Chapter 19

The period of Mr. Gladstone's reign as prime minister was one of the most interesting for an American visitor who had the privilege of knowing him and the eminent men who formed his Cabinet. The ladies of the Cabinet entertained lavishly and superbly. A great favorite at these social gatherings was Miss Margot Tennant, afterwards Mrs. Asquith. Her youth, her wit, her originality and audacity made every function a success which was graced by her presence.

The bitterness towards Mr. Gladstone of the opposition party surpassed anything I have met in American politics, except during the Civil War. At dinners and receptions given me by my friends of the Tory party I was supposed as an American to be friendly to Mr. Gladstone and Home Rule. I do not know whether this was the reason or whether it was usual, but on such occasions the denunciation of Mr. Gladstone as a traitor and the hope of living to see him executed was very frequent.

I remember one important public man who was largely interested and a good deal of a power in Canadian and American railroads. He asked a friend of mine to arrange for me to meet him. I found him a most agreeable man and very accurately informed on the railway situation in Canada and the United States. He was preparing for a visit, and so wanted me to fill any gaps there might be in his knowledge of the situation.

Apropos of the political situation at the time, he suddenly asked me what was the attitude of the people of the United States towards Mr. Gladstone and his Home Rule bill. I told him they were practically unanimous in favor of the bill, and that Mr. Gladstone was the most popular Englishman in the United States. He at once flew into a violent rage, the rarest thing in the world for an Englishman, and lost control of his temper to such a degree that I thought the easiest way to dam the flood of his denunciation was to plead another engagement and retire from the field. I met him frequently afterwards, especially when he came to the United States, but carefully avoided his pet animosity.

One year, in the height of the crisis of Mr. Gladstone's effort to pass the Home Rule bill, a member of his Cabinet said to me: "We of the Cabinet are by no means unanimous in believing in Mr. Gladstone's effort, but he is the greatest power in our country. The people implicitly believe in him and we are helping all we can."

It is well known that one after another broke away from him in time. The same Cabinet minister continued: "Mr. Gladstone has gone to the extreme limit in concessions made in his Home Rule bill, and he can carry the English, Scotch, and Welsh members. But every time the Irish seem to be satisfied, they make a new demand and a greater one. Unless this stops and the present bill is accepted, the whole scheme will break down. Many of the Irish members are supported by contributions from America. Their occupation is politics. If Home Rule should be adopted the serious people of Ireland, whose economic interests are at stake, might come to the front and take all representative offices themselves. We have come to the conclusion that enough of the Irish members to defeat the bill do not want Home Rule on any conditions. I know it is a custom when you arrive home every year that your friends meet you down the Bay and give you a reception. Then you give an interview of your impressions over here, and that interview is printed as widely in this country as in the United States. Now I wish you would do this: At the reception put in your own way what I have told you, and especially emphasize that Mr. Gladstone is imperilling his political career and whole future for the sake of what he believes would be justice to Ireland. He cannot go any further and hold his English, Scotch, and Welsh constituencies. He believes that he can pass the present bill and start Ireland on a career of Home Rule if he can receive the support of the Irish members. The Americans who believe in Mr. Gladstone and are all honest Home Rulers will think this is an indirect message from himself, and it would be if it were prudent for Mr. Gladstone to send the message."

On my return to New York I did as requested. The story was published and commented on everywhere, and whether it was due to American insistence or not, I do not know, but shortly after Mr. Gladstone succeeded in carrying his Home Rule bill through the House of Commons, but it was defeated by the Conservatives in the House of Lords.

His Irish policy is a tribute to Mr. Gladstone's judgment and foresight, because in the light and conditions of to-day it is perfectly plain that if the Gladstone measure had been adopted at that time, the Irish question would not now be the most difficult and dangerous in British politics.

I had many talks with Mr. Parnell and made many speeches in his behalf and later for Mr. Redmond. I asked him on one occasion if the Irish desired complete independence and the formation of an independent government. He answered: "No, we want Home Rule, but to retain our connection in a way with the British Empire. The military, naval, and civil service of the British Empire gives great opportunities for our young men. Ireland in proportion to its population is more largely represented in these departments of the British Government than either England, Scotland, or Wales."

Incidental to the division in Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet, which had not at this time broken out, was the great vogue which a story of mine had. I was dining with Earl Spencer. He had been lord lieutenant of Ireland and was very popular. His wife especially had been as great a success as the vice-regent. He was called the Red Earl because of his flowing auburn beard. He was a very serious man, devoted to the public service and exceedingly capable. He almost adored Gladstone and grieved over the growing opposition in the Cabinet.

The guests at the dinner were all Gladstonians and lamenting these differences and full of apprehension they might result in a split in the party. The earl asked me if we ever had such conditions in the United States. I answered: "Yes." Mr. Blaine, at that time at the head of President Harrison's Cabinet as secretary of state, had very serious differences with his chief, and the people wondered why he remained. Mr. Blaine told me this story apropos of the situation: The author of a play invited a friend of his to witness the first production and sent him a complimentary ticket. During the first act there were signs of disapproval, which during the second act broke out into a riot. An excited man sitting alongside the guest of the playwright said: "Stranger, are you blind or deaf, or do you approve of the play?" The guest replied: "My friend, my sentiments and opinion in regard to this play do not differ from yours and the rest, but I am here on a free ticket. If you will wait a little while till I go out and buy a ticket, I will come back and help you raise hell."

The most brilliant member of Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet and one of the most accomplished, versatile, and eloquent men in Great Britain was Lord Rosebery. I saw much of him when he was foreign minister and also after he became prime minister. Lord Rosebery was not only a great debater on political questions, he was also the most scholarly orator of his country on educational, literary, and patriotic subjects. He gathered about him always the people whom a stranger pre-eminently desired to meet.

I recall one of my week-end visits to his home at Mentmore, which is one of the most delightful of my reminiscences abroad. He had taken down there the leaders of his party. The dinner lasted, the guests all being men, except Lady Rosebery, who presided, until after twelve o'clock. Every one privileged to be there felt that those four hours had passed more quickly and entertainingly than any in their experience.

It was a beautiful moonlight night and the very best of English weather, and we adjourned to the terrace. There were recalled personal experiences, incidents of travel from men who had been all over the world and in critical situations in many lands, diplomatic secrets revealing crises seriously threatening European wars, and how these had been averted, alliances made and territories acquired, adventures of thrilling interest and personal episodes surpassing fiction. The company reluctantly separated when the rising sun admonished them that the night had passed.

It has been my good fortune to be the guest of eminent men in many lands and on occasions of memorable interest, but the rarest privilege for any one was to be the guest of Lord Rosebery, either at his city house or one of his country residences. The wonderful charm of the host, his tact with his guests, his talent for drawing people out and making them appear at their best, linger in their memories as red-letter days and nights of their lives.

All Americans took great interest in the career of Lord Randolph Churchill. His wife was one of the most beautiful and popular women in English society, and an American. I knew her father, Leonard Jerome, very well. He was a successful banker and a highly educated and cultured gentleman. His brother, William Jerome, was for a long time the best story-teller and one of the wittiest of New Yorkers.

Lord Randolph Churchill advanced very rapidly in British politics and became not only one of the most brilliant debaters but one of the leaders of the House of Commons. On one of my visits abroad I received an invitation from the Churchills to visit them at their country place. When I arrived I found that they occupied a castle built in the time of Queen Elizabeth, and in which few modern alterations had been made. It was historically a very unique and interesting structure. Additions had been made to it by succeeding generations, each being another house with its own methods of ingress and egress. Lord Randolph said: "I welcome you to my ancestral home, which I have rented for three months."

Though this temporary residence was very ancient, yet its hospitalities were dispensed by one of the most up-to-date and progressive couples in the kingdom. In the intimacy of a house-party, not too large, one could enjoy the versatility, the charm, the wide information, the keen political acumen of this accomplished and magnetic British statesman. It was unfortunate for his country that from overwork he broke down so early in life.

No one during his period could surpass Baron Alfred Rothschild as host. His dinners in town, followed by exquisite musicales, were the social events of every season. He was, however, most attractive at his superb place in the country. A week-end with him there met the best traditions of English hospitality. In the party were sure to be men and women of distinction, and just the ones whom an American had read about and was anxious to meet.

Baron Rothschild was a famous musician and an ardent lover of music. He had at his country place a wonderfully trained orchestra of expert musicians. In the theatre he gave concerts for the enjoyment of his guests, and led the orchestra himself. Among the company was sure to be one or more of the most famous artists from the opera at Covent Garden, and from these experts his own leadership and the performance of his perfectly trained company received unstinted praise and applause. Baron Rothschild had the art so necessary for the enjoyment of his guests of getting together the right people. He never risked the harmony of his house by inviting antagonists.

Lord Rothschild, the head of the house, differed entirely from his amiable and accomplished brother. While he also entertained, his mind was engrossed in business and affairs. I had a conference with him at the time of the Spanish-American War, which might have been of historical importance. He asked me to come and see him in the Rothschild banking-house, where the traditions of a century are preserved and unchanged. He said to me: "We have been for a long time the bankers of Spain. We feel the responsibility for their securities, which we have placed upon the market. The United States is so all-powerful in its resources and spirit that it can crush Spain. This we desire to avert. Spain, though weak and poor compared to the United States, has nevertheless the proudest people in the world, and it is a question of Spanish pride we have to deal with."

In answering him I said: "Lord Rothschild, it seems to me that if you had any proposition you should take it to Mr. John Hay, our accomplished minister."

"No," he said; "then it would become a matter of diplomacy and publicity. Now the Spanish Government is willing to comply with every demand the United States can make. The government is willing to grant absolute independence to Cuba, or what it would prefer, a self-governing colony, with relations like that of Canada to Great Britain. Spain is willing to give to the United States Porto Rico and the Philippine Islands, but she must know beforehand if these terms will be accepted before making the offer because if an offer so great as this and involving such a loss of territory and prestige should be rejected by the United States there would be a revolution in Spain which might overthrow not only the government but the monarchy. What would be regarded as an insult would be resented by every Spaniard to the bitter end. That is why I have asked you to come and wish you to submit this proposition to your president. Of course, I remain in a position, if there should be any publicity about it, to deny the whole thing."

The proposition unfortunately came too late, and Mr. McKinley could not stop the war. It was well known in Washington that he was exceedingly averse to hostilities and believed the difficulties could be satisfactorily settled by diplomacy, but the people were aroused to such an extent that they were determined not only to free Cuba but to punish those who were oppressing the Cubans.

One incident which received little publicity at the time was in all probability the match which fired the magazine. One of the ablest and most level-headed members of the Senate was Senator Redfield Proctor, of Vermont. The solidity of his character and acquirements and his known sense and conservatism made him a power in Congress, and he had the confidence of the people. He visited Cuba and wrote a report in which he detailed as an eyewitness the atrocities which the government and the soldiers were perpetrating. He read this report to Mr. McKinley and Senator Hanna. They both said: "Senator Proctor, if you read that to the Senate, our negotiations end and war is inevitable."

The president requested the senator to delay reporting to the Senate. The excitement and interest in that body were never more unanimous and intense. I doubt if any senator could have resisted this rare opportunity not only to be the centre of the stage but to occupy the whole platform. Senator Proctor made his report and the country was aflame.

One summer I arrived in London and was suffering from a fearful attack of muscular rheumatism. I knew perfectly well that I had brought it on myself by overwork. I had suffered several attacks before, but this one was so acute that I consulted Sir Henry Thompson, at that time the acknowledged head of the British medical profession. He made a thorough examination and with most satisfactory result as to every organ. "With your perfect constitution," he said, "this attack is abnormal. Now tell me of your day and every day at home. Begin with breakfast."

"I breakfast at a quarter of eight," I said.

"Then," continued the doctor, "give me the whole day."

"I arrive at my office," I said, "at nine. Being president of a great railway company, there is a large correspondence to be disposed of. I see the heads of the different departments and get in touch with every branch of the business. Then I meet committees of chambers of commerce or shippers, or of employees who have a grievance, and all this will occupy me until five o'clock, when I go home. I take a very short lunch, often at my desk, to save time. On arriving home I take a nap of ten or fifteen minutes, and then look over my engagements for the evening. If it is a speech, which will probably happen four evenings in a week, I prepare in the next hour and then deliver it at some public banquet or hall. If I have accepted a formal address or, as we call them in America, orations, it is ground out on odd evenings, Sunday afternoon and night."

The doctor turned to me abruptly and said: "You ought to be dead. Now, you have the most perfect constitution and less impaired than any I have examined at your time of life. If you will follow the directions which I give you, you can be perfectly well and sound at the age of one hundred. If you continue your present life until seventy, you will have a nervous breakdown, and thereafter become a nuisance to yourself and everybody else. I advise absolute rest at a remote place in Switzerland. There you will receive no newspapers, and you will hear nothing from the outside world. You will meet there only English who are seeking health, and they will not speak to you. Devote your day to walking over the mountains, adding to your tramp as your strength increases, and lie for hours on the bank of a quiet stream there, and be intensely interested as you throw pebbles into it to see how wide you can make the circles from the spot where the pebble strikes the water."

I thought I understood my temperament better than the doctor, and that any rest for me was not solitude but entire change of occupation. So I remained in London and lunched and dined out every day for several weeks, with a week-end over every Sunday. In other ways, however, I adopted the doctor's directions and not only returned home cured, but have been free from rheumatism ever since.

I was in London at both the queen's fiftieth anniversary of her reign and her jubilee. The reverence and love the English people had for Queen Victoria was a wonderful exhibition of her wisdom as a sovereign and of her charm and character as a woman. The sixty years of her reign were a wonderful epoch in the growth of her empire and in its relations to the world.

Once I said to a member of the Cabinet, who, as minister of foreign affairs had been brought in close contact with the queen: "I am very much impressed with the regard which the people have for Queen Victoria. What is her special function in your scheme of government?"

"She is invaluable," he answered, "to every prime minister and the Cabinet. The prime minister, after the close of the debate in the House of Commons every night, writes the queen a full report of what has occurred at that session. This has been going on for more than half a century. The queen reads these accounts carefully and has a most retentive memory. If these communications of the prime ministers were ever available to the public, they would present a remarkable contrast of the minds and the methods of different prime ministers and especially those two extreme opposites, Gladstone and Disraeli. The queen did not like Gladstone, because she said he always preached, but she had an intense admiration for Disraeli, who threw into his nightly memoranda all his skill not only as a statesman, but a novelist. The queen also has been consulted during all these years on every crisis, domestic or foreign, and every matter of Cabinet importance. The result is that she is an encyclopaedia. Very often there will be a dispute with some of the great powers or lesser ones, which is rapidly growing to serious proportions. We can find no report of its beginning. The queen, however, will remember just when the difficulty began, and why it was pushed aside and not settled, and who were the principal actors in the negotiations. With that data we often arrive at a satisfactory settlement."

I remember one garden-party at Buckingham Palace. The day was perfect and the attendance phenomenally large and distinguished. While there were places on the grounds where a luncheon was served, the guests neglected these places and gathered about a large tent where the royalties had their refreshments. It was an intense curiosity, not so much to see their sovereign eat and drink, as to improve the opportunity to reverently gaze upon her at close range. The queen called various people whom she knew from this circle of onlookers for a familiar talk.

When the luncheon was served the attendant produced an immense napkin, which she spread over herself, almost from her neck to the bottom of her dress. A charming English lady, who stood beside me, said: "I know you are laughing at the economy of our Queen."

"On the contrary," I said, "I am admiring an example of carefulness and thrift which, if it could be universally known, would be of as great benefit in the United States as in Great Britain."

"Well," she continued, "I do wish that the dear old lady was not quite so careful."

At a period when the lives of the continental rulers were in great peril from revolutionists and assassins, the queen on both her fiftieth anniversary and her jubilee rode in an open carriage through many miles of London streets, with millions of spectators on either side pressing closely upon the procession, and there was never a thought that she was in the slightest danger. She was fearless herself, but she had on the triple armor of the overmastering love and veneration of the whole people. Americans remembered that in the crisis of our Civil War it was the influence of the queen, more than any other, which prevented Great Britain recognizing the Southern Confederacy.

Among the incidents of her jubilee was the greatest naval demonstration ever known. The fleets of Great Britain were summoned from all parts of the globe and anchored in a long and imposing line in the English Channel. Mr. Ismay, at that time the head of the White Star Line, took the Teutonic, which had just been built and was not yet in regular commission, as his private yacht. He had on board a notable company, representing the best, both of men and women, of English life. He was the most generous of hosts, and every care taken for the individual comfort of his guests. In the intimacy for several days of such an excursion we all became very well acquainted. There were speeches at the dinners and dances afterwards on the deck for the younger people. The war-ships were illuminated at night by electric lights, and the launch of the Teutonic took us down one lane and up another through the long lines of these formidable defenders of Great Britain.

One day there was great excitement when a war-ship steamed into our midst and it was announced that it was the German emperor's. Even as early as that he excited in the English mind both curiosity and apprehension. One of the frequent questions put to me, both then and for years afterwards at English dinners, was: "What do you think of the German emperor?"

Shortly after his arrival he came on to the Teutonic with the Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. The prince knew many of the company and was most cordial all around. The emperor was absorbed in an investigation of this new ship and her possibilities both in the mercantile marine and as a cruiser. I heard him say to the captain: "How are you armed?" The captain told him that among his equipment he had a new invention, a quick-firing gun. The emperor was immediately greatly excited. He examined the gun and questioned its qualities and possibilities until he was master of every detail. Then he turned to one of his officers and gave a quick order that the gun should be immediately investigated and all that were required should be provided for Germany.