Perth Amboy evening news., 1920-05-19
FiUe Minutes A Day
With Our Presidents
BY JAMES MORGAN.
Why Hayes was Nominated.
BY JAMES MORGAN

VI nN tibfc- was Nominated.
RUTHERFORD b X G III A IL ID
HAYES nomination for President in
1876 over James G.. Blaine, Roscoe
IConkling and Oliver T.. Morton took
the country by surprise almost as
much as the earlier nominations of
Polk and Pierce. Yet the defeat of
the favorites in the race was quite in
keeping with custom.
All parties for n generation had
shown a tendency to prefer the less
known YER the better-known candi-
dates. Fremont, the first Republican
nominee, had almost no political rec
ord. Grant had one at all. and Lin |
Icoln was nominated over Seward only
because he had the shorter record.
The convention system always tends
toward what James Parton described
as the exquisite economy OF Nature,
which ever strives TO get into each
place tho smallest man that can i'll
it" II simply missed its calculation
In Lincoln. Hayes also proved TO be
rather more OF a man than the poll
tieians expected him to be.
Hayes had i geographical advan-
tase, and the map is unduly important
In our politics. All Presidents that
the Republicans have elected since
Lincoln, who was also born in the
Ohio Valley have been Ohioans by
birth, excepting only Roosevelt. And
~ ID uAli4heIl tnol ne ever NouIu nave
been nominated for the Presidency II
death had not promoted him TO It
in the first place.
Another consideration favored
Hayes. Just as the old Democratic
party, when it was under the doni-
nation of the South. used to nominate
Northern men and Southern prin-
ciples." the Republican party, as 1t be-
came the representative OF the bust
ness interests, resorted 10 the strategy
of nominating Western men with East
ern principles.
Hayes was a transplanted Connec-
ticut Yankee, whose people migrated
westward by way of Vermont. BY the
accident OF birth he was an Ohioan,
but in blood, In temperament and in
thought he was wholly a New Eng
lander, a straight-laced Puritan in
character and a scholar in tastes.
Like jackson before him, he was a
|posthumous child, having been born
10 weeks after his fathers death. But
a rich bachelor uncle. Sardis Birch
ard. became a father to the fatherless
boy, sent him to college in Ohio and
to the Harvard Law School,. and finally
leaving him his house n fortune two
years before the nephew'5 nomina-
ton for President.
This, then. is no story of n running
fight with poverty and ig-
~ = ~ wa "a "a = AAaV
tread q straighter. q narrower or a
smoother path to the White House.
The story teller is thrown into despair
at the outset by the assurance of one
of Hayes college mates Stanley
Matthews, that He never got caught
in any scrapes he never had any boy
ish foolishness; he never had any wild
oats to SOW"
n child was father of the man.
Hayes life is bare of personal anec-
Totes and dramatic contrasts. A law
yer and public man in the border city
of Cincinnati in the stirring days be-
for the Civil War; an officer in the
volunteer army throughout the long
conflict. where he was wounded in
battle and where he CALAMITY COM
manded a division under Sheridan; in
congress for two terms in the turmoil
OF reconstruction; thrice elected Gov
!ernor of Ohio in close. exciting con-
TESTS. ...yet this man moved so
noiselessly through all these great
scenes that he was looked upon as an
lalmost unknown actor on the National
stage when he made his entry as a
nominee for President. For 20 years
he had been playing his several parts
and always playing them fairly well,
but without becoming a star or catch
ing the spotlight.
When Ohio entered him as her ia
~lvorite son, Sc little account was taken
of him that other candidates permitted
the convention to go to his State, thus
repeating the mistake of the unsuspect
ing politicians who let the convention
of 1850 go TO Llneoln's State. Here
is another parallel: q majority of the
delegates when they arrived in Gin
cinnati In 1876 were for Blaine. just
AS a majority went 10 Chicago favor
able to Seward. And Blaine lost the
nomination, precisely as Seward lost it
at Chicago. by an adjournment over
might. If the ballot had been taken,
as Il properly should lave been. while
the convention was aglow from the
leloquence OF Robert G.. Ingersoll's
tribute 10 the "Plumed knight" the
lconvention would have been swept of
it's feet for the Man from Maine"
How many men have missed the
Presidential nomination by just such
la narrow misehance.
When the balloting came the next
day, Hayes remained fourth and fifth
Through four ballots He was nomi-
mated on the seventh only when the
field was forced to combine upon some
lone in order to beat Blaine who had
risen 10 within so votes OF victory.
Amid all the confusion and In
Itriguing the convention followed the
cold logic of the situation. The Re
publican party vas sadly divided by
factions and sadly discredited by scan
ldals. Hayes had no part In any OF the
louarrels and no responsibility for the
corruption at Washington.
Floundering in hard times, the
country was tired OF the old wa cries
land was ready TO turn to new ques-
Itions. The first of these wa the cur
reney. which had been inflated and
ld~emoralized by the war. and Hayes
had carried Ohio for Governor in the
iFail before on Z hard money platform,
lie was the logical candidate for Pret-
I6ent, perhaps thu only Republican
Awho had any chance to Yin It the