392 Ohio Arch. and
Hist. Society Publications.
HAYES-TILDEN CONTROVERSY.
There is a saying, "Happy is the
nation that has no history." We
doubt the truth of that trite-ism and
would certainly take issue with
its philosophy. To say a nation has no
history is to brand it as having
been one lacking necessity and activity.
These latter elements wanting,
a nation would speedily lapse into
lassitude and retrogression. Certain
it is that the nations that have contributed
the most to the progress of
civilization are the nations which have
led the "strenuous life" both
within themselves and with their
environment. This is particularly true
of our own United States. Born amid the
throes of a sturdily-fought
Revolution it grew to lusty manhood amid
the strengthening struggles
incident to untrodden territory and
untried forms of government. Having
won the perilous victory of
independence, it next had to learn the lesson
of self control. That lesson it learned
in the contest of Civil War--the
greatest internecine strife ever
experienced by a civilized nation. The
world stood aghast at the magnitude and
fierceness of that war in which
brother-states contended against brother-tates
for the dissolution of the
perpetuity of the Union. The end of that
bloody clash sealed forever
the unity of our government and the
universal liberty of its inhabitants.
Scarcely had the vast armies of the
North and South been dispersed
to their peaceful homes when the
strength of this dearly bought unity
was to be tested, not upon the field of
battle, but in the forum of bitter
political strife. This was the unique
and unparalleled controversy known
as "The Hayes-Tilden Disputed
Presidential Election of 1876." A history
of that intensely interesting event was
never fully written and put in
historical form until the appearance of
a volume with that title, just
quoted, by Paul Leland Haworth, Lecturer
in History, Columbia Univer-
sity, a volume in convenient form of
some 370 pages, published by the
Burrows Brothers Company, Cleveland,
Ohio, at $1.50, net.
We have carefully perused the pages of
this book and cannot too
highly commend the thoroughness and
impartiality with which Professor
Haworth has performed his task, one
difficult, delicate and tedious. To
the handling of his subject Professor
Haworth has brought the advantage
of the specially trained methods of a
scholar; the historical temperment
and the untiring patience requisite for
the acquisition and digestion of a
vast amount of detail. He has consulted
practically all the material extant
of any value concerning his topic, and
from this mass he has sifted that
which was reliable and pertinent to the
proper presentation of both sides
of the controversy. With rare judgment
he has impartially and fully pre-
sented the facts of both sides.
Professor Haworth has chosen the oppor-
tune time for the preparation of such a
political dispute. Up to within
comparatively a few years ago it would
have been difficult to have obtained
an unbiased survey of the claims of
either party, and a few years hence
there will probably have passed from the
stage the witnesses who alone
could give testimony at first hand. Professor
Haworth seems to have
Editorialana. 393
left little or nothing to be desired in
the treatment of his subject. To
the presentation of his facts he gives
logical organization and from the
results draws a judicial and convincing
conclusion. After a painstaking,
minute and unprejudiced investigation,
the author sums up the evidence
-in his chapter on the Legal Aspects and
the Equities - and elicits the
verdict that the seating of Mr. Hayes was
a justifiable compromise of a
doubtful perversion of political rights;
that the Democrats committed the
first legal wrong by the shameless
suppression of the elective franchise,
particularly in Louisiana and Florida,
so as to unlawfully give those
states to Tilden. The Republicans met
this initial wrong by the commis-
sion of another wrong, so claimed,
namely the formal counting of the
electoral votes in question for Mr.
Hayes. It was a game of seizure
engaged in by both parties. Had there
been no theft on either side no
one questions but what the Republicans
would have justly won the
election at the polls., therefore it is
possibly a rare instance in which
two wrongs made a right. But, Congress
with undisputed powers
created the Electoral Commission, and
says Mr. Haworth, "So far as the
two parties as a whole are concerned,
the plan adopted was favored by
more Democrats than Republicans."
That the final outcome was accepted
with approval by the American people is
evidenced by the fact that they
elected the Republican Garfield as the
successor of Mr. Hayes. Professor
Haworth has produced a most valuable
contribution to the historical and
political literature of our times. Mr.
Haworth writes in a most vigor-
ous, bright and entertaining style.
THE OHIO MAGAZINE.
It is the day of magazines. The latest
which has just made its
bow before an omniverous reading public
is the Ohio Illustrated Maga-
zine, edited by the well-known writer and journalist, Webster
P. Hunt-
ington and published at Columbus, Ohio,
by The Ohio Magazine Publish-
ing Company, American Savings Bank
Building, subscription price $2.00
per year. The initial number, which is
dated July, gives promise of
occupying a field not yet pre-empted and
occupying it in a most
attractive and acceptable manner. The
editor of this magazine sets
forth as his reason for its being: "The establishment of The Ohio
Magazine proceeds from the recognition
of a condition not the promul-
gation of a theory. It takes into account,
primarily, the fact that the
Buckeye state, with a population of more
than 4,000,000, resources vast
enough to make it a princely empire in
itself, a past justly celebrated in
the history of the world's most
important nation and a future brilliant
with the promises of inestimable
achievements, has no representative in
the field of periodical literature such
as is now contemplated in this
magazine. Theory might flatter itself
that a barren waste would become