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Introduction to JavaScript Programming Test Bank Chapter 6
with XML and PHP
Test Bank for Chapter 6
MULTIPLE CHOICE
1. Where are <form></form> tags placed?
a. Directly after the opening <body> tag b. Anywhere in the HTML document
and must be closed right before the
closing </body> tag
c. Anywhere in the body of a web page d. In the <head> section
ANS: C
2. Buttons that can be automatically created using the type attribute are:
a. submit b. reset
c. hidden d. (a) and (b) only e. (a), (b), and (c)
ANS: E
3. Which of the following are ways to submit form data?
a. By email b. to a JavaScript program
c. to a server d. (b) and (c) only e. (a), (b), and (c)
ANS: E
4. When using a set of radio buttons, which attribute must be the same for all buttons in the set
a. name b. value
c. id d. selected
ANS: A
5. Which line of code should be used to make the following code snippet work?
var longString = "Great day, isn't it?";
var shortString = _____???_______
document.write("It's going ton rain to" + shortString);
a. shortString = longString.substr(20, 7);
b. shortString = longString.substr(6, 3);
c. shortString = substr(longString, 6, 3);
d. shortString = longString.substr(7, 3);
ANS: B
© 2014 Pearson Education 1
Introduction to JavaScript Programming Test Bank Chapter 6
with XML and PHP
6. Which of the following will send form results from a form named “importantInfo” to the email
address [email protected] with the subject “Read this!”
a. <form name=“info” method=“post” id=“important info” action =
[email protected]?subject = Read this!” enctype=“plain/text”>
b. <form name=“importantInfo” method=“post” id=“info” action=
“mailto:[email protected]?subject=Read this!” enctype=“plain/text”>
c. <form name=“importantInfo” method=“email” id=“info” action =
mailto:[email protected] “subject=Read this!” enctype=“plain/text”>
d. <form name=“importantInfo” method=post id=info action =
“mailto:[email protected] ? subject=Read this!” enctype=text/plain>
ANS: B
7. Which line of code will check if any character in the string variable pword is the letter X and
return true for the variable check?
var check = false;
for (i = 0; i < pword.length; i++)
{
_____???_______
check = true;
}
a. if (var charX == "X");
b. if (var charX == charX.charAt[i]);
c. if (var charX.charAt[i] == "X");
d. if (var charX.charCodeAt[i] == "X");
ANS: C
8. Given the following line of code, what does the this keyword refer to?
<input type = "button" name = "murgatroyd" id = "Mortimer"
onclick = "doSomething(this.id)" />
© 2014 Pearson Education 2
Introduction to JavaScript Programming Test Bank Chapter 6
with XML and PHP
a. the button type b. the name attribute
c. the id attribute d. the onclick() event
ANS: C
9. Which of the following will check to see if a password contains a # sign, given that the
character code for "#" is 37? The password is 8 characters long and is stored in a variable named
pword.
a. var check = false;
for (j = 1; j < 7; j++)
{
if (pword.charCodeAt[j] == 37);
check = true;
}
b. var check = false;
for (j = 0; j < 8; j++)
{
if (pword.charCodeAt(j) == 37)
check = true;
c. var check = false;
for (j = 0; j <= 8; j++)
{
if (pword.charCodeAt()== 37)
check = true;
}
d. var check = true;
for (j = 1; j < 9; j++)
{
if (pword.charCodeAt(37)== "#")
check = true;
}
ANS: B
10. Which of the following sets or changes the tab order of form controls?
a. tab b. tab = 0; c. tab index d. index
ANS: C
© 2014 Pearson Education 3
Introduction to JavaScript Programming Test Bank Chapter 6
with XML and PHP
11. Which of the following will substitute an image named redButton.jpg that is stored in the same
place as the web page for a generic button? The doStuff() function is called when the button is
clicked.
a. button type="image" src=redButton.jpg onclick="doStuff()" /></button>
b. <a href="Javascript:doStuff()"> <img src = "redButton.jpg"> </a>
c. <button type="image" onclick="doStuff()"><img src="redButton.jpg" />
d. <a href=:Javascript:doStuff()" src ="redButton.jpg" type="button" />
ANS: B
12. Which of the following will call a function named setBlue() when a text box with id =
"blue" gets the focus?
a. onfocus = "blue" onclick = ("setBlue()");
b. onfocus.blue = setBlue()
c. id = "blue" onclick = setBlue()
d. onfocus = "setBlue('blue')"
ANS: D
13. Which of the following is the correct way to set a background color of blue to an HTML element with
id = "color_change"?
a. document.getElementById("color_change").style.background = "blue";
b. document.getElementById("color_change").innerHTML = "blue";
c. document.getElementById("color_change").style = blue(this.id);
d. document.getElementById("color_change").this.id = background("blue");
ANS: A
14. Which of the following checks if the sixth character of a string variable named myMail is the @ sign
using a Boolean variable named atSign set to true if this is true?
a. for (k = 0; k < myMail.length; k++)
{
if(myMail.charAt(k) == @)
atSign = true;
}
b. atSign = "@";
for (k = 0; k < 7; k++)
{
if(myMail.charAt(k) == atSign)
flag = true;
}
c. if(myMail.substr(5, 1) == "@")
atSign = true;
d. if(myMail.substr(1, 5) == "@")
© 2014 Pearson Education 4
Introduction to JavaScript Programming Test Bank Chapter 6
with XML and PHP
atSign = true;
ANS: C
15. Which of the following checks to see if the number of characters in a given string named myName is
greater than 2 and less than 11?
a. if(myName.length > 2 && myName.length < 11)
b. if(myName.length > 2 || myName.length < 11)
c. if(myName.length > 1 && myName.length <= 10)
d. if(myName.length >= 2 || myName.length <= 11)
ANS: A
TRUE/FALSE
1. True/False: Radio buttons are used to allow users to select several options at one time.
ANS: F
2. True/False: A form using the <form></form> tag pair can be placed anywhere within a web page.
ANS: T
3. True/False: When a form is enhanced with JavaScript, an event handler must be used to evoke the
JavaScript code.
ANS: T
4. True/False: The Common Gateway Interface (CGI) allows web pages to be generated as executable
files.
ANS: T
5. True/False: CGI scripts are normally saved in a folder named cgi-bin that exists on every client's
hard drive.
ANS: F
6. True/False: The property of each radio button in a group of radio buttons that must be the same for
each button is the id property.
ANS: F
7. True/False: The checked property can be used to return the state of a checkbox to a JavaScript
function.
ANS: T
8. True/False: The properties that determine the size of a text box are cols and rows.
ANS: F
© 2014 Pearson Education 5
Introduction to JavaScript Programming Test Bank Chapter 6
with XML and PHP
9. True/False: If the information entered into a textarea box exceeds the number of rows originally set,
a scroll bar is created.
ANS: T
10. True/False: The two types of buttons that display masked text (such as *'s or #'s) to hide what a user
enters are "hidden" and "password".
ANS: F
© 2014 Pearson Education 6
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Underwood and Strauss and the other Preferred and Common stockholders
of the Company were all, and still are, pleased with the refinancing, as
everybody concerned was benefitted by the operation.
In the meantime, the Underwood Company has completely outstripped
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In 1919, when the Underwood commenced to manufacture the portable
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CHAPTER VI
SOCIAL SERVICE
D URING all these years of which I have been writing my spirit was in a
never-ceasing conflict with itself, a conflict between idealism and
materialism. My boyish imagination had been fired with a vision of a
life of unselfish devotion to the welfare of others, and in an earlier chapter I
have described the influence of religious and ethical teachings upon my
character and activities. But the necessity of earning a livelihood had early
thrust me into the arena of business. Once there, I became absorbed in
money-making. It was a fascinating game. It challenged all my powers of
brain and will to hold my own and forge ahead in the fierce competition of
my fellows. I lived business, ate business, dreamed business. There came a
time when the most interesting lectures, the finest theatrical performances,
or even the best staged operas could not hold my entire attention. My
schemes constantly intruded themselves upon my consciousness and would
absorb the mentality that was required for me to understand and rejoice with
what was going on. As usual, as with all other business men, the day’s work
had practically absorbed my day’s supply of vitality. I had not the power to
shake off this exacting task-master.
But, though business could conquer pleasure, it could not conquer
idealism; and idealism resorted to similar tactics as business. It asserted
itself during business hours, and again and again demanded opportunities to
exercise itself. I shall now try to tell how it successfully resisted complete
annihilation.
When, in 1876, Felix Adler returned from his studies as a rabbi in
Europe, and Temple Emanu-El—the most important Jewish congregation in
the United States—was ready to welcome him to its pulpit, he found that it
would not coincide with his views to follow in the footsteps of his father,
who had been connected with that synagogue for forty years. The son’s
researches had led him to the conclusion that forms, ceremonies, and
customs did not make a religion when pursued in new and entirely different
surroundings. Dr. Adler hoped that the time had come when the real spiritual
essentials of the Jewish religion—its system of ethics—could be developed,
appreciated, and enforced, and that the American Jews could adjust
themselves to the land in which they were living and drop all that they had
had to adhere to in Ghettoized Europe. He came back filled with an
enthusiastic desire to remedy the glaring evils, not only of the Jews, but of
the entire community: he could diagnose our ills and prescribe a remedy.
This appeal found a wonderful response amongst the flower of the
reformed Jews and some Christians of New York, who formed the Society
for Ethical Culture, of which the then leading Jew of America, Joseph
Seligman, was elected president. All these felt the need of readjustment to fit
their new surroundings. Some of those religious habits were imposed upon
them while their ancestors were suppressed people. Few, if any, would adopt
Christianity, but all were ready to subscribe to the aims of a society which
are most clearly stated in their present invitation to members:
Our Society is distinctly a religious body, interpreting the word “religion” to mean
fervent devotion to the highest moral ends. But toward religion as a confession of faith in
things superhuman, the attitude of our Society is neutral. Neither acceptance nor denial of
any theological doctrine disqualifies for membership.
In short, the Jews in America very seriously wanted to complete their
Americanization. They were honestly striving for education, for refinement,
for community and public service, for devotion to art, music, and culture.
Welcome, then, this prophet Adler—this great reformer! His sterling
qualities as a thinker; his wonderful resourcefulness; his pure and lofty
private life, and his totally uncompromising attitude toward evil, secured
him the admiration of all those who had in their own modest way been
hopelessly striving to reach this plane. Adler by inheritance and by studying
the older prophets had mingled that knowledge with the wisdom of the
present day. Here was pure ethics unencumbered by religious form, the way
Emerson taught it, the way Garrison and Lincoln practised it—and this man
was trying to direct this current, which led away from the old-fashioned
religion into a new field tending toward agnosticism and atheism, and bring
it, instead, into this new field of ethics. His sincerity could not be doubted.
He had voluntarily abandoned an honourable and care-free career that had
been offered him by Temple Emanu-El, and like a modern Moses had
undertaken the harassing and difficult task of satisfying the unexpressed
yearnings of these people, who were discontented with the existing
requirements of their religion and had hopelessly sought for moral guidance.
I was among Adler’s earliest adherents. When he organized his United
Relief Work, I was one of its directors; I participated in his Cherry Street
experiment in model tenements—the first in America, which eventually
brought about legislation to do away with the dark rooms of which there
were over fifty thousand in New York City alone, and I assisted in the
establishment of the first Ethical Culture School, which was started in Fifty-
fourth Street, near Sixth Avenue, and was chairman of the Site Committee
that secured the present location on Central Park West from Sixty-third to
Sixty-fourth streets.
Above all, however, I treasure the fond remembrance of having been a
member of the “Union for Higher Life”—an organization of a few of Adler’s
devotees. He always maintained that, as every man expected purity from his
wife, it was his duty to enter the marriage state in the same condition, and
the members of this “Union” pledged themselves to celibacy during
bachelorhood. We met every week at the Sherwood Studio, where he then
lived. We read Lange’s “Arbeiter-Frage,” and studied the Labour question.
We discussed the problems of business and professional men. I notice in my
diary of April 24, ’82, that we debated the simplicity of dress and the follies
of extravagance. Then, as Dr. Adler wanted us to feel that we were doing
something definitely altruistic, the members of the Union jointly adopted
eight children; some of them were half-orphans, and some had parents who
could not support them properly; we employed a matron and hired a flat for
her on the corner of Forty-fifth Street and Eighth Avenue.
We had considered starting a coöperative community for ourselves, and
Adler and I devoted some time looking at various properties. Our intention
was to have separate living quarters with a joint kindergarten and a joint
kitchen, thereby avoiding duplication of menial labour. This would have
enabled our wives to devote more of their time to community work. It was to
be an urban Brook Farm. Already having big ideas about real estate, I
suggested and investigated the Leake and Watts Orphan Asylum property,
now occupied by the Cathedral of St. John the Divine! It could then have
been bought for about $3,000 a lot. Adler, however, considered it too
inaccessible, as it could only be reached by the Eighth Avenue street car, and
so the idea was abandoned.
As many of my close friends were not adherents of Professor Adler, and
we wanted to share our intellectual developments and efforts, we organized
the Emerson Society; and under the guidance of my brother Julius who had
just received his degree of Doctor of Philosophy at Leipzig, we not only
read, but thoroughly studied, a number of Emerson’s essays. I was chagrined
to find that not only the college-bred men of our group, but also many of the
girls were much better English scholars than I, so I determined to secure
lessons from the best authority on English at that time. Richard Grant White,
the annotator of Shakespeare and the author of “Words and their Uses,” was
universally recognized as such, but I was told by people whom I consulted
that it was useless to communicate with him as he undoubtedly would feel
himself above giving private lessons. Nevertheless I wrote him for an
interview, stating my age, vocation, and desire, and he answered:
“It is possible that I may be able to give you the assistance you seek in
your praiseworthy plan. I will see you with pleasure.”
The interview was successful. Mr. White undertook to give us lessons in
the origin and growth of language, nor shall I ever forget the delight of that
instruction. We used to meet in his apartment on Stuyvesant Square, the
home of an artist and scholar, and his talks on the development of tongues
from the Aryan to our modern English—his readings from the classics in that
beautiful, cultivated voice of his with its perfect enunciation—are still fresh
in my memory.
Two of my friends had joined me and when I was no longer contented to
meet Josephine Sykes merely as a member of the Emerson Club, and
therefore persuaded her to start a little club of our own, she joined the class.
Shortly after the death of Maurice Grau in 1902, my wife and I, calling
on Mrs. Josephine Bonné, found the Conrieds there, and Conried told us that
he was looking for fourteen men whom he could get to join him in
subscribing the $150,000 required to secure the lease and management of the
Metropolitan Opera House, and as I was one that Mrs. Bonné had suggested,
he, with great earnestness, backed up by his fine dramatic talent, pleaded his
cause. He told us of his histrionic training in the Burg Theatre at Vienna, and
how his youthful ardour for the stage was permanently influenced by the
high artistic ideals prevailing there.
“When I came to America,” he said, “I hoped the prosperous Germans
and Jews would endow a similar institution here, and so I started the Irving
Place Theatre. What has happened? Instead of receiving the support I
expected, I have had to resort to all kinds of devices. I have become a play
broker, secured the American rights to current European productions,
demonstrating their possibilities to the American managers, and selling them
when I could, so that the Irving Place Theatre has really become only a
laboratory or testing room. It has never paid for itself, and I have had to
supplement my brokerage profits by securing Herr Ballin’s help in founding
the Ocean Comfort Company which rents steamer chairs to transatlantic
travellers! Have I put my small profits in my own pocket? No, I have poured
them back into the Irving Place Theatre, still hoping to attract the support
which would give me a chance to demonstrate my ideals. Here is a short-cut,
here is a chance for me to realize all these ideals without having to risk my
own or my friends’ money. At last my opportunity has come, and I ask you
to help me secure this lease.”
I doubt if he ever played any rôle more earnestly or with greater sincerity.
Nobody could have resisted him, and I gracefully surrendered and asked
him:
“What progress have you made? What men have you secured?”
He answered: “Jacob H. Schiff, Ernest Thalman, Daniel Guggenheim,
Randolph Guggenheimer, and Henry R. Ickelheimer.” All of these men were
of the highest class, thoroughly cultured, and lovers of music, but knowing
as I did the management of the Metropolitan Opera House, I jokingly said to
Conried:
“If you could only secure a Mr. Hochheimer and a Mr. Niersteiner you
would have a complete wine list, but you could never secure the opera house
through it.”
He saw the point at once, and asked what I would suggest. I answered
him:
“I have conceived a plan while sitting here, but to carry it out I must have
an absolutely free hand as to who are to be your associates. I shall see
Messrs. A. D. Juilliard and George G. Haven, who have the final say in the
matter, on Tuesday, and can tell you that evening whether I can accomplish
anything or not.”
Conried assented. I at once proceeded to carry out my plan to interest the
younger social leaders and communicated with Mr. James Hazen Hyde. He
was most favourably impressed, and suggested that he and I obligate
ourselves for $75,000 each, secure the lease, and then select our associates.
We did so, obtained the lease, and then invited the following to make up the
Board of Directors of the Conried Metropolitan Opera Company: Alfred G.
Vanderbilt, Henry Rogers Winthrop, H. P. Whitney, Robert Goelet, R. H.
McCurdy, Jacob H. Schiff, Clarence H. Mackay, George J. Gould, Otto H.
Kahn, J. Henry Smith, Eliot Gregory, Bainbridge Colby, and William H.
McIntyre. Heinrich Conried was elected president and Hyde and myself
vice-presidents. Success was assured from the first. Conried took hold of the
management with energy and wonderful resourcefulness that promptly won
him the admiration of the directors of both companies.
He completely changed the interior of the Opera House, put in a new
ceiling, new chandelier, arranged the proper illumination of the boxes, and
the most important improvement of all being the discarding of the old-
fashioned drop curtain and replacing it with one divided in the centre,
making it unnecessary for the popular stars, when answering repeated
curtain-calls, to walk all the way across the stage from one side to the other
of the proscenium arch. He unsuccessfully fought the demand of the
boxholders for the famous horseshoe to be kept illuminated all through the
performance, and finally compromised by putting red shades over the lights.
One week-end Mr. and Mrs. Conried spent with us at Elberon. They came
heavily laden. Mrs. Conried cautiously carried a circular bundle of discs, and
her husband bore what looked like a monster cornucopia, while their son
was bending under the weight of a big box. A very few minutes after they
had entered the house we were spellbound by “Elisir d’Amore,” sung by the
finest tenor voice. We and our children all rushed out to the room from
whence the singing came. We waited until it was finished and rivalled each
other with our applause. Conried, the impresario, foreseeing in our unlimited
applause the success of his future tenor, benignly smiled and explained to us:
“This is the great Caruso—a man that is in Buenos Aires just now. Grau
engaged him, and it was these records that induced me to assume the
contract.”
Conried startled us once more during that same week-end by confiding to
us that he possessed the complete score of “Parsifal.” He said:
“I shall produce it this winter.”
We were amazed at this proposition, particularly my wife, who reminded
Conried that when she was at Bayreuth she was informed that both Richard
Wagner and his widow had steadfastly withstood all propositions to produce
“Parsifal”—the chief attraction of its musical festivals—on any other stage. I
feared that many Wagnerians would condemn the production as a sacrilege.
Conried waived aside the objections and said:
“Years ago I told Frau Casimir Wagner that some day I would produce
‘Parsifal’ in America. She ridiculed me. Here’s my chance. I will win the
approbation of thousands who have been yearning to hear this opera and
who will never get to Bayreuth.”
From that day on, he kept me informed of his progress. We were together
in Vienna when he chose the costumes for the “flower-maidens”; I visited
with him the studio where the revolving curtain was being painted; in
America, my wife and I attended many of the rehearsals.
His real troubles began as he approached the day of production. The
composer’s widow tried to enjoin him from making the production; for fear
of offending her, Mottl refused to conduct the orchestra; unlimited abuse was
showered on the producer through the press; certain clergymen denounced
the opera as blasphemous; some singers revolted; and, to cap the climax,
there came a warning that the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Children would stop the appearance of the boys who were to sing in the
choruses.
Conried’s patience and optimism were inexhaustible. He met every rebuff
squarely and surmounted every barrier. He won in the courts. The press
attacks and the pulpit onslaughts only furnished publicity; he found other
singers to take the place of the rebels, and so, as the event proved, in
conferring the leadership of the orchestra on Hertz, he opened a brilliant
career for an excellent conductor until then little known in America. As for
the public response, the demand for seats was unparalleled, even in
Metropolitan history: the directors were all besieged by applications, and I
alone made over a hundred people happy by securing seats for them.
Nevertheless, on the eve of the first production everything within the
Opera House seemed in utter chaos. We were there until two o’clock in the
morning and beheld a never-to-be-forgotten sight. The famous Munich stage
manager Lautenschlager, imported for this special performance, was then
still rehearsing raising and lowering the drops for Kundry’s big scene, and
supernumeraries were scurrying about answering the conflicting demands of
their directors; weary stage carpenters and “hands” were lying in the wings
snatching such minutes of sleep as were possible, while high up in the stage
lofts were stowed away the chorus boys to keep them out of the clutches of
the S.P.C.C. To the onlooker, professional or amateur—to everybody except
the confident Conried—there seemed nothing but disaster ahead. The
brilliant success that evolved is too much a matter of operatic history to
require recounting here.
Conried had always drawn unsparingly on his reserves of energy and
resistance, and there came at last a moment when those reserves were
exhausted. An unpleasant episode, involving not himself, but one of his
company, enlisted all his efforts. At its conclusion, he was met with a piece
of bad news: Dr. Holbrook Curtis told him that he feared that a growth
which had just appeared in the throat of Caruso would prevent this, now his
particular star, from singing during the coming season and might end his
career altogether. Conried went from the doctor’s office to the Opera House
to watch an important, long-drawn-out rehearsal. Shortly thereafter he had a
breakdown from which he never recovered.
When he died, his widow and son requested me to arrange the funeral,
and readily adopted my suggestion that as Heinrich Conried’s greatest
success had been won in the Metropolitan Opera House, so his obsequies
should be held there as Anton Seidl’s had been ten years before. I knew that
Conried had not been connected with any synagogue, but I asked whether he
had mentioned a preference.
“None,” said his son.
Being president of the Free Synagogue, I requested Rabbi Wise to
officiate. I communicated with the directors of the Conried Opera Company,
who consented to the plan, and every branch of the organization from the
orchestra to the scene-shifters volunteered to help.
It was an event which none who witnessed it will ever forget. The
proscenium arch was hung with black, and the “set” was the mediæval
interior used in the third act of “Lucia.” In the centre was the great
catafalque, its outlines almost obscured by masses of flowers—lilies, roses,
orchids, literally by tens of thousands—flanked by two Hebrew candelabra,
surmounted by the bust of the impresario that had been presented to him,
during his illness, by the members of the company.
Promptly at eleven the Metropolitan Orchestra began the funeral march
from Beethoven’s “Eroica,” and, carried by six skull-capped bearers, the
coffin, entirely covered by a pall of violets, was placed upon the stage. Mme.
Homer and Riccardo Martin and Robert Blass sang Handel’s “Largo”; the
choir-boys from Calvary Church who had appeared in the first American
production of “Parsifal” intoned a setting of Tennyson’s “Crossing the Bar”;
Dr. Wise and Professor William H. Carpenter, of Columbia, spoke of the
dead man’s work, and then, with the notes of the Chopin funeral-march
sobbing through the Opera House—attended by music-lovers, judges, artists,
financiers, leaders in almost every walk of life, there was taken from the
scene of his greatest work the body of the weaver-boy of Bielitz.
These memories have taken me somewhat far afield and consumed much
of the space that I had intended to devote, in this chapter, to my own
activities. I should like to tell of my service as director of the Educational
Alliance, the consolidation of a dozen activities for the benefit of children—
and particularly the Jewish children—of that Lower East Side
neighbourhood; and, too, of my work on the Board of Directors of the Mt.
Sinai Hospital, the institution which my father helped so many years before;
and of my interest in the Henry Street Settlement so ably developed by my
friend Lillian Wald, my connection with which eventually led Mrs.
Morgenthau and me to establish the Bronx House. Mrs. Morgenthau once
taught in the Louis’ Downtown Sabbath School at 267 Henry Street, and
right next door to it Miss Lillian D. Wald and Miss MacDowell, the daughter
of General MacDowell of Civil War fame, had started an experiment that
was to grow into a vast benefit for the entire community. Up to that time the
people of the Lower East Side who were unable to afford regular medical
treatment for themselves or their babies went without it until the last minute
and then sought the rare dispensaries; for any other sort of help, they turned
to the district political bosses, who never failed to require a substantial return
for favours and who had few favours to dispense to those who neither voted
themselves nor controlled the votes of others. Miss Wald practically
originated the idea of the house-to-house, or the tenement-to-tenement,
visiting trained nurse, who made friends with the sick and needy in their own
homes, cared for the ill, showed their relatives how to care for them, gave
practical lessons on the bringing up of children, and demonstrated that
household hygiene is the ounce of prevention that is worth a pound of cure.
Out of this evolved the now famous Henry Street Settlement.
This work deeply interested me, and I have been a constant and frequent
visitor at the house, and have supported a visiting nurse on Miss Wald’s staff
for the past twenty-two years.
Some years ago Miss Wald unfolded to me the needs of a sister settlement
house in the Bronx, and urged me to assist in organizing an establishment
similar to hers. At a meeting at my house, which was attended by Angelo
Patri and his wife, Simon Hirsdansky, and Jacob Shufro—all three of the
men being now principals of schools in the Bronx—and Bernard Deutsch,
and a few others, my wife and I were persuaded by their statements of the
great good that a settlement house could do in the Bronx, and we agreed to
finance it for a few years. We combined with it a music school under the
supervision of David Mannes and Harriet Seymour who had been active in
the Third Street Music School Settlement.
We established it at once at 1,637 Washington Avenue, and, as the people
said, “with a golden spoon in its mouth.” The children in the neighbourhood
—and there were thousands of them—flocked to it from the very day it was
started. There seemed to be an insatiable demand for instruction in music,
and it has been a never-ending delight to see the steady strides made by the
little orchestra started in the beginning by Mr. Edgar Stowell, up to 1922,
when I saw them carry the entire musical programme of the pageant of the
joint settlement houses at Hunter College. Several times we have been
surprised by having this little orchestra give us a performance at our house,
and at other times we have been regaled with the performance of “Alice in
Wonderland” by one of the clubs of the Bronx House. When I survey the
progress made and the happiness given the scholars of the music schools,
and the members of the thirty-odd clubs, I feel that the funds that I have
invested in the Bronx House have produced far greater dividends than any of
my other investments.
Another of my social activities was my work as a member of the
Committee on Congestion of Population in New York City, which really did
excellent service in calling attention to the housing conditions of the
metropolis. This committee owed a great deal to the inspiration of that
beautiful soul, Carola Woerishoefer, granddaughter of Oswald Ottendorfer;
Benjamin C. Marsh was its secretary, and it was active for several years. Our
social survey discovered that over fifty blocks in New York had each a
population of between 3,000 and 4,000 souls, and that the city’s tenements
contained some 346,000 dark rooms. We had diagrams and models made,
illustrating these conditions, listing the plague-spots where tuberculosis
thrived, calling attention to the overcrowding in schools and the shortage of
public playgrounds; in 1908 we held an exhibition in the Twenty-second
Regiment Armoury and, by this and other means, succeeded in securing
considerable remedial legislation. Then in 1911 there was the terrible fire in
the Triangle Shirt Factory—an “upstairs” factory—where, owing to the bad
conditions, 160 girl employees were killed. That resulted in a public protest
against inadequate factory inspection and the creation of a “Committee of
Safety” in which I served in company, among others, with Miss Anne
Morgan, Miss Mary Dreier, Miss Frances Perkins, George W. Perkins, John
A. Kingsbury, Peter Brady, and Amos Pinchot. When Henry L. Stimson
relinquished his duties as chairman to become Secretary of War, I succeeded
him. We were instrumental in having the legislature appoint a factory
investigating committee of which Alfred E. Smith was chairman and Robert
Wagner vice-chairman.
These men came to see me, soon after their appointments, in some
embarrassment. They seemed sincerely desirous of performing their duties,
but said they were badly handicapped.
“Are you folks going to finance this investigation?” they asked.
“Because, if you aren’t, we don’t see how it is to be carried on. The
legislature appropriated only $10,000, and it will take all that to pay a good
attorney to do the necessary legal work.”
“I can get you a first-class lawyer who will not demand any fee,” I said,
“and he will be satisfactory to everybody concerned, including Tammany
Hall.”
The man I had in mind was Abram I. Elkus. He agreed with me as to the
good he could do in this capacity, and the public honour to be won if he
would volunteer his services. Within two hours after my interview with
Smith & Wagner, Mr. Elkus had assumed the post. The result was thirty-one
successful bills constituting what is to my mind the best labour legislation
ever passed by a State Legislature.
CHAPTER VII
EARLY POLITICAL EXPERIENCES
M Y earliest contact with the inner workings of politics was reading the
dramatic story of the downfall of the infamous Tweed Ring.
Tweed had seemed a wonderful figure; we boys knew him only in his
largest successful aspects as a dictator: the originator of Riverside Drive, the
constructor of the lavish Court House, the arbiter of the City’s destinies. He
had made John T. Hoffman, Governor of the State, and A. Oakey Hall,
Mayor of the City.
I had come into personal touch with the picturesque Oakey Hall. I had to
serve a summons on him in his official capacity and found him in his
executive office wearing a red velvet coat.
“Young man,” he said, with all the patronage of an emperor addressing
some messenger from a remote province of his domains—and with a
splendid accentuation of his title—“you can now swear that you have served
the Mayor of New York!”
Sometime thereafter I saw this same mayor act in “The Crucible,” a play
written by himself, to prove his innocence under the Tweed régime.
We law-students had looked with veneration to the Supreme Court. We
conceived of its members as men of immaculate morality, constantly
practising an even balance of the scales of Justice. Our deepest admiration
was evoked by their confidence and self-possession and the awe-inspiring
manner in which they exercised their powers. Many a time when I went
before one of these judges to ask an adjournment, or to have an order signed,
I marvelled at the rapidity with which he grasped the contents of the papers
submitted to him, and it was a severe blow to my faith in our legal and
political institutions when the impeachment of several of these judges, and
the removal of some of them, showed that not a few had been tools in the
hands of a corrupt boss.
Nor were we younger men alone in our disillusionment. Others had been
deceived; the leading citizens of New York had associated themselves in
business with the imposing dictator. I still have an advertisement of the New
York (Viaduct) Railroad Company, and in the list of its directors the name of
William M. Tweed appears between that of A. T. Stewart and August
Belmont; Richard B. Connolly next to Joseph Seligman; John Jacob Astor
has A. Oakey Hall on one side and Peter B. Sweeney on the other;
immediately after Sweeney comes Levi P. Morton. The “Big Four” of
Tammany were in good company.
How far the Ring might have extended its power, it is impossible to say.
Tweed had promoted Hoffman from the mayoralty to the governorship and
no doubt intended to present him as a presidential candidate in ’72. Amongst
my clippings I find one which shows that the West was already considering
Hoffman as a national figure. It is from a New York newspaper and quotes
the Western press as announcing the following slate:
R. Gratz Brown of Missouri, President;
John Quincy Adams of Massachusetts, Vice-President;
Governor Hoffman of New York, Secretary of State;
Lyman Trumbull of Illinois, Secretary of the Treasury;
General Hancock of Pennsylvania, Secretary of War;
Thomas A. Hendricks of Indiana, Secretary of the Interior;
Horace Greeley of New York, Postmaster-General;
George H. Pendleton of Ohio, Attorney-General.
As it happened, Greeley became a presidential and Gratz Brown a vice-
presidential candidate; Hancock subsequently ran for president, and
Hendricks achieved the vice-presidency; but the serious and uncontradicted
publication of that slate indicated the direction of Tweed’s ambitions at the
time when Samuel J. Tilden wrought his downfall and relegated Hoffman
into obscurity.
In the reaction from these disclosures, Tilden became the younger
generation’s hero: he had rescued New York from corruption. I was so
impressed with his services that, when my fellow law-student, Michael
Sigerson, ran for the State Assembly, while Tilden sought the presidency, I
made my first entry into politics—before I was even a voter—by giving
several October nights, in 1876, to speech-making for Tilden and Sigerson in
the latter’s district on the Lower East Side.
I am one of those who have always felt that Tilden was elected, and that
the National Republican machine prevented him from taking his seat.
My observation of the machine system convinced me, through such
happenings, that the gravest danger to democracy arose from within. I soon
saw that, in such a city as New York, where the mass of the voters are
unfamiliar with governmental functions and ignorant that a proper
administration thereof is the safeguard of liberty, the control of the dominant
party would frequently be secured by a character like Tweed. The more I saw
of Tammany Hall, the deeper this conviction became.
Tammany was then as well organized as at any time in its history. The
district leaders were generally selected by its boss and always responsible to
him. They, in turn, had their precinct leaders dependent on them for
preferment and continuance in office. The boss arranged his appointments so
that he could absolutely depend on the servility of a majority of the district
leaders. It was only now and then that one had the courage to assert his
independence and fight the machine. Then he would either be summarily
displaced, lose his own little organization by his inability to dispense
patronage, or else he would be brought back into slavery by the gift of
office.
This plan of organization has, with slight alterations, continued ever
since. After Tweed’s displacement, John Kelly came into the leadership; his
personal honesty was never doubted, but he had used the old system to
obtain power and had to continue it to hold what he had gained. The story of
his downfall, though not discreditable to him, is almost as dramatic as
Tweed’s.
In his political capacity, Kelly was Comptroller of the City of New York,
when a number of reformers determined to oust him; in his personal
capacity, he was the owner of an influential newspaper, the Express. The loss
of the comptrollership would, of course, involve the loss of his Tammany
leadership; but the policy of his paper was an important factor in the fight.
William C. Whitney, then Corporation Counsel, headed the opposition; he
had planned to remove Kelly by a vote of the Board of Aldermen. Two
things were necessary: publicity in the press and votes in the Board.
James Gordon Bennett’s career was just then at its height. Not long
before Whitney began his quiet campaign the owner of the Herald—a
powerful six-footer—entering the old Delmonico’s restaurant at Chambers
Street and Broadway, tried to brush aside a slim young man who was
unconsciously crowding him at the bar. To Bennett’s amazement, the
stranger offered resistance. Quick blows were exchanged, and before the
newspaper proprietor knew what had happened, he had measured his length
on the floor; his antagonist was the pugilist Edwards, lightweight champion
of that period. Bennett exerted his influence on the newspapers to suppress
all accounts of this occurrence, and everyone agreed except the Express. It
published the story, and, in consequence, Whitney found the owner of the
Herald perfectly willing to do his part toward the political downfall of the
owner of the Express. Bennett turned all the guns of his paper on the
Comptroller.
For action in the Board of Aldermen, however, some Republican votes
were required. Whitney consulted Roscoe Conkling, then leader of his party
in New York State and soon to win national fame for his all but successful
attempt to secure Grant’s nomination to a third term in the White House.
Conkling’s reply was what Whitney expected: the Republican state leader
would not interfere in local matters, but had no objection to Whitney’s
discussing them with his county lieutenants.
Whitney did. He went to the Republican county leaders, and they agreed
to deliver the necessary votes in the Board of Aldermen. Just what deal was
made, I, of course, do not know, but New York was soon surprised; the
Aldermen displaced Kelly, breaking his power; the Mayor appointed Andrew
H. Green in his stead, and two Republican leaders became police justices.
Richard Croker, Kelly’s successor, I knew personally and had unusual
opportunities to study at close range, through my business dealings with the
firm of Peter F. Meyer &. Company, auctioneers. In that combination
Richard Croker was the “Company.”
Meyer’s career was colourful. Peter, as a mere lad, had a clerkship in the
two rooms on the ground floor occupied by Adrian H. Muller & Son, one of
the oldest and most reliable real estate auctioneers in New York. By sheer
ability he gradually rose to be its head. Through Croker’s influence, the
Supreme Court transferred the public auction rooms back to 111 Broadway,
from whence they had been shifted to the Real Estate Exchange, 59 Liberty
Street. Meyer, with gratitude for such past favours, and perhaps with a lively
anticipation of favours yet to come, took Croker into partnership; the firm of
Peter F. Meyer & Company resulted. Peter wanted the Tammany nomination
for Mayor, was disappointed when he did not get it, and scornfully refused
the post of Sheriff as a stepping-stone. That his new association profited him
in other directions was, nevertheless, soon evident.
As I remained long one of the firm’s best customers I had the entrée to
their inner office and so was in frequent contact with the silent partner. It
was an instructive but not always an encouraging experience. Croker’s real
estate office was also his political headquarters; in fact, as I saw him at work
there, I realized that politics was far more his business than was the earning
of the real estate commissions. It was as his business that he treated the
Democratic Organization of the City of New York. Again and again I have
seen this keen, forever busy man, economic with his words, but always
speaking to the point, demonstrate that he felt he owned that organization
just as much as any man controls a concern in which he has a substantial
majority of the stock.
Generally as I passed through the outer room, there were district leaders
waiting there, to report to their commanding-general and receive his orders.
Beside them, and on much the same mission, there would frequently be
sitting men of considerable importance in other affairs than those generally
esteemed strictly political; but though these included certain lawyers who
later graced—and many of whom still grace—the Supreme Court, I feel
bound to add that Croker always respected the sanctity of the Courts.
In any case, I have rarely seen a leader of whatever sort held in such awe
or so sought after for favours. Once, at a reception of the National
Democratic Club, Croker asked me to sit next to him, and talked to me for a
half-hour and more of real estate prospects and reminiscences; from the
corner of my eye I could see the guests watching him with interest and me
with envy; when I got up, several of my friends adroitly tried to learn from
me what political position I had just been promised—they could not
understand how anybody would be given thirty minutes of Richard Croker’s
time unless asking for, or being offered, an important office! Many years
later, I sat in Warsaw beside Pilsudski, dictator of the new Poland; the
glances that I then received were exactly of the sort bestowed on me at that
Fifth Avenue reception by the citizens of our own Republic.
Croker’s withdrawal from the Tammany leadership was voluntary and
due largely to his recognition of his own limitations. During his incumbency,
political conditions gradually changed; they so shaped themselves that
Tammany—which, ever since Tweed’s downfall, had been relegated to
municipal affairs—would soon be called upon to play an active part in State
matters. To protect his organization, the boss would have to control or check
legislation at Albany affecting the City of New York, and also endeavour to
influence the New York delegations to the National Conventions so as to
secure federal patronage. To Croker, these were unexplored fields; he knew
municipal organization politics as few men of his time, but he appreciated
the proverb about teaching an old dog new tricks. Partly through his
connection with Andrew Freedman of the Interborough System, and partly
through that with Peter Meyer, he had become rich beyond all his early
hopes; he had the good sense, unusual in champions, to quit the ring before
losing his title to a younger man.
Perhaps with some lingering desire to retain some hold on the affairs of
the organization which he had so long governed, Croker arranged to be
succeeded by a triumvirate—Charles F. Murphy, Thomas F. McManus, and,
to give the Bronx a voice, Louis F. Heins—but that arrangement did not last
long. Murphy had the nominal leadership and soon made it real. He attached
to himself a majority of the district leaders, fought the remainder, and
replaced all who were irreconcilable by creatures of his own. He went
further and accomplished what Croker had not dared to attempt: the
Cleveland Democrats in the up-state organization had gradually lost their
hold on that machine, and the many excellent men who later became
devotees of the Wilsonic teaching lacked the propensities necessary to
assuming control; they were men of affairs who devoted thought to politics
only during a campaign, whereas, the professional element was “on the job”
for three hundred and sixty-five days in the year; in that element Tammany
found its own type, and converted these into its willing tools.
Within a comparatively short time, Murphy, who had begun as a humble
leader in the Gas House District of Manhattan, was both the head of the City
and State machine in New York. It has been most depressing for
Independents to see him absolutely control the Empire State delegation in
the last three National Democratic Conventions, casting the vote of the
ninety-six delegates, the largest vote possessed by any state—“as though,” in
Bryan’s phraseology, “he owned them.”
My personal experiences with him have been few, but they have served to
confirm my first impressions. In 1910 there was to be an election for
Borough President of the Bronx; Arthur D. Murphy, the Tammany leader of
the district, but not related to Charles F. Murphy, aspired to the position.
George F. and Frederick Johnson and I called on the Chief.
He is a large man, with a huge round face and heavy jowl. His eyes have
not the piercing quality that Croker’s had; they are blue and kindly and his
manner is altogether conciliatory. He knew our mission, but his reception
was cordial.
We put our case frankly. We were among the largest investors in the
Bronx. We wanted that section to be a desirable home-centre for the over-
flow of New York’s population. We, therefore, felt justified in discussing
with him the necessity of having a proper administration with a respected
citizen at its head.
“We feel,” we said, “that Arthur Murphy is not the man for the place. We
have no candidate of our own: we ask you to see that a man be selected who
is fitted by experience and character to be the head of this growing borough.
We want to tell you in advance that unless this is done, we will be forced to
defeat Tammany’s candidate at the polls.”
The Boss listened attentively and without evincing either surprise or
antagonism. When we were through, he said:
“I’ll try to prevent Arthur Murphy’s nomination.”
He sincerely did try. He sent his brother to represent him at the
Convention, but failed to prevent Arthur Murphy from securing the place on
the ticket.
A few days later the Tammany Chief sent for the Johnsons and myself.
“I did the best I could,” he said, “but I couldn’t stop this thing. I want you
men to recognize my good faith and abide by the decision of the
Convention.”
“Mr. Murphy,” I said, “I told you before that I never merely threaten. If I
withdrew my opposition, in deference to your wishes, all that we said at our
last visit would become mere bluff. Your unsuccessful efforts don’t change
the status of Arthur Murphy. We mean to run a third candidate, and we will
defeat your man.”
The manner of the Boss made me feel that far from being angry, he rather
liked my consistency and sincerity. At any rate, we followed our plan, and
Cyrus C. Miller, a Republican, who gave the Bronx an excellent
administration, was elected.
Within the party, I had seen Tammany fought by the Young Democracy
and then by the Irving Hall Democracy, but for a long time its best enemy—
until that, too, fell before it—was the County Democracy, at the head of
which was Police Judge Maurice J. Power, the discoverer of Grover
Cleveland and incidentally a client of our firm.
Power was a bronze-founder when Cleveland was Mayor of Buffalo. The
Mayor and the founder had some dealings about a statue that Power had cast
for the city, and the latter observed and admired the Executive’s
extraordinary ability. At the next state convention Dan Manning, Lamont,
and the other leaders had intended to nominate either General Henry W.
Slocum or Roswell P. Flower as Governor. They found it impossible. Power
formed a combination with the delegates of Erie, Chemung, and Kings, and
named Cleveland and Hill to head the ticket.
Power has told me the story. When he informed Cleveland that he was
expected to name the chairman and secretary of the State Committee for his
campaign, Cleveland asked him:
“Who have those positions now?”
“Manning and Lamont,” said Power.
“Are they good men?”
“They’re mighty capable men.”
“Well,” said Cleveland, “I have no personal friends that I want to put
there. Why shouldn’t I keep Manning and Lamont?”
Cleveland had been an unknown quantity to these men
© Paul Thompson
Mr. Morgenthau with Theodore Roosevelt, Charles E. Hughes, Oscar Straus, and other distinguished
citizens on the steps of the City Hall of New York, urging Mayor Mitchel to accept a renomination.
who opposed him in the Convention, and they were pleased by this sign of
his good will and political acumen. They accepted the offer, and later
became his warm friends for life.
After Cleveland’s second election as President, the newspapers
announced Power as the next postmaster of New York, but he did not attend
the inauguration. It was not until after that event that he went to Washington,
where he met Croker.
“Judge,” said the Tammany Boss, “if you want to be postmaster, we
won’t oppose you. We want you to have something that will satisfy you.”
Power went to the White House, where Lamont received him with the
statement that the President had been asking for him a number of times and
could not understand why he had been absent from the inaugural
ceremonies. The caller was taken into the President’s executive office,
where, although the month was March, Cleveland sat at his desk in shirt-
sleeves. He came at once to the point.
“Look here,” he said, “I’ve been wanting to know whether you’d accept
the New York postmastership. Will you? For old friendship’s sake, I should
like yours to be the first appointment I make for New York.”
“I’m not strong in administrative work, as I don’t like details,” said
Power. Then, jokingly, he added: “If you have some less exacting position
which will not conflict with my attending to my foundry, I’d be glad to
accept that.”
Cleveland said that he knew of no such position. However, at 10:30 that
night, Power was again sent for.
“I’ve found the place for you,” said the President. “They tell me that the
Shipping Commissionership in New York pays $5,000, and will require but
little of your time.”
To that post Power was duly appointed.
My relations with him were always pleasant. He once told me that the
lack of funds was about to result in the dissolution of the County
Organization and said that I could have the chairmanship if I were willing to
contribute $25,000 toward keeping it alive: I had no ambition in that
direction, and Charles A. Jackson got the place. Again, in 1887, when Power
was in the saddle, my partner, Lachman, wanted the nomination of Judge in
the Sixth District Court, but because he has always been a very modest man,
and because he had heard that Judge Kelly, then holding that office, was
seeking renomination, he would not follow the usual custom of going
personally to Power and urging his cause. One day within a month of
election, as I crossed Park Place, I saw Power seated on a bootblack’s stand
in front of his office at 235 Broadway. I immediately went to our office at
243 Broadway, and stormed Lachman into visiting that bootblack stand
immediately.
“The queer thing is,” said Power, “that I should not have thought of you
for the place long ago. Of course you shall have the place.”
He went through the form of offering renomination to Kelly, who
declined it. I ran a fourteen-day campaign for Lachman, and he was elected.
This was my only experience in managing a political campaign until I
became chairman of the Democratic Finance Committee in the National
Campaign of 1912.
In 1882, when the Sidney Webbs, husband and wife, the English
publicists, were visiting America, they told Miss Lillian D. Wald that they
would like to meet an American “boss,” and I arranged such a meeting with
Power as the star. With considerable pride and absolute frankness, he
explained in full detail how a boss came into being and how he remained in
control. He laid great stress on the fact that he was a permanent substance,
while the lesser leaders and the captors of mere popularity were but passing
shadows on the political glass. He explained how the bosses named mayors
and governors and sometimes even presidents—how they played the
ambitions of one aspirant against those of another, and how they had a fatal
advantage over opponents who gave only part time to the business of
politics.
Webb, looking at his wife for agreement, said:
“Isn’t this remarkable? It’s exactly the method that the executive
secretaries of the English labour unions use to maintain their positions.”
Before I had much to do with politics, I found out that neither New York
City nor New York State stood alone in its political obloquy. Some of the
greatest municipalities in the country, and many of the states, were, and are
to-day, under control of machines like Tammany. As these bosses are of the
same ilk, have the same aims and pursue the same methods, and as many of
them have maintained themselves for several decades, a strong friendship
has grown up amongst them, and they to-day practically control the national
committees and the national machinery of both parties.
Thus, in 1920, Cox was nominated for the presidency by a combination
of Democratic State bosses, who, fearing defeat, were determined at least to
keep their control of the party organization. I know Judge Moore very well.
He was the only member of the National Committee in 1916 who threatened
to head an open revolt against President Wilson’s selection of Vance
McCormick as chairman of the National Committee, because McCormick
was not a member of that committee. Judge Hudspeth, of New Jersey,
National Committeeman, came to me in great dismay at the St. Louis
Convention, and told me so. We had a private telephone to the White House,
and, at Hudspeth’s request, I called up the President, and stated the facts.
The President answered that, as the campaign was to be run by his own
friends, his choice of one of them would have to be ratified even if it
displeased Judge Moore.
I was, therefore, much amused in 1920 to see how Judge Moore “beat the
devil around the stump” when he wanted George White selected as chairman
of the Democratic National Committee. Moore resigned his position as a
member of that committee, and White was elected in his place a few hours
before he was made chairman of the Democratic National Committee. It was
Murphy of New York; Brennan of Chicago, who had taken Roger Sullivan’s
place; Nugent of New Jersey; Taggart of Indiana; Moore of Ohio, and Marsh
of Iowa—all outstanding bosses—who combined to control the nomination.
McAdoo and Mitchell Palmer’s followers not agreeing to combine their
forces against this solid phalanx, the latter prevailed and the Democratic
National organization is temporarily in their hands.
This method of government is by no means confined to the Democratic
Party. The Republicans are even greater offenders. The three Democrats that
have been elected to the Presidency since the Civil War—Tilden, Cleveland,
and Wilson—were all outstanding reformers, and were nominated in spite of
the bosses or machines and not with their coöperation. The Republicans, on
the other hand, have perfected to a greater degree the machine control of
their party, and for many years their senatorial oligarchy has controlled the
party machinery.
At the convention that nominated McKinley this machinery worked
perfectly, and Mark Hanna, afterward senator from Ohio, was at the throttle.
When, however, McKinley died at the hand of an assassin, in Buffalo, the
party leaders as well as the country’s leading business men were
tremendously concerned lest Roosevelt should disregard their wishes. The
man that the bosses had reluctantly named Vice-President had hurried down
from the Adirondacks, but none of the oligarchs had been able to get a word
with him. Leaving Buffalo, he got aboard a train for New York, en route to
Washington; the leaders boarded the same train. A member of that group
himself told me what followed.
The leaders agreed that Hanna should come to a personal understanding
with the new President. They went to Roosevelt, who welcomed the idea of
the interview.
“I should be de-lighted to have him lunch with me here,” said Roosevelt.
The table was laid in the drawing-room, and as Hanna entered Roosevelt
held out both his hands.
“Now, old man,” he said, “let’s be friends.”
Hanna did not take the proffered hands.
“On two conditions,” he stipulated.
“State them,” said Roosevelt.
“First,” said the Senator, “we expect you to carry out McKinley’s policies
for the rest of his unexpired term.”
Roosevelt nodded. “I’ll do that, of course. What is your other condition?”
“It’s this,” said the Senator, “never call me ‘old man’ again.”
Then he shook hands. He did more; on his part he promised that if
Roosevelt kept his word, and if he retained McKinley’s cabinet and other
appointments, he would have Hanna’s support at the next National
Convention.
It was a compact that neither man forgot. Before many months were over
rumour reported a conspiracy on Hanna’s part and Roosevelt unhesitatingly
repeated this to him.
“You are carrying out your part of the bargain,” said the Senator, “as long
as you continue to do so, I’ll carry out mine.”
When Hanna died, the machine that he had controlled fell for a time into
disuse and Roosevelt, taking advantage of the temporary absence of a
machine-bred leader, assumed leadership, not as the head of the old
machine, but by virtue of his position as President. He did not recognize the
machine leaders of the various states, nor did they stand behind him, but he
used his power to name Taft as his successor.
Chief Justice Taft has himself described to me how Roosevelt coached
him for the fight. When he called at the White House, the President asked
him:
“Now, then, what are you doing about your campaign?”
“I’ve prepared some speeches,” Taft answered.
“What are they about?”
“Well, I’m just back from the Philippines. I understand them, and thought
I’d talk mostly about them.”
Roosevelt threw up his hands. “What in the world are you thinking of?
You cannot interest the American public at election-time in the Philippines.”
“If you don’t think they’ll want to hear about the Philippines, what do
you suggest they would like to hear about?”
“My currency measures,” said the President. “Talk to them about my
currency measures. That’s what they’re interested in.”
So the candidate disregarded what he had written and composed a new
set of speeches expounding Roosevelt’s ideas on the currency.
Nevertheless, Taft, as history soon demonstrated, did not recognize the
Colonel as his boss. He undoubtedly felt sincere friendship for Roosevelt
and was grateful to him, but he had a still stronger appreciation of the
responsibilities of his office. Consequently, there soon came about a conflict
between Roosevelt’s adherents and Taft’s, in which the machine leaders,
having got together the pieces of the broken Hanna oligarchy, aligned
themselves with the new President.
What followed is still fresh in the memory of most of us. Senator
Penrose, of Pennsylvania, gradually assumed leadership of the national
machine; the Senate oligarchy was again in control of the Republican Party.
Assured in 1912 that if Roosevelt reëntered the White House he would
construct an organization that would be the death of theirs, they fought the
most desperate of all fights—the fight for self-preservation. They triumphed;
the Colonel resented his defeat and bolted the Party. It is one of the absolute
principles of machine politics that the welfare of the machine comes before
everything else. It is not necessary to be in office; a boss is often stronger
when in opposition, with fewer followers discontented through failure to
receive a portion of the spoils of victory; better keep the machine intact and
court defeat than win a national election for a party candidate that the
machine cannot control. These were the maxims that were applied by both of
the rival organizations within the Republican fold—the “regular”
Republicans and the Progressives—in 1912; together they polled over
7,600,000 as against the 6,293,000 Democratic ballots; but each considered
its organization more important than its candidate. The world can, I think, be
grateful: the result was Wilson.
From 1912 onward the Republican senatorial oligarchy mended its fences
and repaired its machine. With Penrose for the directing mind, this group
included Lodge, Knox, Brandegee, Frelinghuysen, Watson of Indiana,
Moses, Spencer, Hale, and Wadsworth. Some of these were bosses in their
own states; all were influential with their state bosses. Roosevelt they could
not ignore, but, when he died, in 1919, they were left absolutely free-handed,
and their National Chairman, Will H. Hays, originally a man of Progressive
tendencies, had successfully employed his great talents as an organizer in
healing the wounds of the internecine struggle of 1912. They nominated
Senator Harding, and he was elected.
What has occurred since is important in this connection only as a side-
light on my general contention. President Harding knew the senatorial
ramifications from within; he understood the conflict of personal ambitions
that, human nature being what it is, went on behind the general community
of interest in the Senate group. His position was strengthened by the long
illness and subsequent death of Penrose and he could, and did, manipulate
these personal ambitions, playing one against the other until he secured a
practical stalemate. By this evolution of events President Harding has been
relieved of the odium of being controlled by a senatorial oligarchy.
If I have elaborated my observations at some length, it is to show why I
am a foe to machine politics. This evil, which can reach as high as
Washington, has its roots in the city election precinct. The district leader
holds his power either through dispensing minor patronage or by influence
with magistrates and political clubs, and, to do this, he must retain the favour
of the city boss. This gives the latter a thoroughly organized army that
includes even a quasi spy system, and at the same time confers a power
unshakeable by anything short of an overt criminal act. Personal criticism of
the boss, ostracizing him from the better sort of society, does not help
matters, does not harm him. He is content with holding what he has won; the
thing to be attacked is not the individual; it is the system, and, in combating
that, the serious and practically unchangeable difficulty consists in the fact
that very few, if any, self-respecting, high-class men will submit to being
bossed. They will not take orders from Crokers or Penroses, Hannas or
Murphys; therefore, they enter fields where the final arbiters, the men who
have to decide upon their worth and promotion, are of a different calibre,
and where the reward for their efforts and work is not dependent upon the
whims and fancies of a political boss.
CHAPTER VIII
MY ENTRANCE INTO NATIONAL POLITICS
“C ONSCIENCE doth make cowards of us all.” Not mine—mine made
me a politician. At fifty-five years of age, financially independent,
and rich in experience, and recently released from the toils of
materialism, it ceaselessly confronted me with my duty to pay back, in the
form of public service, the overdraft which I had been permitted to make
upon the opportunities of this country. Repayment in money alone would not
suffice: I must pay in the form of personal service, for which my experience
had equipped me. And I must pay now, or never.
It was a great surprise to my friends when, in 1912, I suddenly entered
politics, and threw myself heart and soul in the enterprise of securing the
Presidential nomination for Woodrow Wilson. “Why,” they asked me,
“should a man like yourself, whose whole active life has been spent in the
thick of the battle for wealth, embark on the untried sea of politics? And
why, if you are determined to take the risks of this experiment, do you
choose so forlorn a hope, as the cause of the least likely of all the candidates,
for the nomination of the party that has elected only one President since the
Civil War?”
The answer was as simple to me as it was strange to them. My life had
been an intense struggle between idealism and materialism. In youth I had
burned with an enthusiasm for the ideal, which had fed alike upon the
teachings of the Reverend Dr. Einhorn in my boyhood, the inspiring
association which I had enjoyed with a saintly Quaker doctor in New York,
the noble messages to which I had listened from Christian ministers, and the
austere and lofty ethical philosophy of Dr. Felix Adler.
In early manhood, however, the temptation of materialism had beset me
in a familiar form. Shortly after my marriage I had some financial
disappointments; and I was compelled to devote more time than I had
expected to providing for my family. My intention was to make their future
modestly secure, and then to resume my idealistic avocation. I soon found,
however, that I had a special gift for making money. By the time I had
attained the competency which had been my ambition, I had become
fascinated with money-making as a game. Before I realized it, I was
immersed in a dozen enterprises, was obligated to a hundred business
friends, and, like all my associates, was deeply absorbed in the chase for
wealth.
Fortunately, in 1905, the prospect of disaster brought me to my senses. I
foresaw the Panic of 1907; and, while others all around me plunged onward
toward the brink, I paused and took stock of my future. I began to sever my
financial connections. This process of slowing down my business pace gave
me time for other introspection; and I realized, with astonishment and
dismay, how far the swift tide of business had swept me from the course I
had charted for my life in youth. I was ashamed to realize that I had
neglected the nobler path of duty. I resolved to retire wholly from active
business, and to devote the rest of my life to making good the better
resolutions of my boyhood.
It took me some years to divest myself of my business obligations on one
hand, and, on the other, to find a practical field for social service. During this
period, in which I was “finding myself,” I was attracted to the career of
Woodrow Wilson. I admired the courage with which he was fighting the
battle of democracy at Princeton. And, in the early months of 1911, I was
even more delighted to watch his progress as Governor of New Jersey: the
splendid fight he was making there to overthrow the rule of the bosses, and
to write into the statutes of the state those seven measures of practical reform
which his enemies derisively dubbed the “Seven Sisters.”
“Here,” I said to myself, “is a man who does not merely preach political
righteousness; here is a practical reformer. This man has Roosevelt’s gift for
the dramatic diagnosis of political diseases; he has Bryan’s moral enthusiasm
for political righteousness. But he has qualities which these men lack: these
are, the constructive faculty, the imagination to devise remedies, the courage
to apply them, and the gift of leadership to put them into effective action.” I
wished to know more of this new and promising character. I resolved to find
an occasion for meeting him.
Such an opportunity came a few weeks later. As president of the Free
Synagogue in New York City, I invited Governor Wilson to be a guest of
honour at the dinner in celebration of the fourth anniversary of its
foundation. As I presided at the dinner, and as the Governor was seated at
my right, it gave me a chance to get acquainted. I found in him at once a
congenial spirit, and in that one intense conversation I got more from him
than I could have gotten from half a dozen casual meetings.
On my left was the other guest of honour, Senator Borah of Idaho. He and
Wilson proved instantly antagonistic. The air was electrical with the clash of
their dissimilar temperaments. How startled I would have been, that evening,
could I have realized that this discordance of their natures, of which I was at
that moment acutely conscious, had in it the seeds of a future battle—an epic
struggle, with the White House and the Capitol for its headquarters; the
world for its audience; and the destiny of the nations, following the greatest
war in history, the prize that was staked on the issue.
I was then, in fact, aware only that I was seated between two men of
strong and mutually unsympathetic natures; and that they seemed equally to
feel this natural antagonism. Wilson revealed it by his request that he be
allowed to speak last: he plainly wished to study his rival before he made his
own oratorical appearance. Borah was even more palpably depressed by the
presence, at the same table with him, of this strange, new, powerful
personality, whose glittering intellect and polished manner were so strikingly
contrasted with his own blunter, though, in their way, also powerful weapons
and character. The Senator was so disturbed by this impact with Wilson’s
personality that his own speech of the evening fell far below his usual high
standard. He himself was so deeply impressed with this deficiency that twice
afterward he recalled to me his comparative failure of that evening. These
two men thus seemed predestined to a combat which with natures so intense
and powerful could be nothing less than mortal. When, in 1920, Wilson lost
(as I believe, only for the moment) his gallant campaign for the League of
Nations, and fell truly a soldier stricken on the field of battle, partly because
of blows that were dealt by Senator Borah, I could not but revert in memory
to the vivid picture of that evening in New York in 1911, when the two men
met and took each other’s measure.
They were not alone in this measuring of mettle. Governor Wilson’s
speech of that evening was a revelation to all of us who listened. We saw in
him a man of lofty idealism, and a knightly spirit; his convictions grounded
on the secure foundation of a deep study of governmental institutions, and of
the history of the human race; his political philosophy erected symmetrically
upon these firm foundations; its façade adorned with a beautiful conception
of democracy and justice as the ideals of political endeavour. I, for one, felt
that here truly was an inspired leader behind whom all men like myself
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