Preface
Ohio claims eight presidents (one Whig and seven Republicans) who served during the period from 1841 to 1923: William Harrison (1841), ulysses s. grant (1869–1877), Rutherford Hayes (1877–1881), James garfield (1881), benjamin Harrison (1889–1893), William mckinley (1897–1901), William Taft (1909–1913), and Warren Harding (1921–1923). colonial virginia claimed most of the lands in southern Ohio at the time of William Harrison’s birth so he is often claimed by virginia. Of the five presidents that fought in the civil War, all were from Ohio. four died in office—garfield and mckinley were assassinated by terrorists, William Harrison died of pneumonia after one month in office, and Warren Harding died of a heart attack. They were all bound by the evolving frontier philosophy of Ohio republicanism.
Historians’ viewpoint is as follows: “no Ohio-born president enjoys such a strong [compared to those from virginia] reputation as a custodian of the executive office. Of the seven Ohio born presidents [excluding William Harrison, who was born in virginia], only Hayes and mckinley are rated average or slightly better by students of the presidency; indeed, Ohio presidents are often perceived as a rather dull and colorless lot.”1 in c-span’s extensive 2017 survey of presidential historians, only William mckinley (at 16) was in the top half of presidents ranked. The c-span survey reflects the opinion of most polls in regard to the Ohio presidents. Two of these leaders, William Harrison and James garfield, were in office too short a time for a complete critical evaluation but received low rankings. Two others, Warren Harding and benjamin Harrison, are often considered among the worst. A recent historian says of benjamin Harrison: “no one even bothered to type up his civil War letters, most of them written in pencil are now fading away in the stacks at the library of congress.” 2
This view of the individual Ohio presidents may be valid, but as a group, these men represented a political movement best called Ohio republicanism
that dominated America from 1850 to 1929. All of these Ohio presidents shared asimilar culture and educational experience. The period from the first to last administration of an Ohio president saw a farming nationbecome the world’s leading industrial power. America would achieve world leadership in every segment of industry and business. The nation’s technology changed the world. On the social front, America endedslavery and started on the long process of granting full civil rights to all citizens.
i have spent more than forty years researching and documenting America’s pantheon of industrial leaders. before i can close the project, there remains one section of that pantheon to be completed. A theme appeared throughout my research: the industrial, governmental, and economic policies born in Ohio that dominated our nation for many decades. examining this subject required a study of the presidents from Ohio. These men represented a movement and philosophy born on America’s frontier. Their viewpoint resulted from a confluence of nationalism, populism, economic growth, public education, civil rights, and social values best represented by the cultural roots of Ohio. There indeed was a strong philosop hical bond among Ohio presidents rooted in their common experience. This philosophical link is still reflected in Ohio voters.
What is unique about the Ohio presidents is that their industrial policies and social beliefs formed a legacy that spanned over 100 years. from 1860 to 1930, Ohio republicanism dominated politics across the nation. The simple definition of that legacy might be called Ohio republic anism (small r), which referred to the American republic versus a political party. While this belief system was integral to the Republican Party of the period, it cannot be viewed through the eyes of the Republican Party of today. Ohio republicanism was an alliance of social, christian, and conservative economics. initially, the philosophy was populism in search of a party, including elements from the Whig, democrat, and Republican parties. At times it even embraced democrats such as President grover cleveland. Ohio republicanism formed party politics. evolving from Harrison to Harding, this viewpoint shaped presidents rather than being their product. it was a philosophy based on the frontier beliefs of Ohio and the American midwest. We shall see that while Ohio republicanism is remembered for prot ectionism and economic growth, its foundation included social values such as abolition and temperance. Ohio republicanism would not fit perfectly in either of today’s political parties. it was, however, a perfect reflection of American frontier values and culture in the victorian age. Ohio republicanism embodied the nationalism and frontier movement away from big government, with two exceptions—federal control of international trade and national defense, which are clearly delineated in the constitution as part of the federal government.
The term republicanism is derived from Article iv, section 4, of the con-
stitution: “The united states shall guarantee to every state in this union a Republican form of government, and shall protect each of them against invasion;and on Application of the legislature, or of the executive (when the legislature cannot be convened), against domestic violence.” The founders had a clear view of a republic as a government in which supreme power was vested in the people, who exer cised it directly or indirectly through a system of representation. still, a republic limited federal power to the assurance of basic rights, defense, and trade, referring most other issues to the states. Ohio republicanism in many ways completed the vision of the founders. The philosophy was on the forefront of the resolution of slavery on bloody American battlegrounds. in its American application, the idea of a republic came to mean a limited form of government and regulation, but also one where the government was responsive to the will of the people and protective of their rights. The reader should not try to define Ohio republicanism as a political system, but more correctly as a frontier populist movement. The movement was not defined or even created by the legacy of Ohio presidents. instead, it came of the people. While Ohio republicanism can be viewed as an ideology, it had a flexibility from its populist base. Often it was the movement that changed the Ohio presidents, rather than the presidents changing it.
The ideal of Ohio republicanism was rooted in nationalism and christian morals. basic christian morals of the time were believed to be universal and consistent with all religions. government existed strictly for all the American people. Out of this belief came the idea that it was the government’s duty to protect American jobs first. On the moral level, Ohio republicanism meant civil rights for all the people, thus providing the deep roots of abolition. like any other philosophy, it extended beyond its vision at times, as in its inclusion of the temperance movement. We will see that Ohio republicanism was bigger than any political party, although for the time frame it was embodied in the Republican Party of the 1800s, the home of the presidents from Ohio. The reader can assume that the legacy of these presidents is reflected in the term Ohio republicanism. The reader should also not look at the dominance of Ohio presidencies as some lockstep allegiance to a philosophy these l eaders modified, rebuffed, and lost elections for. A type of America- and constitution-first philosophy remained the core of Ohio republicanism. The lifetime of the movement matches that of liberal progressivism since the 1930s, but it did ebb and wane over time. Ohio republicanism ended not so much in failure as in a shift in society and environment.
On the economic front, guided by belief in American prosperity first, Ohio republicanism proved flexible to the times. The economic policy evolved, as did American industry and trade. The philosophy’s frontier social roots of morals, civil rights, women’s rights, education for all, and at least a limited spread of alcohol remained constant. it was a unique relationship of
economic and social issues that gave Ohio republicanism its strength as a political movement. its successful economic results allowed it to maintain a very conservative social agenda against a progressive trend of the times. While 20th-century progressivism would eventually replace it as the national view, Ohio republicanism’s midwestern roots still exist to this day.
Ohio republicanism had a distinct and constitutional approach to government. Ohio had been populated by those running from government control, and thus the state’s republicanism supported a limited role for government, particularly at the federal level. government regulation should come through the legislative branch and be open to judicial review. This variation of federalism accepted federal authority over state authority when necessary, but it preferred such jurisdiction to be driven by the legislative branch versus the executive. Ohio republicanism saw the president as an enforcer of laws made in congress, not as an active regulator of society.
There are roots of Ohio republicanism in both parties of today, but it is best for the reader to look at the parties of the 1800s and early 1900s as distinct entities. indeed, we shall see that Ohio republicanism evolved from the whole spectrum of political factions driven by populism. This political ideology and the Ohio presidents’ legacy constituted a frontier movement, a cocktail of nationalism, state loyalty, populism, moralism, patriotism, technology, and capitalism. Ohio republicanism’s policies varied, but it was an America-first philosophy. it was the result of environment rather than an academic viewpoint or policy. it was not a top-driven ideology, instead reflecting the beliefs of Ohio’s people, but it proved adaptable to all Americans. The presidents from Ohio all held these beliefs to a lesser or greater degree and brought this ideal to the nation. it was reinforced by the public school system, religious ethics, and the people’scapitalistic drive. most of t hese factors, such as the public school system, abolition, temperance, and economic expansion, were birthed or deeply rooted in Ohio.
The old roots of Ohio republicanism have surfaced from time to time in the legacy of nationalism, protectionism, and moral principles. These beliefs often caused voters to cross political lines as the Reagan democrats did. more recently, the protectionist-voter vein sur faced with donald Trump, as neither party offered a protectionist platform. The geography of these voters followed the historical roots of Ohio republicanism, as did the voters’ unusual focus on jobs, nationalism, and ethical principles. Ohio republicanism demanded high morals, christian sourced, but not requiring allegiance to any denomination or sect. Of the Ohio presidents, garfield and William Harrison were christian with no affiliation, benjamin Harrison and Hayes were Presbyterian, mckinley was methodist, Harding was baptist, and Taft was a unitarian.
Ohio republicanism is and always has been a populist reflection of voter
trends changing with the events and the times. That populism often confounds political analysts. Theodore Roosevelt noted: “i think there is only one thing in the world i can’t understand, and that is Ohio politics.” 3 And yet the Ohio voter is often the harbinger of political success. Ohio presidents embraced the populism without trying to lead or form it, and that is their real legacy.
Ohio’s presidential legacy is unique in that it embraces more than any one president. it represents a common theme and a philosophy. The Ohio presidents were not a monolithic group in religion or politics, but they clearly were sons of Ohio. Ohio republicanism was not always in lockstep with the initial views of Ohio’s presidents, but it would change those leaders. The state’s presidential legacy evolved into a national view of moral and economic direction best categorized as Ohio republicanism. One fact that always struck me as odd as i grew up in Pittsburgh and managed in the steel industry was the existence of a loyal remnant of Republicans in democratic burghs. A few Republican steelworkers, such as my grandfather, traced their party allegiance to the days of William mckinley and William Taft. such loyalty was highly unusual for union members, who were often strict democrats in a democratic town and industry. even more amazingly, these Republican steelworkers were also catholic. These remnant Republicans seemed more politically aligned with the democrats of the time based on demographics. The steelworkers of my day looked to the Republican Party as the party of the bosses. it would be thirty years before i gave the matter much further thought. i never understood this historical oddity until i researched William mckinley. The latent votes of Ohio republicanism arose from time to time, as seen in the allegiances of the Reagan democrats, the blue dog democrats, the sanders movement, and the Trump populists in Ohio and the midwest.
The Republican remnant of steelworkers was part of a great political alliance built on American manufacturing in the 1800s by a line of Republican presidents from Ohio. President mckinley solidified this alliance into a political force. William mckinley had come from a middle-class family of ironworkers. He believed that a strong American industry was the beating heart of our democracy, and he had fought for protective tariffs from the beginning of his political career. no matter how hard the criticism, he never wavered from his position on such tariffs. mckinley found few allies in colleges, the merchant class, bankers, and some farming areas, but he built new alliances in the middle and working classes and with manufacturing owners. He politically united labor and the bosses for the good of industry and America, and he struck a moral chord in the middle class as well. Regions of the old Ohio republicanism surfaced again in 2016 in the industrial midwest. Ohio republicanism was a conservative movement rooted in populism, and the origin of that legacy is the subject of this book.
for many, tariffs and protectionism were the hallmark of Ohio repub-
licanism, and they might have seemed to be an expansion of government or of a strong central government. However, the reader should note that such tariffs were set through congress, not the executive. Ohio republicanism demanded a legislative approach, and it rationalized, based on the constitution, that defense, civil rights, and control of interstate trade were the only matters where a strong federal government was required.
Ohio republicanism supported states’ rights with the glaring exception of civil rights. The school of thought did not support state authority in the case of such freedoms before or after the civil War. in fact, Ohio republicanism had deep roots in the abolition movement, maintaining even after the civil War that the federal government should maintain the rights of former slaves. moralism was the only factor that trumped the economic and political views, and this circumstance often made the Ohio voter unpredictable.
The Ohio republicanism and presidential legacy embraced the missing implementations of the nation’s founders, such as abolition, radical equality for all, and a moral compass for the nation. Ohio republicanism would supply the patch in our constitution for issues the founders passed on, such as slavery. At times, including during the temperance movement, that moral compass pointed in too extreme a direction for the nation. This Ohio legacy of moralism was infused into America through the famous McGuffey Readers, which were born in the heart of Ohio and used as the nation’s textbooks for almost a hundred years. it was with the didactic and patriotic McGu ffey Readers that Ohio presidents began their education.4 maybe more importantly, the McGuffey Readers became a standardized text for the nation’s youth, spreading the philosophy of Ohio republicanism across the country. Ohio’s presidential legacy defined American exceptionalism in a moralistic view. exceptionalism was not seen as national pride but as national humility; in fact, our success was not so much an achievement as a blessing. Of course, this belief in a manifest destiny was at times viewed as arrogance. but in terms of the Ohio legacy, this direction and blessing was natural and god given.
While their moral legacy reflected the agrarian society of Jefferson, the Ohio presidents’ economic philosophy was Hamiltonian, believing industrial growth was part of America’s manifest destiny. They proved to all to be early adopters of technology. The Ohio presidents also believed in American-led internationalism versus today’s globalization. most of them were involved in the expansion of the canal system that brought economic prosperity to Ohio. later, Presidents grant, Hayes, garfield, Harrison, and mckinley would play key roles in the building of the Panama canal. four of the men even worked on the canal system in their youth. All Ohio presidents supported and promoted some of America’s greatest world’s fairs, such as those in 1876 in Philadelphia, in 1896 in chicago, in 1901 in buffalo, and in 1904 in st. louis.
Rutherford Hayes was the first president to install telephones in the White House. As President garfield struggled for weeks after being shot, Alexander bell tried an electric induction coil to help doctors find the bullet that had wounded him. mckinley was the first president to drive an automobile, and Taft created a national automobile club shortly thereafter. mckinley was also the first president to rid e in an electric car (it would be the ambulance used after he was shot). A worried mckinley aide asked inventor Thomas edison to rush an X-ray machine to buffalo to find the stray bullet in the president’s body. The machine arrived but wasn’t used. Warren Harding often joined Thomas edison and Henry ford in their famous cross-country model T trips. Harding signed the federal Highway Act of 1921, and from 1921 to 1923, the federal government spent $162 million on America’s highway system. Harding was the first to have his speeches carried by radio, and he was the first to have radios installed in the White House.
The Ohio presidents reflected the early immigration into Ohio from the original thirteen states. These immigrants and their views formed the foundation of Ohio republicanism. This immigration was driven by a desire for even more freedom from government regulations and taxes. The state’s new residents included early religious migrants fleeing the strict rules of new england’s churches. many others came in the 1790s, fleeing the whiskey taxes of the new federal government. not surprisingly, Ohio republicanism was deeply based on individual rights over government. Originally, virginia, Pennsylvania, and connecticut claimed Ohio. in 1780, congress incorporated the area into federal land known as the northwest Territory. After the American Revolution, Ohio was a true frontier, and it would be contested by the native American tribes. early settlers were fur trappers, traders, and those seeking the true freedom of government offered by the frontier. many were seeking freedom from taxes, such as the aforementioned federal tax on whiskey making. Others looked for cheap land. new england immigrants were deeply religious and of english stock. from Pennsylvania came governmenthating and freedom-loving scotch-irish. german farmers looking for more land also came from Pennsylvania. virginia was a source of prospectors, retired military, and politicians. from connecticut came those wanting to form new congregational churches of their own. new yorkers came searching for new business opportunities.
The first major wave of immigration in the 20th century came from new england. connecticut had called northeast Ohio the Western Reserve, and immigrants of Puritan stock were seeking new congregations of more freethinking calvinist philosophy. many of the Ohio presidents, including grant and garfield, could trace their families back to the Puritans of the 1600s. Others from new england poured in to Ohio in the 1810s while looking for better economic conditions. Politically, these early immigrants were antislavery
federalists, and they formed the early roots of the temperance movement. The families of Presidents grant, Hayes, Taft, Harding, and garfield came from this group. Amazingly, the vote from Ohio’s Western Reserve still tracks closely with that of connecticut.5
in the 1790s, Ohio received a steady influx of Pennsylvania scotch-irish seeking freedom from the federal taxes on whiskey and iron. These immigrants fiercely opposed government authority and taxes, yet on the local level t hey imposed taxes or community service to ensure education for all. Here again, we see social values trumping political beliefs. Politically, these early immigrants were initially Jeffersonian, but they would eventually become Whigs supporting economic and industrial growth. President William mckinley’s family came from th is stream of settlers.
virginia supplied many immigrants to southern Ohio. Presidents William and benjamin Harrison’s family came from virginia, which tended to be Jeffersonian. settlers from virginia tended to be ambivalent about slavery but were willing to listen to the people. They integrated well into Ohio and often married into abolitionist families in the cincinnati area, as did members of the Harrison family. This stream of immigrants tended to find a place in the emerging Whig Party of the 1820s. The Whig value of economic growth was a core value of all of Ohio presidents and the movement of Ohio republicanism.
most of the Ohio presidents came from strongly abolitionist roots and old national Whig Party roots. it would be the Ohio Whigs with their abolition and temperance views that fractur ed the Whig Party and formed its replacement, the Republican Party. The glue that unified Ohioans in the Republican Party was abolition and antislavery sentiment. Abolition pulled in the majority of former Whigs, but it also pulled in Jeffersonian democrats, Quakers, and the shakers of central Ohio. still, the Republican Party remained committed to economic growth. even with the shortages of the civil War, lincoln demanded a buy-American-first policy.
Ohio developed its own America-first economic approach, but the plan did not involve isolationism. The state was accommodating to international trade, from which its farmers had prospered. As a voting bloc and nation within a nation, Ohio was its own mix of agriculture and manufacturing. The canal system and road building of the 1820s had made Ohio an international player. in fact, the economic drive for the canal was to open up eastern and european markets to the state’s farmers. by the 1850s, Ohio was a leading manufacturing state, iron producer, and agricultural exporter.
Presidents mckinley and Taft were descendants of iron-making industrial families. The most enduring legacy of the Ohio presidents’ latent founding ideals was the creation of Alexander Hamilton’s vision of a manufacturing empire. The Whigs’ roots were deep, following the progressive industrialism
of Henry clay. The Whig Party had come to national prominence by its support of the united states bank, a national canal system, and a scientific approach to pro–American trade policies. The united states bank had been the source of credit and capital for regional economic growth, particularly in the West. Ohio republicanism evolved into the world’s most successful approach to manufacturing and trade. it would be an economic strategy that guided the united states from 1860 to 1930 and created a golden age of American business. The foundation of Ohio manufacturing policy for the nation was one of scientifically managed trade built on the core principles of nationalism, job protection, protection of critical and basic industry, congressional oversight of profiteering, reciprocity in trade agreements, and an acceptance of internationalism, not isolationism. Ohio presidents ulysses s. grant, Rutherford Hayes, James garfield, benjamin Harrison, and William mckinley developed a balanced trade system far more complex than the narrow historical view of extreme tariffs. This scientific approach to tariffs would fund national economic projects and protect American industries. The policy brought Ohio industries such as steel, glass, iron, and heavy manufacturing into international dominance. Protection of American industry and laborers would become a core value of Ohio republicanism.
President grant improved on lincoln’s protectionist policy to strengthen American industry in areas of critical needs through tariffs. President Hayes expanded civil rights while continuing lincoln’s and grant’s economic p olicies. garfield, Harrison, and mckinley fully developed the Hamiltonian policy to protect infant and job-creating businesses, manufacturing everything from steel beams to Heinz pickles. garfield and mckinley applied scientific rates to tariffs with reciprocity agreements that expanded American markets while protecting home industries. mckinley’s fully evolved system created a permanent congressiona l Tariff commission to ensure capitalists were not pocketing the profits but investing in jobs and plant expansion. Annual reviews could result in reduced tariff rates for profiteering. finally, Presidents mckinley and Taft applied reciprocity requirements to international trade agreements, which limited the possibility of trade wars. This nationalistic approach respected the global nature of the market. Presidents Hayes, Harrison, mckinley, Taft and Harding maintained the industrial home market while investing in import growth through the building of the Panama canal, the merchant marine, and world’s fairs.
To the modern conservative, the use of tariffs would appear to be an extension of government regulation, not a move inherent to the roots of less government and Ohio republicanism. However, the initial Whig thinking was that the only rightful government regulation was in international trade and defense. The use of tariffs was based on the commerce clause of the u.s. constitution, which describes an enumerated power listed in Article i,
section 8, clause 3. The passage states that the united states congress shall have power “To regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several states, and with the indian Tribes.” early Americans were more familiar with the use of trade as an economic weapon. england had used it against the colonists for decades. in the years after the War of independence, england used dumping to successfully destroy the American iron industry. iron makers in western Pennsylvania, Ohio, kentucky, connecticut, and new Jersey never forgot the economic destruction leveled against them by trade. Thus popular support for tariffs rose, peaking with the mckinley administration. no Ohio president represented the story of Ohio and Ohio republicanism better than William mckinley (1897–1901). His family emigrated from the eastern states to avoid government regulation and taxes. The son of an iron furnace manager who lost his job to a wave of deindustrialization caused by cheap imports, mckinley was a civil War veteran and a civil rights advocate. He believed the role of the American government was to ensure American workers’ prosperity before pursuing geopolitical goals. mckinley was one of a few presidents whom factory workers and owners admired. At his untimely death, his popularity and that of Ohio republicanism had reached a peak. The deep roots of Ohio republicanism and the economic Whig foundation can still be seen in elections of today. These metaphysical ruins of great political parties and politicians can still be felt in Ohio. The ghosts of Ohio presidents are real, and they often haunt politics today. These ghosts are apolitical but anchored in a belief in American manufacturing and traditional values. Ohioans have voted for both of today’s political parties over the years. it is not surprising, however, that the regional results of the 2016 election reflect these ghosts. in fact, both parties’ latent views on trade in 2016 echo the Ohio presidents and their vision of Ohio republicanism. since 1993, i have traveled routinely through the heart of Ohio from Toledo to my family in Pittsburgh by back roads that take me through the center of Whig and Ohio republicanism. for years in election season, i counted political signs, but never did they augur a trend till 2016. in 2016, there was an explosion of Trump signs, most handmade. They increased to a peak in the youngstown area. “make Ameri ca great again” had clearly hit a nerve, and i knew something was very different this time. This change was about the hope of industrial greatness.
ChapterOne DeathattheSummit
“Am I shot?” These were the simple words of one of America’s most popular presidents after the second bullet entered his body. 1 The blood on his hands answered the question before anyone could respond. Only seconds before, he had given his lapel carnation to a little girl, since she had waited so long in the receiving line at the Buffalo World’s Fair (Pan-American Exposition) of 1901. The audience at President McKinley’s speech that day numbered over 50,000, a huge crowd for the times. As President McKinley fell into the arms of a secret service agent, a black waiter quickly struck the shooter, knocking him to the floor. Within moments, the assassin came under attack from both soldiers and police. 2 Though mortally wounded, McKinley would not join his friend and fellow Ohio president James Garfield in the pantheon of dead presidents for several more days. It had been only twenty years ago in September that President James Garfield died in office from an assassin’s bullet. More than any other Ohio president, McKinley represented the ideology of a movement known as Ohio republicanism.
As the electric ambulance rushed the conscious president to the Exposition Hospital near the fairgrounds, he expressed several concerns. First, he worried about his wife and how she might take the news. Second, he did not want the assassin beaten or even lynched as the crowd wanted. Third, he expressed regret for the trouble his shooting would cause the Pan-American Exposition. The event was to highlight America’s debut as a world power, and McKinley had been looking forward to it for years. The Pan-American Exposition World’s Fair was to introduce the American empire to the world as the Great Exposition had done for England in 1851. Even more, the fair would be the triumph of the earlier philosophy of Ohio presidents Grant, Benjamin Harrison, Hayes and Garfield, who had envisioned a South American canal to reduce travel time from the West Coast to the East Coast. Moreover, the festivities would celebrate the opening of the Panama Canal, which
Artist’s rendering of Czolgosz shooting President William McKinley with a concealed revolver at Pan-American Exposition reception, September 6, 1901. Library of Congress.
cut weeks of travel time and added more muscle to America’s industrial might. These were the type of economic improvements rooted in the philosophy of Ohio republicanism.
The Panama Canal had been the personal dream of an earlier Ohio president, James Garfield, who had organized a canal conference in 1881. In the 1840s, a teenage Garfield had worked on the Ohio and Erie Canal as a mule boy. Mules pulled the canal boats. Garfield knew firsthand the economic prosperity the canals had brought to Ohio—no other American state had prospered on that scale. Similarly, Garfield had believed that the Panama Canal would bring prosperity to America. In 1877, he had become minority leader for the Rutherford Hayes administration and had first talked of building a canal to cut the time of shipping from the East Coast t o the West Coast of America. President Hayes and Ohio congressman Garfield would help position a young congressman, William McKinley, as their expert on trade and industrialization. This Ohio troika of politicians and their ideas would become the foundation of an industrial policy for the United States for decades.
McKinley had been James Garfield’s apostle on the canal when they had served together in Congress on the Ways and Means Committee. McKinley’s
One. Death at the Summit 13
legacy dated to the 1880s, when as chair of the Ways and Means Committee, he had initiated the era of expansion for American industry and American trade. The September 5, 1901, speech in Buffalo was to mark the final phase of a vision that had built an American industrial empire. The bulldog of protectionism had just completed that notable address at the Buffalo PanAmerican Exposition, heralding a significant change in America’s view of industry’s role. The McKinley trade tariffs had brought an unheard-of level of prosperity to American industry in the last quarter of the 19th century. The problem now was the American market alone could not drive the industrial growth of the past 30 years into the future. That development was the result of a long line of Ohio politicians’ determination to protect, expand, and build a lasting legacy for American industry.
From his youth, William McKinley had championed Henry Clay’s belief in industrial republicanism, which blended Jeffersonian creativity, Emersonian self-reliance, and Hamiltonian finance with Washingtonian patriotism. The American industry knew no rival and accepted no competitor under the McKinley Tariff. The American steel industry overt ook the production and productivity of British steel, which was the symbol of Victorian industrial might, by the late 1890s. McKinley’s protectionism was unabashed Americanism, which he viewed more as an economic Monroe Doctrine. His protectionism was a political alliance of big business and the American workingman to secure the country’s industrial destiny. He believed the next world empire would not be one of militaristic strength, but one of industrial might. Thus the president’s plan reflected a global, economic Manifest Destiny. To the cheers of the American public that day in Buffalo, McKinley prepared to launch the final phase of industrial conquest—world markets.
He took the grand platform that September Thursday to note the success of his belief in protectionism and Ohio Industrialism. McKinley roared with pride:
My fellow citizens, trade statistics indicate that this country is in a state-of unexampled prosperity … they show that we are utilizing our fields and forests and mines that we are furnishing profitable employment to the millions of working men throughout the United States, bringing comfort and happiness to their homes and making it possible to lay by savings for old age and disability…. Our capacity to produce has developed so enormously and our products have so multiplied that the problem of more markets requires our urgent and immediate attention…. By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home production we shall extend the outlets for our increasing surplus…. Reciprocity is the natural outgrowth of our wonderful industrial development under the domestic policy now firmly established…. Reciprocity treaties are in harmony with the spirit of the times; measures of retaliation are not.3
Garfield, as a member of the Ways and Means Committee, and then McKinley, as its chairman, had designed American manufacturing policy
The Ohio Presidents
based on Ohio republicanism. McKinley had passed his famous Tariff Act of 1890 under the presidency of Ohioan Benjamin Harrison. Both men were committed to protecting American jobs and industry, yet the eastern blueblood banking wing of the party objected to high tariffs. Bankers such as J. P. Morgan were making millions from international trade. Morgan would lead an internal break with the Harriso n and McKinley wing in the 1890 congressional and 1892 presidential elections. Morgan’s support of Democrat Grover Cleveland would lead to a defeat of William McKinley in the congressional election and of Benjamin Harrison in the presidential election in 1892. For McKinley, it was the only major election he ever lost. The defeat would, however, stiffen McKinley’s support for a scientific approach to fair trade. He added the concepts of reciprocity and increased exports to his balanced trade approach. At Buffalo, McKinley was ready to open a new door to international trade, but his policy was still rooted in nationalism.
In the fair speech, McKinley proposed a rebuilding of the U.S. merchant marine, which had been one of the few casualties of McKinley protectionism. With an expanded merchant marine, he hoped to increase American exports to new levels. He had argued for the building of the Panama Canal (called the Isthmian Canal, as Panama was not a country at the time), which was now the foundation of his new trade policy. McKinley had also created a vision for a Pacific cable for communications. He had defined the concept of reciprocity in trade as follows: “By sensible trade arrangements which will not interrupt our home production, we shall extend the outlets for our increasing surplus.” 4 Reciprocity allowed an “America First” economic philosophy. McKinley’s trade agreements were economic based, and they represented the ultimate of the Whig economic and the Hamiltonian manufacturing view for America.
After McKinley’s death, trade reciprocity became an international political tool until the 1930s. The new approach would fracture the Republican Party along old fault lines. Nations such as Germany would try to emulate McKinley’s nationalist approach to industry. The new breed of Republicans, the old-line Democrats, and the Edwardian industrialists saw American manufacturing and business as a trading chip in international politics. America therefore moved its focus from a home economy to an international political center. That economic boom had built great new industrial cities such as Buffalo, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, and Chicago. Ohio McKinley Republicans, however, hoped to maintain the domestic manufacturing growth. The East Coast Republicans with their bankers wanted all-out trade and had little feeling for protecting domestic manufacturing.
McKinley had chosen the jewel of America’s manufacturing cities to highlight his industrial philosophy. In 1901, Buffalo was the eighth-largest city in the United States and had some of the largest office buildings in the world.
Buffalo and Niagara Falls represented America’s greatest industrial achievement, supplying the power that would light the country. McKinley had visited Niagara Falls the day before his fatal speech at the World’s Fair. Only three years earlier, in 1897, the world’s greatest inventors had gathered at Buffalo’s exclusive Ellicott Club to celebrate the yoking of Niagara Falls to become America’s power source. Niagara Falls was supplying more electrical power than the world had ever known. German electrical engineer Professor Siemens estimated in 1888 that “the amount of water falling over Niagara is equal to 100,000,000 tons [of coal] an hour.” Sir William Siemens calculated that “if steam boilers could be erected vast enough to exhaust daily the whole coal output of the earth, the steam generated would barely suffice to pump back again the water flowing over Niagara Falls.”5 The power of waterfalls throughout the world remains preeminent in electrical generation, even today accounting for 25 percent of all power generated. McKinley’s visit that September focused on the great hydroelectric generators built by his friend George Westinghouse at his huge new factory. The Pan-American Exposition was a celebration of American technology exemplified by Buffalo’s industrial might. Its focus was to be the use of technology in everyday life. Ironically, the Exposition Hospital lacked electric lighting, and the X-ray machine from Thomas Edison’s laboratory on exhibition, which might have saved McKinley’s life, was never used.
McKinley had been a proponent of American technology from his earliest days in Congress. Ohio president Rutherford Hayes had encouraged him to study technology and business for his political base.6 President Hayes had been very close to the young congressman and often invited McKinley and his wife over to the White House to talk of the latest scientific developments. Hayes and McKinley had also been leaders of the temperance movement, a status that limited their social circles with the Washington elite and often made them look anti-progress. However, they were both supporters of high technology projects over the years. As governor of Ohio in 1775, Rutherford Hayes had promoted a major role for Ohio in the 1876 Centennial Exhibition, officially named the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine (Philadelphia World’s Fair). That fair had been the effort of another Ohio president—Ulysses S. Grant. As president, Hayes opened the Exposition of 1876, and Congressman McKinley joined in its praise. Hayes would first use many of the featured inventions, such as the telephone, in the White House and his Ohio home. McKinley had looked forward to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo as a highlight of his presidency. The fair would also feature the motion picture technology of Kodak and Edison. The first motion pictures of an American presidents were made at McKinley’s swearing in and funeral.
McKinley’s exposition speech at Buffalo had linked former Ohio pres-
idents Rutherford Hayes and James Garfield to future Ohio presidents William Taft and Warren Harding. The address expressed a philosophy of midwestern morals anchored to the regulation of national capitalism and the advancement of technology. These concepts would be the foundation of the Republican Party for years to come. However, this philosophy would also split the Republican Party until this day. The division centered on nationalistic capitalism versus global capitalism, and it also stemmed from midwestern moral values such as abolition, temperance, and civil rights promoted by early Ohio politicians. These socially conservative views did not sit well with the East Coast party elite. The party split also represented the divide between East Coast bankers and Midwest industrialists. America’s great New York banker J. P. Morgan had opposed McKinley’s nationalistic approach to trade to build American industry. Financiers such as Morgan loved free, borderless trade and made their money on total trade volume like a modern casino. Midwest industrialists preferred regional banks focused on domestic growth. Ohio politics and McKinley saw trade as building America, as did the great midwestern industrialists.
The problem in the Republican Party of the 1800s was that it needed compromise between east and west factions to win elections. Ohio and the Midwest industrial belt represented the party base and critical votes. The East Coast Republicans, however, held the necessary money to win. Starting with the presidency of Ulysses S. Grant, presidential tickets reflected the necessary accommodation of the two elements. McKinley, however, had created an industrial alliance of workers and wealthy business owners such as Mark Hanna, and this coalition required less compromise with eastern money and bankers. William McKinley had the backing to move forward on a policy that attracted immigrant blue-collar Democrats for the first time. Overall, big bankers represented the Washington elite and free trade. McKinley became the first president since Andrew Jackson to take on the Washington establishment. He would be one of a growing number of populists in both political parties.
McKinley had envisioned a new type of international trade, as trade relations would be based on reciprocity, not “free” trade. He would not trade high-paying American jobs, which he believed were the right of the nation’s democratic success, for cheap consumer goods. Those jobs had been made with American blood. Thus this philosophy clearly promoted American industrial expansion without any apologies. McKinley based his model on that of his friend and supporter, George Westinghouse, whose Pittsburgh workshops and workers supplied over 90 countries with railroad brakes and equipment. Such a model required the maintenance of a fragile alliance of business and labor. In his cerebration of free enterprise, McKinley realized that “the problem with capitalism is capitalists.”7 He had used his enormous
One. Death at the Summit 17
popularity to hold the coalition between business and labor together in the face of the capitalists’ abuses. Yet McKinley also espoused a simple philosophy based on the voters of his industrial hometown of Canton, Ohio. Simply put, the best things for American workers were high-paying long-term jobs, and the only way to secure and create jobs was through the expansion of business. It was this campaign slogan of “dinner-pail Republicanism” that was at the root of McKinley’s popularity, America’s industrial growth, and the Republican Party’s political success. McKinley’s vision of the great capitalistic alliance of labor and owners monitored by government sunk with his life signs that day in September. In fact, within a year after McKinley’s death, the breakdown of that alliance ushered in the great era of trust-busting. McKinley’s death did not come quickly. An emergency operation took place at the Exposition Hospital after the shooting, and when it was completed, McKinley was moved to the large home of the exposition’s president, John Milburn. The president would struggle for days with intermittent recoveries. By September 13, it was clear he would not survive. Urgent word was sent to Vice President Roosevelt, who was in the Adirondack wilderness in New York; a park ranger was sent to find him, since he was miles from any telegraph or telephone. Roosevelt’s vice presidency reflected internal party compromises. He had little in common with the philosophy of Ohio republicanism.
Future president Teddy Roosevelt was of the East Coast money wing of the Republican Party represented by Henry Cab ot Lodge. Roosevelt saw McKinley as a type of Ohio middle-class hillbilly. In a visit in 1899 to the McKinleys’ summer “White House” in Canton, Ohio, Roosevelt, then the vice president, looked down his nose at the simple house. McKinley had taken years to save enough money to buy his old, middle-class home on Canton’s Market Avenue. Though the president was very proud of his purchase, Teddy Roosevelt thought it was below the dignity of the office. McKinley appeared happier t han ever at his Canton home as he planned improvements and gardens. He noted: “I am happy as a child to have it back. It’s a fine old place.”8 Canton always had a restorative effect on McKinley’s wife, Ida, and that alone helped him relax. He loved to get up and walk, then have breakfast while reading the local newspaper. The evening could be spent on the front porch. The summer home was a reminder of McKinley’s middle-class roots and simple pleasures. The McKinleys made a few day trips for picnics and relaxation, enjoying the nearby small lakes and rural towns such as Zoar, Ohio. Often, the president and First Lady talked of their eventual retirement in Canton. These modest enj oyments stood in stark contrast to the globe-trotting of Roosevelt.
While the East Coast Republicans opposed McKinley, his acceptance of Roosevelt as vice president had temporarily healed the split. The main opponents of McKinley’s “dinner-pail republicanism” were a rising majority
The Ohio Presidents of socialists, labor reformers, muckraking journalists, politically oriented immigrants, and neo–Luddites. However, the real problem was the capitalists themselves, and reporters, political reformers, and socialists played to an undercurrent of discontent with corruption. McKinley’s assassin in many ways was the edge of that underground discontent with capitalism. Now Roosevelt would be in a position to move closer to progressivism and socialism.
European socialists following Karl Marx had for decades created a reign of terror throughout Europe, and by the 1880s they had made inroads into America. At the time the term for the politics of Marx’s followers was sociali st. But there was a more radical version of these beliefs pushed by anarchists promoting the use of terror and violence. These terrorists were driven by t he Marxist philosophy and anti- capitalism stance. The poor economic conditions in the 1880s and early 1890s fueled the movement. Peaceful proponents of socialism had some success in elections, but individual terrorist cells were still operating in most industrial cities. These cells had a national and an international network but were often stirred to violence at the local level. McKinley believed regulated capitalism was the solution to the unrest.
Leon Czolgosz, McKinley’s assassin, was a socialist and an anarchist, but more importantly, he expressed the emotion of a broader underground movement. In Czolgosz’s own words, “what started the craze to kill was a lecture I heard some time ago by Emma Goldman.” Goldman was a Russian socialist and professed anarchist who was the leader of an American socialist movement. Her followers had been problematic; her ex-lover had shot industrialist Henry Clay Frick after the 1892 Homestead Strike. Goldman’s thinking represented the antithesis of McKinley’s view of America’s industrial opportunity. Leon Czolgosz fed off the setbacks of laborers in Detroit, Cleveland, and Chicago. The socialist movement found allies in the muckraking press and in the abuses of the capitalists. McKinley’s success was in forming a voting alliance of workers and capitalist owners, as well as in addressing abuses centering on pay and the eight-hour day.
Anarchists such as Czolgosz did not so much represent the oppressed factory worker as an international political movement. Anarchists raged against the economic distribution of wealth i n capitalist countries. They found allies in the world’s socialist parties, including those in America. Anarchists and socialists appeared whenever there were labor problems, but the American labor movement managed to remain above such political indoctrination. McKinley and labor leaders such as Samuel Gompers, father of the AFL-CIO, forged a unique and cooperative environment for labor resolution by 1901. It was the type of alliance that McKinley had tried so hard to foster. McKinley had grown up with ironworkers and knew their greatest fear was unemployment. He believed the American laborer would never support the socialist
One. Death at the Summit 19 platform if the factories kept working. When McKinley did pass away on September 14, this great labor alliance was visible—industrial workers filed by his casket in Buffalo at the rate of 10,000 an hour.
The capitalists, to a large degree, had profited by the use of cheap immigrant labor. The abuses of labor were just starting to make the headlines during the McKinley administration. Exploitation ha d given rise to the unions, but unions came with abuses of their own. Organized labor at the time discriminated against blacks and unskilled workers. McKinley had moved on both labor and capital as needed to hold up his ideal of capitalism. He had won over a large following of workers with his approach and had overcome the anti-labor brand of the Republican Party in the 1870s. McKinley had adeptly remedied the image rooted in the use of federal troops during strikes.
The 1870s had brought labor unrest to America’s shores. In July 1877, America’s first general strike was called against the Pennsylvania Railroad and East Coast railroads over a 10 percent wage reduction. Two days of rioting in Pittsburgh alone left over 20 dead, hundreds wounded, and over $5 million worth of damage. The strike spread across America with similar violence. The Great Railroad Strike of 1877 began to lose momentum when President Hayes sent federal troops from city to city. Hayes, however, had damaged the Republican brand with workers for over a decade.
The 1880s brought further unrest in the coalfields of Pennsylvania and the workhouses of Chicago. In 1892, the Homestead Strike at the Carnegie Steel mills resulted in deaths and news coverage, and this time Ohio Republican William Harrison sent troops to the picket lines. During all the unrest, the excessive lifestyles of the “robber barons” were making headlines as well. News outlets covered the great banking trusts of J. P. Morgan and August Belmont that seemed to have given the ow nership of America’s industrial assets to a handful of businessmen.
Since he was neve r personally close to the big bankers of New York who had crushed his industrial friend George Westinghouse, McKinley had united owners and labor in the need for a protective tariff. However, McKinley needed these businessmen’s money. Getting the bankers’ funds required some compromises, such as the selection of Theodore Roosevelt as vice president. Still, McKinley won over a weary working class with h is protection of American industries. In 1901, 65 percent of America’s wealth was controlled by the banking trusts, but the industrialists remained nationalistic. The industrialists wanted protection as much as labor, and this desire was the common ground used for McKinley’s voting bloc. Using these labor votes, McKinley built a new coalition and brought in traditional Democratic voters.
McKinley’s trade policies did attract one Democratic stronghold. The traditionally Democratic immigrant Irish of the Northeast believed that free trade had ruined Ireland. All immigrants were reminded of the great Satan
of free trade—England. The Irish knew the free traders and international bankers of London that promised more jobs but delivered economic devastation. Working-class immigrants well understood the relationship between free trade and employment. They realized it was better to endure the abuse of the business owners than the hunger pains of not working. By today’s standards, the McKinley voting bloc was an unusual alliance of labor and capitalists. These Irish immigrants came to America to work, not to be sold out again by free traders. Abuses could be addressed later. The barbaric 12-hour day in the steel industry actually found labor union support because no one wanted the pay cut of an eight-hour day. Unions in the glass industry ignore d child labor while pursuing higher wages for skilled workers. Even labor disputes were exclusively over wages, not conditions.
Like his first election victory in 1896, McKinley would win by a landslide in 1900. McKinley bested the popular vote record of Ohio president Ulysses S. Grant, and he won the electoral vote 292–155 (21 votes higher than his 1896 results). McKinley’s coattails were extremely long; the Republicans increased their House majority from 151 to 197 members, and their Senate majority from 35 to 55 members. The president-elect gained in all economic classes of voters as well in the large ethnic groups. Still, socialists and anarchists fueled a growing unrest aimed at McKinley. Eugene Debs, a Socialist Party candidate, garnered almost a million votes in the election.
Yet with all the unrest, America prospered in 1901. Immigrants who were jobless in Europe found work plentiful in the United States. America’s poor were well-off compared to the poor of Europe and Asia. While Czolgosz and Goldman saw limited upward mobility, others read of the rags- to-riches dreams daily. Carnegie, Westinghouse, Schwab, Pullman, Edison, and even McKinley had come from poor-to-modest means. Even America’s old money, including the blue-blood Adams and Roosevelt families, was amazed by the rise of new capitalists. But members of the old-money elite looked down their noses at those with newly found riches. This mixed view was the nature of the era that allowed countercurrents of discontent to flourish in good times. McKinley struggled to hold his alliance of business and labor together within these crosscurrents. He had supported better wages for Ohio coal workers, warned the trusts of their abuse, and protected jobs with tariffs. McKinley also befriended the more progressive capitalists such as George Westinghouse and H. J. Heinz. Westinghouse paid fairly and built family values among his employees. The new president feared that if his manufacturing alliance of business and labor failed, the international movement of socialism would fill t he void. The owner and labor alliance was holding in 1901 and seemed to have a bright future based on the popularity of President McKinley and Ohio republicanism.
Historian John Kasson chronicles the movement of republicanism:
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new church. They were ministers of the gospel, who ministered with fire and sword unto the savages whom they strove to convert; believers, who being persecuted in Europe, hunted out of Europe, and cast away upon the shores of America, set up a new war of persecution here—even here—in the untrodden—almost unapproachable domain of the Great Spirit of the Universe; pursued their brethren to death, scourged, fined, imprisoned, banished, mutilated, and where nothing else would do, hung up their bodies between heaven and earth for the good of their souls; drove mother after mother, and babe after babe, into the woods for not believing as their church taught; made war upon the lords of the soil, the savages who had been their stay and support while they were strangers, and sick and poor, and ready to perish, and whom it was therefore a duty for them—after they had recovered their strength—to make happy with the edge of the sword; such war as the savages would make upon the wild beast—way-laying them by night, and shooting them to death, as they lie asleep with their young, without so much as a declaration of war; destroying whithersoever they went, whatsoever they saw, in the shape of a dark man, as if they had authority from above to unpeople the woods of America; firing village after village, in the dead of the night—in the dead of winter too—and going to prayer in the deep snow, while their hands were smoking with slaughter, and their garments stiffening with blood—the blood, not of warriors overthrown by warriors in battle, but of the decrepit, or sick, or helpless; of the aged man, or the woman or the babe—set fire to in their sleep.—Such were the men of Massachusetts-Bay, at the period of our story, and he was their political chief.
He had acquired a large property and the title of Sir; a title which would go a great way at any time among the people of NewEngland, who whatever else they may be, and whatever they may pretend, are not now, and were not during the governship of Sir William Phips, at the period we refer to, and we dare say, never will be, without a regard for titles and birth, and ribbons, and stars, and garters, and much more too, than would ever be credited by those who only judge of them by what they are pleased to say of themselves in their fourth-of-July orations. His rank and wealth were acquired in rather a strange way—not by a course of rude mercantile
adventure, such as the native Yankee is familiar with from his birth, through every unheard-of sea, and along every unheard-of shore; but by fishing up ingots of gold, and bars of silver, from the wreck of a Spanish hulk, which had been cast away on the coast of La Plata, years and years before, and which he had been told of by Mr. Paris, the minister of Salem,—a worthy, studious, wayward man, who had met with some account of the affair, while rummaging into a heap of old newspapers and ragged books that fell in his way.
Another would have paid no attention, it is probable, to the advice of the preacher—a man who had grown old in poring over books that nobody else in that country had ever met with or heard of; but the hardy New-Englander was too poor and too anxious for wealth to throw a chance away; and having satisfied himself in some degree about the truth of a newspaper-narrative which related to the ship, he set sail for the mother country, received the patronage of those, who if they were not noblemen, would be called partners in every such enterprise, with more than the privilege of partners—for they generally contrive to take the praise and the profit, while their plebeian associates have to put up with the loss and the reproach; found the wreck, and after a while succeeded in weighing a prodigious quantity of gold and silver. He was knighted in “consequence,” we are told; but in consequence of what, it would be no easy matter to say: and after so short an absence that he was hardly missed, returned to his native country with a new charter, great wealth, a great name, the title of Sir, and the authority of a chief magistrate.
Such are a few of the many facts which every body that knew him was acquainted with by report, and which nobody thought of disbelieving in British-America, till the fury about witches and witchcraft took possession of the people; after which they began to shake their heads at the story, and getting more and more courage as they grew more and more clear-sighted, they went on doubting first one part of the tale, and then another, till at last they did not scruple to say of their worthy Governor himself, and of the aged Mr. Paris, that one of the two—they did not like to say which—had got above their neighbors’ heads, after all, in a very strange way—a very
strange way indeed—they did not like to say how; and that the sooner the other was done with old books, the better it would be for him. He had a Bible of his own to study, and what more would a preacher of the Gospel have?
Governor Phips and Matthew Paris were what are called neighbors in America. Their habitations were not more than five leagues apart. The Governor lived at Boston, the chief town of Massachusetts-Bay, and the preacher at Naumkeag, in a solitary log-house, completely surrounded by a thick wood, in which were many graves; and a rock held in great awe by the red men of the north, and avoided with special care by the whites, who had much reason to believe that in other days, it had been a rock of sacrifice, and that human creatures had been offered up there by the savages of old, either to Hobbamocko, their evil deity, or to Rawtantoweet, otherwise Ritchtau, their great Invisible Father. Matthew Paris and Sir William Phips had each a faith of his own therefore, in all that concerned witches and witchcraft. Both were believers—but their belief was modified, intimate as they were, by the circumstances and the society in which they lived. With the aged, poor and solitary man—a widower in his old age, it was a dreadful superstition, a faith mixed up with a mortal fear. With the younger and richer man, whose hope was not in the grave, and whose thoughts were away from the death-bed; who was never alone perhaps for an hour of the day; who lived in the very whirl of society, surrounded by the cheerful faces of them that he most loved on earth, it wore a less harrowing shape—it was merely a faith to talk of, and to teach on the Sabbath day, a curious faith suited to the bold inquisitive temper of the age. Both were believers, and fixed believers; and yet of the two, perhaps, the speculative man would have argued more powerfully—with fire and sword—as a teacher of what he believed.
About a twelvemonth before the enterprise to La Plata, whereby the “uneducated man of low birth” came to be a ruler and a chief in the land of his nativity, Matthew Paris the preacher, to whom he was indebted for a knowledge of the circumstances which led to the discovery, had lost a young wife—a poor girl who had been brought up in his family, and whom he married not because of her youth, but
in spite of her youth; and every body knew as he stood by her grave, and saw the fresh earth heaped upon her, that he would never hold up his head again, his white venerable head, which met with a blessing wherever it appeared. From that day forth, he was a broken-hearted selfish man, weary of life, and sick with insupportable sorrow. He began to be afraid with a strange fear, to persuade himself that his Father above had cast him off, and that for the rest of his life he was to be a mark of the divine displeasure. He avoided all that knew him, and chiefly those he had been most intimate with while he was happy; for their looks and their speech, and every change of their breath reminded him of his poor Margaret, his meek beautiful wife. He could not bear the very song of the birds —nor the sight of the green trees; for she was buried in the summertime, while the trees were in flower, and the birds singing in the branches that overshadowed her grave; and so he withdrew from the world and shut himself up in a dreary solitude, where neglecting his duty as a preacher of the gospel, he gave up his whole time to the education of his little daughter—the child of his old age, and the live miniature of its mother—who was like a child, from the day of her birth to the day of her death. His grief would have been despair, but for this one hope. It was the sorrow of old age—that insupportable sorrow—the sorrow of one who is ready to cry out with every sob, and at every breath, in the desolation of a widowed heart, whenever he goes to the fireside or the table, or sees the sun set, or the sky change with the lustre of a new day, or wakes in the dead of the night from a cheerful dream of his wife—his dear, dear wife, to the frightful truth; finding the heavy solitude of the grave about him, his bridal chamber dark with the atmosphere of death, his marriage bed —his home—his very heart, which had been occupied with a blessed and pure love a moment before, uninhabited forever.
His family consisted now of this one child, who was in her tenth year, a niece in her twelfth year, and two Indians who did the drudgery of the house, and were treated as members of the family, eating at the same table and of the same food as the preacher. One was a female who bore the name of Tituba; the other a praying warrior, who had become a by-word among the tribes of the north, and a show in the houses of the white men.
The preacher had always a belief in witchcraft, and so had every body else that he knew; but he had never been afraid of witches till after the death of his wife. He had been a little too ready perhaps to put faith in every tale that he heard about apparition or shadow, starshooting or prophecy, unearthly musick, or spirits going abroad through the very streets of Salem village, and over the green fields, and along by the sea shore, the wilderness, the rock and the hill-top, and always at noon-day, and always without a shadow—shapes of death, who never spoke but with a voice like that of the wind afar off, nor moved without making the air cold about them; creatures from the deep sea, who are known to the pious and the gifted by their slow smooth motion over the turf, and by their quiet, grave, unchangeable eyes. But though he had been too ready to believe in such things, from his youth up, he had never been much afraid of them, till after he found himself widowed forever, as he drew near, arm in arm with an angel, to the very threshold of eternity; separated by death, in his old age, from a good and beautiful, and young wife, just when he had no other hope—no other joy—nothing but her and her sweet image, the babe, to care for underneath the sky. Are we to have no charity for such a man—weak though he appear—a man whose days were passed by the grave where his wife lay, and whose nights were passed literally in her death-bed; a man living away and apart from all that he knew, on the very outskirts of the solitude, among those who had no fear but of shadows and spirits, and witchcraft and witches? We should remember that his faith after all, was the faith, not so much of the man, as of the age he lived in, the race he came of, and the life that he led. Hereafter, when posterity shall be occupied with our doings, they may wonder at our faith— perhaps at our credulity, as we now wonder at his.
But the babe grew, and a new hope flowered in his heart, for she was the very image of her mother; and there was her little cousin too, Bridget Pope, a child of singular beauty and very tall of her age —how could he be unhappy, when he heard their sweet voices ringing together?
CHAPTER IV.
Bridget Pope was of a thoughtful serious turn—the little Abby the veriest romp that ever breathed. Bridget was the elder, by about a year and a half, but she looked five years older than Abby, and was in every way a remarkable child. Her beauty was like her stature, and both were above her age; and her aptitude for learning was the talk of all that knew her. She was a favorite every where and with every body—she had such a sweet way with her, and was so unlike the other children of her age—so that when she appeared to merit reproof, as who will not in the heyday of innocent youth, it was quite impossible to reprove her, except with a mild voice, or a kind look, or a very affectionate word or two. She would keep away from her slate and book for whole days together, and sit for half an hour at a time without moving her eyes off the page, or turning away her head from the little window of their school-house, (a log-hut plastered with blue clay in stripes and patches, and lighted with horn, oiled-paper and isinglass) which commanded a view of Naumkeag, or Salem village, with a part of the original woods of North America—huge trees that were found there on the first arrival of the white man, crowded together and covered with moss and dropping to pieces of old age; a meeting-house with a short wooden spire, and the figure of death on the top for a weather-cock, a multitude of cottages that appeared to be lost in the landscape, and a broad beautiful approach from the sea.
Speak softly to Bridget Pope at such a time, or look at her with a look of love, and her quiet eyes would fill, and her childish heart would run over—it would be impossible to say why. But if you spoke sharply to her, when her head was at the little window, and her thoughts were away, nobody knew where, the poor little thing would grow pale and serious, and look at you with such a look of sorrow— and then go away and do what she was bid with a gravity that would go to your heart. And it would require a whole day after such a rebuke to restore the dye of her sweet lips, or to persuade her that you were not half so angry as you might have appeared. At every
sound of your voice, at every step that came near, she would catch her breath, and start and look up, as if she expected something dreadful to happen.
But as for Abigail Paris, the pretty little blue-eyed cousin of Bridget Pope, there was no dealing with her in that way. If you shook your finger at her, she would laugh in your face; and if you did it with a grave air, ten to one but she made you laugh too. If you scolded her, she would scold you in return but always in such a way that you could not possibly be angry with her; she would mimic your step with her little naked feet, or the toss of your head, or the very curb of your mouth perhaps, while you were trying to terrify her. The little wretch! —everybody was tired to death of her in half an hour, and yet everybody was glad to see her again. Such was Abigail Paris, before Bridget Pope came to live in the house with her, but in the course of about half a year after that, she was so altered that her very playfellows twitted her with being “afeard o’ Bridgee Pope.” She began to be tidy in her dress, to comb her bright hair, to speak low, to keep her shoes on her feet, and her stockings from about her heels, and before a twelvemonth was over, she left off wading in the snow, and grew very fond of her book.
They were always together now, creeping about under the old beach-trees, or hunting for hazle nuts, or searching for sun-baked apples in the short thick grass, or feeding the fish in the smooth clear sea—Bridget poring over a story that she had picked up, nobody knows where, and Abigail, whatever the story might be, and although the water might stand in her eyes at the time, always ready for a roll in the wet grass, a dip in the salt wave, or a slide from the very top of the haymow They rambled about in the great woods together on tiptoe, holding their breath and saying their prayers at every step; they lay down together and slept together on the very track of the wolf, or the she-bear; and if they heard a noise afar off, a howl or a warwhoop, they crept in among the flowers of the solitary spot and were safe, or hid themselves in the shadow of trees that were spread out over the whole sky, or of shrubbery that appeared to cover the whole earth—
Where the wild grape hangs dropping in the shade, O’er unfledged minstrels that beneath are laid;
Where the scarlet barberry glittered among the sharp green leaves like threaded bunches of coral,—where at every step the more brilliant ivory-plumbs or clustered bunch-berries rattled among the withered herbage and rolled about their feet like a handful of beads, —where they delighted to go even while they were afraid to speak above a whisper, and kept fast hold of each other’s hands, every step of the way. Such was their love, such their companionship, such their behaviour while oppressed with fear. They were never apart for a day, till the time of our story; they were together all day and all night, going to sleep together and waking up together, feeding out of the same cup, and sleeping in the same bed, year after year. But just when the preacher was ready to believe that his Father above had not altogether deserted him—for he was ready to cry out with joy whenever he looked upon these dear children; they were so good and so beautiful, and they loved each other so entirely; just when there appeared to be no evil in his path, no shadow in his way to the grave, a most alarming change took place in their behavior to each other. He tried to find out the cause, but they avoided all inquiry He talked with them together, he talked with them apart, he tried every means in his power to know the truth, but all to no purpose. They were afraid of each other, and that was all that either would say. Both were full of mischief and appeared to be possessed with a new temper. They were noisy and spiteful toward each other, and toward every body else. They were continually hiding away from each other in holes and corners, and if they were pursued and plucked forth to the light, they were always found occupied with mischief above their age. Instead of playing together as they were wont, or sitting together in peace, they would creep away under the tables and chairs and beds, and behave as if they were hunted by something which nobody else could see; and they would lie there by the hour, snapping and snarling at each other, and at everybody that passed near. They had no longer the look of health, or of childhood, or of innocence. They were meagre and pale, and their eyes were fiery, and their fingers were skinny and sharp, and they delighted in
devilish tricks and in outcries yet more devilish. They would play by themselves in the dead of the night, and shriek with a preternatural voice, and wake everybody with strange laughter—a sort of smothered giggle, which would appear to issue from the garret, or from the top of the house, while they were asleep, or pretending to be dead asleep in the great room below. They would break out all over in a fine sweat like the dew on a rose bush, and fall down as if they were struck to the heart with a knife, while they were on the way to meeting or school, or when the elders of the church were talking to them and every eye was fixed on their faces with pity or terror They would grow pale as death in a moment, and seem to hear voices in the wind, and shake as with an ague while standing before a great fire, and look about on every side with such a piteous look for children, whenever it thundered or lightened, or whenever the sea roared, that the eyes of all who saw them would fill with tears. They would creep away backwards from each other on their hands and feet, or hide their faces in the lap of the female Indian Tituba, and if the preacher spoke to them, they would fall into a stupor, and awake with fearful cries and appear instantly covered all over with marks and spots like those which are left by pinching or bruising the flesh. They would be struck dumb while repeating the Lord’s prayer, and all their features would be distorted with a savage and hateful expression.
The heads of the church were now called together, and a day of general fasting, humiliation and prayer was appointed, and after that, the best medical men of the whole country were consulted, the pious and the gifted, the interpreters of dreams, the soothsayers, and the prophets of the Lord, every man of power, and every woman of power,—but no relief was had, no cure, no hope of cure. Matthew Paris now began to be afraid of his own child. She was no longer the hope of his heart, the joy his old age, the live miniature of his buried wife. She was an evil thing—she was what he had no courage to think of, as he covered his old face and tore his white hair with a grief that would not be rebuked nor appeased. A new fear fell upon him, and his knees smote together, and the hair of his flesh rose, and he saw a spirit, and the spirit said to him look! And he
looked, and lo! the truth appeared to him; for he saw neighbour after neighbour flying from his path, and all the heads of the church keeping aloof and whispering together in a low voice. Then knew he that Bridget Pope and Abigail Paris were bewitched.
A week passed over, a whole week, and every day and every hour they grew worse and worse, and the solitude in which he lived, more dreadful to him; but just when there appeared to be no hope left, no chance for escape, just when he and the few that were still courageous enough to speak with him, were beginning to despair, and to wish for the speedy death of the little sufferers, dear as they had been but a few weeks before to everybody that knew them, a discovery was made which threw the whole country into a new paroxysm of terror. The savages who had been for a great while in the habit of going to the house of the preacher to eat and sleep “without money and without price,” were now seen to keep aloof and to be more than usually grave; and yet when they were told of the children’s behaviour, they showed no sort of surprise, but shook their heads with a smile, and went their way, very much as if they were prepared for it.
When the preacher heard this, he called up the two Indians before him, and spoke to Tituba and prayed to know why her people who for years had been in the habit of lying before his hearth, and eating at his table, and coming in and going out of his habitation at all hours of the day and night, were no longer seen to approach his door.
“Tituppa no say—Tituppa no know,” she replied.
But as she replied, the preacher saw her make a sign to Peter Wawpee, her Sagamore, who began to show his teeth as if he knew something more than he chose to tell; but before the preacher could rebuke him as he deserved, or pursue the inquiry with Tituba, his daughter screamed out and fell upon her face and lay for a long while as if she were death-struck.
The preacher now bethought him of a new course, and after watching Tituba and Wawpee for several nights, became satisfied from what he saw, that she was a woman of diabolical power. A part of what he saw, he was afraid even to speak of; but he declared on
oath before the judges, that he had seen sights, and heard noises that took away his bodily strength, his hearing and his breath for a time; that for nearly five weeks no one of her tribe, nor of Wawpee’s tribe had slept upon his hearth, or eaten of his bread, or lifted the latch of his door either by night or by day; that notwithstanding this, the very night before, as he went by the grave-yard where his poor wife lay, he heard the whispering of a multitude; that having no fear in such a place, he made a search; and that after a long while he found his help Tituba concealed in the bushes, that he said nothing but went his way, satisfied in his own soul however that the voices he heard were the voices of her tribe; and that after the moon rose he saw her employed with a great black Shadow on the rock of death, where as every body knew, sacrifices had been offered up in other days by another people to the god of the Pagan—the deity of the savage—employed in a way that made him shiver with fright where he stood; for between her and the huge black shadow there lay what he knew to be the dead body of his own dear child stretched out under the awful trees—her image rather, for she was at home and abed and asleep at the time. He would have spoken to it if he could—for he saw what he believed to be the shape of his wife; he would have screamed for help if he could, but he could not get his breath, and that was the last he knew; for when he came to himself he was lying in his own bed, and Tituba was sitting by his side with a cup of broth in her hand which he took care to throw away the moment her back was turned; for she was a creature of extraordinary art, and would have persuaded him that he had never been out of his bed for the whole day.
The judges immediately issued a warrant for Tituba and Wawpee, both of whom were hurried off to jail, and after a few days of proper inquiry, by torture, she was put upon trial for witchcraft. Being sorely pressed by the word of the preacher and by the testimony of Bridget Pope and Abigail Paris, who with two more afflicted children (for the mischief had spread now in every quarter) charged her and Sarah Good with appearing to them at all hours, and in all places, by day and by night, when they were awake and when they were asleep, and with tormenting their flesh. Tituba pleaded guilty and confessed before the judges and the people that the poor children spoke true,
that she was indeed a witch, and that, with several of her sister witches of great power—among whom was mother Good, a miserable woman who lived a great way off, nobody knew where— and passed the greater part of her time by the sea-side, nobody knew how, she had been persuaded by the black man to pursue and worry and vex them. But the words were hardly out of her mouth before she herself was taken with a fit, which lasted so long that the judges believed her to be dead. She was lifted up and carried out into the air; but though she recovered her speech and her strength in a little time, she was altered in her looks from that day to the day of her death.
But as to mother Good, when they brought her up for trial, she would neither confess to the charge nor pray the court for mercy; but she stood up and mocked the jury and the people, and reproved the judges for hearkening to a body of accusers who were collected from all parts of the country, were of all ages, and swore to facts, which if they ever occurred at all, had occurred years and years before— facts which it would have been impossible for her to contradict, even though they had all been, as a large part of them obviously were, the growth of mistake or of superstitious dread. Her behavior was full of courage during the trial; and after the trial was over, and up to the last hour and last breath of her life, it was the same.
You are a liar! said she to a man who called her a witch to her teeth, and would have persuaded her to confess and live. You are a liar, as God is my judge, Mike! I am no more a witch than you are a wizard, and you know it Mike, though you be so glib at prayer; and if you take away my life, I tell you now that you and yours, and the people here, and the judges and the elders who are now thirsting for my blood shall rue the work of this day, forever and ever, in sackcloth and ashes; and I tell you further as Elizabeth Hutchinson told you, Ah ha! ... how do you like the sound of that name, Judges? You begin to be afraid I see; you are all quiet enough now!... But I say to you nevertheless, and I say to you here, even here, with my last breath, as Mary Dyer said to you with her last breath, and as poor Elizabeth Hutchinson said to you with hers, if you take away my life, the wrath of God shall pursue you!—you and yours!—forever and
ever! Ye are wise men that I see, and mighty in faith, and ye should be able with such faith to make the deep boil like a pot, as they swore to you I did, to remove mountains, yea to shake the whole earth by a word—mighty in faith or how could you have swallowed the story of that knife-blade, or the story of the sheet? Very wise are you, and holy and fixed in your faith, or how could you have borne with the speech of that bold man, who appeared to you in court, and stood face to face before you, when you believed him to be afar off or lying at the bottom of the sea, and would not suffer you to take away the life even of such a poor unhappy old creature as I am, without reproving you as if he had authority from the Judge of judges and the King of kings to stay you in your faith!
Poor soul but I do pity thee! whispered a man who stood near with a coiled rope in one hand and a drawn sword in the other. It was the high-sheriff.
Her eyes filled and her voice faltered for the first time, when she heard this, and she put forth her hand with a smile, and assisted him in preparing the rope, saying as the cart stopped under the large beam, Poor soul indeed!—You are too soft-hearted for your office, and of the two, you are more to be pitied than the poor old woman you are a-going to choke.
Mighty in faith she continued, as the high-sheriff drew forth a watch and held it up for her to see that she had but a few moments to live. I address myself to you, ye Judges of Israel! and to you ye teachers of truth! Believe ye that a mortal woman of my age, with a rope about her neck, hath power to prophesy? If ye do, give ear to my speech and remember my words. For death, ye shall have death! For blood, ye shall have blood—blood on the earth! blood in the sky! blood in the waters! Ye shall drink blood and breathe blood, you and yours, for the work of this day!
Woman, woman! we pray thee to forbear! cried a voice from afar off. I shall not forbear, Cotton Mather—it is your voice that I hear. But for you and such as you, miserable men that ye are, we should now be happy and at peace one with another. I shall not forbear—why
should I? What have I done that I may not speak to the few that love me before we are parted by death?
Be prepared woman—if you will die, for the clock is about to strike said another voice.
Be prepared, sayest thou? William Phips, for I know the sound of thy voice too, thou hard-hearted miserable man! Be prepared, sayest thou? Behold——stretching forth her arms to the sky, and lifting herself up and speaking so that she was heard of the people on the house-tops afar off, Lo! I am ready! Be ye also ready, for now!—now! —even while I speak to you, he is preparing to reward both my accusers and my judges——.
He!—who!
Who, brother Joseph? said somebody in the crowd. Why the Father of lies to be sure! what a question for you to ask, after having been of the jury!
Thou scoffer!— Paul! Paul, beware!—
Hark—what’s that! Lord have mercy upon us!
The Lord have mercy upon us! cried the people, giving way on every side, without knowing why, and looking toward the high-sea, and holding their breath.
Pho, pho, said the scoffer, a grey-haired man who stood leaning over his crutch with eyes full of pity and sorrow, pho, pho, the noise that you hear is only the noise of the tide.
Nay, nay, Elder Smith, nay, nay, said an associate of the speaker. If it is only the noise of the tide, why have we not heard it before? and why do we not hear it now? just now, when the witch is about to be—
True ... true ... it may not be the Evil one, after all.
The Evil one, Joe Libby! No, no! it is God himself, our Father above! cried the witch, with a loud voice, waving her arms upward, and fixing her eye upon a group of two or three individuals who stood
aloof, decorated with the badges of authority Our Father above, I say! The Governor of governors, and the Judge of judges!... The cart began to move here.... He will reward you for the work of this day! He will refresh you with blood for it! and you too Jerry Pope, and you too Micajah Noyes, and you too Job Smith, and you ... and you ... and you....
Yea of a truth! cried a woman who stood apart from the people with her hands locked and her eyes fixed upon the chief-judge. It was Rachel Dyer, the grandchild of Mary Dyer. Yea of a truth! for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that spilleth his brother’s blood, or taketh his sister’s life by the law—and her speech was followed by a shriek from every hill-top and every house-top, and from every tree and every rock within sight of the place, and the cart moved away, and the body of the poor old creature swung to and fro in the convulsions of death.
CHAPTER V.
It is not a little remarkable that within a few days after the death of Sarah Good, a part of her pretended prophecy, that which was directed by her to the man who called her a witch at the place of death, was verified upon him, letter by letter, as it were.
He was way-laid by a party of the Mohawks, and carried off to answer to the tribe for having reported of them that they ate the flesh of their captives.—It would appear that he had lived among them in his youth, and that he was perfectly acquainted with their habits and opinions and with their mode of warfare; that he had been well treated by their chief, who let him go free at a time when he might lawfully have been put to death, according to the usages of the tribe, and that he could not possibly be mistaken about their eating the flesh of their prisoners. It would appear too, that he had been watched for, a long while before he was carried off; that his path had been beset hour after hour, and week after week, by three young warriors of the tribe, who might have shot him down, over and over again if they would, on the step of his own door, in the heart of a populous village, but they would not; for they had sworn to trap their prey alive, and to bring it off with the hide and the hair on; that after they had carried him to the territory of the Mohawks, they put him on trial for the charge face to face with a red accuser; that they found him guilty, and that, with a bitter laugh, they ordered him to eat of the flesh of a dead man that lay bleeding on the earth before him; that he looked up and saw the old chief who had been his father when he belonged to the tribe, and that hoping to appease the haughty savage, he took some of the detestable food into his mouth, and that instantly—instantly—before he could utter a prayer, they fell upon him with clubs and beat him to death.
Her prophecy therefore did appear to the people to be accomplished; for had she not said to this very man, that for the work of that day, “He should breathe blood and eat blood?”
Before a week had passed over, the story of death, and the speech of the prophetess took a new shape, and a variety of circumstances which occurred at the trial, and which were disregarded at the time, were now thought of by the very judges of the land with a secret awe; circumstances that are now to be detailed, for they were the true cause of what will not be forgotten for ages in that part of the world ... the catastrophe of our story.
At the trial of Sarah Good, while her face was turned away from her accuser, one of the afflicted gave a loud scream, and gasping for breath, fell upon the floor at the feet of the judges, and lay there as if she had been struck down by the weight of no mortal arm; and being lifted up, she swore that she had been stabbed with a knife by the shape of Sarah Good, while Sarah Good herself was pretending to be at prayer on the other side of the house; and for proof, she put her hand into her bosom and drew forth the blade of a penknife which was bloody, and which upon her oath, she declared to have been left sticking in her flesh a moment before, by the shape of Sarah Good.
The Judges were thunderstruck. The people were mute with terror, and the wretched woman herself covered her face with her hands; for she knew that if she looked upon the sufferers, they would shriek out, and foam at the mouth, and go into fits, and lie as if they were dead for a while; and that she would be commanded by the judges to go up to them and lay her hands upon their bodies without speaking or looking at them, and that on her doing so, they would be sure to revive, and start up, and speak of what they had seen or suffered while they were in what they called their agony.
The jury were already on their way out for consultation—they could not agree, it appeared; but when they saw this, they stopped at the door, and came back one by one to the jury box, and stood looking at each other, and at the judges, and at the poor old woman, as if they no longer thought it necessary to withdraw even for form sake, afraid as they all were of doing that, in a case of life and death, for which they might one day or other be sorry. A shadow was upon every visage of the twelve—the shadow of death; a look in the eyes of everybody there, a gravity and a paleness, which when the poor
prisoner saw, she started up with a low cry—a cry of reproach—a cry of despair—and stood with her hands locked, and her mouth quivering, and her lips apart before God—lips white with fear, though not with the fear of death; and looked about her on every side, as if she had no longer a hope left—no hope from the jury, no hope from the multitude; nay as if while she had no longer a hope, she had no longer a desire to live.
There was a dead preternatural quiet in the house—not a breath could be heard now, not a breath nor a murmur; and lo! the aged foreman of the jury stood forth and laid his hands upon the Book of the Law, and lifted up his eyes and prepared to utter the verdict of death; but before he could speak so as to be heard, for his heart was over-charged with sorrow, a tumult arose afar off like the noise of the wind in the great woods of America; or a heavy swell on the seashore, when a surge after surge rolls booming in from the secret reservoir of waters, like the tide of a new deluge. Voices drew near with a portentous hoof-clatter from every side—east, west, north and south, so that the people were mute with awe; and as the dread clamor approached and grew louder and louder every moment, they crowded together and held their breath, they and the judges and the preachers and the magistrates, every man persuaded in his own soul that a rescue was nigh. At last a smothered war-whoop was heard, and then a sweet cheerful noise like the laugh of a young child high up in the air—and then a few words in the accent of authority, and a bustle outside of the door, which gave way as if it were spurned with a powerful foot; and a stranger appeared in the shadow of the huge trees that over-hung the door-way like a summer cloud—a low, square-built swarthy man with a heavy tread, and a bright fierce look, tearing his way through the crowd like a giant of old, and leading a beautiful boy by the hand.
What, ho! cried he to the chief judge, walking up to him, and standing before him, and speaking to him with a loud clear voice. What ho! captain Robert Sewall! why do ye this thing? What ho, there! addressing himself to the foreman of the jury—why speed ye so to the work of death? and you, master Bailey! and you governor Phips! and you doctor Mather, what business have ye here? And you
ye judges, who are about to become the judges of life and death, how dare ye! Who gave you power to measure and weigh such mystery? Are ye gifted men—all of you—every man of you— specially gifted from above? Are you Thomas Fisk—with your white hair blowing about your agitated mouth and your dim eyes, are you able to see your way clear, that you have the courage to pronounce a verdict of death on your aged sister who stands there! And you Josh Carter, senior! and you major Zach Trip! and you Job Saltonstall! Who are ye and what are ye, men of war, that ye are able to see spirits, or that ye should become what ye are—the judges of our afflicted people! And who are we, and what were our fathers, I beseech you, that we should be base enough to abide upon earth but by your leave!
The judges looked at each other in consternation.
Who is it! ... who is it! cried the people as they rushed forward and gathered about him and tried to get a sight of his face. Who can it be!
Burroughs—Bur—Bur—Burroughs, I do believe! whispered a man who stood at his elbow, but he spoke as if he did not feel very sure of what he said.
Not George Burroughs, hey?
I’d take my oath of it neighbour Joe, my Bible-oath of it, leaning forward as far as he could reach with safety, and shading his eyes with his large bony hand—
Well, I do say! whispered another.
I see the scar!—as I live, I do! cried another, peering over the heads of the multitude, as they rocked to the heavy pressure of the intruder.
But how altered he is! ... and how old he looks!...—and shorter than ever! muttered several more.
Silence there! cried the chief judge—a militia-captain, it is to be observed, and of course not altogether so lawyer-like as a judge of our day would be.
Silence there! echoed the High Sheriff.
Never see nobody so altered afore, continued one of the crowd, with his eye fixed on the judge—I will say that much, afore I stop, Mr. Sheriff Berry, an’ (dropping his voice) if you don’t like it, you may lump it ... who cares for you?
Well—an’ who cares for you, if you come to that.
Officer of the court, how now! cried the chief judge in a very loud sharp voice.
Here I be mister judge—I ain’t deef.
Take that man away.
I say ... you! cried the High-Sheriff, getting up and fetching the man a rap over the head with his white-oak staff ... do you hear that?
Hear what?
What Mr. judge Sewall says.
I don’t care for Mr. judge Sewall, nor you nyther.
Away with him Sir! out with him! are we to suffer this outrage on the dignity of the court ... in the House of the Lord—away with him, Sir.
Here’s the devil to pay and no pitch hot—whispered a sailor-looking fellow, in a red baize shirt.
An’ there’s thirteen-pence for you to pay, Mr. Outlandishman, said a little neighbour, whose duty it was to watch for offenders in a small way, and fine them for swearing, drinking, or kissing their wives on the sabbath day.
What for?
Why, for that air oath o’yourn.
What oath?
Why, you said here’s the devil to pay!
Ha—ha—ha—and there’s thirteen-pence for you to pay.
You be darned!
An’ there’s thirteen-pence more for you, my lad—ha—ha—ha—
