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WITH PORTRAITS
VOLUME I
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1905
TO
MY OLD STUDENTS
THIS RECORD OF MY LIFE
IS INSCRIBED
WITH MOST KINDLY RECOLLECTIONS
AND BEST WISHES
TABLE OF CONTENTS
LIST OF PORTRAITS
OF THE AUTHOR
VOLUME I
VOLUME II
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE
PART I
ENVIRONMENT AND EDUCATION
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF
ANDREW DICKSON WHITE
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
The worst feature of the junior year was the fact that
through two terms, during five hours each week, ``recitations''
were heard by a tutor in ``Olmsted's Natural Philosophy.''
The text-book was simply repeated by rote. Not
one student in fifty took the least interest in it; and
the man who could give the words of the text most glibly
secured the best marks. One exceedingly unfortunate
result of this kind of instruction was that it so disgusted
the class with the whole subject, that the really excellent
lectures of Professor Olmsted, illustrated by probably
the best apparatus then possessed by any American
university, were voted a bore. Almost as bad was the
historical instruction given by Professor James Hadley. It
consisted simply in hearing the student repeat from memory
the dates from ``P<u:>tz's Ancient History.'' How a man
so gifted as Hadley could have allowed any part of his
work to be so worthless, it is hard to understand. And,
worse remained behind. He had charge of the class in
Thucydides; but with every gift for making it a means
of great good to us, he taught it in the perfunctory way of
that period;--calling on each student to construe a few
lines, asking a few grammatical questions, and then, with
hardly ever a note or comment, allowing him to sit down.
Two or three times during a term something would occur
to draw Hadley out, and then it delighted us all to hear
him. I recall, to this hour, with the utmost pleasure, some
of his remarks which threw bright light into the general
subject; but alas! they were few and far between.
PART II
POLITICAL LIFE
CHAPTER III
A. William L. Marcy.
This is to me somewhat puzzling, for I was four years
old when Martin Van Buren was elected, and my father
was his very earnest opponent, yet, though I recall easily
various things which occurred at that age and even earlier,
I have no remembrance of any general election before
1840, and my only recollection of the first New York
statesman elected to the Presidency is this mention of his
name, in a child's catechism.
CHAPTER IV
EARLY MANHOOD--1851-1857
Yet before that day was done he was famous; his name,
such as it was, resounded through the land; and he had
become, in all seriousness, a weighty personage in American
history.
Under the law recently passed, he was arrested, openly
and in broad daylight, as a fugitive slave, and was carried
before the United States commissioner, Mr. Joseph
Sabine, a most kindly public officer, who in this matter
was sadly embarrassed by the antagonism between his
sworn duty and his personal convictions.
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1864-1865
A. No, sir.
A. Yes.
A. Yes, sir.
Q. Much?
A. Yes, sir.
A. No, sir.
A. No, sir.
A. No, sir.
I also pointed out the fact that our American notes were
now so thoroughly well engraved that counterfeiting was
virtually impossible, so that one of the leading European
governments had its notes engraved in New York, on this
account, whereas, the French assignats could be easily
counterfeited, and, as a matter of fact, were counterfeited
in vast numbers, the British government pouring them
into France through the agency of the French royalists,
especially in Brittany, almost by shiploads, and to such
purpose, that the French government officials themselves
were at last unable to discriminate between the genuine
money and the counterfeit. I also pointed out the
connection of our national banking system with our issues
of bonds and paper, one of the happiest and most statesmanlike
systems ever devised, whereas, in France there
was practically no redemption for the notes, save as they
could be used for purchasing from the government the
doubtful titles to the confiscated houses and lands of the
clergy and aristocracy.
A vote was taken, the bill was passed, the troops were
finally raised, and the debt was extinguished not many
years afterward.
CHAPTER VII
SENATORSHIP AT ALBANY--1865-1867
The address was well received, and two days later there
came to me what, under other circumstances, I would have
most gladly accepted, the election to a professorship at
Yale, which embraced the history of art and the direction
of the newly founded Street School of Art. The thought
of me for the place no doubt grew out of the fact that,
during my stay in college, I had shown an interest in art,
and especially in architecture, and that after my return
from Europe I had delivered in the Yale chapel an address
on ``Cathedral Builders and Mediaeval Sculptors''
which was widely quoted.
CHAPTER VIII
As to the first of these I had long felt, and still feel, that
of all the weaknesses in our institutions, one of the most
serious is our laxity in the administration of the criminal
law. No other civilized country, save possibly the lower
parts of Italy and Sicily, shows anything to approach the
number of unpunished homicides, in proportion to the
population, which are committed in sundry parts of our
own country, and indeed in our country taken as a whole.
In no country is the deterrent effect of punishment so
vitiated by delay; in no country is so much facility given
to chicanery, to futile appeals, and to every possible means
of clearing men from the due penalty of high crime, and
especially the crime of murder.
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
But this was not the most comical thing; for Mr.
Greeley in substance continued as follows:
``Fellow Citizens: You know how it is yourselves.
There are men who go to your own State Capitol, nominally
as legislators or advisers, but really to plunder and
steal. These men in the Northern States correspond to the
`carpet-baggers' in the Southern States, and you hate
them and you ought to hate them.'' Thus speaking, Mr.
Greeley poured out the vials of his wrath against all this
class of people; blissfully unconscious of the fact that on
the other side of him stood the most notorious and corrupt
lobbyist who had been known in Albany for years;--
a man who had been chased out of that city by the sheriff
for attempted bribery, had been obliged to remain for a
considerable time in hiding to avoid criminal charges of
exerting corrupt influence on legislation, and whom both
political parties naturally disowned. Comical as all this
was, it was pathetic to see a man like Greeley in such a
cave of Adullam.
CHAPTER XI
It turned out that the person whose name the card bore
was the correspondent of a newspaper especially noted
for sensation-mongering, and the conversation drifted to
the subject of newspapers and newspaper correspondents,
when the President told the following story, which I give
as nearly as possible in his own words:
This cry for more currency was echoed from one end
of the country to the other. In various States, and
especially in Ohio, it seemed to carry everything before it,
nearly all the public men of note, including nearly all the
leading Democrats and very many of the foremost Republicans,
bowing down to it, the main exceptions being John
Sherman and Garfield.
I had met him but once previously, and that was during
his membership of Congress when he came to enter his son
at Cornell. I had then been most favorably impressed by
his large, sincere, manly way. On visiting Washington to
receive my instructions before going to Berlin, I saw him
several times, and at each meeting my respect for him was
increased. Driving to Arlington, walking among the soldiers'
graves there, standing in the portico of General Lee's
former residence, and viewing from the terrace the Capitol
in the distance, he spoke very nobly of the history we had
both personally known, of the sacrifices it had required,
and of the duties which it now imposed. At his dinner-
table I heard him discuss with his Secretary of State, Mr.
Evarts, a very interesting question--the advisability of
giving members of the cabinet seats in the Senate and
House of Representatives, as had been arranged in the
constitution of the so-called Confederate States; but of
this I shall speak in another chapter.
CHAPTER XII
This and other points I urged, but the evil was too
deeply seated. Time was required to remove all doubts
which were raised. I found with regret that my article
had especially incurred the bitter dislike of my old adviser,
Thurlow Weed, the great friend of Mr. Seward and former
autocrat of Whig and Republican parties in the State of
New York. Being entirely of the old school, he could not
imagine the government carried on without the spoils system.
But as it soon became evident that the main tide was for
Mr. Blaine, various efforts were made to concentrate the
forces opposed to him upon some candidate who could
command more popular support than Mr. Edmunds. An
earnest effort was made in favor of John Sherman
of Ohio, and his claims were presented most sympathetically
to me by my old Cornell student, Governor Foraker.
Of all the candidates before the convention I would have
preferred to vote for Mr. Sherman. He had borne the
stress of the whole anti-slavery combat, and splendidly;
he had rendered great services to the nation as a statesman
and financier, and was in every respect capable and worthy.
Unfortunately there were too many old enmities against
him, and it was clear that the anti-Blaine vote could not
be concentrated on him. My college classmate, Mr.
Knevals of New York, then urged me to vote for President
Arthur. This, too, would have been a fairly satisfactory
solution of the question, for President Arthur had surprised
every one by the excellence of his administration.
Still there was a difficulty in his case: the Massachusetts
delegates could not be brought to support him; it was said
that he had given some of their leaders mortal offense
by his hostility to the River and Harbor Bill. A final
effort was then made by the Independents to induce General
Sherman to serve, but he utterly refused, and so the only
thing left was to let matters take their course. All chance
of finding any one to maintain the desired standard of
American political life against the supporters of Mr.
Blaine had failed.
``All 's well that ends well,'' and, though the laugh was
at my expense, the result was not such as to make me
especially unhappy.
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
The reason for this theory was that I had received part
of my education in Germany; had shown especial interest
in German history and literature, lecturing upon them at
the University of Michigan and at Cornell; had resided in
Berlin as minister; had, on my return, delivered in New
York and elsewhere an address on the ``New Germany,''
wherein were shown some points in German life which
Americans might study to advantage; had also delivered
an address on the ``Contributions of Germany to American
Civilization''; and had, at various times, formed pleasant
relations with leading Germans of both parties. The fact
was perfectly well known, also, that I was opposed to the
sumptuary laws which had so largely driven Germans out
of the Republican party, and had declared that these were
not only unjust to those immediately affected by them, but
injurious to the very interests of temperance, which they
were designed to promote.
I was passing the summer at Magnolia, on the east
coast of Massachusetts, when an old friend, the son of
an eminent German-American, came from New York and
asked me to become a candidate for the governorship.
I was very reluctant, for special as well as general
reasons. My first wish was to devote myself wholly to
certain long-deferred historical work; my health was not
strong; I felt utterly unfitted for the duties of the
campaign, and the position of governor, highly honorable as
it is, presented no especial attractions to me, my ambition
not being in that line. Therefore it was that at first I
urged my friends to combine upon some other person;
but as they came back and insisted that they could
agree on no one else, and that I could bring to the
support of the party men who would otherwise oppose it,
I reluctantly agreed to discuss the subject with some of
the leading Republicans in New York, and among them
Mr. Thomas C. Platt, who was at the head of the organized
management of the party.
PART III
AS UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR
CHAPTER XV
For the class next above, the juniors, I took for textbook
preparation Guizot's ``History of Civilization in
Europe''--a book tinged with the doctrinairism of its
author, but a work of genius; a GREAT work, stimulating
new trains of thought, and opening new vistas of
knowledge. This, with sundry supplementary talks, and with
short readings from Gibbon, Thierry, Guizot's ``History
of Civilization in France,'' and Sir James Stephen's
``Lectures on French History,'' served an excellent purpose.
CHAPTER XVI
PART IV
AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT
CHAPTER XVII
when all its main features were made real in a way and by
means utterly unexpected; for now began the train of
events which led to my acquaintance, friendship, and close
alliance with the man through whom my plans became a
reality, larger and better than any ever seen in my dreams
--Ezra Cornell.
CHAPTER XVIII
EZRA CORNELL--1864-1874
Though his chair was near mine, there was at first little
intercourse between us, and there seemed small chance of
more. He was steadily occupied, and seemed to have no
desire for new acquaintances. He was, perhaps, the oldest
man in the Senate; I, the youngest: he was a man of
business; I was fresh from a university professorship:
and, upon the announcement of committees, our paths
seemed separated entirely; for he was made chairman of
the committee on agriculture, while to me fell the
chairmanship of the committee on education.
From the time when I began to know him best, his main
thought was concentrated upon the university. His own
business interests were freely sacrificed; his time, wealth,
and effort were all yielded to his work in taking up its
lands, to say nothing of supplementary work which became
in many ways a heavy burden to him.
The point of this lay in the fact, which Mr. Cornell knew
very well, that he was frequently charged with obstinacy.
Yet an obstinate man, in the evil sense of that word, he
was not. For several years it fell to my lot to discuss a
multitude of questions with him, and reasonableness was
one of his most striking characteristics. He was one of
those very rare strong men who recognize adequately their
own limitations. True, when he had finally made up his
mind in a matter fully within his own province, he
remained firm; but I have known very few men, wealthy,
strong, successful, as he was, so free from the fault of
thinking that, because they are good judges of one class of
questions, they are equally good in all others. One mark of
an obstinate man is the announcement of opinions upon
subjects regarding which his experience and previous
training give him little or no means of judging. This was
not at all the case with Mr. Cornell. When questions arose
regarding internal university management, or courses of
study, or the choice of professors, or plans for their
accommodation, he was never quick in announcing or
tenacious in holding an opinion. There was no purse pride
about him. He evidently did not believe that his success
in building up a fortune had made him an expert or judge
in questions to which he had never paid special attention.
CHAPTER XIX
CHAPTER XX
CHAPTER XXI
The work of these three men saved us. Apart from it,
the agricultural department long remained a sort of slough
of despond; but at last a brighter day dawned. From the
far-off State Agricultural College of Iowa came tidings
of a professor--Mr. J. I. P. Roberts--who united the practical
and theoretical qualities desired. I secured him, and
thenceforward there was no more difficulty. For more
than twenty years, as professor and lecturer, he has
largely aided in developing agriculture throughout the
State and country; and when others were added to
him, like Comstock and Bailey, the success of the
department became even more brilliant. Still, its old
reputation lasted for a time, even after a better era had
been fully ushered in. About a year after the tide had
thus turned a meeting of the State ``Grange'' was held
at the neighboring city of Elmira; and the leading speakers
made the university and its agricultural college an
object of scoffing which culminated in a resolution
denouncing both, and urging the legislature to revoke our
charter. At this a bright young graduate of Cornell, an
instructor in the agricultural department, who happened
to be present, stood up manfully, put a few pertinent
questions, found that none of the declaimers had visited the
university, declared that they were false to their duty in
not doing so, protested against their condemning the
institution unheard and unseen, and then and there invited
them all to visit the institution and its agricultural
department without delay. Next day this whole body of farmers,
with their wives, sons, and daughters, were upon us.
Everything was shown them. Knowing next to nothing
about modern appliances for instruction in science and
they were amazed at all they saw; the libraries,
the laboratories, and, above all, the natural-science
collections and models greatly impressed them. They were taken
everywhere, and shown not only our successes but our
failures; nothing was concealed from them, and, as a result,
though they ``came to scoff,'' they ``remained to
pray.'' They called a new session of their body, pledged
to us their support, and passed resolutions commending
our work and condemning the State legislature for not
doing more in our behalf. That was the turning-point for
the agricultural department; and from that day to this
the legislature has dealt generously with us, and the
influence of the department for good throughout the State
has been more and more widely acknowledged.
CHAPTER XXII
But this was only a part of the system. From the first
I have urged the fact above mentioned, namely, that while
remission of instruction fees is a step in the right direction,
it is not sufficient; and I have always desired to see
some university recognize the true and sound principle
of free instruction in universities by CONSECRATING ALL
MONEYS RECEIVED FROM INSTRUCTION FEES TO THE CREATION
OF COMPETITIVE SCHOLARSHIPS AND FELLOWSHIPS, EACH OF WHICH
SHALL AMOUNT TO A SUM SUFFICIENT TO MEET, WITH ECONOMY, THE
LIVING EXPENSES OF A STUDENT. This plan I was enabled, in
considerable measure, to carry out by establishing the
competitive scholarships in each Assembly district; and
later, as will be seen in another chapter, I was enabled, by
a curious transformation of a calamity into a blessing, to
carry it still further by establishing endowed scholarships
and fellowships. These latter scholarships, each, as a
general rule, of two hundred and fifty dollars a year, were
awarded to those who passed the best examinations and
maintained the best standing in their classes; while the
fellowships, each of the value of from four to five hundred
dollars a year, were awarded to the seniors of our own or
other universities who had been found most worthy of
them. In the face of considerable opposition I set this
system in motion at Cornell; and its success leads me to
hope that it will be further developed, not only there, but
elsewhere. Besides this, I favored arrangements for
remitting instruction fees and giving aid to such students as
really showed promising talent, and who were at the time
needy. To this end a loan fund was created which has
been carefully managed and has aided many excellent
men through the university courses.[7] Free instruction,
carried out in accordance with the principle and plan
above sketched, will, I feel sure, prove of great value to
our country. Its effect is to give to the best and brightest
young men, no matter how poor, just the chance they
need; and not as a matter of charity, but as a matter of
wise policy. This is a system which I believe would be
fraught with blessings to our country, securing advanced
education to those who can profit by it, and strengthening
their country by means of it.
CHAPTER XXIII
CHAPTER XXIV
But there was still much hope of inducing the main heirs
to allow the purpose of Mrs. Fiske to be carried out. Without
imputing any evil intentions to any person, I fully
believe--indeed, I may say I KNOW--that, had the matter
been placed in my hands, this vast endowment would have
been saved to us; but it was not so to be. Personal
complications had arisen between the main heir and two of
our trustees which increased the embarrassments of the
situation. It is needless to go into them now; let all that
be buried; but it may at least be said that day and night I
labored to make some sort of arrangement between the
principal heir and the university, and finally took the
steamer for Europe in order to meet him and see if some
arrangement could be made. But personal bitterness had
entered too largely into the contest, and my efforts were
in vain. Though our legal advisers insisted that the
university was sure of winning the case, we lost it in every
court--first in the Supreme Court of the State, then in the
Court of Appeals, and finally in the Supreme Court of the
United States. To me all this was most distressing. The
creation of such a library would have been the
culmination of my work; I could then have sung my Nunc
dimittis. But the calamity was not without its
compensations. When the worst was known, Mr. Henry W. Sage,
a lifelong friend of Mr. McGraw and of Mrs. Fiske, came
to my house, evidently with the desire to console me. He
said: ``Don't allow this matter to prey upon you; Jenny
shall have her library; it shall yet be built and well
endowed.'' He was true to his promise. On the final
decision against us, he added to his previous large gifts to the
university a new donation of over six hundred thousand
dollars, half of which went to the erection of the present
library building, and the other half to an endowment fund.
Professor Fiske also joined munificently in enlarging the
library, adding various gifts which his practised eye
showed him were needed, and, among these, two collections,
one upon Dante and one in Romance literature, each
the best of its kind in the United States. Mr. William
Sage also added the noted library in German literature
of Professor Zarncke of Leipsic; and various others
contributed collections, larger or smaller, so that the library
has become, as a whole, one of the best in the country. As
I visit it, there often come back vividly to me remembrances
of my college days, when I was wont to enter the
Yale library and stand amazed in the midst of the sixty
thousand volumes which had been brought together during
one hundred and fifty years. They filled me with awe.
But Cornell University has now, within forty years from
its foundation, accumulated very nearly three hundred
thousand volumes, many among them of far greater value
than anything contained in the Yale library of my day;
and as I revise these lines comes news that the will of
Professor Fiske, who recently died at Frankfort-on-the-Main,
gives to the library all of his splendid collections in Italian
history and literature at Florence, with the addition of
nearly half a million of dollars.
CHAPTER XXV
CONCLUDING YEARS--1881-1885
PART V
CHAPTER XXVI
Yet even under this new board the exposition had not
been a success; and it had been finally wound up in a very
unsatisfactory way, many people complaining that their
exhibits had not been returned to them--among these a
French sculptor of more ambition than repute, who had
sent a plaster cast of some sort of allegorical figure to
which he attributed an enormous value. Having sought
in vain for redress in America, he returned to Europe and
there awaited the coming of some one of the directors;
and the first of these whom he caught was no less a person
than Greeley himself, who, soon after arriving in Paris,
was arrested for the debt and taken to Clichy prison.
CHAPTER XXVIII
CHAPTER XXIX
But one morning his paper gave out, and for lack of it
he took up a boxwood paper-knife lying near and began
work on it. First he decorated the handle in a sort of
rococo way, and then dashed off on the blade, with his pen,
a very spirited head--a bourgeois physiognomy somewhat
in Gavarni's manner. But as he could not tear the
paper-knife into bits, and did not care to take it away, he
left it upon the table. This was my chance. Immediately
after the session I asked the director-general to allow me
to carry it off as a souvenir; he assented heartily, and so
I possess a picture which I saw begun, continued, and
ended by one of the greatest of French painters.
So, too, again and again, when traveling in the old days
on the top of a diligence through village after village in
France, where the people were commemorating the patron
saint of their district, I have passed through crowds of
men, women, and children seated by the roadside drinking
wine, cider, and beer, and, so far as one could see, there
was no drunkenness; certainly none of the squalid, brutal,
swinish sort. It may indeed be said that, in spite of light
stimulants, drunkenness has of late years increased in
France, especially among artisans and day laborers. If
this be so, it comes to strengthen my view. For the main
reason will doubtless be found in the increased prices of
light wines, due to vine diseases and the like, which have
driven the poorer classes to seek far more noxious beverages.
CHAPTER XXX
AS MINISTER TO GERMANY--1879-1881
Fortunately for the United States and for me, there was
in the ministry of foreign affairs, when I arrived, one of
the most admirable men I have ever known in such a
position: Baron von B<u:>low. He came of an illustrious
family, had great influence with the old Emperor William,
with Parliament, and in society; was independent, large
in his views, and sincerely devoted to maintaining the
best relations between his country and ours. In cases such
as those just referred to he was very broad-minded; and
in one of the first which I had to present to him, when
I perhaps showed some nervousness, he said, ``Mr.
Minister, don't allow cases of this kind to vex you; I had
rather give the United States two hundred doubtful cases
every year than have the slightest ill-feeling arise between
us.'' This being the fact, it was comparatively easy to
deal with him. Unfortunately, he died early during my
stay, and some of the ministers who succeeded him had
neither his independence nor his breadth of view.
SIR: We are going to have a fancy fair for the benefit of the
---- Church in this town, and we are getting ready some autograph
bed-quilts. I have sent you a package of small squares of
cotton cloth, which please take to the Emperor William and his
wife, also to Prince Bismarck and the other princes and leading
persons of Germany, asking them to write their names on them
and send them to me as soon as possible.
Yours truly,
---- ----.
P.S. Tell them to be sure to write their names in the middle
of the pieces, for fear that their autographs may get sewed in.
CHAPTER XXXI
After this and much other pleasant chat, he put out his
hand and said, ``Auf Wiedersehen''; and so we parted,
each to take his own way into eternity.
CHAPTER XXXII
MY RECOLLECTIONS OF BISMARCK--1879-1881
I may say here that there had not then been fully
developed in our country that monstrous absurdity which
we have seen in these last few years--national conventions
of the two parties trying to deliberate in the midst of
audiences of twelve or fifteen thousand people; a vast
mob in the galleries, often noisy, and sometimes hysterical,
frequently seeking to throw the delegates off their
bearings, to outclamor them, and to force nominations
upon them.
From time to time, the town, and even the empire, was
aroused by news that he was in a fit of illness or ill
nature, and insisting on resigning. On such occasions
the old Emperor generally drove to the chancellor's palace
in the Wilhelmstrasse, and, in his large, kindly, hearty
way, got the great man out of bed, put him in good humor,
and set him going again. On one of these occasions,
happening to meet Rudolf von Gneist, who had been, during a
part of Bismarck's career, on very confidential terms with
him, I asked what the real trouble was. ``Oh,'' said Gneist,
``he has eaten too many plover's eggs (Ach, er hat zu viel
Kibitzeier gegessen).'' This had reference to the fact
that certain admirers of the chancellor in the neighborhood
of the North Sea were accustomed to send him, each
year, a large basket of plovers' eggs, of which he was very
fond; and this diet has never been considered favorable
to digestion.