Chapter 72:
1840-1889
Harrison’s Administration

Benjamin Harrison, the great-great-grandfather of the present President, was a native of the Colony of Virginia. We infer he was held in high respect by his fellow-colonists, inasmuch as he was at times a member, and also Speaker, of the House of Burgesses. In 1765 he took decided ground in opposition to the famous Stamp Act. He was a member of the greatly influential Continental Congress of 1774, 1775 and 1776. As a member of the latter he signed the Declaration of Independence. The second son of Benjamin Harrison,—William Henry,—was elected President of the United States by an unprecedented majority. He was the grandfather of the Benjamin Harrison who was elected President in 1888.

Benjamin Harrison was born in the homestead of his grandfather at North Bend, Ohio. He grew up a farmer’s son, and did his share of work when not at school. After being prepared at an academy in the vicinity he entered Miami University, at Oxford, Ohio, where he was graduated in 1852, in his nineteenth year. His position was high in the studies required in the college and also among his fellow-students, he being especially noted for his off-hand speeches, which, owing to their clearness of expression and appropriateness of thought, appeared to have been written out in his study instead of being impromptu. On graduation he began the study of law, and in 1854 we find him beginning its practice in the City of Indianapolis. In 1860 he was elected Reporter of the State Supreme Court.

Troublous times for the Union were foreshadowed. Fort Sumter had been fired upon, and that act fired the hearts of the loyal men of the nation. Into the preceding exciting Presidential canvass Harrison entered heartily, and was in deep sympathy with the political principles of the party that elected Abraham Lincoln.

When President Lincoln issued a proclamation for troops in 1862, Harrison offered his services to Governor Oliver P. Morton, was accepted, and authorized to raise a regiment. He acted promptly. On his way back to his office he purchased a military cap, secured a fifer and drummer, and at once threw out a flag from his office window and began recruiting men for the Union army. One company was soon obtained, put into camp and set at learning to drill, Harrison having, at his own expense, employed a drill-master from Chicago. The regiment—the Seventieth Indiana Volunteers—was completed in a comparatively short time, and the Governor appointed Harrison Colonel. Distrusting his own knowledge of military tactics, Harrison declined the office, but was finally persuaded to accept it. He entered the service as soon as possible with his regiment, being assigned to duty under General Buell, in Kentucky. He commanded his regiment with marked success in a number of battles. Afterward, for his bravery and discretion, he was recommended by General Joseph Hooker, under whose eye he had come, for brevet in the grade of Brigadier-General, as an "officer of superior abilities, and of great professional and personal worth." He received the brevet January 23, 1865.

When at Atlanta with Sherman, Harrison was ordered by the War Department to report at Indianapolis for special duty. That duty was to obtain recruits for the army. Aided by his popularity he was so successful in enlisting men that the work was finished by the 9th of November, and he was free to set out to join his command in the march to the sea, but being unavoidably delayed, he arrived too late, as General Sherman was already far on his march. He found, however, an order to report at Chattanooga. There he was put at the head of a brigade, and transferred to the command of General George H. Thomas, at Nashville, Tenn.

An incident that occurred here reveals in one respect the character of the man. The weather became unusually cold, the earth being covered with snow and ice; his brigade was at the front and the sentries placed, one of whom, R. M. Smock of Indianapolis, relates: "I saw a man approaching from the direction of the officers’ quarters; I halted him, and when he gave the countersign and advanced, I saw it was Colonel Harrison. He had a large can of hot coffee, with which he regaled the sentries in front of his brigade, lest, as he said, ’they should freeze to death.’"

After the battle of Nashville, Harrison was ordered to report to General Sherman at Savannah, Georgia; but having been detained, he was able to join him at Goldsboro, North Carolina. He remained in the service to the end of the war.

After the close of the war, General Harrison returned to the active duties of his profession, having been in 1864 reelected Supreme Court Reporter. He was not, however, permitted by his political friends to be inactive when questions of a national character were to be discussed, and in such debates he took part, especially in several Presidential campaigns.

In 1876, General Harrison was Republican candidate for Governor of Indiana, and ran ahead of his ticket, although defeated by a small plurality. He was urged in 1880 to permit his name to come before the people as a candidate for the Presidency, but refused. He also declined an invitation to become a member of the cabinet of President Garfield. He had, meanwhile, in 1881, been elected almost unanimously to the Senate of the United States. At the end of his six years’ senatorship he retired once more to the practice of his profession, and while thus in private life was nominated for the Presidency by the Republican National Convention assembled at Chicago. More directly than in 1884, the canvass turned on "tariff reduction," as called for by the Democrats, and "protection to American industries," as the Republican motto. As stated above, Mr. Harnson was elected.

The ceremonies pertaining to the inauguration of President Harrison were the most imposing in our history. It is estimated that about 100,000 persons attended from all sections of the Union. The inaugural address, in its views of national affairs, was broad and comprehensive, and expressed in terms clear and terse. In respect to the principal feature of the discussion in the recent canvass, he recognized among the people a "patriotic interest in the preservation and development of domestic industries and defense of our working people against injurious foreign competition." In allusion to the first tariff bill of the Nation enacted by Congress and signed by George Washington, he said: "It is not a departure, but a return, that we have witnessed…. If the question (of the tariff) became in any way sectional, it was only because slavery existed in some of the States." Again: "Surely I do not misinterpret the spirit of the occasion when I assume that the whole body of the people covenant with me and with one another today, to support and defend the Constitution and the Union of the States, to yield willing obedience to all the laws, and each to every other citizen, his equal civil and political rights."

President Harrison sent to the Senate for their confirmation the names of the following gentlemen as members of his cabinet—they were all confirmed within half an hour: James G. Blaine, of Maine, to be Secretary of State; William Windom, of Minnesota, Secretary of the Treasury; Redfield Proctor, of Vermont, Secretary of War; William H. H. Miller, of Indiana, Attorney-General; John Wanamaker, of Pennsylvania, Postmaster-General; Benjamin F. Tracy, of New York, Secretary of the Navy; John W. Noble, of Missouri, Secretary of the Interior; and Jeremiah M. Rusk, of Wisconsin, Secretary of Agriculture.

The last of our national centennial celebrations—that of the first Inauguration of George Washington—took place in 1889. The Continental Congress, during the session of 1788, after it was known that a sufficient number of the States had voted to ratify the Constitution, enacted that Presidential electors should be chosen on the first Wednesday of January, 1889, that they should cast their votes for President and Vice-President on the first Wednesday of February, and that the two houses of Congress should meet in New York City, on the first Wednesday of March,—which that year came on the fourth.

On March third, at sunset, the citizens of New York fired thirteen guns in honor of The Continental Congress, representing the Thirteen Colonies that became independent States on the 4th of July, 1776. That Congress was to expire on the morrow at noon, and the Congress of the new nation was to meet at the same hour. The morning of the fourth was ushered in by the firing of cannon and the ringing of bells. At the hour of noon on that day, only eleven guns were fired; they were in honor of those States that had voted to ratify the Constitution—North Carolina and Rhode Island being the delinquents.

Numerous delays, caused principally by the badness of the roads, the distance and the slow means of traveling, chiefly on horseback, prevented a quorum of either house being present on the fourth of March. The Senate, however, obtained one by April first, the House having been ready for business a day or two previous. On Monday, the fifth of April, the joint Convention of the House and Senate proceeded to count the electoral votes for President and Vice-President. It was found that George Washington, of Virginia, was unanimously chosen, President, having sixty-nine votes, and that John Adams, of Massachusetts, having thirty-four votes, was chosen Vice-President. Messengers were sent immediately and with all speed to inform these gentlemen of their election—Charles Thomson, Secretary of the Continental Congress, to Mount Vernon, and Sylvanus Bourne to Braintree, Massachusetts. The Vice-President was the first to arrive in New York, having been escorted the entire way by volunteer complimentary guards of honor. He at once took the oath and entered upon his duty as the presiding officer of the Senate, which was already in session. Some days later, Washington also arrived, having come the whole way from Virginia on horseback. The Inauguration took place April thirtieth. It became the custom thereafter, but without legal authority, to commence Presidential terms at noon on the fourth day, instead of on the first Wednesday, of March.

The Centennial of the Inauguration of George Washington, as the first President of the United States, was celebrated by the people throughout the Union; though, as was fitting, the main ceremonies, which lasted three days, were carried out in the City of New York, where that Inauguration took place. It was properly decided to imitate, as far as circumstances would permit, the manner in which the original one was conducted.

Washington’s journey from Mount Vernon to New York had been a spontaneous and continuous ovation on the part of the people dwelling along the route, especially in the City of Philadelphia, and in the villages through which he passed. Only two of these demonstrations could be imitated with much appearance of success.

The first attempt was in bringing President Harrison and his escort, such as committees and a few invited guests, from Elizabethport, on the New Jersey shore of Staten Island Sound, twelve miles southwest of New York City. The great New York Bay, upper and lower, was swarming with ships of every description, in number estimated to be between six and seven hundred. The police steamer, the Patrol, with a sufficient force on board to preserve order, kept a wide open space through the midst of these ships, and in almost a straight line from Elizabethport to the foot of Wall street, East River, where Washington had landed. Among these ships were eleven National war vessels, with their crowd of sailors and marines; revenue cutters and merchantmen; private yachts, excursion steamers, iron steamboats, river and sound steamers; immense ferry-boats and comparatively small but saucy tugs, flitting here and there, but all under perfect control and in order. The Nation’s flag—now for the first time radiant with forty-two stars—was predominant among the gay emblems of corporations and private yachting clubs—the whole appearing like a collection of innumerable miniature rainbows. At the time appointed, the Dispatch, a United States vessel, having on board the Presidential party, started from Elizabethport along the open space. When approaching from the west she was greeted by guns from the war-vessels, and huzzas from the marines and sailors, the latter at a signal instantly manning the yards, while cheers of welcome rang out from the multitudes aboard the numerous other boats and ships.

When the Dispatch arrived opposite Wall street, in imitation of the "Thirteen Pilots," a crew of thirteen sea-captains belonging to the Marine Society rowed the barge which carried the President to the pier, where he was welcomed by the Committee, whose Chairman, the venerable ex-Secretary of State, Hamilton Fish, made a brief but appropriate address. The procession moved up Wall street to the Equitable Building on Broadway, where a reception and luncheon were had. Meanwhile an interesting group of school-girls was waiting at the City Hall to receive the President, in memory of the greeting given to Washington by young girls of Trenton, N. J., when on his way to New York in 1789. The girls were tastefully dressed in white, and were selected from the Grammar’ departments of the public schools, while thirteen were taken from the senior class of the Normal College. The girls, the flowers, the addresses, the spectators, made a pretty and memorable effect.

The exercises of the first day were closed by the Inaugural Centennial Ball at the Metropolitan Opera House, in which a number of the descendants of those who took part in the one of 1789 participated.

The second day of the ceremonies was ushered in by religious exercises. At the call of the President’s proclamation, services of thanksgivings for the past and prayers for the blessings of God upon the future of the Nation now entering on its second century, were held in the churches throughout the Union at 9 A. M. The center of attraction in New York was at St. Paul’s Church, to which Washington after his inauguration, accompanied by the members of Congress, had gone to return thanks to God and implore His blessing upon the Government just instituted. Bishop Provost, Chaplain of the Senate, had officiated. In the same church President Harrison and the members of his Cabinet who could attend, were present; the services were conducted in the usual form, Bishop Henry C. Potter making an address. President Harrison occupied the pew in which Washington was accustomed to sit—which has always been preserved in its original form. Ex-Presidents Hayes and Cleveland were present, besides numerous other prominent men.

The assembly adjourned at the close of the services to meet at the historic place in Wall street, where stands a bronze statue of Washington on the spot where the original inauguration took place. After prayer, addresses were made, the chief orator being Chauncey M. Depew.

At the close of these services President Harrison proceeded to Madison Square, where he was to review the military procession reaching from Wall street to Fifty-sixth street—about four miles. For the accommodation of spectators—of which, all told, there were perhaps a million, as every available point for seeing was occupied—temporary platforms or seats were prepared in many places on the streets along the route, in front of public buildings and parks. The private residences on the line of march were elaborately decorated. This parade of citizen-soldiers was the greatest thus far in our history. They came from twenty-three States, extending from Maine to Louisiana, and all along the Atlantic slope; there were present also twenty-nine Governors of States, who were mostly accompanied by their staffs. The whole number of troops exceeded fifty thousand. The exercises of the second day closed with an Inauguration Centennial Banquet.

The enthusiasm of the people continued unabated, and they entered into the processions of the third day with a zest equal to that of the two previous. The last day in truth, represented causes that came home to them individually, more than the displays of the other two, as it was an exhibition in favor of the educational and industrial interests of the Nation; showing the great advancement made during the first century of the Nation’s life, in the paths of useful labor, of domestic peace and material progress in a Christianized civilization. The detail is too extensive for us to enter upon in this connection. The participants in the parade were drawn from the city and its immediate vicinity, including students of Columbia College, of the New York City College and of the University of New York; followed by boys, pupils in the public schools, 4,000 strong; and they, by the various trade and industrial representations. Applications had been received by the Committee, from civic, commercial and industrial societies—foreign-born and native alike, all of which designated the number belonging to each who wished to participate in the processions, the whole number amounting to 110,000; but the Committee was compelled to limit the number pro rata, so that only 75,000 could be in line.