a former President was refused, albeit a similar request had been granted just before to friends planning a dinner for Henry Cooke which had to be abandoned now.1 Without the band an immense crowd assembled to cheer Johnson. The grim warrior appeared upon the balcony.

'What kind of government have we now?' he asked.2

The answer came with the elections, with tremendous losses to the ruling party everywhere, and with a sweeping victory for the Opposition in New York.

XII

But in Mississippi the Republicans made an advance in the election of General Adelbert Ames to the governorship. The two most conspicuous beneficiaries of Republican domination there were Ames and Alcorn, both having passed from gubernatorial honors to the Senate, where their rivalry became acute. Alcorn was a Mississippian, Ames a carpetbagger. Alcorn was a wealthy planter, Ames a soldier of fortune. Alcorn was a man of fine forensic ability, Ames was worse than mediocre on the platform. Alcorn was keen, Ames dull. The two had crossed swords on the Ku-Klux Bill, Ames supporting, Alcorn opposing it, and their bitter altercation led to the resignations of both, to test the temper of their party in a contest for the nomination for Governor. A few white Republicans aligned themselves with Alcorn, the Radicals went to Ames, and the Democrats, choosing between evils, made no nomination and lent support to Alcorn. Lamar defined the attitude of the Democrats when he wrote: 'I am for Alcorn. He has from the aggressive and combative qualities of his character, combined with the prominence of his position and his senatorial collisions with Ames, assumed the leadership of the conservatives of this State.' 3

Alcorn immediately challenged Ames to joint debates, but the duller man declined on the ground that his opponent was not the nominee of a regular party. The attempt of Alcorn to get the negro vote by telling the colored people he had secured them the right to ride on cars with the whites alienated thousands of Democrats for his support. Radicals, carpetbaggers, and negroes went in solid mass to Ames, who won overwhelmingly. On the ticket with him were three negroes the Lieutenant-Governor, the Secretary of State, and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. All were elected, and Cordozo, thus placed in charge of the schools, was at the time under indictment for larceny in Brooklyn, New York, the indictment signed by Benjamin F. Tracy, District Attorney, and later to be a member of the Harrison Cabinet.1

Thus was notice served on Mississippi that the negroes would rule the State, and the worst element immediately demonstrated its ability to dominate the flabby Ames. The darkest days of Mississippi had dawned, and soon, driven to desperate resolves, we shall find her people in revolutionary mood making stern preparations for the elections of the next year. At the time Ames was thus imposed upon them by the organized ignorance of the State, the loyalty of the Mississippians was beyond all question. Voorhees, trying a lawsuit there, was writing home that, in the event of a war with Spain, 'the South will fight under the old flag in a way to command the admiration of the world.' 2

The election of Ames, with all it meant, sounded the deathknell of the Republican Party in Mississippi. All over the North, thinking men were beginning to resent the policy of imposing ignorant and criminally corrupt governments on the Southern people. The scandalous contest over the Louisiana election of the previous year was still on, and many were shaking their heads in disapproval of the part played in Washington. It was the year Andrew D. White, visiting the South, was disgusted by what he saw and 'for the first time began to feel sympathy with the South, after seeing personally how he had been deceived by partisan prejudice and dishonest propaganda.3

After all, the Republican victory in Mississippi was but the forerunner of redemption. So ended a memorable year.

THE

CHAPTER XX

THE SLIPPING SCEPTER

I

HE year 1874 was not a happy one for the dominant party, and the gloss of Grant's military renown had been worn off in the harsh contacts of partisan politics. Even the most arrogant were a little dubious of the popularity of the Administration, and men like Bigelow were writing that it was impossible 'to give a good account of our government,' since 'Grant does not comprehend his position - neither its privileges nor responsibilities.' 1 The third-term gossip was being greeted with ugly hisses, and Bancroft, the historian, was saying that a third term 'would... be a long stride toward changing our republic into a monarchy.' 2 Grant blundered again, in the nomination of a successor to Chief Justice Chase, by seeking without avail to force the superficial Williams, his Attorney-General, upon the Senate. Despite the almost universal protest of lawyers and public men, Grant stubbornly persisted in seeking his confirmation, and it was not until a third nomination had been made that the Senate gave consent. Bitter as the blow was to Grant, it was more bitter to Williams, and still more bitter to Mrs. Williams, consumed with pride and ambition, and within two months she was to take to her bed, crushed and heart-broken. The appointment of Waite, while unexpected, met with no objections, but William Cullen Bryant could not forget 'what inconsiderate nominations the first two were,' and concluded that Grant lacked 'the discernment necessary for putting proper men in their proper places.' 4

Very soon, however, the most popular act of Grant's two administrations promised for a moment the restoration of his earlier popularity. Hard times had seemingly come to stay, and there was prostration in business and suffering among the people. Financiers were urging the resumption of specie payment, but the clamorous multitude was passionately demanding more paper money. The politicians in Congress, cringing before the tide, went with it, with much demagogic shouting, and it was assumed that Grant would sign the inflation bill. The East, home of the financiers, was for resumption, the West for expansion of the paper currency; the South had more pressing perils to consider. 'Of course Grant would sign.' Great, therefore, was the astonishment when he returned the measure with a vigorous veto. The East shouted its approval and praise; the Republican West was sullen, but its fidelity to the party was taken for granted. For a moment Grant's veto overshadowed his blunders. 'I have seen nearly all the prominent bankers, bullion dealers, and brokers,' wrote the financial editor of the 'New York Herald.' 'They unanimously applaud.' 1 The final reaction was yet to be seen. There was no rejoicing among the unemployed, and suffering among the masses threatened sinister possibilities. The silk workers of Paterson, New Jersey, in mass meeting were demanding an immediate tariff reduction of twenty per cent. The miners, in convention in Ohio, and later at Wilkes-Barre, were calling on their fellows to organize against the encroachments of organized wealth. The jobless and hungry, with communists and socialists, were marching and countermarching in the streets of the larger cities; and, frightened by the omen, the press was beginning to treat poverty and suffering as a crime to be handled with the mailed fist. The day the marchers went back and forth from Union Square to Tompkins Square, the entire police force of New York was kept on duty, and the press announced that detectives were watching 'tradeunionists and communists.' 4 When penniless heads of families, threatened with eviction in mid-winter, demanded the suspension of rents until the first of May, the 'New York World' declared they were merely trying to rob their landlords and should be handed over to the police.5

Infuriated by the callous indifference to their plight, the unemployed resorted to mass meetings, where defiant resolutions were passed and speeches made. When a great throng gathered in New York, with a captain of the Union army in the chair, detectives were on hand to take down 'incendiary statements,' but arrests could scarcely be made because of resolutions protesting against 'the despotism of class rule,' and threatening the tools of monopolists in legislatures with punishment at the polls.1 The New York Central Council of Labor fanned the fury with the assertion that 'the recent alarming development and aggression of aggregated wealth... will inevitably lead to the pauperization and degradation of the toiling masses.'2 Under the provocation of such assertions, the police denounced all labor leaders as 'communists,' and charged that 'French radicals' were in control; and Labor replied that the charge was a lie and that the press was deliberately deceiving the people. The result was an outrageous assault by the police on a peaceable meeting, where eight thousand jobless men were ordered to disperse, and did not stir. The police charged with clubs, beating down many who were weak from hunger.4

5

Such tactics played into the hands of a little group of communists and embittered thousands of law-abiding workers against the Government. For conditions could scarcely have been worse. A survey by the 'New York World' showed that thousands were living on from seventy cents to fourteen dollars a week; that clerks were receiving from five dollars to fourteen; that hundreds were existing on the refuse of the city, veritable scavengers. Some were found to be managing on thirty cents a day, and seeking station houses in which to sleep at night. Occasionally groups, losing all control under the pangs of hunger, rushed the groceries, and the press described them as vagabonds - men who asked nothing better than a job. This condition, together with that of the embattled, organized farmers, was causing no little concern among the politicians at Washington. And to add to their discomfort it was at this time that an amazing book, 'A Prostrate State,' appeared, with graphic and relentlessly true descriptions of the barbarous government maintained in South Carolina through the