the Alabama claims. Fish wisely refrained from further public discussion of the subject in view of the excited state of mind of the people on both sides of the Atlantic; while he encouraged a moderate, conciliatory attitude in his private correspondence and conversation, especially with John Rose, a Canadian statesman, who was working in England for a friendly settlement.

In 1870 came the Franco-Prussian War, the collapse of Napoleon III's empire at Sedan and Metz, and the siege of the French capital. The Prussian cannon, planted on the heights around Paris in the winter of 1870, held the hungry city in their iron grip. Then Grant returned to the subject of the Alabama claims in his annual message of December 5, 1870. Gladstone, now realizing that it was Prince Bismarck and not Jefferson Davis who had "created a nation," heeded the warning recommendation in Grant's message, that Congress assume the individual claims of our citizens against Great Britain. "The British cabinet," wrote Rose to Fish, "is disposed to enter on negotiations." Rose came over to Washington in January, 1871, where he and the British minister, Thornton, easily arranged for the submission of the various matters under the dispute (the Alabama claims, the northwest boundary, the Newfoundland fisheries) to a Joint High Commission.1 The Commission, working "on the best of terms," concluded the Treaty of Washington (May 8, 1871), which provided, in the first eleven of its forty-three articles, that the Alabama claims should be adjudicated at Geneva, Switzerland, by a board of five arbitrators, appointed respectively by the president of the United States, the queen of England, the king of Italy, the president of Switzerland, and the emperor of Brazil.2

1 The American commissioners were Secretary Fish, Justice Nelson of the Supreme Court, E. Rockwood Hoar, Robert C. Schenck, recently appointed minister to England, and Senator George H. Williams of Oregon. Great Britain was represented by Sir Edward Thornton, her minister at Washington, Earl de Grey and Ripon of Gladstone's cabinet, Sir Stafford Northcote, Professor Mountague Bernard of Oxford, and the prime minister of Canada, Sir John MacDonald.

2 The members of the board were Charles Francis Adams (United States), Chief Justice Alexander Cockburn (Great Britain), Count Sclopis (Italy), Jac-' ques Stämpfli (Switzerland), Vicomte d' Itajuba (Brazil). Count Sclopis presided.

It was midsummer of 1872 before the arguments of both sides were ready to be presented to the tribunal. The United States was in the midst of an exciting presidential campaign which was to test the strength of the Grant administration. The Fenian movement—a protest against England's coercive treatment of the Irish agitators for home rule-had enlisted wide support among the Irish of this country, resulting in attempts at armed invasions of Canada from points in northern New York and Vermont. Anything that looked like "truckling" to Great Britain would cost Grant the large Irish vote in the election. A brilliant diplomatic victory over Great Britain, on the other hand, would offset the criticism by Democrats and Liberals of Grant's vulnerable domestic policy. These political considerations probably influenced Assistant Secretary of State J. C. Bancroft Davis, who, as the agent for the United States, drew up our "case" at Geneva, to include in his voluminous brief of some five hundred pages the extravagant claims for "indirect damages" which Sumner had advanced three years before. The "attorney-like smartness," "Yankee swagger," and "acrimonious tone" of Bancroft's brief were highly offensive to the British arbitrator; and had it not been for the great tact and patience of Mr. Adams, supplemented by the efforts of members of Parliament like Forster and Earl Grey, the negotiations might have failed. As it was, however, the American claims for indirect damages were finally withdrawn, and the tribunal proceeded to a rapid and, on the whole, amicable settlement of the claims. The vote on Great Britain's responsibility for the depredations of the Alabama was unanimous. On the question of the Shenandoah, Count Sclopis and M. Stämpfli supported the American claims; on the question of the Florida, all the arbitrators except Chief Justice Cockburn were on our side. The tribunal awarded the United States $15,500,000 damages, to be paid in gold. Cockburn alone dissented from the verdict and with considerable manifestation of bad feeling. The other matters under dispute were duly settled by special commissions. Great Britain was awarded $1,929,819 for injuries done to the property or persons of her subjects during our

Civil War, and $5,500,000 for our infringement of her rights in the fisheries of the north Atlantic coast. The northwestboundary dispute, which had been referred to the new German emperor, William I, as umpire, was settled by the award of the island of San Juan to the United States.

The peaceful settlement of these claims and counter-claims of the two great nations of English speech and traditions was a long step forward-the longest that either country had ever taken toward the substitution of frank discussion and "sweet reasonableness" for the appeal to arms in international disputes. It remains as an earnest and harbinger of that happy age, still how far distant none can say, when nations shall no longer be victims of the paradoxical delusion that their "vital" interests can be preserved only by broadcasting death and devastation.

POLITICAL CONVALESCENCE

Except for the years of anarchic rivalries and national impotence which immediately preceded the adoption of the Federal Constitution, no period of our history is less gratifying to contemplate than the decade between the close of the Civil War and the centennial of our independence. In spite of such relieving features as the Geneva Award and the general Amnesty Act of 1872, the period, on the whole, presents a dismal record of frenzied speculation, business demoralization, political corruption, financial confusion, and partisan audacity. It seemed as though the generosity and idealism of the nation had spent itself in the war. The tide ebbed, leaving only the ugly ill-smelling flats of politics. "My own public life has been a very brief and insignificant one," said George F. Hoar in 1876, . . . "but in that brief period I have seen five judges of a high court of the United States driven from office by threats of impeachment for corruption or maladministration. . . . I have seen in the state of the Union foremost in power and wealth four judges of her courts impeached for corruption, and the political administration of her chief city become a disgrace and a byword through

out the world.1 When the greatest railroad of the world, binding together the continent and uniting the two seas which wash our shores, was finished, I have seen our national triumph and exaltation turned to bitterness and shame by the unanimous report of three committees of Congress . . . that every step of that mighty enterprise had been taken in fraud. I have heard in the highest places the shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office that the true way by which power should be gained in a Republic is to bribe the people with the offices created for their service, and the true end for which it should be used when gained is the promotion of selfish ambition and the gratification of personal revenge. I have heard that suspicion haunts the footsteps of the trusted companions of the President." This is a terrible indictment, but the facts bear it out in every particular.

Just a fortnight before Grant was inaugurated for his second term (March 4, 1873), the Poland Committee, which had been busy during the whole of the short session of Congress unearthing the scandals connected with the building of the Union Pacific Railroad (see page 31), made its report. It found Oakes

1 The reference is to the unspeakable misgovernment of New York City by a gang of thieves during the five years following the war. The "boss" was William M. Tweed, Grand Sachem of Tammany Hall, who built up his power on votes secured by wholesale fraudulent naturalizations, generous doles to the poor, and lavish bribes to venal legislators and judges. In 1868 Tweed got the Tammany candidate, John T. Hoffman, elected governor, and obtained from the legislature a new charter for the city, turning the finances over to a group of four officials, consisting of the mayor (A. O. Hall), the comptroller (Richard B. Connolly), and the chairmen of two important committees (Tweed and Peter B. Sweeney). These men, in collusion with rascally plasterers, plumbers, pavers, builders, and furnishers, robbed the taxpayers of amounts "variously estimated at from $45,000,000 to $200,000,000" before the proofs of their guilt were revealed to the New York Times by a disgruntled member of the gang. They offered George Jones, the proprietor of the paper, $5,000,000 to hush the matter up, but he was inexorable. The incriminating documents were published; and the chief offender, Tweed, after breaking jail and escaping to Spain, was brought back to end his days in Ludlow Street Jail (1878). The overthrow of the "Tweed Ring" was due chiefly to the courageous work of Jones and Jennings of the Times, the cartoons of Thomas Nast in Harper's Weekly, and the diligence of the distinguished New York lawyer Samuel J. Tilden.

Ames guilty of having sold to members of Congress (or having "carried" for them on his books without payment) shares of Crédit Mobilier stock at prices "much below the true value of such stock, with intent thereby to influence the votes and decisions of such members in matters to be brought before Congress for action"; and recommended the expulsion of Ames and of James Brooks of New York, a director of the Union Pacific, from the House of Representatives. Nearly a score of men were implicated in the investigation. Some of these (Secretary Boutwell, Speaker of the House Blaine, and Senators Bayard and Conkling) were easily exonorated of the charge of listening to Ames's solicitations. Others, like Representatives Wilson, Boyer, and Bingham, were excused on the ground of having innocently welcomed a "good investment." Still others, like Dawes, Logan, and Allison, had accepted shares of stock and received cash dividends from Ames, but on second thought had returned the money and canceled their contracts. The genial Vice President, Schuyler Colfax, became involved in a mess of prevarication and evasion. At first he denied having received a check for $1200 from Ames; and when the voucher was produced, showing that he had deposited the money in the First National Bank, he said that it was a contribution to his campaign fund of 1868 furnished by a man named Nesbitt. When it appeared that Nesbitt was a manufacturer of envelopes who had received large contracts from the Post Office Department when Colfax was chairman of the Post Office Committee in the House, the Vice President's case was finished. He retired, a thoroughly discredited man. Another public servant, whose defense seems on the face of it little better than Colfax's, emerged from the investigation to enjoy the continued support of his constituents and finally to be honored by election to the highest office in the land. James A. Garfield, convicted by Ames's inexorable memorandum book of having received dividends on Crédit Mobilier stock which he had never paid for, testified that he had received the money as a "loan." "Plainly, Garfield testified falsely," says Oberholtzer ("History of the United States since the Civil War," Vol. II, p. 605). At any