John Harrison Wilson, The life of Charles Henry Dana

[481] the governor had stated officially that he was unable to restore and maintain order, and was therefore forced to call on the President for assistance. Governor Altgeld, who sympathized with the Chicago strikers, took this view of the matter, and was greatly put out to find that the President not only intended to act independently and without invitation, but had no doubt of his perfect right to do so under the federal statutes then in force. This was a genuine surprise to the lawyers as well as to the business men of the country. It marks an epoch in the protection of internal commerce and in the maintenance of public order and tranquillity. In all this it is to be observed that President Cleveland had the full support and cooperation of the Sun and its editor, followed by a growing respect for his honesty and courage, yet it is to be noted that they abated nothing of their opposition to the movement favoring his renomination for the presidency. He had been twice nominated and once chosen, and, although Harrison's term had intervened, Dana set his face strongly against a third nomination, and went so far as to say that the greatest service that Grover Cleveland could now render to his party, or to his country, would be to put an end to the movement in his behalf.

It must not be thought, however, that “the noble controversies of politics,” which had for a third of a century engaged so much of Dana's attention, had entirely monopolized it. Fierce as may have been his onslaughts upon public men whom he believed to be recreant to their public duties, much as he may have rejoiced in the heat and excitement of the conflict, it is not to be supposed that he was indifferent to the claims of early friendship or to the gentler memories of the past. As an enemy went down before him, or as a fellow-soldier in the battle of life fell by the way, he never failed to pay his tribute of affection or respect. In such composition he was peculiarly gifted.