opportunity. It attacked the River and Harbor Bill savagely. It said: "Mr. Hoar is a candidate for reelection and has dealt himself a very severe blow. The Commonwealth was prepared to honor Messrs. Crapo and Hoar anew. To-day it pauses, frowns and reflects." So it kept up the attack. It had previously advocated the selection of Mr. Crapo as candidate for Governor. It bitterly denounced me. Mr. Crapo had himself voted for the River and Harbor Bill. It could not consistently maintain its bitter opposition to me, because of my vote, while supporting Mr. Crapo. So it declared it could no longer support him.

When the State Convention came the feeling was still strong, though somewhat abated. I had been asked by the Committee, a good while before, to preside at the Conven

tion. This I did. I was received rather coldly when I went forward. But I made no apologies. I began my speech by saying: "It gives me great pleasure to meet this assembly of the representatives of the Republicans of Massachusetts. I have seen these faces before. They are faces into which I am neither afraid nor ashamed to look.' The assembly hesitated a little between indignation at the tone of defiance, and approval of a man's standing by his convictions. The latter feeling predominated, and they broke out into applause. But the resolutions which the Committee reported contained a mild but veiled reproof of my action.

Mr. Crapo was defeated in the Convention. I have no doubt he would have been nominated for Governor, but for his vote for the River and Harbor Bill. His successful competitor, Mr. Bishop, was a gentleman of great personal worth, highly esteemed throughout the Commonwealth, and of experience in State administration. But it was thought that his nomination had been secured by very active political management, concerted at the State House, and that the nomination did not fairly represent the desire of the people of the Commonwealth. Whatever truth there may have been in this, I am very sure that Mr. Crapo's defeat could not have been compassed but for his vote for the River and Harbor Bill. The result of the above feeling, however, was that the Republican campaign was conducted without much heart, and General Butler was elected Governor.

When the election of Senator came in the following winter, I was opposed by what remained of the feeling against the River and Harbor Bill. My principal Republican competitors were Mr. Crapo, whose friends rightly thought he had been treated with great injustice; and Governor Long, a great public favorite, who had just ended a brilliant and most acceptable term of service as Governor. Governor Long had presided at a public meeting where President Arthur had been received during the summer, and had assured him that his action had the hearty approval and support of the people of the Commonwealth. I had, of course, no right to find the least fault with the supporters of Governor Long. He would have been in every way a

most acceptable and useful Senator. I ought to say that, as I understood it, he hardly assumed the attitude of a candidate for the place, and declared in a public letter or speech that he thought I ought to be reelected. So, after a somewhat earnest struggle I was again chosen.

One curious incident happened during the election. The morning after the result was declared, a story appeared in the papers that Mr. Crapo's supporters had been led to come over to me by the statement that one of them had received a telegram from him withdrawing his name, and advising that course. The correspondent of one of the papers called upon Mr. Crapo, who answered him that he had never sent any such telegram to Boston. So it was alleged that somebody who favored me had brought about the result by this false statement. A newspaper correspondent called on me in Washington, and asked me about the story. I told him that I had not heard of the story, but that if it turned out to be true I, of course, would instantly decline the office. A full investigation was made of the matter, and it turned out that Mr. Crapo had sent such a telegram to a member of the Legislature in New Bedford, who had taken it to Boston and made it known.

The next winter, at my suggestion, a resolution was passed calling upon the Secretary of War, Mr. Lincoln, to specify with items in the River and Harbor Bill of the previous winter were not, in his opinion, advisable, or did not tend to promote international or interstate commerce. He replied specifying a very few items only, amounting altogether to a very few thousand dollars. This reply was made by the Secretary of War, as he told me in private afterward, by the express direction of the President, and after consultation with him. That ended the foolish outcry against the great policy of internal improvement, which has helped to make possible the marvels of our domestic commerce, one of the most wonderful creations of human history. The statistics of its vast extent, greater now, I think, than all the foreign commerce of the world put together, from the nature of the case, never can be precisely ascertained. It is not only wonderful in its amount, but in its origin, its

resources, and in its whole conduct. All its instrumentalities are American. It is American at both ends, and throughout all the way. This last year a bill providing for an expenditure of sixty millions, nearly four times the amount of that which President Arthur, and the newspapers that supported him, thought so extravagant, passed Congress without a murmur of objection, and if I mistake not, without a dissenting vote.

I should like to put on record one instance of the generosity and affection of Mr. Dawes. He had not voted when his name was called, expecting to vote at the end of the rollcall. He meant to vote against the passage of the bill over the veto. But when he heard my vote for it, he saw that I was bringing down on my head a storm of popular indignation, and made up his mind that he would not throw the weight of his example on the side against me. So, contrary to his opinion of the merits of the bill, he came to my side, and voted with me.

I suppose a good many moralists will think that it is a very wicked thing indeed for a man to vote against his convictions on a grave public question, from a motive like this, of personal friendship. But I think on the whole I like better the people, who will love Mr. Dawes for such an act, than those who will condemn him. I would not, probably, put what I am about to say in an address to a Sundayschool, or into a sermon to the inmates of a jail or house of correction. I cannot, perhaps, defend it by reason. But somehow or other, I am strongly tempted to say there are occasions in life where the meanest thing a man can do is to do perfectly right. But I do not say it. It would be better to say that there are occasions when the instinct is a better guide than the reason. At any rate, I do not believe the recording angel made any trouble for Mr. Dawes for that vote.

CHAPTER IX

CHINESE TREATY AND LEGISLATION

MUCH of what I have said in the preceding chapter is, in substance, applicable to my vote on another matter in which I had been compelled to take an attitude in opposition to a large majority of my own party and to the temporary judgment of my countrymen: that is the proposed legislation in violation of the Treaty with China; the subsequent Treaty modifying that negotiated in 1868 by Mr. Seward on our part, and Mr. Burlingame for China; and the laws which have been enacted since, upon the subject of Chinese immigration. I had the high honor of being hung in effigy in Nevada by reason of the report that I had opposed, in secret Session of the Senate, the Treaty of 1880. My honored colleague, Mr. Dawes, and I were entirely agreed in the matter. Mr. Dawes complained goodnaturedly to Senator Jones, of Nevada, that he had been neglected when the Nevada peopled had singled me out for that sole honor, to which Mr. Jones, with equal good-nature, replied that if Mr. Dawes desired, he would have measures taken to correct the error, which had inadvertently been made.

In 1868 the late Anson Burlingame, an old friend of mine and a man highly esteemed in Massachusetts, who had been sent to China as the American Minister in Mr. Lincoln's time, was appointed by the Chinese Government its Ambassador, or Envoy, to negotiate treaties with the United States and several European powers. He made a journey through this country and Europe, travelling with Oriental magnificence, in a state which he was well calculated to maintain and adorn. It was just after we had put down the Rebellion, abolished slavery, and made of every slave a