THERE

CHAPTER XLVIII.

ODDS AND ENDS.

HERE are a few matters that I have passed over chronologically without mention because not directly in the line of the narrative of events that I have been trying to give, of which I should take at least brief notice. One of these was

THE CONFIRMATION OF GENERAL LEONARD WOOD. One of the last matters coming before the Senate (November, 1903) in the disposition of which Senator Hanna took an especial interest was an attempt to defeat the confirmation of General Leonard Wood, who had been nominated by the President for promotion to the rank of Major General.

General Wood had been Military Governor of Cuba at the time when some notorious postal frauds were committed. Among others charged with complicity therein was Major E. G. Rathbone, a citizen of Ohio appointed by President McKinley to a position in the Postal Service in that island. He was one of Senator Hanna's close personal and political friends.

Major Rathbone claimed that he had been persecuted rather than prosecuted by General Wood, whom he charged with arbitrarily controlling the Courts and dictating their proceedings against him.

The charges were referred for investigation to the Committee on Military Affairs, of which I was a member.

Senator Hanna appeared before the committee, announced that he was interested on account of Major Rathbone, and in a statement made by him repeated with approval all the charges Major Rathbone had filed.

General Wood was on duty in the Philippines and no one appeared before the committee to represent him. My personal relations with him were very cordial, and I knew enough of the

facts involved in the controversy to know that, unless somebody looked after his interests, he might be the victim of gross injustice. I therefore took upon myself the duty, with the consent of the committee, of examining witnesses in his behalf and cross-examining those who appeared against him.

The investigation continued through some weeks. A great many witnesses testified; among them the Honorable Elihu Root, then Secretary of War, who assumed responsibility, as the directing authority, for most of the complaints made against General Wood, who had acted under his orders simply as Military Governor of the island, and thus completely exonerated him.

Senator Hanna showed great anxiety during the progress of the investigation, on which, until the holiday vacation, he was most of the time in attendance, and great disappointment on account of some of the testimony. Especially did he seem disappointed with the testimony of Secretary Root, who told how General Wood had been appointed a Brigadier General by President McKinley solely on his merits as a soldier, which were deemed by President McKinley sufficient to justify jumping him over several other officers, who were ahead of him in rank. He then pointed out that at the time when President Roosevelt appointed him to be Major General he was the senior Brigadier General in the Army, and by the appointment was not jumping over anybody.

He also told with great force and effect how President McKinley had selected General Wood to be the Governor of Cuba over Generals Brooks, Wilson and Ludlow, who were considered for the place, specifying in detail the objections to each of the Generals so considered and rejected.

At the conclusion of the investigation I reviewed the testimony that had been taken and in a special report (Executive No. 1, 58th Congress, Second Session) upheld the action of the committee, recommending confirmation which followed when the Senate reached the case on the executive calendar.

The testimony taken and the special reports, such as my own, make a volume of something like a thousand pages. It was a hard, laborious strain, such as the trial of an impor

tant, bitterly contested law suit would be, for all who had any special responsibility in connection with the investigation. General Wood acknowledged my work in his behalf as follows:

ZAMBOANGA, MINDANAO, March 22, 1904. Dear Mr. Senator:-Your telegram of March 19th duly received, and your thoughtful kindness in sending it very much appreciated.

Mrs. Wood and others have written me of all you have done in this matter of the hearing before the Senate Committee as to my fitness for promotion, etc., and I have also received a copy of the splendid report you made.

I cannot tell you how much and how deeply I appreciate it all.

I did not write you during the investigation or to any member of the committee excepting Senator Alger, in reply to a question which he asked me as I did not deem it proper or desirable to have any correspondence with any of the committee until the matter was settled.

I could have made it rather interesting for a good many of the wit> nesses, but I do not know that I could have made them feel any smaller than you did before you got through with them.

I trust that the President sent you a copy of an old letter from Senator Teller to me congratulating me upon my appointment as Brigadier General, in which letter he took occasion to say that the brief delay in confirmation at that time was incident to the thorough discussion in the Senate of the policy to be adopted in such cases, and ended by saying that I had been confirmed without opposition, and that he extended his most sincere congratulations upon my well-deserved promotion.

In view of his position, in this instance, which was as I understand from his own statements, taken upon the question of policy, the letter would have been rather upsetting.

I hope sometime to be able to thank you in person; in the meantime I can only reiterate my sincere appreciation of your more than friendly attitude in this matter.

HON. JOSEPH B. FORAKER,

United States Senator,
Washington, D. C.

Very sincerely yours,

LEONARD WOOD.

Following immediately after Senator Hanna's strenuous campaign in Ohio for re-election, this hearing had a most prejudicial effect upon his physical condition, and no doubt did much to precipitate his last illness, which commenced even before the investigation was concluded.

On this account he was suffering chagrin and smarting with disappointment at the time when he was re-elected by the Ohio Legislature in January, 1904, and, in addition, he

had not yet forgotten the endorsement of President Roosevelt by the Ohio Convention and his discomfiture in connection therewith.

Mr. Croly, his biographer, speaking of this time, says:

There is evidence that had he lived he would at the next favorable opportunity have done his utmost to make Mr. Foraker a negligible Senator in the politics of Ohio.

He might have added that it was also at the same time currently reported that in some remarks he made in Columbus immediately after his re-election he expressed dire purposes with respect to President Roosevelt, or, to use his exact language "that lunatic in the White House."

I do not know whether there was any truth in these stories, but I do know there was no just cause for any such purposes with respect to either President Roosevelt or myself on account of anything either of us had done affecting him; certainly not in connection with the confirmation of General Wood.

I never paid any attention to such reports, for, if true, they were only harmless outbreaks illustrative of one of the weaknesses of a great man, which an unfortunate biographer has thrust to the front, without considering, perhaps, that he thereby places the Senator in a rather unenviable light.

I have often thought and now believe that had the Senator lived and regained his health, instead of belittling himself and his great position by such unworthy efforts as those suggested, he would have stood with me in the differences I had afterward with President Roosevelt-certainly he would have done so as to the Railroad Rate Bill and the defense of Representative Government as against the Initiative, Referendum and Recall and all their sister Socialistic ideas. If so, and with the efficient aid it would have been in his power to give, fewer Senators would have talked one way in the cloak room and then voted another way in the Senate; for he not only had the courage of his convictions, but he had a way of making other men have that same quality.

IMPEACHMENt of Judge Swayne.

The Constitution of the United States provides that the Senate shall hear and determine all trials of United States officials against whom charges of impeachment may be presented by the House of Representatives, and that when the President is impeached the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court shall preside. It is provided by statute that he shall also preside when the Vice President is impeached. In all other impeachment trials the Senate chooses one of its own body to act as Presiding Officer. This Presiding Officer qualifies for the discharge of his duties by taking a prescribed oath.

He in turn administers this oath to all the Senators.

As thus qualified the Senate sits as a Court, hears the charges and defenses and the testimony that may be offered, passing on the question of its admissibility, if any such question be raised, the arguments for and against the accused and then pronounces judgment by vote; a two-thirds vote being necessary to convict.

It was my fortune to sit in one such Court of Impeachment. The procedure was dignified and impressive throughout, as well as unusual and interesting. In December, 1904, the House of Representatives notified the Senate that it would present articles of impeachment against Judge Charles Swayne, United States District Judge for the Northern District of Florida. Later, the House of Representatives, by its Managers, appeared at the bar of the Senate and formally impeached Judge Swayne and presented to the Senate the particular charges it would undertake to establish.

The House appeared by the following members who acted for that body: Messrs. Palmer, Powers of Massachusetts, Olmsted, Perkins, Clayton, DeArmond and Smith of Kentucky.

The Senate selected Senator Orville H. Platt of Connecticut, to act as Presiding Officer of the Court.

On account of the death of Vice President Hobart and the fact that his successor, Vice President Roosevelt, had not yet