Ohio History Journal

PSYCHIATRIC PROGRESS IN OHIO             389

 

mental illness, they were eager to consult psychiatrists of the Vet-

erans Administration or in private practice.

Thus the public as a whole has gained considerably from this

tremendous growth of psychiatry. Some of the secrecy and shame

which people felt when consulting a psychiatrist has faded. Indeed

some individuals are as proud of speaking about their psychiatrists

as the patients who speak enthusiastically about their operations and

their surgeons. We are quite sure that in the previous century

when a family placed a patient in a mental hospital, they must

have felt within themselves the words expressed by Dante when

he faced the inferno, "Abandon hope all ye who enter here." Today

the family of a patient who is mentally ill is hopeful and confident

that such an individual can be rehabilitated by some type of psycho-

therapy, at a mental hygiene clinic, by a private psychiatrist, in a

sanitarium, or in a state hospital. For surely today the improve-

ment in the welfare of patients has been tremendous.

Space does not permit an exhaustive discussion of all the

phases of psychiatry nor of all the Ohioan physicians who have

done their parts in advancing this specialty. As one looks back at

the views and methods of fifty years ago, he does so with a respect

for the past, a humility for the present, and hope for the future.

The amazing growth of the past twenty-five years is promise of ad-

vances to come.

• 1
 

THE DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY, JANUARY-JUNE 1884

Part II*

 

edited by HARVEY S. FORD

Head Librarian, Toledo Blade

 

Saturday, February 2, 1884 The day has been clear and mod-

erately cold. The rural philosophers teach that if the ground hog,

when he comes out of his hole on the second of February, sees his

shadow, he straightway reenters the hole again to remain in seclu-

sion for six weeks, his instinct teaching him that if the day be un-

usually fair, the next forty five days will be unusually dark and

severe. So it has come to pass that the second of February is called

"Ground-hog day."

Somebody on Mitchell street of this city has a "pet" ground

hog, and I am told a large number of people assembled this morn-

ing at the house of the owner to see the animal come out of its hole,

look at its shadow, and then retire in disgust. They had evidently

become somewhat puzzled by the conflicting indications of the

weather prophet and were determined to improve the opportunity

to obtain reliable information on the subject from headquarters.

I trust the ground hog realized fully the great confidence reposed

in him by the people, and deported himself with dignity and his

proverbial sagacity. Since Vennor has failed us: we should be

badly off indeed, if the ground hog were to prove unreliable.

Major James Olds, a prominent lawyer of Monroe County,

called today. He has the most astonishing capacity for saying

nothing, and yawning, I have ever known. If a man has nothing

to say, it is well enough of course, for him to say nothing, but why

should he yawn when others talk?

Sunday February 3, 1884 On six days of the week we break-

fast at 8 o'clock in the morning; and dine at 6 in the evening, but

 

* Part I of General Beatty's diary appeared in the April 1949 issue of the

Quarterly, pp. 119-151.

390

• 2
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                     391

 

on Sundays we rise about eight, breakfast at nine, read the morn-

ing papers until half past ten: go to church at a quarter before

eleven, take dinner at two. Read until lunch, which is ready at

six, and then put in the time until eleven p. m. as best we can. This

morning I went to hear the Revd. Mr. Crook. I think he preached

a very fair sermon, but I am unable now to recall anything he said,

and fear that I was not benefitted by the service. John and his

mother attended the Congregational Church this evening.        Dr.

Gladden12 did not preach: the pulpit was occupied by the Revd.

Mr. Strong who delivered a sermon on behalf of home missions.

Among other things he said that the Roman church was getting

more members from the State of Massachusetts alone, than all the

other churches in the territory of Utah were getting from all sources.

He said furthermore that a hundred carloads of immigrants left

Chicago, or passed through Chicago every day for the territory of

Idaho. This would indicate that the far west is being filled very

rapidly, for but a very small percentage of the whole number go

to Idaho. In 1855 when I visited Minnesota, the city of Minneap-

olis was an uninclosed and unoccupied prairie, town lots were, I

think, staked out, but there were no houses. Now the city contains

a hundred thousand people.

 

Monday, February 4, 1884      Henry Irving the great English

actor is at Comstock's tonight. It has been raining and the streets

are muddy. It is probable that he will not have a full house. In

fact I hope he may not for I do not think it well for Americans to

waste thousands of dollars on actors who could not get hundreds at

home for doing precisely the same work. Tickets giving to the pur-

chasers reserved seats have been sold for two dollars and a half

each. This is about the sum a laboring man would get for two days

of hard work in this country, and probably twice as much as he

would receive in England. It is too much to pay for two hours

amusement, and if the Americans had the good sense they ought to

 

12 Washington Gladden was born in Pennsylvania of Connecticut ancestry and

brought up on a farm in New York. He graduated from Williams College in 1859

and the next year was licensed to preach as a Congregational minister. For many

years he served as pastor of various churches in the East, and also, at intervals, as a

magazine editor, but in December 1882 he accepted a call to the First Congregational

Church of Columbus and here he remained until his death in 1918. He was among

the first to preach the social gospel and achieved a national reputation as a liberal

minister. He served one term on the Columbus city council (1900-1902).

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392   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

have they would soon teach these foreigners that they must either

not come here at all or come with less greed.

I saw a private letter from Keifer today. He expects to come

out of his controversy with Boynton in good condition, and says it

is not simply a question of veracity between them. He will be able

to prove that Boynton was at his room on the day stated seeking

a private interview, and that the private interview was accorded to

him, and further that he had a greater interest in having the bill

passed than he has professed to have, and further that the interview

was so unsatisfactory to him that he at once began to abuse Keifer.

Tuesday, February 5, 1884 This is the second night of Henry

Irving and Ellen Terry at Comstock's. John, Carrie and Jenny

have gone to see them, the two first together and the last with young

Mr. Hughes. Most of those who witnessed the performance of last

night were much pleased with Irving and think him a perfect actor,

but some, and Mr. Hinman among them, think him too stilted and

stagy to be natural. He is an old man, and while he acts the part

of the young well, he is not very nimble of leg and indications of

age, which cannot be disguised, spoil to some extent the effect which

he seeks to produce.

I can understand how a man might become possessed of an

overwhelming ambition to be a great orator, author or statesman,

but I cannot see why he should desire to excel as the utterer of

other mens thoughts-as a mere imitator of other men, either im-

aginary or real. It does not seem to me to be exactly a manly call-

ing. I would about as soon be a great fiddler as a great actor, and

I would about as leif be a great tailor or a great shoemaker as

either. It may be that the talent to amuse people, by repetition of

old words and ideas, is as valuable as the ability to create new ideas

and render them interesting, but it has seemed to me that there is

just the difference between the two that we find between plated and

solid ware.

My informant was mistaken as to Irving's age, he is only

forty six.

Wednesday, February 6, 1884  The theme today is the high

waters. The Scioto has assumed proportions which make it alarm-

• 4
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                 393

 

ing to the people living on the low grounds of the West side, and

during the day crowds were on the river bank anxiously watching

the rising flood. Last year, about this time, probably a little later,

the waters were some feet higher than they are now, and the houses

of many were flooded. Indeed some houses were visited by boats

and the inmates taken from the second story windows, and much

suffering resulted from the loss of food, damage to clothing, bed-

ding and furniture. And the residents of the West side are appre-

hensive that they may now have a repetition of the unpleasant and

vicious experiences of that time.

Many manufactures on the river bank of the East side have

been compelled to suspend work, the water having entered their

furnace rooms, and put out their fires. At nightfall the water was

still rising.

Cincinnati is also alarmed. At last reports the water was

within six or eight feet of the highest stage of last year-which was

the highest ever known there-and rising at the rate of six inches

per hour. The cellars of many business houses are filled with water,

and fears are entertained of another disastrous flood.

Thursday, February 7, 1884 Tonight the ex-soldiers and sail-

ors of Franklin county held their sixth annual reunion at Com-

stock's Opera House. The building was densely packed, and fully

half of the people who desired admittance were unable to get in.

I made the only address of the evening, and spoke perhaps forty

minutes on "The Military Instinct." The speech was delivered

poorly, and did not seem to meet with much favor. The fact is,

I am now so little accustomed to making speeches that I am not

very easy and free in the presence of an audience, and tonight was

especially constrained and ineffective. The subject was not over

calculated to please an audience composed mainly of soldiers and

their families, and possibly the indifference of the audience had

something to do with the indifferent manner in which the address

was delivered. When a speaker feels that his hearers are respon-

sive, and heartily indorse what he says, it gives vim and vigor to

his own utterances, and helps him wonderfully in the manner of his

delivery. In fact I think it impossible for a speaker to do his best

before a cold unsympathetic audience.

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394    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

The water in the Scioto reached its highest stage last night

and has been subsiding today. The levee however broke in the

afternoon of yesterday and many parts of the West side are now

under water-work in many manufactures on the river bank is

wholly suspended.

Friday, February 8, 1884   My address of last evening appeared

in full in today's issue of the Ohio State Journal. Mrs. Melissa

Hane, wife of John J. Hane of Marion, is with us tonight, and was

with us last night. She is the daughter of Uncle Horace Bell who

died of cholera at Cedar Point near Sandusky in 1848. Her mother,

my father's sister, died at the same time, and at the same place,

and of the same disease.

The waters of the Scioto have fallen considerably: at Cincin-

nati the Ohio is 62 ft, 6 ft below high water mark of a year ago.

The Muskingum is higher than it was a year ago. There is a

report in the city, which I think is not referred to by the evening

papers, to the effect that while many people were standing on the

river bank at Marietta, a land slide occurred by which fifteen or

twenty people were precipitated into the river and lost their lives.

Mrs. Anderson, wife of Hon James H. Anderson,13 dined with

us today.

Prof. Lazenby of the State University called this evening and

accompanied Carrie and Jennie to a party somewhere in the neigh-

borhood.

The weather has been as mild as spring time; the day has been

cloudy, and some rain has fallen.

The Cincinnati Dailies are filled by accounts of the flood.

Much loss of property and suffering have been occasioned by it at

Cincinnati and below and much damage done to good roads gener-

ally throughout Ohio and Indiana and Pennsylvania.

 

13 James H. Anderson was born in Marion and educated at Ohio Wesleyan and

the University of Cincinnati Law School. An early Republican, he was elected mayor

of Marion, and in 1861 Lincoln appointed him consul at Hamburg; he held this post

until 1866. In the latter year he was a delegate to the Philadelphia National Union

convention of the supporters of Johnson and the president appointed him a collector

of internal revenue. In 1879 he served on the state executive committee in support

of Thomas Ewing's candidacy for governor on the Democratic-Greenback ticket. He

moved to Columbus in 1873 and was a life member and trustee of the Ohio State

Archaeological and Historical Society.

• 6
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                 395

 

Saturday, February 9, 1884 The weather continues mild and

moist with a tendency to rain. The roads are muddy, and some

of the results of the condition of things in midwinter are dullness

in business and despondency of the people. Moderately cold

weather and hard streets would make trade brisker and the people

more cheerful. Manufacturing interests of many kinds are just now

much depressed. This is especially the case with iron furnaces,

rolling mills, and agricultural implement manufactures. Major

Rodgers, who returned from Springfield today, says the shops of

that city are running short, that is to say, doing as little work as

they can without actually shutting down. He met an iron manu-

facturer from Portsmouth who was greatly cast down over the out-

look, and felt little hope that there could be any revival of that

industry until the tariff was increased so as to prohibit the intro-

duction of the iron of other countries. The Door Sash and Lumber

Company of this city, which last year made a profit of $21,000,

has this year lost $13,000. The Ohio Furniture Company is said

to have lost money also during the year just closed. The facts, I

think, would show that the country has too many men and too much

money engaged in the business of manufacturing, and the supply

keeps far in excess of the demand. There should be more men on

little farms, and fewer in cities and towns. The farm laborer is

always sure of enough to eat, but the shop worker is not. Carrie

went to Marion with Mrs. Hane.

 

Sunday, February 10, 1884 I have been reading the report of

the Commission appointed by Governor Foster to examine into the

contract labor system of the Ohio Penitentiary. The Commission

consisted of Henry C. Noble, a lawyer of this city for some years

retired from practice, W. D. Patterson, Superintendent of the Cleve-

land Work House, and Henry Laskey, the Commissioner of Labor

Statistics. The Report is quite long, but not at all able. The Com-

mittee evidently began its work with a determination to find all the

objections to the system possible to be thought of or imagined,

and to be silent as to its advantages, if per adventure it had any

to recommend it, and from this initial resolution they did not any-

where depart. The main fault with our prison lies in the fact that

all classes of criminals are herded together under the same roof,

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396   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

and put through the same disciplinary course. Any successful

effort at improvement must begin with the establishment of an in-

termediate prison, where the young and less hardened may be sub-

jected to a mixed course of education and labor, and kept from

association with the incorrigibles. The present system in the Ohio

Penitentiary is well enough suited to the old offenders, the more

vicious and hardened. For their sakes the discipline can hardly be

too rigorous, and for the sakes of the criminally inclined on the

outside the Penitentiary should be robbed of none of its terrors.

Monday, February 11, 1884 Henry Ward Beecher in Brooklyn

and David Swing in Chicago made Wendell Phillips the theme of

their discourses yesterday. Mr. Beecher said "It has been said a

thousand times, and every time falsely, that the North sold out, and

having realized on their slaves, invested in liberty as a better pay-

ing stock." He shows that when emancipation was decided upon

in the North, no slaves were taken south and sold, and so well was

this point guarded that "No man was permitted to take a slave out

of the state of New York without giving bond for his return."

Swing defines Eloquence as "the adequate treatment of a vast

theme" and again "A great mind treating a great theme are the

two elements needed to make eloquence" and again "Eloquence is

a great treatment of a great subject." These definitions, I think,

are somewhat defective. A great mind may treat a great theme so

cooly and dispassionately as not to be eloquent. Eloquence fires

the heart. It moves to tears, to indignation, or to fury. Swing is,

I think, not less able than Beecher, but he is less eloquent, and yet

both speak on the same subjects. Eloquence is in no way depend-

ent upon the magnitude of the theme. An impulsive, passionate

man, let his theme be what it may, is always eloquent when in

earnest. He may be eloquent and not logical: he may be both elo-

quent and wrong. Eloquence, however, when united with a great

theme, and strong argument, is more effective than when not, for

then attention is riveted, judgement convinced, and passions aroused.

Eloquence is emotional, rather than logical. It is not the steady

blaze of the sun, but the brilliancy of the sunset. Not the magnifi-

cent expanse of sky and cloud, but the quick brilliant and the sono-

rous peal. Wit is near akin to eloquence but differs in this. It

• 8
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                  397

 

always comes unexpectedly while the other does not! It incites

laughter while the other may not: it is light and playful while the

other is in terrible earnest.

The Ohio at Cincinnati reached 67 and 8/12ths feet today, and

at last accounts was rising at the rate of 3 1/2 inches per hour. This

is the highest stage of water ever known there, it being one foot

and four inches above last year.

Tuesday, February 12, 1884 At 2 1/2 o'clock p. m. at Cincin-

nati the Ohio was 68 feet 5 1/2 inches, being one foot and eleven

inches higher than last year.

The most pathetic incident of the great flood is that of a woman

floating down the river on the roof of her house, and when men

rode out to rescue her, she refused to get into the skiff, because she

had four dead children in the rooms below her, and would not be

separated from them. Was there ever any more striking illustration

of parental love than this? Appeals are coming in from most of

the river towns of Ohio for aid, and Columbus is responding lib-

erally. Mr. P. W. Huntington has been, I think, the most generous

giver here. He supplemented his $100 cash subscription by 2500

lbs of ham, and 1200 loaves of bread. It was yesterday that the

poor mother floated by Middleport seated on the roof of her house.

Think of her in the starless gloom of last night and this alone in

the great waste and rush of waters with her four drowned children!

How precious they must have been to her, when neither the terrors

of the flood, or the prospect of certain death, could induce her to

abandon their lifeless bodies. It would be difficult for the imag-

ination to suggest a spectacle more sad than this, or human love

more reckless in its fealty.

Wednesday, February 13, 1884 The Ohio reached a height of

seventy feet today at Cincinnati, and the flood is sweeping the

shores from Wheeling to Louisville and still farther down, with the

bosom of destruction. The streets of many towns and cities have

over them water of sufficient depth to float large river steamers.

The people of these places have fled to the hills for safety, and are

dependent for food clothing and shelter upon the bounty of those

more fortunate than themselves. The loss of property of various

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398   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

kinds will be great, but this, I apprehend, will be little when com-

pared with that greater loss which will come from the depreciation

in value of city and village real estate in the inundated district.

People will not feel safe in building on sites which may at any

time be ten feet under water. Neither will they buy, nor rent, nor

occupy those already built. It is now 11 p. m. and has been raining

hard since 7 p. m.

 

Thursday, February 14, 1884 At two o'clock this morning the

river at Cincinnati had risen to seventy feet eight and one half

inches: today it went above seventy one, but tonight we hear that

it is falling slowly-almost imperceptibly. Since the occupation of

this continent by white people there has never, previously, been a

flood in the Ohio so great as this. An Indian legend tells of a period

in the remote past when waters swept from hill to hill. Did the

rapid rise of rivers, on whose shores the red men preferred to live,

produce in them the habit or the custom of occupying wigwams,

which could be quickly and rapidly moved, instead of building

permanent abodes?

The reports from all the river counties of Ohio are distressing.

In the Fourth Edition of the evening Dispatch there is a special

that in the wind of last night four hundred houses of the town

of Portsmouth were blown down, or carried from their founda-

tions. The water has been over the whole place for days, and

probably the brick of some of the buildings, having become water

soaked and soft, has crumbled. A National Bank in one of the

river towns-Pomeroy I think, was said to be twenty five feet un-

der water. I undertook to throw some doubt upon the accuracy of

this statement when Furay, who happened to be in the office, spoke

up and affirmed that the story was not at all improbable. The night

is clear and moderately cold; favorable, I think, to an abatement

of the waters.

 

Friday, February 15, 1884 At noon yesterday the Ohio

reached 71 feet and 3/4 of an inch at Cincinnati, this being 4 and

8/12 ft higher than the flood of 1883, 6 and 9/12 over the mark

of 1832, and 7 and 6/12 over that of 1847. The water held to this

higher point during the afternoon but by nine o'clock in the even-

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DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                            399

 

ing had receded one inch and has since been declining slowly. A

brick building in the flooded district used as a boarding house fell

at 4 o'clock this morning killing twelve persons. Appeals for aid

are coming from      almost all the cities and villages of the Ohio

river, the loss of property is beyond calculation, the suffering

widespread    and   intense. The people      are responding     generously;

both Congress and the Ohio Legislature have made liberal ap-

propriations for the sufferers.

Met Mr. Aaron F. Perry14 at the "Neil" this evening. We were

in Congress together, and during the conversation referred to the

conspicuous members of that body. He spoke of the time when

Speaker Blaine undertook        to       "sit down" upon      me in    rather an

arbitrary   manner. Mr. Perry            said  laughingly, that Blaine  com-

menced the work as if he thought it would be a very easy thing to

do, but finally gave it up as a hopelessly bad job. Mr. Perry had

reference to a little quarrel Speaker Blaine and I got into over a

question as to whether my committee had a right to make a certain

report or not, and I think the record will show that I had rather

the best of him in the argument. The night is cold and clear-John

Jr. went to Cincinnati to see the flood.

Saturday, February      16, 1884     Cassius M. Clayl⁵ who thirty

years ago    obtained   considerable notoriety as a Kentucky abolit-

tionist--mainly I think because he was a Kentuckian, and who

was appointed by President Lincoln to an important diplomatic

 

14 Aaron Fyfe Perry was born in Vermont, attended the Yale Law School, and

was admitted to the bar in Connecticut in 1838. Two years later he settled in

Columbus and was elected to one term in the state house of representatives, 1847-48.

In 1854 he moved to Cincinnati. In 1864 he was a delegate to the Republican

national convention in Baltimore. In 1870 he was elected to congress but resigned in

1872 before the end of his term. He was chief counsel for the government in the

Credit Mobilier case in 1873. He passed the remainder of his life in Cincinnati, serving

for many years on the board of sinking-fund trustees.

l5 Cassius Marcellus Clay was the son of Green Clay, a wealthy Kentucky land-

owner. He was graduated from Yale College in 1832 and returned to Kentucky to

begin a career of turbulence which included a duel, two stabbings, and a shooting.

Notwithstanding the fact that his father owned many slaves. Clay had heard William

Lloyd Garrison at Yale, and had become an abolitionist. Although twice elected to

the Kentucky legislature, his political career was cut short by his views on slavery,

and he established a newspaper to promote further his opinions. He volunteered for

service in the war with Mexico, was taken prisoner, and escaped after many adven-

tures. At first a Whig and supporter of Henry Clay, he became a Republican and a

friend of Lincoln. In 1861 he was appointed minister to Russia and held this post

until 1869 except for an interval in 1862-63 when he returned to the United States

and served as a major general in the Union army. Having fallen out with Grant, he

deserted the Republicans in 1872 and 1876, but in 1884 he supported Blaine. He was

adjudged a lunatic by the court a few weeks before his death in 1903, three months

before his ninety-third birthday.

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400   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

position, and behaved so badly that--if not recalled--he should

have been, has an article in today's Commercial Gazette ostensibly

on Wendell Phillips, in which under pretense of frankness and

adherance to truth he belittles Phillips and glorifies himself. I

would not have thought it worth while to mention the old bloviater

at all but for what he says in regard to Eloquence. As I have quoted

David Swing on this subject in connection with Phillips, I thought

perhaps it might be well to extract a sentence from  Clay who

evidently regards himself as having been the greatest, wisest and

most eloquent of the anti slavery orators. "The greatest eloquence

requires first a great brain, a great character, and then a great

cause, and with all these immediate action. Of these four requisites

Phillips had the first three, but the last he had not, nor could he

have." What he means by immediate action, I do not know, but

what is meant by action I do comprehend, and Phillips had all of

this that was necessary to make speech effective. Had he sawed

the air more and gesticulated more, and bullied his audience, and

strutted about the platform, he would perhaps have been more like

Cassius M. Clay, but not enough like Phillips to become the chief

orator of his day.

 

Sunday, February 17, 1884 The day has been mild; slight

rain fall; went to Church this morning; and have kept to the

house the remainder of the day. This evening have been thinking

over a talk which I have promised to make to the Young Men's

Christian Association on the subject of "getting a start." I find

some difficulty myself in getting a start on the theme, but have

concluded to confine my remarks to two points.

1st the honest fulfillment of business obligations.

2nd Economy in personal expenditures.

I find in the Commercial Gazette of today an article from the

Literary World on Wendell Phillips which is by far the ablest I

have seen. It says "In power of sustained, severe, fluent, precise,

lucid expression no speaker in modern times certainly was his

master. Edward Everett's oratory was the glitter of an iceberg;

Wendell Phillips' that of the sunshine. It is idle for us who have

heard Phillips only to attempt to compare him with other great

orators whom we have not heard--Burke, Pitt, Demosthenes. The

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DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                             401

 

true power of oratory is to be felt only in the presence of it, and it

was not hard in the presence of Mr. Phillips' oratory to think that

no other oratory could have compared with it. It was enough."

We look for John Jr. to get home from Cincinnati on    the

midnight train. Hobart has been reading the boy's King Arthur

and has been perplexing us with questions about Knights and

Kings.

Monday, February 18, 1884          Captain L. D. Myers, Postmaster

of this city, is a member of a Board for the investigation of charges

against French who has supervision of the western division, I think,

of the Railway Postal Service. The investigating Board holds its

meetings at Indianapolis, and the captain has had an opportunity

to pick up a little current gossip of that section. He says that Mrs.

Hendricks, wife of the ex-Senator, is determined that Mrs. Mc-

Donald, wife of Senator McDonald, shall never preside at the

White House for the reason that she was for two years his mistress

before the death of his first wife, and consequently is rather too

much off color for a Presidents lady. Hendricks and McDonald16

are rival candidates for the honor of a nomination by the Demo-

cratic National Convention.

Captain Myers tells me that General John Coburn17 of In-

dianapolis has been appointed to a Judgeship in the Territory of

Dakota. I am surprised to learn that he would accept a position

of this sort, with a salary of but $2500, much less I would think

 

16 Thomas Andrews Hendricks and Joseph Ewing McDonald were both born in

Ohio only a few days apart in the same year, 1819, and both moved to Indiana in

early childhood. Both men likewise were prominent figures in the Democratic party

of that state. Hendricks graduated from Hanover College in 1841 and served one

term each in the state house of representatives and senate and two terms in congress

(1851-55) before the Civil War. He was a United States Senator from 1863 to 1869.

He was three times a candidate for governor of Indiana, in 1860, 1868, and 1872;

the third time he was elected. As the Democratic candidate for vice president on the

ticket with Tilden he was beaten in 1876, but on being renominated with Cleveland

in 1884 he was elected and died in office. McDonald graduated from what is now

De Pauw University in 1840 and served one term in congress (1849-51) and two

terms as attorney general of Indiana before the Civil War. He was defeated as a

candidate for governor of Indiana in 1864 and served in the United States Senate

from 1875 to 1881. McDonald married three times: first, in 1844 to Nancy Ruth

Buell who died in 1872; second, in 1874, to Araminta W. Vance who died in 1875;

and third, in 1880, to Mrs. Joseph F. Bernard who outlived him.

17 John Coburn was born in Indianapolis and graduated from Wabash College in

1846. He served one term as representative in the state legislature in 1850. During the

Civil War he was colonel of the 33d Indiana Infantry and ended the war with the

brevet of brigadier general. In congress he was a Republican colleague of Beatty's

from Indiana, serving four terms from 1867 to 1875, and was defeated for reelection

in 1874. He resigned his appointment (which was dated February 19, 1884) as

justice of the supreme court of the Territory of Montana (not Dakota) in December

1885 and practiced law in Indianapolis until his death in 1908.

• 13
 

402     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

than he could make by the practice of his profession at home.

Men, however, like recognition by the Government or the people,

and frequently accept an office when it is a positive disadvantage to

them. Coburn is a bright man, thoroughly honest, but somewhat

deficient in energy, and his wife is a very entertaining woman, well

informed in respect to Indiana politics and politicians. She is a

cousin of General Lew Wallace, and knew Senator Morton¹⁸ when

he was a youth working at the hatter's trade in her native village.

 

Tuesday, February 19, 1884 General B. F. Scribner of Indi-

ana called on me today. He was a good soldier: we were in the

same Division at the battle of Stone River. What his business is

just now I do not know, but after the war he went, I think, in some

governmental capacity to the Seal Islands of Alaska, and remained

some years. His description of the coming of the seals to the Is-

lands: the battles of the males: the immense numbers which gather

on the rocks and cliffs of the shore: the ease with which they are

driven inland by the native men of the Islands, and how they are

slaughtered, and stripped of their skins, is all very interesting, as

is also his account of the natives, who although very ignorant have

yet the skill to make from the flour and sugar issued to them by

the Government a liquor which makes them beastly drunk. The

General has lost his wife and one son recently, and feels very much

depressed. I knew his wife: she was in the camp at Murfreesboro

for a month or two: and was an exceedingly intelligent and pleas-

ant woman.

It has been warm     and spring like today: but just now, 11

o'clock PM, the wind is holding high carnival without, and every

few minutes the rain beats against the windows, as if it would drive

them in. The newspapers report that a cold wave is on the way,

and so we are looking to have it as cold as Siberia in a day or two.

 

 

18 Oliver Perry Morton and Lewis Wallace were both born in Indiana, Morton

being nearly four years the elder. Morton was elected lieutenant governor of Indiana

in 1860 and became governor shortly thereafter upon the elevation of Governor Henry

S. Lane to the senate. Morton was reelected governor in 1864, and United States

Senator in 1867, serving in that body until his death in 1877. Wallace, best known

as the author of Ben Hur and other popular novels, was the son of a governor of

and member of congress from Indiana. He served in the war with Mexico as a junior

officer and in the Civil War as a major general. Though defeated by Early on the

Monocacy on July 9, 1864, his delaying action there had much to do with saving the

city of Washington from the Confederates. Wallace was governor of the Territory of

New Mexico, 1878-81, and minister to Turkey, 1881-85.

• 14
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                 403

 

Wednesday, February 20, 1884  Mack of the Sandusky Reg-

ister sent me his paper the other day with a very handsome notice

of the Belle O'Becket's Lane. It was so good that I entertained some

doubts of the writers sincerity, and so on the spur of the moment

I wrote him, "That I was either very much obliged to him or

should kick him out of his boots, and was not quite sure which.

The notice read first rate, but I had an unpleasant suspicion that

he was laughing at me from between the lines." Today I got a

letter from him saying there was nothing between the lines, that

he was amused at seeing his wife wipe her eyes over the book, and

that Mr. John Mack and his wife admitted that they sat up till

midnight reading it, and that they both spoke of it enthusiastically

and that the verdict of the whole Mack family was in my favor. This

pleases me very much, for as the scene of the story is at Sandusky,

I feared that the people of that place would take exception to my

descriptions, and probably regard my characters as commonplace

and the book as a whole silly and uninteresting.

Keifer gave his testimony today before the committee in the

Boynton case. It was simply a reiteration of the charges made in

his speech to the House.

Thursday, February 21, 1884 The best reply to Robert Inger-

solls criticisms on the Bible, and his arguments in denial of the

truth of the New Testament: the divinity of Christ and the Justice

of the God of the Hebrews is that of a Catholic priest of Waterloo

New York named L. A. Lambert. It is in a book of 200 pages and

rains sledge hammer blows on the head of the notorious infidel.

In fact he shows him to be illogical in argument, untruthful in

statement, and utterly unworthy of attention. Ingersoll may be

more eloquent than Lambert, but he certainly is not more forcible,

nor does he exhibit a greater familiarity with the subject under

discussion, nor deliver himself in more incisive language. The

Priest at times is simply crushing, and his book is as interesting as

a romance. It is entitled "Notes on Ingersoll" published by the

Buffalo Catholic Publication Company. There is nothing in it to

which any Protestant could take exception and is well worthy the

consideration of all who are in any degree tinctured with infidelity.

Mrs. Mary Ellen Huston was buried today in Green Lawn, the

• 15
 

404     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

funeral ceremonies were performed at the Cathedral, Bishop Wat-

terson delivering the sermon. Mrs. Huston was the only daughter

of Henry Miller--I served as one of the pall bearers.

 

Friday, February 22, 1884 I met Judge Foraker, late Repub-

lican candidate for Governor, at the Neil House this morning: he

greeted me very cordially, although I am quite sure he must know

that I did not aid him much in his effort to be elected. He made a

good canvas, however, and I told him I thought he would have been

successful, if he had not, or rather if the Republican party had

not been burdened with an unpopular candidate for the United

States Senate. I hope now that he may be the next candidate of

the party, and trust then he will be successful. He is quite a young

man, and is evidently very bright--not a great man, but one who

is well calculated to succeed as a politician.¹⁹

I went into the senate chamber and remained a few minutes,

and then to the House, but nothing of importance or interest was

being done in either body.

Captain Smith told me that his father in law Judge Swan²⁰

was very much pleased with my review of the report of the Peni-

tentiary Commission. He had been making almost precisely the

same criticisms on it which I made. He says that Henry C. Noble

is wholly deficient in ability to argue a question and to express his

 

 

19 Beatty's estimate of Foraker seems both fair and remarkably acute. Foraker

had not then been elected to important office, but ahead of him lay two terms as

governor of Ohio, two terms as United States Senator, and a quarter of a century of

active political life in which he was a leader of the first rank. As to the causes for

Foraker's defeat in his first try for the governorship in 1883, however, authorities are

not generally in agreement with Beatty. Randall and Ryan, for example, say Foraker's

defeat "was due entirely to the dissatisfaction of the German Republicans of the

State with the legislation relating to the taxation and regulation of the liquor traffic"

to which Foraker was committed. History of Ohio (5 vols., New York, 1912), IV, 347.

20 Joseph Rockwell Swan was born in New York state. In 1824 he came to

Columbus and entered the office of his uncle Gustavus Swan, a lawyer who served

briefly as a judge of the Supreme Court of Ohio. Swan rose rapidly in his profession

and in 1850 was elected a member of the Ohio constitutional convention, in the de-

liberations of which he took a prominent part. In 1854 he was elected a judge of

the supreme court and served from February 1855 until his resignation in November

1859. Although a decided abolitionist, Swan upheld the fugitive slave law in a case

in the spring of 1859 concerning two of the rescuers in the Oberlin-Wellington affair,

and incurred such unpopularity thereby that the Republicans refused to renominate

him for the supreme bench. Thereafter Swan refused all proffers of public office, but

he had an impressive reputation as a legal authority. He died in December 1884.

• 16
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                             405

 

thoughts clearly and logically. I met Genl Geo W Morgan²¹ on the

floor of the House.

 

Saturday, February 23, 1884  I can think of nothing that has

transpired today within my knowledge which is at all worthy of

record, and yet the day has been a busy one, in which many little

things have claimed attention. I wrote a letter to Mack of the San-

dusky Register in which I said that if Sherman were a candidate

for the Presidency I thought it would not be well for us to oppose

him again; that I was tired of politics, and did not think I had

bitterness enough left in me to make a good hearty fighter any more.

As between     Sherman, Blaine and Logan,²² I think             I should

now prefer the former. I opposed him four years ago simply be-

cause I did not want any one connected with Hayes' administration

to succeed Hayes. If Sherman had protested against the surrender

of Louisiana and South Carolina, instead of acquiescing in it, I be-

lieve he would have been nominated and elected instead of Gar-

field.

Blaine's record is not good, and it has been overhauled so

often, that the people have become tired of looking at it, and de-

fending it.

 

21 George Washington Morgan, a Democratic colleague of Beatty's in congress,

was born in Pennsylvania. He left Washington College to serve in the Texan war of

independence and then returned to the United States and accepted an appointment

to West Point. After two years as a cadet he resigned in 1843 and moved to Mount

Vernon, Ohio, where he was admitted to the bar. He was a colonel in the war with

Mexico and breveted brigadier general for gallantry at Contreras and Cherubusco. In

1855 he was appointed consul at Marseilles and in 1858 minister resident at Lisbon,

Portugal. He rose to command a corps in the Civil War, but resigned in June 1863

because of his objections, among other things, to the use of Negro troops. A supporter

of McClellan, he campaigned unsuccessfully against General Jacob D. Cox as the

Democratic candidate for governor in 1865. He served in congress from March 1867

until June 1868, when his election was successfully contested by Columbus Delano and

he lost his seat. However, he regained it in 1868 and served from 1869 to 1873, being

defeated for reelection in 1872.

22 As between the three candidates, John Sherman of Ohio was the eldest. In

all, he enjoyed forty-three years of uninterrupted public service, from 1855 to 1898,

including six years in the house of representatives, thirty-two years in the senate, four

years as secretary of the treasury, and one year as secretary of state. His name was

placed before the Republican party at three successive conventions, but he never re-

ceived the nomination. John Alexander Logan served as a junior officer in the war with

Mexico and as a major general and army commander in the Civil War. Before the

war he had been a Democratic representative in congress from Illinois from 1859 until

his resignation in 1862; after the war he was a Republican representative from 1867 to

1871 and a United States Senator from 1871 to 1877 and from 1879 until his death in

1886. James Gillespie Blaine was a Republican representative in congress from Maine

from 1863 until he resigned to enter the senate in 1876; from 1869 to 1875 he was

speaker of the house of representatives. In March 1881 he left the senate to accept

the secretaryship of state and held this position until December of the same year.

With Logan as running mate he was defeated in the national election of 1884, but

he returned to public life as secretary of state in 1889, resigning in June 1892, about

six months before his death.

• 17
 

406    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

John A. Logan is a light weight politician and not overly

honest. He is only remarkable for his impudence, and bad English.

He lacks the breadth, dignity, and culture to fill creditably the

Executive chair.

Sunday, February 24, 1884 I take up my pen tonight with-

out knowing what to put down. I am not feeling very well and 1 did

not go to church and have seen none of my neighbors from whom I

could borrow an idea. An article in one of the Sunday papers,

however, reminded me that on the 22d instant I went into the

Senate chamber and took a chair outside the railing. The Hon.

Allen Levering²³ of the Morrow District observing me, came to

where I sat and I said to him, "I am surprised to find you Senators

at work on a holiday." "Why" said he, "is this a holiday?" "Cer-

tainly" I replied, "this is the 22d of February--Washington's birth-

day-a legal holiday." "Well really," he said "I have sort of lost

the run of the days. I'll offer a resolution to adjourn. The flag

ought to be at half mast oughtn't it?" "O no" I said "it should be

at the top of the pole." I thought no more about the matter at the

time, but I saw by the paper in the evening that Levering's reso-

lution to adjourn and to lower the flag to half mast was adopted.

The Sunday papers say that subsequently some of the Democratic

members standing in front of a saloon opposite the State House,

and noticing that the flag was only half way up the staff asked

"Who is dead?" The reply was "George Washington." "When did

he die &c" The Senate corrected the blunder so far as it could the

next day by altering the words of the resolution.

[At the request of Mrs. Joyce, General Beatty's daughter, the

entry of February 25 has been omitted.--H. S. F.]

 

Tuesday, February 26, 1884 This afternoon I went into the

House of Representatives to hear the discussion on a bill to make

certain radical changes in the management of the Penitentiary. The

bill authorizes, or requires what are called indeterminate sentences

--that is to say sentences which do not fix the term of the criminals

imprisonment. It gives the Directors of the Penitentiary power to

 

23 Allen Levering was born in Morrow County and was a successful dry goods

merchant of Mt. Gilead. A Democrat in politics, he was a state representative, 1878-80,

and a state senator, 1884-86.

• 18
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                      407

 

release prisoners on parole, and to release them altogether. It

substitutes the piece plan or process for the present contract system.

The greater number of the speakers were especially bitter on the

Convict Contract System, some urging that it was too severe on

the prisoners, and should therefore be abolished on human grounds,

others that it enabled a few men to make large profits, which would

accrue to the state if the system were done away with, and still

others that this cheap labor affected unfavorably the wages of out-

side, or free labor. Some of these arguments were well founded.

In the first place it is the duty of the prison authorities to see that

severe tasks are not imposed, and the interest of the contractor not

to break down their men by imposing severe tasks. In the second

place the labor is let to the highest bidder and brings all it is worth

to the state. In the third place it affects the outside laborer no

more unfavorably than if the same work, or any work were done

under the supervision of any other persons.

Wednesday, February 27, 1884 Attended the Republican

Caucus to night. Ex-Governor Noyes²⁴ was called to the chair and

opened the meeting by a long rambling speech. I did not hear the

first part of it, but those who did, said that he repeated his speech

twice. I think he was drunk. A programme had been arranged by

the Central Committee and the names of those who had been in-

vited to speak were on a list which the chairman held in his hand,

and the speakers were called in their order. After getting part

way through the list, however, the meeting broke into the arrange-

ments of the Committee by calling for me. I was not prepared to

respond but I could not get out of it very well and so took my

place on the rostrum          and did the best I could under the circum-

stances. Judging from        the applause, and the marked attention of

the audience, I must have done tolerably well. In fact after I had

concluded I was congratulated on all hands for having struck the

important points squarely on the head. Ex-Governor Foster, Genl

Grosvenor, Mr. Doan of Wilmington, Judge Jones of Delaware,

 

24 Edward Follansbee Noyes was born in Massachusetts, and after graduation

from Dartmouth in 1857 he moved to Cincinnati and was admitted to the bar. Dur-

ing the Civil War he attained the brevet of brigadier general and was severely

wounded. He was the successful Republican candidate for governor in 1871 but was

defeated for reelection in 1873. At Cincinnati in 1876 he put Hayes's name before the

convention and helped to execute the strategy which brought the nomination to

Hayes instead of Blaine. During Hayes's administration Noyes was minister to France.

• 19
 

408     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Richard Parsons of Cleveland, Senator Wolcott, Ex-Secretary of

State Townsend,²⁵ and others spoke. The Hall of the House of

Representatives was crowded and the meeting lasted until about

11 o'clock. After it adjourned I walked home in a snow storm.

Thursday, February 28, 1884 My little speech of last eve-

ning was received with greater favor than I at first supposed: Camp-

bell of Cincinnati said "If there ever was a platform uttered in a

single sentence it was when General Beatty spoke." Robert Harlan

(colored) said that General Beatty "had made" his "speech." The

Ohio State Journal says "it was the best speech of the evening."

The Evening Dispatch says I "tersely sounded the keynote of the

campaign." The Commercial Gazette says "General Beatty received

a perfect ovation as he walked down the central aisle to take his

seat." The News Journal says he was "given the only ovation of

the evening."

There was little in what I said to draw out these flattering

notices and the warm approval of the audience. In a few words

I presented the idea that protection of the citizen in the employ-

ment of his legal rights was of greater importance than the protec-

tion of American industry: that while men were discussing questions

of tariff and finance they were unmindful of the fact that mil-

 

25 Charles Foster was born near Tiffin and became a wealthy merchant in Fostoria.

He was a Republican representative in congress from 1871 to 1879, governor of Ohio

from 1880 to 1884, and secretary of the treasury from 1891 to 1893. Azariah W.

Doan was born in Wilmington and was admitted to the bar in 1853. He served in the

army throughout the Civil War and was breveted a brigadier general. He was elected

as a Republican to the state senate for the term 1866-68, and to the Constitutional

Convention of 1873. He was elected a judge of the court of common pleas in 1875

and reelected in 1880. Thomas C. Jones was born in Wales and was brought to the

United States as a child of six in 1822. The family settled near Delaware where

Jones opened a law office following his admission to the bar in 1841. A Republican,

he served one term in the state senate, 1860-62. He was elected a judge of the court

of common pleas in 1861 and reelected in 1866. He had a considerable reputation

as an authority on livestock breeding. Richard Chappell Parsons was born in Connect-

icut of an old New England family and moved to Ohio in 1845. He was admitted

to the bar in 1851 and practiced in Cleveland. He was elected to two terms as

representative in the state legislature, 1858-62, and was speaker of the house the

second term. In 1862 he served a year as consul at Rio de Janiero and then re-

turned to Cleveland as collector of internal revenue. He was a Republican representa-

tive in congress, 1873-75, and in 1877 he became editor and proprietor of the Cleve-

land Herald. Simon P. Wolcott was born in Summit County, attended Hiram College

with Garfield, and graduated from Western Reserve in 1862. He received an A. M.

degree from the same institution three years later. He was admitted to the bar in

1864 and began the practice of law in Kent. Wolcott was a Republican and was a

state senator from 1882 to 1886. Charles Townsend was born in Belmont County and

graduated from Ohio University in 1861. During the Civil War he served in the 30th

Ohio Infantry, attained the rank of major, and was severely wounded. He graduated

from the University of Cincinnati Law School in 1866. He was elected to two terms

as representative in the general assembly, beginning in 1878, and resigned in the

middle of his second term, having been elected secretary of state for the two years

1881-83. He was defeated for reelection but a few years later was sent to the state

senate for one term, 1888-90.

• 20
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                409

 

lions of American citizens were being shorn of their constitutional

rights. They were clamorous for an increase of duty on wool, and

the protection of sheep but indifferent as to the protection of men,

women and children. The question of protecting the colored men

of the South was as much more important than financial issues as

life and liberty are more important than money. 1st protection of

the Citizen, 2d protection of American products and labor-life

and liberty first, money second.

Called on Govr Hoadly to day in relation to the pardon of a

young man convicted of forgery.

 

Friday, February 29, 1884  Upon the invitation of Mr. John

W. Andrews I went to the Governor's Room of the Capitol to hear

Herbert Welsh, the son of Ex-Minister John Welsh, and Secretary

of the Indian Rights Association of Philadelphia. There were about

fifteen gentlemen present and to these Mr. Welsh spoke of the con-

dition of the Indians, of the injustice done them by the white set-

tlers of the border, and of the inadequacy of the protection and

support accorded to them by the Government. He spoke also of

certain schools, established by the churches, for the education of

the Indian children, and of the readiness and ease with which

these children acquired an education and adopted the habits of

civilization. He dwelt upon the necessity-from a human point of

view-which existed for the establishment of more schools and for

protecting the Indians from the rapacity of the whites who ap-

parently thought that the redman had no rights either of life,

liberty, or property which they were at all bound to respect. The

persons present at the meeting resolved to form an association and

Rev. Mr. Moore, Mr. Moneypenny [George W. Manypenny] and

Mr. Hinman were appointed to make the necessary preparations

for that purpose. Mr. Herbert Welsh is a young man, apparently

not more than 25 or 28, small in stature with a fine head, and

modest pleasing manner. He is wealthy, and has taken to this work

from a sense of duty-the organization agreed upon will be known

as the Indian Rights Association of Columbus.

 

Saturday, March 1, 1884 Today I obtained from confidential

sources a little of the inside history of the Republican Central Com-

• 21
 

410    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

mittee which held meetings here on the 27th and 28th of February.

General Grosvenor of Athens some months ago solicited the mem-

bers of the Executive Committee for the honor of serving as tem-

porary chairman of the forthcoming State Convention, and by rea-

son of the influence of the Committee Mr. Converse,²⁶ chairman of

the State Committee, notified him that he would be chosen for

the position named, but when the General Committee met to fix

the time and place for holding the state convention, and attend

to such other business as might come before it, it was found that

Chairman Converse had not been authorized to select General Gros-

venor for temporary chairman and that there was much opposition

to his appointment of an exceedingly bitter character, and for the

purpose of reconciling members of the committee, Grosvenor was

compelled to make personal appeals to them, urging that it was

known that he had been selected and that if the committee refused

to ratify the action of its chairman he would be humiliated before

the whole state. It is even said that the General felt so deeply

over the matter that he shed tears, and so by his own efforts with

members, and hard work on the part of his friends, he succeeded

in obtaining a majority of the Committee to sanction the hasty

action of its chairman.

 

Sunday, March 2, 1884 The papers of today give a summary

of Boynton's testimony in the case between himself and Keifer. He

denies under oath that anything more than a casual reference was

made to the McGarrahan claim at the time referred to by the ex-

speaker, that he really went to the speakers room on other business,

and that Keifer's statement as to what was said and as to what took

place on that occasion was wholly untrue. He introduced witnesses

to prove that after the interview where the corrupt proposition is

alleged to have been made Keifer visited him at his own rooms, and

in a friendly way talked with him about certain features of the

tariff bill then pending in the House.

The Commercial Gazette contains the cross examination of

 

26 Julius O. Converse was born in Chardon, Geauga County. He was admitted

to the bar in 1858 and became editor of the Geauga Republican the next year. He

was chairman of the Republican state central committee in 1883 and 1884 and

delegate to the Republican national convention in the latter year. He was twice

postmaster of Chardon.

• 22
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                 411

 

Keifer by Boynton but the original statements of the former were

not materially affected by this examination.

The case now stands thus. Keifer swears that Boynton did

make to him a corrupt proposition. Keifer's clerk swears that the

two men were alone together at the time and place where Keifer

alleges the proposition was made: two other witnesses swear that

at another time and place they heard Boynton say that Keifer would

not aid in the passage of the McGarrahan bill. Other witnesses

swear that Keifer told them about Boynton's attempt to corrupt

him long before he made it known to the House. On the other hand

Boynton swears that Keifer's story is a fabrication: alleges that

two of Keifers witnesses have borne false testimony, and attempts

to show that subsequent to the time when the alleged offence was

committed, Keifer called at his rooms, and talked with him in a

friendly way about a matter entirely foreign to the one in dispute.

If this latter claim can be established to the satisfaction of the

country, it will place Keifer in an exceedingly awkward predica-

ment. There are two things however which indicate that this will

not be done. 1st the day on which the alleged corrupt proposition

is said to have been made is not clearly established by the testi-

mony. It is thought to have been prior to Mch 1 but might have

been as late as Mch 2d. 2d the witnesses to the interview in Boyn-

ton's room are, I think, Boynton's newspaper employees or asso-

ciates, and their recollection as to day and date may be influenced

by desire to help a friend.

 

Monday, March 3, 1884 Chaplain Van Horn²⁷ the author of

the History of the Army of the Cumberland and the Life of General

George H. Thomas was in the bank this morning, and among other

things said that the statement made in the campaign life of Garfield

to the effect that Garfield was the hero of Chickamauga, is simply

ridiculous; his presence on the field had no influence whatever on

the battle: he made no important suggestion to Thomas, and was

after his return simply a spectator. The claim that he returned at

his own option is untrue. Captain Gaw, who had been ordered by

Rosecrans to guide him and his staff to Chattanooga by the shortest

 

27 Thomas A. Van Horne (not Horn) is the author to whom reference is made

here.

• 23
 

412   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

possible route, took them over the ridges to the Day Valley road and

then said "General this is the direct road to Chattanooga, I trust

you will permit me to return to General Thomas." "Certainly"

Rosecrans replied "tell Thomas" so and so. "But" said Gaw

"would it not be better to send your Chief of Staff with any order

you may have for General Thomas." Thereupon Rosecrans directed

Garfield to return to the field and tell Thomas that he had gone

to Chattanooga to prepare for the reception of the Army when it

should fall back. The conversation between Gaw and Rosecrans

may not be correctly stated, and the order from Rosecrans to

Thomas by Garfield may not be given exactly, but the fact that

Gaw suggested the return of Garfield, and that Rosecrans ordered

it, is the point about which Van Horn says there is no doubt. Gaw

was of Thomas' staff, not Rosecrans's. It was the thought, possibly,

that a message from the commanding General should be sent by

his chief of staff which led to Garfield's return. There was no

difficulty in returning. The whole right wing, or so much of it as

had abandoned the field, could have returned as Garfield and Gaw

did without encountering opposition. The same may be said of

the troops led off by Negley.

 

Tuesday, March 4, 1884 I read a book this evening written by

Arnold Guyot of the College of New Jersey (Princeton) just pub-

lished by Charles Scribner's Sons in which the author undertakes

to show and I think succeeds in showing, that the Biblical account

of creation is in exact harmony with the revelations of science.

"In the beginning"             "Gas indefinitely diffused"

"Let light be"        (1st day) "Concentration of matter lumi-

nous spots

"Let there be an expanse"

(2d day) "Formation of the visible starry

world

"Let the dry land appear

(3d day) "First appearance of land

 

"Let the earth bring forth

vegetation      "  "  "Infusorial plants

• 24
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                 413

 

"Let luminaries be in

the expanse          (4 dy)  Sun & moon visible

God created reptiles &

birds                                    (5 " )         Land plants reptiles coal beds

God made the beasts               (6 " )         Predominance of mammals

"     created man                     (  " )          Introduction of man

"     rested                              (7 dy)       No material creation since.

Princeton state of matter-Gas. 1. Concentration. 2. formation

of nebulous masses. 3. the Azoic rocks. 4. the age of the Archaean

rocks. Protophytes. Protozoans. 5. Paleozoic and Mesozoic rocks.

6. The Tertiary and Quaternary rocks. 7. The present age. So

that science teaches that creation was in the exact order set forth in

the Book of Genesis.

I make this memoranda so that I may not forget to study up

the subjects alluded to.

 

Wednesday, March 5, 1884  Johnson, who is quietly looking

after Sherman's presidential interests in Ohio, called today to sug-

gest that it would be well for me to be a candidate before the state

convention for Delegate at large to the Chicago convention. He

thinks my chances for the position very good and I infer from this,

and from other things, that Mr. Sherman would be pleased to have

me selected for the place.

 

Thursday, March 6, 1884 Went with Mr. Hinman to the Rooms

of the Young Men's Christian Association to hear Henry Chitten-

den's lecture. His theme was Sans Souci, the words of it are

rather unfamiliar to the American ear, but the lecture was a repe-

tition of old and familiar things, some of them not at all calculated

to benefit the young men to whom he spoke. The drift of the

matter was that we should go through life soberly, easily and

quietly, avoid excesses in work, in opinion, and otherwise if there

be an other wise. He referred by name to a man who had recently

gone crazy by reason of religious zeal: to one who had become

bankrupt because not satisfied with a moderate fortune; to men

• 25
 

414    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

who were broken down physically and mentally because unwilling

to rest from their labors when they should have done so; to men

whose anxiety to achieve wealth and fame led to their destruction.

All of which was well enough, but indirectly he gave his hearers

to understand that the moderate use of intoxicating liquors could

not be objected to because the English who were the healthiest

people in the world were moderate drinkers, and that as the work-

ing people had no other holiday it could not be wrong to play

base ball on Sunday, both of which ideas were, I think, calculated

to do harm to the young, for no more important things can be in-

stilled into the minds of youth than to avoid strong drink; and

respect the Sabbath.

Friday, March 7, 1884      At the request of Governor Hoadly I

called at the Executive office this morning to talk with him about a

convict whom he thinks of pardoning. The Governor is looking

very much better than when he first came to the city, and from his

appearance I conclude he has recovered entirely from his nervous

disorder.   He was engaged when I first entered his office, and so

I sat down to await my turn. Mr. Newman,²⁸ Secretary of State,

being in the room, came and took a seat beside me. The conversa-

tion turned on the Keifer-Boynton controversy. It was Newman's

opinion that Boynton had got Keifer in a hole, and that unless the

latter gentleman could prove that he was not in Boynton's office on

the night of March 1st--a thing very difficult to do-the decision of

the country would be against him. I think the newspaper correspond-

ents who have appeared as witnesses against Keifer are so bitterly

hostile to him that they would be likely to conclude that their im-

pressions and suspicions were facts and affirm them under oath.

Colonel Sam Hunt²⁹ of Cincinnati, who has adopted politics as a

pastime, and obtained some notoriety in the state as a Columbian

 

28 James Wirt Newman was born in Highland County, the son of a prominent

Democratic politician who made his residence in Portsmouth. He graduated from

Ohio Wesleyan University in 1861 and a few months later took over the editorial

direction of the Portsmouth Times. He was a Democratic member of the state house

of representatives, 1868-70; of the state senate, 1872-76; and secretary of state of

Ohio, 1883-85.

29 Samuel F. Hunt was born in Hamilton County, the son of a doctor. He

attended Miami University and Union College in New York and received degrees

from both. He graduated from the University of Cincinnati Law School and studied

law in the office of Stanley Matthews. He recruited a regiment for the Civil War,

although he did not serve in it. He was elected to the state senate, 1870-72, and

to the Constitutional Convention of 1873; he was the unsuccessful Democratic

candidate for lieutenant governor in 1871. He was an orator of note.

• 26
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                415

 

orator, came into the room and in a humorous way greeted Hoadly

as the "Chief Magistrate of the Great State of Ohio."

 

Saturday, March 8, 1884  C. Parmenter, the publisher and I

suppose the editor of the Lima Gazette, sends me his paper of the

5th instant containing a very flattering notice of myself. After

speaking of my little speech before the Republican caucus, and

quoting from it, he says "For years General Beatty has expressed

true Republican doctrine more clearly than any other Ohio Repub-

lican in his public utterances, and now in the party's defeat they

realize it. x x He has the courage of his convictions, and when he

talks says what he thinks whether it be according to the programme

or not. He would make a rattling leader of a campaign, and nothing

would suit the Gazette better than to see him at the head of the

ticket in 1885 contesting the place of Governor with Judge Hoadly."

Last night rain fell and this morning the limbs and branches

of trees were encased in ice, and the sidewalks so slippery that it

was difficult to walk on them. The day has been dark and gloomy

and business generally very dull.

I have been reading Queen Victoria's book. The criticisms

on it have been very severe, and I think very unjust. Of course she

is not a professional writer, and in point of literary merit the book

may be exceedingly defective: but the work proves beyond question

that she is an honest pure minded simple hearted old woman who

does not hesitate to make the whole world her confidant.

 

Sunday, March 9, 1884  [On this day General Beatty visited a

friend who "was suffering the tortures of the damned" as the result

of an extended drinking bout. As the publication of the unfortu-

nate man's name will serve no useful purpose, it has been omitted

at the request of Mrs. Joyce. The following are the reflections

which General Beatty felt impelled to record as the result of his

visit.-H. S. F.]

What shall be done with men who cannot control their appe-

tite for strong drink, and who in consequence of this weakness are

wasteful, or imprudent in business; dangerous to society: annoying

to their relatives and friends, and nuisances generally? Should

not the state provide a place for their safe keeping, and proper

• 27
 

416    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

treatment? Should not every man found in the condition referred

to be arrested on sight and held until men competent to judge shall

decide that he may be safely set at liberty? In what essential way

does the habitual drunkard differ from the incurable insane?

 

Monday, March 10, 1884 Some time during the darkness,

probably about three oclk this morning our house was entered by a

burglar. He came in through a window on the north side which

had been left unlocked: gathered the wearing apparel from my bed

room on the first floor, from that of the boys on the second floor,

from the rack in the hall, carried it into the parlor where he lighted

the gas and examined the pockets. There was hardly money enough

to remunerate him for his trouble, but he made his visit profitable

by taking away with him John's best suit of clothes. This is the

second time our house has been entered by these light fingered and

soft footed gentlemen. On the occasion of their first visit five or

six years ago, my room on the second floor was entered and the

burglar passing clear around the bed on which I was sleeping took

a gold watch from the table and the little money I had in my pock-

ets and left without disturbing me at all. In fact in both instances

we only discovered that they had been present by finding our

clothes in the morning where they were not put at night, with the

pockets emptied of their contents. On making the discovery that

one who lacks only the temptation to commit murder has been

standing over you in the dead of night, you realize for the first time

how very helpless men are when asleep and how easily great crimes

may be perpetrated.

 

Tuesday, March 11, 1884     Met C. L. Kurtz30 of Athens yester-

day, but I speak of it now because I only ascertained today the

reason of his eagerness to secure a delegation from Ohio to the

Chicago Convention favorable to Senator Sherman. At first he led

me to believe that his interest in Mr. Sherman was only a general

 

30 Charles Lindley Kurtz was born in Athens County and from a start as a

newsboy rose to become the president of several successful companies. Having been

elected secretary of state, Charles Townsend resigned his seat in the lower house of

the general assembly; Kurtz succeeded him and was elected for the following term,

1882-84. Kurtz was secretary to Governor Foraker, 1886-90, and was elected chair-

man of the Republican state executive committee in 1895. By appointment of

Governor Bushnell, Kurtz was state oil inspector for the southern district from 1890 to

1900. Kurtz had a political future of great promise, but his hostility to Mark Hanna

resulted in the abrupt termination of his career in public life.

• 28
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                417

 

one arising from a belief that he was the strongest candidate. Sub-

sequently however me told me in confidence that Sherman had

authorized him to look after his interests in certain sections of the

state and had agreed to reimburse him for all necessary expendi-

tures, but today Johnson informed me that Kurtz had some sort

of a place in the postal service which enabled him to do consider-

able traveling and wire pulling at the expense of the United States,

and for this place, which pays something more than actual ex-

penses, I assume that he is indebted to Sherman. The young man

made a mistake when he professed to be taking me into his con-

fidence that he did not do so fully, for if he doubted me at all he

should have been altogether silent. It was certainly not necessary

for him to tell me that he had relatives in this place and that while

visiting them he could do a little stroke of electioneering as well as

not. Johnson thinks Foster desires to be delegate at large, but that

he will fail of an election. Donaldson who is in Washington keeps

Johnson informed as to Sherman's wishes.

 

Wednesday, March 12, 1884 William and I went to an enter-

tainment held for the benefit of the McCoy Post of the Grand Army

of the Republic at the Opera House this evening a feature of which

--although not the most pleasing one, was what is called the broom

brigade. A company consisting of 18 young ladies of Zanesville

dressed in uniform and armed--if they can be called arms, with

brooms. The "brigade" went through most of the movements

known to the school of the battalion and did it very handsomely

and to the great amusement of the audience. This part of the en-

tertainment was preceded by songs, recitations and dances all of

which were executed very creditably by the young people of Colum-

bus. In fact there were some persons on the stage who conducted

themselves like good professional actors, and there were parts of

the entertainment that would have been pronounced good in a

first class theatre. A Mr. S. W. Cook recited an original poem

founded on that incident of the flood referred to under date of

Febry 12th of the Journal, and recited it very well. I am told he

is a landscape painter of this city. The poem appeared in the Com-

mercial Gazette last Sunday over his name, and was the first knowl-

• 29
 

418    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

edge I had of the man's existence. He is evidently a person of cul-

ture and is a good looking man withal.

 

Thursday, March 13, 1884 Mr. Oglevee31 ex-auditor of the

state and candidate for reelection last fall called on me this morn-

ing. He professed a readiness to support me for delegate at large,

and evidently desired me to profess a readiness to support him for

Secretary of State. I told him that if the position of delegate came

to me without a struggle I should accept it as a compliment, but

that I would make no effort to get it. I have had all the little

unprofitable and vexatious honors of that kind that I care to have,

and yet I do not propose even yet to turn my back on such as come

unsolicited. Mr. Oglevee was the chairman of the Republican Exec-

utive Committee during the last campaign. He was then under-

stood to be somewhat unfavorable to Governor Foster, but recently

he has become his warm friend and eulogist, and I suggested to

him that this fact would injure his candidacy, and I said further-

more that I did not expect either Foster or his friends to support

me for anything, and that I would favor no one who was in any

of Foster's combinations. I am writing this page under difficulties.

My wife and Mrs. John Hane are at the table talking to me and

their remarks do not contribute to clearness of expression or multi-

plicity of thoughts. The day has been mild and I trust the winter

has left us for good. It has been a long and unpleasant one.

Friday, March 14, 1884 Charlie Moore the Insurance Commis-

sioner-a gentleman of Falstaffean proportions physically and of

more than ordinary mental vigor, met me today and said that I

would likely be nominated for delegate at large-that he had just

returned from Fostoria, and that Foster had said that the press of

private business would not permit him to be a candidate. I should

be inclined to doubt the truth of this statement if Moore's reputa-

tion for veracity was ever so good, but knowing what I do of his

tendency to exaggeration, I do not believe the statement at all.

31 John Finley Oglevee was born in Harrison County and enlisted in the army

in 1862. While serving as colorbearer at Chickamauga he was badly wounded, and

for his gallantry on this occasion he was commissioned an officer. When the war

was over he studied law with General J. Warren Keifer, and after being admitted to

the bar in 1867 he formed a partnership with Keifer in Springfield. He was a mem-

ber of the lower house of the general assembly from 1876 to 1880 and auditor of

state from 1880 to 1884.

• 30
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                 419

 

Foster makes too many trips to Washington where business would

not be likely to call him for one who is so entirely wrapped up in

business that he could not spare a day or two for the Chicago Con-

vention, and I do not doubt that he is exceedingly anxious to be

sent there. Moore suggested that it would be well to make a com-

bination on behalf of four candidates who might be agreed upon

and work with a view to their election, but I told him as I did

Oglevee that I would make no struggle for the place. If the thing

came to me well and good, if it did not I should be none the worse

off. Moore has been a tool of Foster's now for four years, and I

think possibly he has a cunningly devised scheme in his head to

work up a combination and then at the last moment have one of

the partners to it drop out and Foster step in.

 

Saturday, March 15, 1884 Jimmy Claham is what is popularly

called a character. He is an Irishman not quite so broad as he is

tall, with an opinion of himself more elevated than any church

spire in the city. Today he called at the bank and said he "dux

ye know the Suprame Jidges?" I answered "Yes." "Well I wish

ye'd be after speakin' a word wid' 'em about Mike Haveland's case."

"That's a delicate matter Mr. Claham. I have hardly the courage

and tact to undertake it." "Oh! man" said he "its the aisyest thing

in the wor-rld, to drap just a word tellin uv 'em that Mike's a poor

man, an' the case a just one, an' they ought to take it up at once, an'

decide in his faver." "You must excuse me Mr. Claham. I am quite

sure I would go about the thing so clumsily that I would prejudice

them against Haveland." "Awah man ye could do it well enough

if ye would: nothing aisier: an' didnt I have a case before 'em

me self once, an' I dressed meself up in black so that I looked more

loike a preacher than a common man, an' I wint into the court room

an' the jidges was all there an' I saiz to Judge McIlvaine sez I

'Jidge when '11 my case come up fer trial? an' sez he it'll be a long

time, Mr. Claham, there's a many cases ahead of it; an' sez I Jidge

can't yez yurry it up fer a friend an' the jidge sez not very well;

cases must take their turn" "Oh" sez I "Jidge yiz can do it if ye

will; whin I was a blacksmith siz I and a friend come for a job I

always did the worrk to once sez I, an' ye can do the same if ye'r

a mind to sez I, an' thin the Jidge laughed, and it u'd a done y'er

• 31
 

420   OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

soul good to 'ave heard 'em laugh, an' sez Jidge McIlvaine to Fan-

ning the clark put Mr Claham's case at the top of the list sez he

an' whin they called the case of Claham, I slapped lawyer Harri-

son on the back wid the flat uv my hand and sez I, 'duz ye hear the

name uv Claham resound in through the halls of Justice sez I an'

how did ye do it Mr. Claham sez he, 'ah man' sez I 'there's nothing

loike havin' a friend at court sez I."

 

Sunday, March 16, 1884 Hobart and I took a walk this morn-

ing and finding ourselves near the North High Street Congrega-

tional Church about the time of the morning service I concluded

to go in and hear Mr. Anderson preach. His theme was the im-

portance of guarding against little sins, which almost before one

realizes it creep in and undermine one's morals. The larger and

more open violations of divine law are less likely to impair Chris-

tian character, than the secret sins-the almost imperceptable de-

flections from the true standard which if indulged grow into radical

divergencies. Tonight I went to the Cathedral to hear Bishop

Watterson lecture on the beauty and poetry of religion. The Bishop

is not as fine an orator as Anderson and of the two efforts I think

the latter's calculated to do the most good. The Bishop made use

of one or two undignified expressions which seemed especially in-

appropriate in the mouth of a bishop.

 

Monday, March 17, 1884 The spring elections are near at

hand and I see by the morning paper that about all of the protestant

ministers of the city urged the voters of their congregations yes-

terday to attend the primaries and see to it that good men were

selected for the local offices. The candidates for the City Council:

for ward assessors: for Justices of the Peace, and (every two years)

for Mayor, are either nominated by ballot at the primary elections or

the delegates chosen at these elections meet in county convention

and then put candidates in nomination for the offices named. As a

rule these elections are not very well attended, and this lack of at-

tention on the part of the great majority has enabled a few men

having personal interests to promote, to select such men to be voted

for at the general election as might be used in furtherance of their

private schemes. The ministers of the protestant churchs have un-

• 32
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                421

 

dertaken to prevent a recurrence of this evil by urging all good citi-

zens to attend the primaries and to see to it that only capable and

honest men are put in nomination. They hope in this way to close

the tippling houses on Sundays, to prevent the desecration of the

Sabbath by public games and shows on that day; and to obtain a

more vigorous enforcement of the law on other days. At present

gambling houses, tippling houses, billiard rooms and other vile

resorts are open seven days in the week while the honest mechanic,

tradesman, and laborer is restricted to six.

Tuesday, March 18, 1884 At this hour, 10 oclk P. M., rain

is falling and the sky very black. The day has been gloomy and

depressing, and all are anxious to see a little clear weather and

sunshine again. The Ground hog has fulfilled his prophecy with

rather too much exactness, and poor man would be delighted if

his Superior Highness would relinquish his hold on winter, and

permit us to have a touch of spring.

Received a letter from Captain Donaldson this evening. He

is one of the secretaries of the United States Senate, and just now is

very much interested in the candidacy of Senator Sherman. He

thinks Sherman's chances for the nomination at Chicago very good,

but I doubt if he knows much about the matter. The chances of a

candidate before a convention are simply chances and the men

whose prospects seem best are usually, I think, the ones who are

defeated. Blaine went into the Cincinnati Convention with by far

the largest following of any of the candidates before it, but Hayes,

whose following was the smallest, carried off the honors, and so it

was at Chicago four years later. Grant, Blaine and Sherman cut

each others throats and Garfield, who had been hardly thought of

in connection with the office, received the nomination. There is so

much of chance in the whole matter that men who desire the place,

dare not now make an open struggle for it. It is an honor more

likely to come to a negative man, than a positive one.

• 33
 

422     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Wednesday, March       19, 1884     Judge William      Lawrence³² of

Bellefontaine, now and for some years past an Auditor of the

Treasury Department at Washington D. C. called at the Bank to-

day. He claimed to have come West to attend to some old law cases

in the Logan County Court, and to have come to Columbus to look

after a case in the Supreme Court, but as the Judge's statements on

the eve of a nominating convention are not always as reliable as

they should be I suspect that he returned to Ohio to look the field

over either in the interest of Sherman or Arthur. He inquired par-

ticularly as to the standing of both of these men, and talked as if

either would be acceptable to him, and in such way as to leave

one in doubt as to which of these he preferred, but he did not

hesitate at all to express the opinion that it would not do to nom-

inate Blaine. The Judge is always on the side which promises to

afford him short bread and butter, and, I think, either Arthur or

Sherman would suit him, for under either he would expect to be

continued in office. He is a man of fair ability, and wonderful in-

dustry, thoroughly insincere, and utterly selfish, but plausable,

genial, popular; an incisive speaker on the stump; well posted in

the affairs of the country, and a very fair lawyer withal. He can

say bitter things of a man behind his back, and very complimentary

things to his face. He has denounced Stanley Mathews³³ to me in

 

32 William Lawrence was born in Mt. Pleasant and has been called the father

of the Republican party in Ohio. Joseph P. Smith, ed., History of the Republican

Party in Ohio (2 vols., Chicago,, 1898), II, 9. He was admitted to the bar in

1840 and originally was a Whig in politics. He was elected to two terms in the

state house of representatives, 1848-48; three terms in the state senate, 1849-51 and

1854-56; two terms as judge of the court of common pleas, 1857-64; and five terms

in the national house of representatives, 1865-71 and 1873-77.  The Republican

party in Ohio grew out of a meeting called by Lawrence in February 1854 at his

room in the Neil House in Columbus to consider a protest against the Kansas-

Nebraska bill. During the Civil War, Lawrence commanded the 84th Ohio Infantry

during its brief period of active duty as a three months service regiment. He was

first comptroller of the treasury from 1880 to 1885. Lawrence was a lawyer of wide

renown.

33 Stanley Matthews (not Mathews) was born in Cincinnati and graduated from

Kenyon College in 1840. He was admitted to the bar in 1845 and elected a judge

of the court of common pleas in 1851, resigning after a year's service. He was a

state senator from 1856 to 1858 as a Democrat. At the outbreak of the Civil War

he was commissioned a lieutenant colonel in the celebrated 23d Ohio Infantry. At

that time the regiment was commanded by Colonel (soon to be Major General)

William  S. Rosecrans, and Rutherford B. Hayes, whose friendship Matthews had

made at Kenyon, was a major; William McKinley was a private in E Company of

the 23d. Matthews was promoted colonel, transferred to the 51st Ohio Infantry, and

resigned in April 1863 to become a judge of the superior court of Cincinnati, to

which he had been elected. After a little over a year he resigned this post and

devoted himself to private law practice. In March 1877 he was elected to the United

States Senate to fill out the unexpired term of John Sherman, who had been appointed

secretary of the treasury, and served until March 1879. At the end of his term

Hayes nominated Matthews for the supreme court of the United States, but the

senate took no action. Garfield renominated him, the senate confirmed the nomination,

and Matthews served as justice from 1881 until his death in 1889.

• 34
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                 423

 

private at 8 o'clk in the evening and at 10 o'clk eulogized him to

the skies in a public speech.

 

Thursday, March 20, 1884 The Senate is having an evening

session to hear arguments in a contested election case which comes

before it from the Toledo Judicial District. I dropped in for a few

minutes for lack of something better to do, and was told by some

of the Senators that the lawyers were wasting their own time and

that of the Senate, in discussing the question, as all the Senators

had made up their minds and had been ready to vote for the last

week or two. The Democrats of the body are fully convinced that

the democratic Judge was fairly elected, and the Republicans, that

the Republican Judge, to whom the certificate of election was

granted, should continue to hold the place. Thus it is that men take

solemn oaths to do justice, and yet are driven by their prejudices,

or party pressure, or desire to gratify the whims of their con-

stituents to do injustice. Surely it can not be a desire to do right

which leads all of one party, in cases like this, to vote one way,

and all of the other party to vote the contrary way. It may be how-

ever that when there are grave doubts as to which of the candidates

received a majority of votes, an honest man, anxious to do justice,

might fairly give his own side the benefit of the doubt, and yet I

think it would be better to decide that the returns were so imperfect,

and testimony so conflicting that the whole matter should be re-

ferred back to the people to be determined by them at a special

election.

 

Friday, March 21, 1884 C. L. Kurtz of Athens called this

morning. He has been through the Northern, and Northeastern por-

tion of the state and thinks Sherman's prospects brighter than they

were some weeks ago. Columbiana, Trumbull and Mahoning are

strong for Blaine, but he thinks Sherman's friends, by judicious

management, will obtain delegates in all that section of the state

including the counties bordering on the lake, favorable to him.

Kurtz was in Washington but a day or two ago, and says that

Sherman feels hopeful. Mack of the Sandusky Register was there

at the same time, and had an interview with Sherman, and has

agreed to do what he can to help him. Four years ago Mack was

• 35
 

424     OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

bitterly opposed to the Senator and has no special liking for him

now, but prefers him to some others in whose interest, it is thought,

an effort is being made to carry Ohio. Kurtz gave me an other item

of information which surprised me somewhat, and alarmed me not

a little. He says it is said quietly that Foster, Keifer, Amos Town-

send³⁴ and others who are connected in a coal land and Rail Road

speculation, have undertaken more than they can carry through,

and are consequently hard pressed for money to meet their obli-

gations--that Foster's frequent visits East have been made for the

purpose of raising money, and that he has not succeeded in obtain-

ing it. Foster is a bold operator, and has probably been dabbling

in stock and grain as well as coal lands, gold mines and Rail

Roads. The tendency of these things has been downward for the

last year or two.

 

Saturday, March 22, 1884 Ex-Secretary of State Oglevee

gave me an account of the Foster-Keifer speculation in Missouri

coal lands and other operations incident thereto. There were in the

first place ten parties to the enterprise, but four of them were

shrewd enough to back out before they had invested any money in

it, and one of them was dishonest enough to use $30,000 of the

syndicate's money in his own private schemes, leaving Foster,

Keifer, Amos Townsend of Ohio, Warner Miller³⁵ of New                York,

and somebody in St. Louis to shoulder the undertaking. Senator

Plumb36 of Kansas was one of the men who withdrew from the

concern in time to save themselves, and Hard-Money Nichol was

the man who perverted the company's money to his own private

use. The latter gentleman-if he can be so called, was put in charge

of the enterprise and after laying out a town site, he sold some

 

34 Amos Townsend was born in Pennsylvania and moved to Mansfield as a young

man, where he took up a partnership in a general store. In 1858 he moved to

Cleveland and entered the wholesale grocery business, becoming a partner of Colonel

William Edwards in 1861. For several years he served on the Cleveland city council,

and he was elected to the state Constitutional Convention in 1873. He was elected

to three terms in congress, and served from 1877 to 1883.

35 Warner Miller was born in New York state and graduated from   Union

College in 1860. He served in the army during the Civil War and was captured and

exchanged. He was elected a representative in congress and served from 1879 until

he resigned in 1881 to take the senate seat vacated by Thomas C. Platt; he sat in

the senate until 1887.

36 Preston B. Plumb was born in Delaware County and moved ta Kansas in

1856. The next year he settled in Emporia and was admitted to the bar in 1861. He

advanced from second lieutenant to lieutenant colonel in the Civil War and after

the war was speaker of the lower house of the Kansas legislature. He was a United

States Senator from 1877 until his death in 1891.

• 36
 

DIARY OF JOHN BEATTY                 425

 

$90,000 worth of town lots, receiving some $30,000 or $40,000 as

the down payment. With this and perhaps other money furnished

him he was directed to build a rail road seven miles long to connect

the coal mines with a rail road already in operation, but transcend-

ing his instruction he undertook to build fifteen or more miles of

railway, and the money running short, the work was abandoned in

an unfinished condition, leaving contractors and workmen unpaid,

the town a failure, and the people who had invested in lots loosers,

so that the whole matter is in a hopeless tangle, and the people

who had put confidence in it very bitter towards the projectors of

it.

 

Sunday, March 23, 1884 The day has given us a genuine

touch of spring; at times moist, and then radiant, and then hesita-

tion between sunshine and shadows. The grass was perceptably

greener at sunset than in the morning. Many birds were on the

wing and the buds swelling. I spent the forenoon in looking over

the Century for April. Read the last installment of George W.

Cable's "Dr. Sevier," in which, in a very forceable way, he calls

the attention of human people to the subject of prison manage-

ment; to the injustice of putting all persons who fall into the

clutches of police magistrates into the same prison-pen, and sub-

jecting young offenders and comparatively innocent persons to

association with hardened criminals, and to the brutality of keepers

who have themselves been deliberate violaters of the law. In

fact the chapter to which I refer is a strong argument in favor of

graded prisons, and the selection of honest and human persons to

look after the criminal classes. A suggestive article in this number

of the magazine is entitled "Mob or Magistrate." From this it

appears that during the last year there were 1517 murders in the

U. S., 91 legal executions and 118 lynchings. The writer affirms

that but one murderer--"Willful Slayer" in fourteen is subjected to

the full penalty of the law, and then again that, "the fact that 13

out of 14 murderers escape the gallows is the one damaging fact

that blackens the record of our criminal jurisprudence." The vic-

tims of more than half the lynchings reported last year were

southern negroes.

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426    OHIO ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND HISTORICAL QUARTERLY

 

Monday, March 24, 1884 I received a very nice letter to day

from Colonel Arnold A Brand, recorder of the military order of

the Loyal Legion, Boston Massachusetts, acknowledging the receipt

of a copy of the Citizen Soldier, which he said should have a place

in the library of the Commandery.

Colonel Charlie Moore took occasion to assure me to day that

there would be no opposition to my election as delegate at large

to Chicago, but as he afterwards made application for a loan, I

did not, from what he said, take it for granted that the honor

referred to would be tendered to me on a silver salver.

Captain Lanning assured me that so far as he could ascertain

there was a pretty general feeling in favor of my selection. He

referred to Foster's latest interview which appeared in the Inquirer

of Sunday, and thought from the tone of it that Foster was endeav-

oring to put himself in shape to be chosen as a delegate from his

own Congressional district. It is thought that the district is de-

cidedly for Blaine, and so Foster's interview was favorable to the

Maine statesman. The democratic city convention was held to day,

and for the first time in the history of that party in this county a

negro was placed in nomination for an office. Captain Ned Brown

was put up by a unanimous vote for constable.

 

Tuesday, March 25, 1884 A meeting to organize a branch

society of the Indian Rights association was held at the Governors

room in the capitol to night. There were nine gentlemen present

to wit: John W. Andrews, Colonel George W. Monypenny [Many-

penny], Judge Bates, J. J. Janney, E. L. Hinman, Henry C. Noble,

Robert S. Smith, Dr. Moore and myself. Constitution and by-laws

were adopted.     Colonel Monypenny made President, John W.

Andrews Vice President, Robt S. Smith Secretary, Henry C. Noble

Corresponding Secretary, and E. L. Hinman 37 Treasurer. The

 

37 Edward Leroy Hinman was General Beatty's business associate and vice

president of the Citizens' Savings Bank of 98 North High Street, Columbus, of which

Beatty was president. He was born in New Haven County, Connecticut, in 1825,

of an old New England family. In 1849 he went to work in a New Haven dry

goods store and about seven years later went in business for himself as a manufacturer

of farm implements. In 1859 Hinman moved to Columbus and became a member

of a firm engaged in the same business. Hinman was a Democrat in politics and

was elected to three terms in the Columbus city council, 1872-78. In the latter year

Governor Bishop appointed him a trustee of the state asylum for the deaf and dumb,

and in 1880 he was elected a member and subsequently president of the eighth

state board of equalization. Hinman was much interested in questions of political

economy and in civic and public problems generally.

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