Part 11

_Answer_. I did anticipate a verdict, and one of acquittal. I knew that the defendants were entitled to such a verdict. I knew that the Government had signally failed to prove a case. There was nothing but suspicion, from which malice was inferred. The direct proof was utterly unworthy of belief. The direct witness was caught with letters he had forged. This one fact was enough to cover the prosecution with confusion. The fact that Rerdell sat with the other defendants and reported to the Government from day to day satisfied the jury as to the value of his testimony, and the animus of the Department of Justice. Besides, Rerdell had offered to challenge such jurors as the Government might select. He handed counsel for defendants a list of four names that he wanted challenged. At that time it was supposed that each defendant would be allowed to challenge four jurors. Afterward the Court decided that all the defendants must be considered as one party and had the right to challenge four and no more. Of the four names on Rerdell's list the Government challenged three and Rerdell tried to challenge the other. This was what is called a coincidence. Another thing had great influence with the jury--the evidence of the defendants was upon all material points so candid and so natural, so devoid of all coloring, that the jury could not help believing. If the people knew the evidence they would agree with the jury. When we remember that there were over ten thousand star routes, it is not to be wondered at that some mistakes were made--that in some instances too much was paid and in others too little.

_Question_. What has been the attitude of President Arthur?

_Answer_. We asked nothing from the President. We wanted no help from him. We expected that he would take no part--that he would simply allow the matter to be settled by the court in the usual way. I think that he made one very serious mistake. He removed officers on false charges without giving them a hearing. He deposed Marshal Henry because somebody said that he was the friend of the defendants. Henry was a good officer and an honest man. The President removed Ainger for the same reason. This was a mistake. Ainger should have been heard. There is always time to do justice. No day is too short for justice, and eternity is not long enough to commit a wrong. It was thought that the community could be terrorized:--

_First_. The President dismissed Henry and Ainger.

_Second_. The Attorney-General wrote a letter denouncing the defendants as thieves and robbers.

_Third_. Other letters from Bliss and MacVeagh were published.

_Fourth_. Dixon, the foreman of the first jury, was indicted.

_Fifth_. Members of the first jury voting "guilty" were in various ways rewarded.

_Sixth_. Bargains were made with Boone and Rerdell. The cases against Boone were to be dismissed and Rerdell was promised immunity. Under these circumstances the second trial commenced. But of all the people in this country the citizens of Washington care least for Presidents and members of the Cabinets. They know what these officers are made of. They know that they are simply folks--that they do not hold office forever--that the Jupiters of to-day are often the pygmies of to-morrow. They have seen too many people come in with trumpets and flags and go out with hisses and rags to be overawed by the deities of a day. They have seen Lincoln and they are not to be frightened by his successors. Arthur took part to the extent of turning out men suspected of being friendly to the defence. Arthur was in a difficult place. He was understood to be the friend of Dorsey and, of course, had to do something. Nothing is more dangerous than a friend in power. He is obliged to show that he is impartial, and it always takes a good deal of injustice to establish a reputation for fairness.

_Question_. Was there any ground to expect aid or any different action on Arthur's part?

_Answer_. All we expected was that Arthur would do as the soldier wanted the Lord to do at New Orleans--"Just take neither side."

_Question_. Why did not Brewster speak?

_Answer_. The Court would not allow two closings. The Attorney- General did not care to speak in the "middle." He wished to close, and as he could not do that without putting Mr. Merrick out, he concluded to remain silent. The defendants had no objection to his speaking, but they objected to two closing arguments for the Government, and the Court decided they were right. Of course, I understand nothing about the way in which the attorneys for the prosecution arranged their difficulties. That was nothing to me; neither do I care what money they received--all that is for the next Congress. It is not for me to speak of those questions.

_Question_. Will there be other trials?

_Answer_. I think not. It does not seem likely that other attorneys will want to try, and the old ones have. My opinion is that we have had the last of the Star Route trials. It was claimed that the one tried was the strongest. If this is so the rest had better be dismissed. I think the people are tired of the whole business. It now seems probable that all the time for the next few years will be taken up in telling about the case that was tried. I see that Cook is telling about MacVeagh and James and Brewster and Bliss; Walsh is giving his opinion of Kellogg and Foster; Bliss is saying a few words about Cook and Gibson; Brewster is telling what Bliss told him; Gibson will have his say about Garfield and MacVeagh, and it now seems probable that we shall get the bottom facts about the other jury--the actions of Messrs. Hoover, Bowen, Brewster Cameron and others. Personally I have no interest in the business.

_Question_. How does the next campaign look?

_Answer_. The Republicans are making all the mistakes they can, and the only question now is, Can the Democrats make more? The tariff will be one of the great questions, and may be the only one except success. The Democrats are on both sides of the question. They hate to give up the word "only." Only for that word they might have succeeded in 1880. If they can let "only" alone, and say they want "a tariff for revenue" they will do better. The fact is the people are not in favor of free trade, neither do they want a tariff high enough to crush a class, but they do want a tariff to raise a revenue and to protect our industries. I am for protection because it diversifies industries and develops brain--allows us to utilize all the muscle and brain we have. A party attacking the manufacturing interests of this country will fail. There are too many millions of dollars invested and too many millions of people interested. The country is becoming alike interested in this question. We are no longer divided, as in slavery times, into manufacturing and agricultural districts or sections. Georgia, Alabama, Tennessee, Louisiana and Texas have manufacturing interests. And the Western States believe in the protection of their industries. The American people have a genius for manufacturing, a genius for invention. We are not the greatest painters or sculptors or scientists, but we are without doubt the greatest inventors. If we were all engaged in one business we would become stupid. Agricultural countries produce great wealth, but are never rich. To get rich it is necessary to mix thought with labor. To raise the raw material is a question of strength; to manufacture, to put it in useful and beautiful forms, is a question of mind. There is a vast difference between the value of, say, a milestone and a statue, and yet the labor expended in getting the raw material is about the same. The point, after all, is this: First, we must have revenue; second, shall we get this by direct taxation or shall we tax imports and at the same time protect American labor? The party that advocates reasonable protection will succeed.*

[* At this point, with far away peals of thunder, the storm ceased, the sun reappeared and a vault of heavenly blue swung overhead. "Let us get out," said Colonel Ingersoll. Suiting the action to the word, the Colonel struck out lustily for the beach, on which, hard as a rock and firm as flint, he soon planted his sturdy form. And as he lumbered across the sand to the side door of his comfortable cottage, some three hundred feet from the surf, the necessarily suggested contrast between Ingersoll in court and Ingersoll in soaked flannels was illustrated with forcible comicality. Half an hour later he was found in the cozy library puffing a high flavored Havana, and listening to home-made music of delicious quality. Ingersoll at home is pleasant to contemplate. His sense of personal freedom is there aptly pictured. Loving wife and affectionate daughters form, with happy-faced and genial-hearted father, a model circle into which friends deem it a privilege to enter and a pleasure to remain.

Continuing the conversation, ]

_Question_. In view of all this, where do you think the presidential candidate will come from?

_Answer_. From the West.

_Question_. Why so?

_Answer_. The South and East must compromise. Both can trust the West. The West represents the whole country. There is no provincialism in the West. The West is not old enough to have the prejudice of section; it is too prosperous to have hatred, too great to feel envy.

_Question_. You do not seem to think that Arthur has a chance?

_Answer_. No Vice-President was ever made President by the people. It is natural to resent the accident that gave the Vice-President the place. They regard the Vice-President as children do a stepmother. He is looked upon as temporary--a device to save the election--a something to stop a gap--a lighter--a political raft. He holds the horse until another rider is found. People do not wish death to suggest nominees for the presidency. I do not believe it will be possible for Mr. Arthur, no matter how well he acts, to overcome this feeling. The people like a new man. There is some excitement in the campaign, and besides they can have the luxury of believing that the new man is a great man.

_Question_. Do you not think Arthur has grown and is a greater man than when he was elected?

_Answer_. Arthur was placed in very trying circumstances, and, I think, behaved with great discretion. But he was Vice-President, and that is a vice that people will not pardon.

_Question_. How do you regard the situation in Ohio?

_Answer_. I hear that the Republicans are attacking Hoadly, saying that he is an Infidel. I know nothing about Mr. Hoadly's theological sentiments, but he certainly has the right to have and express his own views. If the Republicans of Ohio have made up their minds to disfranchise the Liberals, the sooner they are beaten the better. Why should the Republican party be so particular about religious belief? Was Lincoln an orthodox Christian? Were the founders of the party--the men who gave it heart and brain--conspicuous for piety? Were the abolitionists all believers in the inspiration of the Bible? Is Judge Hoadly to be attacked because he exercises the liberty that he gives to others? Has not the Republican party trouble enough with the spirituous to let the spiritual alone? If the religious issue is made, I hope that the party making it will be defeated. I know nothing about the effect of the recent decision of the Supreme Court of Ohio. It is a very curious decision and seems to avoid the Constitution with neatness and despatch. The decision seems to rest on the difference between the words tax and license--_I. e._, between allowing a man to sell whiskey for a tax of one hundred dollars or giving him a license to sell whiskey and charging him one hundred dollars. In this, the difference is in the law instead of the money. So far all the prohibitory legislation on the liquor question has been a failure. Beer is victorious, and Gambrinus now has Olympus all to himself. On his side is the "bail"--

_Question_. But who will win?

_Answer_. The present indications are favorable to Judge Hoadly. It is an off year. The Ohio leaders on one side are not in perfect harmony. The Germans are afraid, and they generally vote the Democratic ticket when in doubt. The effort to enforce the Sunday law, to close the gardens, to make one day in the week desolate and doleful, will give the Republicans a great deal of hard work.

_Question_. How about Illinois?

_Answer_. Republican always. The Supreme Court of Illinois has just made a good decision. That Court decided that a contract made on Sunday can be enforced. In other words, that Sunday is not holy enough to sanctify fraud. You can rely on a State with a Court like that. There is very little rivalry in Illinois. I think that General Oglesby will be the next Governor. He is one of the best men in that State or any other.

_Question_. What about Indiana?

_Answer_. In that State I think General Gresham is the coming man. He was a brave soldier, an able, honest judge, and he will fill with honor any position he may be placed in. He is an excellent lawyer, and has as much will as was ever put in one man. McDonald is the most available man for the Democrats. He is safe and in every respect reliable. He is without doubt the most popular man in his party.

_Question_. Well, Colonel, what are you up to?

_Answer_. Nothing. I am surrounded by sand, sea and sky. I listen to music, bathe in the surf and enjoy myself. I am wondering why people take interest in politics; why anybody cares about anything; why everybody is not contented; why people want to climb the greased pole of office and then dodge the brickbats of enemies and rivals; why any man wishes to be President, or a member of Congress, or in the Cabinet, or do anything except to live with the ones he loves, and enjoy twenty-four hours every day. I wonder why all New York does not come to Long Beach and hear Schreiner's Band play the music of Wagner, the greatest of all composers. Finally, in the language of Walt Whitman, "I loaf and invite my soul."

--_The Herald_, New York, July 1, 1883.

THE INTERVIEWER.

_Question_. What do you think of newspaper interviewing?

_Answer_. I believe that James Redpath claims to have invented the "interview." This system opens all doors, does away with political pretence, batters down the fortifications of dignity and official importance, pulls masks from solemn faces, compels everybody to show his hand. The interviewer seems to be omnipresent. He is the next man after the accident. If a man should be blown up he would likely fall on an interviewer. He is the universal interrogation point. He asks questions for a living. If the interviewer is fair and honest he is useful, if the other way, he is still interesting. On the whole, I regard the interviewer as an exceedingly important person. But whether he is good or bad, he has come to stay. He will interview us until we die, and then ask the "friends" a few questions just to round the subject off.

_Question_. What do you think of the tendency of newspapers is at present?

_Answer_. The papers of the future, I think, will be "news" papers. The editorial is getting shorter and shorter. The paragraphist is taking the place of the heavy man. People rather form their own opinions from the facts. Of course good articles will always find readers, but the dreary, doleful, philosophical dissertation has had its day. The magazines will fall heir to such articles; then religious weeklies will take them up, and then they will cease altogether.

_Question_. Do you think the people lead the newspapers, or do the newspapers lead them?

_Answer_. The papers lead and are led. Most papers have for sale what people want to buy. As a rule the people who buy determine the character of the thing sold. The reading public grow more discriminating every year, and, as a result, are less and less "led." Violent papers--those that most freely attack private character--are becoming less hurtful, because they are losing their own reputations. Evil tends to correct itself. People do not believe all they read, and there is a growing tendency to wait and hear from the other side.

_Question_. Do newspapers to-day exercise as much influence as they did twenty-five years ago?

_Answer_. More, by the facts published, and less, by editorials. As we become more civilized we are governed less by persons and more by principles--less by faith and more by fact. The best of all leaders is the man who teaches people to lead themselves.

_Question_. What would you define public opinion to be?

_Answer_. First, in the widest sense, the opinion of the majority, including all kinds of people. Second, in a narrower sense, the opinion of the majority of the intellectual. Third, in actual practice, the opinion of those who make the most noise. Fourth, public opinion is generally a mistake, which history records and posterity repeats.

_Question_. What do you regard as the result of your lectures?

_Answer_. In the last fifteen years I have delivered several hundred lectures. The world is growing more and more liberal every day. The man who is now considered orthodox, a few years ago would have been denounced as an Infidel. People are thinking more and believing less. The pulpit is losing influence. In the light of modern discovery the creeds are growing laughable. A theologian is an intellectual mummy, and excites attention only as a curiosity. Supernatural religion has outlived its usefulness. The miracles and wonders of the ancients will soon occupy the same tent. Jonah and Jack the Giant Killer, Joshua and Red Riding Hood, Noah and Neptune, will all go into the collection of the famous Mother Hubbard.

--_The Morning Journal_, New York, July 3, 1883.

POLITICS AND PROHIBITION.

_Question_. What do you think of the result in Ohio?

_Answer_. In Ohio prohibition did more harm to the Republican chances than anything else. The Germans hold the Republicans responsible. The German people believe in personal liberty. They came to America to get it, and they regard any interference in the manner or quantity of their food and drink as an invasion of personal rights. They claim they are not questions to be regulated by law, and I agree with them. I believe that people will finally learn to use spirits temperately and without abuse, but teetotalism is intemperance in itself, which breeds resistance, and without destroying the rivulet of the appetite only dams it and makes it liable to break out at any moment. You can prevent a man from stealing by tying his hands behind him, but you cannot make him honest. Prohibition breeds too many spies and informers, and makes neighbors afraid of each other. It kills hospitality. Again, the Republican party in Ohio is endeavoring to have Sunday sanctified by the Legislature. The working people want freedom on Sunday. They wish to enjoy themselves, and all laws now making to prevent innocent amusement, beget a spirit of resentment among the common people. I feel like resenting all such laws, and unless the Republican party reforms in that particular, it ought to be defeated. I regard those two things as the principal causes of the Republican party's defeat in Ohio.

_Question_. Do you believe that the Democratic success was due to the possession of reverse principles?

_Answer_. I do not think that the Democratic party is in favor of liberty of thought and action in these two regards, from principle, but rather from policy. Finding the course pursued by the Republicans unpopular, they adopted the opposite mode, and their success is a proof of the truth of what I contend. One great trouble in the Republican party is bigotry. The pulpit is always trying to take charge. The same thing exists in the Democratic party to a less degree. The great trouble here is that its worst element--Catholicism --is endeavoring to get control.

_Question_. What causes operated for the Republican success in Iowa?

_Answer_. Iowa is a prohibition State and almost any law on earth as against anything to drink, can be carried there. There are no large cities in the State and it is much easier to govern, but even there the prohibition law is bound to be a failure. It will breed deceit and hypocrisy, and in the long run the influence will be bad.

_Question_. Will these two considerations cut any figure in the presidential campaign of 1884?

_Answer_. The party, as a party, will have nothing to do with these questions. These matters are local. Whether the Republicans are successful will depend more upon the country's prosperity. If things should be generally in pretty good shape in 1884, the people will allow the party to remain in power. Changes of administration depend a great deal on the feeling of the country. If crops are bad and money is tight, the people blame the administration, whether it is responsible or not. If a ship going down the river strikes a snag, or encounters a storm, a cry goes up against the captain. It may not have been his fault, but he is blamed, all the same, and the passengers at once clamor for another captain. So it is in politics.

If nothing interferes between this and 1884, the Republican party will continue. Otherwise it will be otherwise. But the principle of prosperity as applied to administrative change is strong. If the panic of 1873 had occurred in 1876 there would have been no occasion for a commission to sit on Tilden. If it had struck us in 1880, Hancock would have been elected. Neither result would have its occasion in the superiority of the Democratic party, but in the belief that the Republican party was in some vague way blamable for the condition of things, and there should be a change. The Republican party is not as strong as it used to be. The old leaders have dropped out and no persons have yet taken their places. Blaine has dropped out, and is now writing a book. Conkling dropped out and is now practicing law, and so I might go on enumerating leaders who have severed their connection with the party and are no longer identified with it.

_Question_. What is your opinion regarding the Republican nomination for President?

_Answer_. My belief is that the Republicans will have to nominate some man who has not been conspicuous in any faction, and upon whom all can unite. As a consequence he must be a new man. The Democrats must do the same. They must nominate a new man. The old ones have been defeated so often that they start handicapped with their own histories, and failure in the past is very poor raw material out of which to manufacture faith for the future. My own judgment is that for the Democrats, McDonald is as strong a man as they can get. He is a man of most excellent sense and would be regarded as a safe man. Tilden? He is dead, and he occupies no stronger place in the general heart than a graven image. With no magnetism, he has nothing save his smartness to recommend him.

_Question_. What are your views, generally expressed, on the tariff?

_Answer_. There are a great many Democrats for protection and a great many for so-called free trade. I think the large majority of American people favor a reasonable tariff for raising our revenue and protecting our manufactures. I do not believe in tariff for revenue only, but for revenue and protection. The Democrats would have carried the country had they combined revenue and incidental protection.

_Question_. Are they rectifying the error now?