Part 9
Senator Eaton, of Connecticut, is speaking. He plays the sovereignty of the States like Ole Bull’s whole opera, on one string; but Senator Anthony has tripped him by asking: “How can a State be ‘sovereign’ when she can neither make treaties, coin money, or go out to stay all night without asking her father, who is all the time her Uncle Sam?” Senator Eaton replies that he would answer that question to the satisfaction of the Senator from the little State of Rhode Island, but he is sick and cannot be interrupted in his patriotic argument, and he again declares the sovereignty of the State, because little Rhody, Connecticut, and pretty Delaware are the peers and equals of Pennsylvania, New York, and Ohio. Why? Because they are independent sovereigns, and command the same respect.
It is now almost midnight. Behold the conquering hero comes. It is Andy Johnson, the veteran warrior of Tennessee. For the first time he arises to address the highest legislative body on the face of the globe. There is an ominous silence. He is asked by a brother Senator if Monday, the next day of the Senatorial calendar, will not do. An affirmative answer is received, and the session of the night adjourns.
OLIVIA.
SENATOR SPRAGUE.
A NEW CHAMPION OF A PANACEA FOR ILLS FINANCIAL.
WASHINGTON, _April 14, 1869_.
A new music reaches the ear of Washington. It is the voice of the workingmen, with brass instruments in their hands, saluting their new leader. All hail! Senator Sprague of Rhode Island. The man who touches the pulse of the invalid with an earnest desire to do the patient good is called a kind physician. The man who feels the feverish pulse of a suffering nation, sees the people rise in their awful majesty, and immensity, echoes, “Here! Here!”
Senator Sprague has been studying the rise and decline of nations. He reminds us that there is a vicious something which underlies the basis of modern as well as ancient society, a nameless horror which picks the bones of a nation just as Victor Hugo’s devil-fish finishes the last delicate morsel of what was once a man. It is the same to the nation that the destructive worm is to the ship. It is the accumulation of tubercular deposits in the national tissues. The fatal seed of dissolution is already planted, and the harvest, when garnered, will be safely packed away in the frightful storehouse of death. With blanched face, in the distance, we shrink from the leprous patient, but upon closer examination we find the “sick man” is old Uncle Sam, and his old war wounds are still unhealed, though in a healthy condition, and none give him any trouble to-day except the sabre cut of Finance. In the early part of the last winter General Butler laid his hand on this tremendous wound. The nation quivered with hope and expectation, but Uncle Sam said, “Hands off, my brave general; don’t you see just so much of my substance has been shot away? If a lobster loses one of its claws, will any patent medicine make it grow again? Leave the lobster to the care of the kindly elements, and a new member, precisely like the old one, makes its appearance, beautifully, by degrees. The humblest reptile can teach the wisest man important wisdom.” When just so much substance has been destroyed by fire and sword, is it not the folly of madness to try to replace it by “financial policy”? Is there no other way to make a dollar except to dig the metal out of the bowels of the earth, take it to the mint, and give it a legitimate birth? The smallest child can understand the great “financial problem” as it exists to-day. Did General Butler enlighten us on the subject? We owe just so many gold dollars. As a lawyer he pointed out the way in which we could avoid a partial payment of our honest debts. The people said to General Butler, “We like your sagacity as lawyer, but we still believe that time is the best cure for all.” General Butler then subsided on the finance question. A new champion has arisen to point out a greener path over which to journey, as we march heavy ladened. It is the youthful millionaire, Senator Sprague. His bill before the Senate can be summed up in exactly three words: “Make more greenbacks.” This is the way to make money plenty? Why not? If Senator Sprague wants ten thousand yards of calico, he manufactures it. If the workingman wants more money, he is advised to manufacture the same. It is a great deal easier to print a paper dollar than to earn the gold the paper is expected to represent. But Senator Sprague was born into the manufacturing business, and, as it has been of such vast importance to him, is it a wonder that he advises the same employment to others when he has reaped riches and honor, whilst he is yet a growing man? Senator Sprague would also make the Government a kind of “Grand Lama”--a huge autocrat doing business for himself, just like Astor, Vanderbilt and Stewart. He would have him loan money; also, make him liable to sue and be sued. To be sure, this would extinguish all millionaire upstarts. So far so good; but would it not also add fresh fuel to the fires of corruption? What is the whisky ring but a set of dishonest officials, acting in the name of the Government, covering their plunder with the garments of Uncle Sam? Instead of diminishing the power to rob the people, Senator Sprague advocates an additional supply of the grand army officials. The flock of to-day may be compared to a cloud of locusts. “No!” say our legislators. Only a lunatic attempts to extinguish a fire by throwing on more fuel. A good government should be like the azure vault of heaven, resting on all alike, protecting the poor man in his cabin, the rich man in his palace, if he has honestly acquired his wealth. It should fall upon the honorable citizen like a web woven by fairy fingers; upon the criminal, whether powerful or weak, like the lariat flung by the unerring hand of the Indian hunter of the pampas. Senator Sprague and the workingmen who endorse him propose to take from the Government this most holy inheritance bequeathed us by our Revolutionary ancestors, baptized anew by the precious blood of three hundred thousand lives, and set it up in all the great cities of the Union, as the golden calf was set up in the wilderness, and the people, instead of being told to bow the knee, are advised to borrow. How will this help the poor man who has no security to give; or is the great national broker expected to lend without any security at all? No one disputes the fact that a great harassing debt annoys the people. It might have been much less. With sorrow we remember the millions that were flung into the sea by the incompetency of the late Navy Department; but with this folly our creditors have nothing to do. It is for us to say that we will pay to the last farthing. Shall we allow speculators in the name of Uncle Sam to use the people’s money and take the risk of being benefited in the end? Never! No, never! It is proven beyond a doubt that if the tax on whisky and tobacco could be honestly collected and turned over to the Treasury Department it would liquidate every penny of the interest of the public debt; other taxes would then gradually consume the principal. But if we are in haste, as we ought to be, to pay our debts, let the noble women of this country say, “No more of our gold shall drift seaward to bring us back jewels, silks, and knick-knacks.” Let the graceful, elegant wife of Senator Sprague be content with a wardrobe which vies in costliness with that of an European princess. Thirty silk walking dresses, all made to fit the same exquisite image, were within hearing of the workingmen’s serenade.
If, then, sharp Benjamin Butler has knocked a hole in his keel by cruising amongst the financial breakers, Senator Sprague, so much younger, with much less experience, need not be ashamed to strike his colors before he goes down. No man in the Senate has a better record than this intrepid young Senator. We may question his good taste about bringing his Rhode Island battle upon the floor of the American Senate, but this harms no one but himself. In the strife for honor and fame at a nation’s hands he has had two difficulties to overcome. The talent of his early life has been obscured by his immense wealth; in later years he has dwelt in the blighting shadows of greatness.
Our first recollection of the rebellion cluster around his head. When the great coal mines of Pennsylvania tossed out their grimy workers, and they rushed to the defence of Washington, without stopping to change their clothes or bid their wives farewell, William Sprague was at the scene of action, giving his time, money, all that a man has to give, that these citizen-soldiers might have wherewith to preserve life. With the boom of the first cannon this citizen of Rhode Island flung his soul into the struggle for the life of the Republic. Away up in the rocky ledges of the American continent is a magic spring of smallest proportions. If at a certain period of the world’s life a foreign substance, no larger than a man’s boot, had been thrust into it, the course of the mighty Mississippi would have been changed. Who can estimate the incalculable blessing to this nation produced by a single man coming forward at exactly the right moment with the real bone and sinew of war in his hands. He bought the blankets, and tincups, and loaves of bread for the new recruits, whilst General Jim Lane was guarding Abraham Lincoln. It is superfluous to recall his meritorious conduct as an officer in every fearful trial which has rocked our ship of state, for it is fresh within the memory of us all. It may be said that many speeches for polish and elegance of diction surpass those of the Senator from Rhode Island, but the inquiry naturally arises, is a man dear to our hearts for his words or his deeds? For both, we answer. But if the two are not always found wedded like husband and wife, give us the substance, and whilst the Creator is filling anew his generous order for more men, let us humbly petition that he send a good round number no better, no worse, than Senator Sprague.
OLIVIA.
SEALED SISTERS OF MORMONISM.
INTERVIEW WITH ONE OF THE RIBS OF BRIGHAM YOUNG.
WASHINGTON, _April 23, 1869_.
The dreamy twilight which envelops the city during every recess of Congress has settled upon Washington. During the small hours of the morning the tardy Senators have folded their tents and to-day they are stealing away. Spring, clean and fresh as a mermaid, trips daintily along our broad highways. The flowers are opening their pretty eyes; the zephyrs greet us sweet as the breath of love, and all nature conspires to lead the mind into the luxurious revels of an Oriental extravaganza. The modern Caliph, Brigham Young, of Utah, has sent his beloved Zobedie to Washington, and to-day at 11 a. m. her shadow falls across the door of the White House, but whether she gains the ear of President Grant your correspondent knoweth not. Several weeks ago the newspapers told us that a number of women, all so-called wives of Brigham Young, were en route for the States. A party composed of the elite of the Salt Lake harems are in Washington. No single man has two wives in the expedition. Brigham Young has contributed his favorite, whilst both of his two sons, who help compose the party, have confined themselves to one apiece. Two single women are added to this rare bouquet, but whether “sealed” or otherwise is known only to the “Prophet” or the saints. The party is stopping near the corner of I and Fourteenth streets, under the protecting care of Mr. Hooper, the Delegate from Utah Territory. It has been said by those who thought they were acquainted with Mr. Hooper that he does not profess the Mormon faith, but for the information of those who may be curious about this interesting subject it is safe to believe that Brigham Young has no more faithful follower than this accomplished Delegate.
Just at this magic hour when the light and the darkness were quarreling for supremacy we might have been found in the presence of one of our own countrywomen, a woman born in the great State of New York, educated, beautiful, elegantly attired, and yet there seemed to be no common platform upon which we could meet and converse, for our ideas ran in grooves as far apart as thought can separate. Had it been Victoria, we could have recalled the memory of the Blameless Prince, or alluded to the Alabama claims; had it been Eugenie, we could have seized Pio Nono; or Mrs. President Grant, we could have applied for the “Nasby” postoffice. But, oh, tortured soul, it was Lady Zobedie, the seventieth double of Brigham Young. What did it matter? Though she is a rib nearest his heart to-day, a woman with a ruddier cheek may crowd her aside to-morrow. Woman, is she living, breathing, poised on the edge of a frightful precipice? Yes! But a woman with the fire of life smoldering in the ashes; no rollicking flame. A woman who would leave a room colder for having passed through it.
Conversation darted hither and thither like Noah’s dove, who could find no rest for the sole of her foot. The watery waste of speech was all around us, but the Gentile was afraid and the Saint coldly indifferent. The Gentile ventured to ask if the queen was not pleased with the prosperity of our country, and was it not astonishing, after such a prolonged civil war?
She “hadn’t been accustomed to think much about such things.”
“How does Utah compare with this part of the world?” was the next inquiry.
“Not much difference; the world is just about the same all over.”
“I am told it is very expensive living after you leave Omaha.”
“I never think about such things.”
“Have you met Madame Daubigney, the great French traveler? I am told she has a reputation in Europe next to the late Madame Pneiffer. She is in Washington, and expects to leave soon for Salt Lake.”
“Yes, she has been to see me two or three times, but I try to discourage her. I don’t believe in women lecturers and women artists. I am told she dabbles in both.”
A fearful pause.
“Have you called upon Mrs. Grant?”
“No, I never call upon ladies, but I intend to pay my respects to the President. I wouldn’t like to tell them at home that I hadn’t seen him.”
The Gentile kindly alluded to the fact that Joseph Smith was an old acquaintance of her family, and although her father differed with him in belief, yet, as a neighbor, he was trusted with many of his first revelations. No response; the electric current of the mind would not work.
Our meeting was like the greeting of two planets whose paths happened to intersect. We neared each other for a moment, only to separate, each flying from the other, and one, if not both of us, feeling the awful effects of human fanaticism when it comes between two citizens of the same Republic.
The lengthening shadows of night crept into the room. A street lamp before the open window had been lighted, and its rays fell upon the marble features of this pale, amber-haired blonde, and the classic cast of her countenance might have answered for a model of beauty for either the sculptor or the painter. But other shapes almost as tangible were there also. They were the demons of the dark ages come back to mock us. This seventieth wife with her fair face had touched the sepulchre of the past, and grinning specters of the past were among us. The very air seemed to say for this silent woman: “If we were strong and you were weak, woman should again take her place at the foot of a ladder. Is the woman of to-day wiser or better than was Rachel or Sarah?”
Brigham Young has sent this woman abroad to be on exhibition like any other work of art. She is expected to make new converts. She is allowed to indulge her taste in silks, jewels and point lace. The other wives are young, giddy, and commonplace. Their manners are just what must be expected from youth and inexperience, and their conversation, so far as two of them are concerned, was only noticeable on account of its warmth of grammatical accuracy. All the Mormons who come to Washington make us feel that they are by the side of us yet not annealed with the great body of the people. They have a bitter hatred of the Gentiles, cloaked, though it may be, by a frigid politeness. Mr. Hooper says: “Things seem strange to you, out our way, but it is quite as strange to us in this part of the country; but we don’t feel like meddling with your institutions.” He also remarked that it was very strange that so many people seemed desirous to settle out in that part of the world. He said it was the poorest, most unattractive portion of the American continent. It was for this reason that the “chosen people” exiled themselves, planted their homes where nature has set a bitter, sterile face. The late cry of “We only ask to be let alone” is borne to us from the saline hills of Utah. We answer it with the scream of the locomotive. The Pacific Railroad is the guillotine which will cleave the head of Mormonism asunder, and polygamy, the last sad relic of barbarism, the one single blemish which clings to our beloved Republic, is doomed.
OLIVIA.
AWAITING AUDIENCE AT THE WHITE HOUSE.
GENERAL DENT AND ROBERT DOUGLAS AS BUFFERS.
WASHINGTON, _April 27, 1869_.
Just as the monarch of a Persian story gives audience to the high and low, so does President Grant receive the people, precisely after the fashion of an Oriental tale. It is not quite certain whether the President roams about the capital in the disguise of a dervish, as did the good Caliph Haroun Alraschid in his beloved Bagdad, but of a Sunday, if the weather be fine, he dashes up Fourteenth street, drawn by steeds, as fleet as the far-famed Arabian coursers, and a cloud of dust envelops his costly barouche as potent and insinuating as the flying sand in the desert.
A day in the ante-rooms of the White House will prove to the most skeptical that the “Arabian Nights” are as authentic as Hawthorne’s “Twice-Told Tales.” The Eastern Hemisphere had her rise and decline before the sun of civilization kissed our rugged New England hills. The Orient is asleep. The Occident fills the eyes of the world to-day.
President Grant has a grand vizier. It is General Dent, late of the Union Army. It is the business of General Dent to receive all who seek the presence of the President. When Andrew Johnson was Chief Executive, all those waiting for an audience with power were left by themselves to pass the long hours in waiting. It is somewhat different now. The large reception room over the front of the East Room is fitted up with tables, as well as sofas and chairs, and all, from the humblest to the highest, are admitted to General Dent’s presence. In the coziest corner of the reception room, beneath the window which commands the uninterrupted view of the delightful park which fronts the mansion, may be found the broad, long table at which General Dent sits, with his accomplished assistants by his side. General Dent is in the meridian of life, rather below the medium size, though the rich, dark-blue military garb in which he is encased diverts the mind from size altogether. Now add a face, neither handsome nor plain, but a benign, good countenance, through which the soul shines like flame through an astral shade, and you have the picture of the man through whose hands you are to pass before you are consigned to the august presence of majesty. At the same table, directly opposite General Dent, may be seen the assistant private secretary, Mr. Robert M. Douglas, eldest son of the late Hon. Stephen A. Douglas. Those who can recall the form and features of the departed Senator will see them reproduced, but, like the second edition of the same book, a little revised and somewhat corrected. Mr. Douglas inherits the broad shoulders, crowned by the same massive head, so well remembered by the nation. His North Carolina speech has made him famous as a youth, and it seems certain at present that he was created to prove the exception to the rule that a great man never bequeaths his talent to posterity. The social manners of Mr. Douglas are such as would endear him to a sovereign as haughty as Queen Elizabeth, and just as soon as he culminates as private secretary it will be for the honor of the foreign service to send him abroad. But at the present he can not be spared from a certain ante-room in the White House.
At the left of General Dent may be seen Mr. Crook, one of the few men left who were bequeathed as servants to the people by our beloved Lincoln. He has seen the inauguration of four Presidents and the installation of three different families in the White House. His mind is a storehouse of legend and story. He is still a young man, more than comely in personal appearance, and distinguished by social manners which admirably befit court life.
And now we come to that part of the story which bears such a strong resemblance to an Eastern tale. High and low, rich and poor, all shades, all colors, from the blanched cheek of the haughty Circassian belle to the Ethiopian polished ebony, may be found waiting in the ante-rooms of the White House. Yellow women are there, with skins like dead gold, their large, soft, lustrous eyes reminding one of a Moorish picture. A dash of a carriage is heard on the stone pavement below. Two elegant women alight, in faultless traveling costume. They are shown by a messenger to the ante-room, and General Dent arises to receive them. One of them is exceedingly beautiful. “We have called,” says the beauty, “to pay our respects to the President.” “Any business?” inquires General Dent. The dainty upper lip curls perceptibly. “None whatever; we are traveling; we wish to see the President.” “Impossible, Madame,” the General replies. “All these people you see are waiting to see the President on business. General Grant would be pleased to see you, but he has no time he can call his own.” The great, haughty eyes of the traveler wander about the room. As the two are about to depart General Dent asks them if they would be “shown about the building”? A dignified consent being given, the two stately swans sail away, piloted by the same messenger who showed them up the stairs.
The doors of the inner temple tremble on their hinges, and the form of a ponderous Senator emerges from the presence of the sun of day. It is Henry Wilson, of Massachusetts. He strides to a centre table and shakes hands with a distinguished group of men, composed of Cole of California, Carpenter of Wisconsin, irrepressible General Butler, and General Markland, the personal friend of General Grant, who was nominated for Third Assistant Postmaster-General. Very soon Mr. Gobright of the Associated Press joins hands with them; but the attention of all eyes is drawn in another direction. Two strangers are announced, and again General Dent arises to receive them. Two strange beings,--the man wears the national costume of Burmah, the picturesque turban, and the high-colored shawl gracefully draped about his person; the woman has spoiled her identity by adopting certain portions of European dress. They are native Burmese, and have been studying in this country, but soon take their departure for Burmah, where they expect to act as missionaries. They have called to bid President Grant farewell, and are at once shown into his presence.
Every hour brings new arrivals. A colored delegation from Alexandria has arrived. It was promised they should see the President at 1 o’clock. It is now past the hour, but still they wait patiently. It seems to be the colored man’s fate to wait. There is a silent grandeur about this resignation. It is like the march of the centuries. Art has portrayed it in the face of the Egyptian sphynx.