The farmer and mechanic. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 18??-19??, 1907-06-04
ChaS. Warren Fairbanks.
@T
BY sAvoYARD.
BY ~sAvoYARD.
Copyright by E. W. Newman,

side. After the war Morton de.erm.
med to be and was the first man in
Indiana. Gresham was his follower
and Fairbanks wis GreSham's follow
er. Two men refused TO bow 10 Nor
II Harrison and George W. Ju-
lian- The old lion was strong enough
10 keep Harrison down, and ne drove
Julian back to the Democratic party.
whence Morton himself came. Defeat
ed for the nomination for President
IN 1876. Morton was the man who put
II. u. Hayes IN the White House. Then
he died and was succeeded in Indiana
by the Democratic party, under Hen
bricks, Voorhees,. and Mcdonald.
Inc Republicans were divided he
tween Harrison and Gresham, the lat
ter a Democrat except In name, and
deStlned to be a Democrat in name
also and head of a Democrat Cabinet
FAIRBANKS was a Cregham man, and
went TO Chicago in 1888 to help Ores
nam 10 get the nomination, against
the Democratic candidate whose
cabinet he was TO enter less
than five years later. Walter Evans,
of Kentucky, and the immortal zoe,
was also a Gresham man at Chicago
IN 1883, and 1t waS by the merest
Whim of chance that Harrison defeat
ed his old rival for the nomination
Chauncey Depew mad something to
do with it. Tom Plat had more TO
do with it, and James G.. Blaine had
much to do with it; and We may be
sure OF this, that If mr.. Blaine had
dreamed that Bon Harrison was half
the man he was, Walter CT. Gresham
and not Benjamin Harrison would
have been inaugurated President
March 4, 1889. Harrison served one
term in the Senate; but he entered
that body the very day Blaine left 1t.
and it was not until after Mr.. Blaine
entered his Cabinet in 1889 that he
discovered that that Guck-legged, dish
laced, little man was the ablest states
man of all living Republicans. Blaine
had nominated Garfield because he
could dominate him. Thrice he re-
fused to nominate Sherman because
he could not master him. He expected
that Harrison would be wax in his
hands. Harrison saw to il that if one
of them was to be "A man Of wax, x
would be the Secretary of State and
not the President. Plat thought he
would be Secretary Of the Treasury.
In 1892 Cleveland beat Harrison out
of sight, and all because of the legis-
lative debaucheries of the Fifty-first
Congress hat enacted a rObber tariff
and condemned the Treasury to the
silver basis. For that the people SEN
fenced the Republican party to a ban
ishment Of at least a generation; but
the Democratic party turned Pop. in
1898, deserted their leader, and then
the Republican party was relieved Of
the OStraciSm, and the Democratic par
ty sent to Punishment, where it is yeI
tramping round, and at this reading
there is no road back home open.
In 1896 came Fairbanks Opportun-
ity. He was a gold bug. He did not
learn it from Morton; possibly he got
it from that sterling old Democrat,
Joe Mcdonald. John Sherman made
the silver law that bore his name, be-
a,,- 10 -.ar aF-ofl - +-,x / r~i
sons veto to kill a free-coinage bill:
but in 1896 Ben Harrison made a gold
bug speech that ranked with Carlisle's.
Schurz's, Lindsay's, and Cockran's.
Fairbanks made no such speech, but
he spoke a undred times, whereas
Harrison spoke but once, possibly
twice. To make a proper estimate of
the splendid intellectual capacities o.
Harrison one must read his campaign
speech of 1896.
Indiana went Republican and Fair
banks got Dan Voorhees, job in the
Senate No two men were less alike
than these tWO-One a man of a
netism and the other a man of detail;
one a huSbandman, the other a prodi-
sal; one a Democrat, the other a Re
publican. IN the Senate, Fairbanks
was q party man. A favorite of the
administration, it made him the most
powerful individual IN Indiana. He
made a machine not 50 effective as
Morton's had been, but good enough
for practical indiana
will support it in the convention of
1905 if the Taft cyclone leaves any
opposition in the Republican party
above ground and under sky, which is
doubtful. Fairbanks, the gold bug,
voted for and advocated the nonsense
of sending abroad at public expense
a commission to chop financial econ
omy with the statesmen and bankers
of Europe. Mckinley had been as
rank a silyerite as Bryan or Teller,
and with his own hand writ in the Re-
publican platform Of 1888 these words:
I'VE arraign the Democratic admins
tratiOn for its hostility to silver" And
it was not until October, 1896. was
very nearly three weeks old that Nc
! Kinley got rid of his silver ideas. He
did it then in parentheses, and It was
manifest that his heart dictated that it
Be said to wind, or write Upon the
and
fancy. the emancipationist. rem
de-ed the bred Scot decision, and
Mckinley. the bimetallist. signed the
act providing for tho gold standard,
which shows what a tyrant, mighty
and inexorable. circumstance is.
Fairbanks was a pillar of the admin
istration as Ions as Mckinley lived.
The two were much alike. made in
the same mold, holding the same re-
ligious faith. and belonging to the
same political party. Fairbanks sup
ported the little war with Spain, AMI
then chanpioned expansion. He was
a party man always, and everywhere
a lieutenant of lar ann in every
party enterprise.
Against his own inclination and
contrary to the advice of some of his
friends. Fairbanks accepted the nomi-
nation for vice-president when the
nomination was equivalent to election.