1876 (46 page)

I caught a glimpse of Zach. Chandler this morning, entering the Amen Corner with some Stalwarts.

“How does it look?” I could not help but ask.

“Simply terrible,” was the honest answer. But then he can be as candid as he pleases now, for no word to the press from me or from anyone else can make a difference. The voters are at the polls.

A note of minor interest: Boss Tweed has been arrested in Spain, and will be returned to a New York prison. People take this to be a good omen, recalling to the nation Tilden’s first victory over the powers of darkness.

My hands are shaking so much that I can barely decipher my own handwriting. For once I do not ascribe this tremor to ill-health but to a quite normal
crise de nerfs
.

Midnight. November 7 to ... No, now it is November 8.

Shortly after noon Governor Tilden arrived at the Everett House, having himself just voted. I was amongst the crowd that greeted him with an ovation as he entered the ballroom.

Tilden looked calm, and presidential; he wore a black frock coat with a red carnation in the buttonhole. I tried to get to him in order to shake, idiotically, his hand. But the crowd was too dense for me to penetrate. Luckily I found Colonel Pelton, who said, “Come back to Gramercy Park with us. We’ve got a direct wire there. The returns will be coming in pretty soon.”

So at about four in the afternoon, I drove in Pelton’s carriage to Gramercy Park, where a small crowd had braved the cold and the rain for a glimpse of Tilden.

The parlours and study were crowded with members of the inner court. Green crushed my hand. Bigelow was almost giddy with anticipated victory. An euphoric Mrs. Pelton was still sufficiently polite to ask for Emma.

“She’s with Mrs. Sanford, playing nurse.”

Actually Emma seems to have got over her African phase, at least, temporarily. I think that she lost heart after the defeat of her favourite chieftain Blaine. “Besides,” she said, “I don’t know General Hayes. And as for your Governor Tilden ... Well, I want so much for him to win.”

“But he does not excite you?”

“He lacks true savagery, Papa. I’m sorry. The fault is mine. In Washington I dined too long on raw flesh.”

Tilden was applauded as he entered his own dressing room: a ludicrous thing to do, but we were all—we
are
all—still afire with excitement.

As I pressed Tilden’s hand, the drooping left lid rose slightly and a faint smile began. “We have had an unconscionably long summer and autumn, haven’t we, Mr. Schuyler?”

“To be followed by a winter of absolute contentment.”

“I hope you are right. But tell me”—the low voice became a whisper—“of
your
symptoms. The seeing of images doubled ...”

“Quite gone,” I lied, since no president wants a moribund minister to France. “I am rejuvenated.”

“Curiously enough, so am I. My headaches have quite gone.” He lied, too, for the same reason: no republic wants a valetudinarian president.

Although no returns had as yet been reported, messages kept coming in over the wire, congratulating the new president.

Amongst the first to be heard from was General McClellan, Lincoln’s opponent in the election of ’64. Since McClellan had been a disaster politically as well as militarily, I took this to be a bad omen. But Bigelow cheered me. “We’re now certain to carry the city. And who wins New York wins the country.”

After we had dined, the Governor led us in procession back to the Everett House, where crowds were beginning to fill all the lobbies.

In a room just off the main ballroom, Tilden seated himself comfortably near the ticker-tape machine. Hewitt sat on one side of him; Green on the other. The rest of us served as Greek chorus to the grand single Aeschylean protagonist.

First returns: Tilden carries New Jersey. From the ballroom, a roaring sound like that of a wave bursting on the shore. Cheers from us in the small room.

Tilden’s eyes begin, ever so slightly, to glitter while in each cheek a touch of pink suddenly appears like a plague spot. No, like the stigmata. No! No similes! I am plain recorder tonight.

The next returns: Tilden carries Connecticut. Waves again break on the shore in the next room. Green shouts, “It is going to be total, Governor!”

But Tilden shakes his head and murmurs something that I cannot hear.

“New York will be the key,” says Bigelow for the hundredth time. And so we waited for New York until about eleven-thirty, when the word came.

Tilden has carried New York City. Tilden is sweeping the state.

Hewitt turns to an aide: “Telegraph
The New York Times
, and ask the editor what majority they will kindly concede us.” Much laughter.

The door to the ballroom is thrown open by enthusiasts. “Tilden, Tilden, Tilden!” the chant has begun. “Go on,” says Hewitt, helping the not-entirely reluctant Tilden to his feet. “They want to see you—Mr. President!”

That
got us cheering too: and in a daze as close to that of sexual ecstasy as anything that I have ever known, we accompanied Tilden into the crowded, smoky ballroom, where a thousand people cheered themselves hoarse as the small figure in black made his way amongst them, creating in some magical way a certain space about himself, for no one actually tried to touch him as the crowd usually wants to do when the hero has, thanks to Demos, become for at least a quadrennium their god.

I went back to the hotel and found the lobby nearly empty. One of the night managers told me, with a wink, that the entire staff of the Republican headquarters had vanished when word came that Tilden had carried New York. “Nobody’s up there except Mr. Clancy the clerk, tidying up!”

“And the two Mr. Chandlers?”

“Mr. Zach. Chandler went to bed.” The manager lowered his voice. “Had a bottle of whisky in one hand ...”

We were interrupted by a powerful and, to me, ominously familiar voice. “Which way to Republican headquarters?”

I turned and saw the one-legged General Daniel E. Sickles. This colourful creature, whilst in Congress, killed his wife’s lover in cold blood; then took her back. Later, in the army, he lost a leg at Gettysburg; he also came close to losing the war for the North. In recent years he has, simultaneously, been American minister to Spain as well as chief minister to the voracious sexual appetites of the exiled Spanish queen, whose house in the Avenue Kl
é
ber we all avoid, as we do
le roi am
é
ricain de l’Espagne
.

I bowed to General Sickles, who bowed to me. He owns a wooden leg but prefers to use crutches. “Your man Tilden’s made a very decent showing.” Sickles was patronizing. Once a Tammany Democrat, he is now a dedicated Republican, hoping no doubt to obtain
my
post at Paris.

“Yes, General. President Tilden’s majority is a most decent one.”

Sickles snorted through walrus moustaches; then followed the night manager in the direction of the perpendicular railway. I looked into the Amen Corner and saw Collector Arthur. He conceded defeat gracefully and together we had a nightcap. Arthur was on his way home to nurse a sick wife.

November 8. Midmorning.

I slept heavily, thanks to drugs, and feel somewhat unreal this morning.

Did last night really happen? or was Tilden’s victory simply one of the many strange and often unpleasantly lurid dreams that I have been lately having?

The morning papers reassured me: Tilden is the president. The
Tribune
is certain that he has been elected while the
Evening Post
estimates that Tilden may have as many as 209 votes in the Electoral College as compared to 160 for Hayes. Characteristically,
The New York Times
refuses to acknowledge defeat.

The
Times’s
headline: “A Doubtful Election.” The editor made much of the fact that Oregon had gone Democratic by only 500 votes; also, of the fact that the crucial states of Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina were being claimed by Hayes’s electors—as we had always anticipated.

I was startled, however, to read the
Herald’s
headline: “The Result—What Is It? Something that No Fellow Can Understand.” (Pure Jamie, that style). “Impossible to Name Our Next President. The Returns Too Meagre.” But then the writer declared that the key states of Louisiana, Florida, and Oregon had indeed gone Democratic, and so it did
look
as if Tilden was elected.

During a quick breakfast in my room, I received a telegram asking me to dine tonight at the Sanfords’, no doubt to meet my daughter. I have just sent a telegram of acceptance; am off to the
Herald
offices.

November 8. 4:00 p.m.

The
Herald
offices are in an uproar. Even the printers are quarrelling about the returns.

I found Jamie in his baronial office, wearing a polo helmet and holding in one hand a polo mallet. On the splendid mahogany desk was a crystal decanter, containing the morning’s ration of absinthe.

“Ain’t it a mess?” Thus he greeted me. As we talked, editors came and went whilst messenger boys delivered telegrams that Jamie would glance at and then drop to the floor.

“But what’s wrong? Surely he’s won? He’s carried New York.”

“New York’s New York. Lot else going on.”

“But your own story said he’s carried Louisiana, Florida, Oregon ...”

“
New York Times
.”
Jamie said the three words with distinct emphasis.

“What have they got to do with the
Herald
or with the election?”

“They’ve got an inside, Charlie. My God, I’m tired. I’ve been here for close to two days. In this office.” He took a quick swig of his terrible liquid.

During a lull in the traffic of editors and messengers, Jamie explained what had happened.

Around four o’clock this morning, the ever-alert editors of the
Times
discovered that one of Tilden’s aides had sent out a telegram to all state chairmen, asking each state what the electoral vote was going to be.

The
Times
decided that this telegram displayed anxiety on the part of the Democrats; therefore, the election might still be in doubt. Although the editors knew that the popular vote at the South had gone for Tilden and the paper had already grudgingly conceded him New York State, they preferred to act as if the Democratic majorities in Louisiana, Florida, and South Carolina had already been reversed by the Republican Returning Boards. This explained the headline in the first morning edition of the
Times
.

At 6:00 a.m., the second
Times
edition arbitrarily gave Hayes two of the “doubtful” Southern states and threw in Oregon for good measure while admitting that Florida was in doubt. Tentatively the
Times
gave Tilden 184 electoral votes and Hayes 181, making the point that if “doubtful” Florida should go Republican, Hayes would be elected by one vote in the Electoral College.

“But all of this is invention.”

“I know. I know. And Tilden
has
won. But you asked me why I had the
Herald
say the election was in doubt. Well, the
Times
and now Zach. and William Chandler are deliberately putting it in doubt. With the help of General Dan Sickles.”

I sat down, feeling ill, confused. An offer of brandy was accepted. Promptly my brain clouded over and I felt—though I am sure that I was not—the better for it.

At dawn this morning William Chandler returned from New Hampshire, where he had voted. He assumed the election was lost. At Republican headquarters he found the clerk Clancy who told him that General Sickles had gone through all the latest returns on Zach. Chandler’s desk and decided that the election was close enough “to fix up.” Sickles then wrote telegrams to the state leaders of South Carolina, Louisiana, Florida, and Oregon. The text: “With your state sure for Hayes, he is elected. Hold your state.” Sickles wanted to send out these telegrams over Zach. Chandler’s signature. Clancy demurred. At that moment Chet Arthur (having just left me) entered and said that he would take responsibility. Arthur then went home to his wife whilst the infernal Sickles remained at his post. At 3:00 a.m. South Carolina responded favourably. Close to 6:00 a.m. Oregon did the same. Sickles sent off another round of telegrams, and then stumped off to bed.

Needless to say, William Chandler was delighted. He was even more delighted when that rabid Republican the editor of
The New York Times
, John C. Reid, materialized, with ambiguous news reports declaring that Oregon and Florida had chosen Hayes. Both Reid and William Chandler were convinced that with time and the Republican Returning Boards, the election might still be reversed.

After some difficulty they found Zach. Chandler’s bedroom. After even more difficulty, they roused him from a despondent, drunken slumber. He gave them carte blanche, and went back to sleep. The conspirators went back to headquarters, where it was decided to telegraph once more each of the Republican leaders in Louisiana, South Carolina, Florida, and Oregon as well as those of California and Nevada.

The burden of this urgent message from national headquarters was: “Hayes is elected if we carry South Carolina, Florida, and Louisiana. Can you hold your state?”

“How on earth do you know all this, Jamie? When this was only—what? three hours ago?”

Jamie hit a wastebasket with his polo mallet; the basket crashed into the wall and more papers joined the litter on the Turkey carpet. “Well, it’s the damn fool unimportant things that give people away. Chandler and Reid went down to the telegraph office in your hotel but it wasn’t open yet. So they had to go to the main office of Western Union. When they handed over their messages, Chandler said, ‘Charge these to the Republican National Committee.’ But the clerk was a good Democrat who knew as how Tilden had been elected, so he said, ‘No, sir, I can’t do that.’ So Reid said, ‘Well, charge them to
The New York Times
.’ ”

“And the telegrams were sent?”

“They were sent. And the clerk passed the word on to us. Now we’re waiting to see what skulduggery’s going to result.” Jamie poked with his mallet at some papers on the floor beside my chair. “Take a look at that one there. Just got it a few minutes ago.”