CREEK ROAD GANG
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Autobiography of
Nathaniel Watson Ladd
(1848-1932)
Part 9
Editor's note:
This
is the ninth excerpt from the autobiographical manuscript left by
Nathaniel Watson Ladd. See Author Index Prose L to Z for prior installments.
Born in 1848 in Derry, New Hampshire, the second child and first son of Daniel and Lucy Ladd, Nathaniel Watson Ladd went on to graduate from Dartmouth College and to study law at Boston University. He became a Boston lawyer and political figure, serving on the Boston Common Council, and later in the State Legislature. He was also a founder of the Boston Athletic Association. He died in 1932.
In this section, Nathaniel Watson Ladd speaks of some of his political background and activities.
My father was a Democrat and my grandfather Ladd was a Democrat, but my grandfather Dustin was a Republican. My mother read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and one of the earliest things I can remember was her taking me on her knee and telling me of the wrong to the Black Man, and asking me when I got to be a man to promise that I would do something for them, but they were all freed before I became a man. In 1865, Mother put a Freemont & Dayton flag in my hand {ed.: Republican candidate for President in 1865}. My Father said that he would not have a black Republican in the house. That frightened me a little, but Mother said it was the right flag to carry, and I carried it. In 1928, when Colonel Deckrow heard of this, he asked me to ride in a carriage in the Hoover Torch Light Parade and carry a banner marked “carried a Freemont & Dayton Flag in 1856.” Thus my mother made me a Republican, and I have been a Republican all my life, casting my first vote for General Grant in 1868, and my second vote for President for him in 1872. And my first voting place in Boston was in Faneuil Hall.
I was thirteen when the Civil War started and had a very strong desire to go in some capacity, and tried to learn to be a Drummer Boy, but there was no music in me. I tried later to learn to play the piano, but failed. The fact is, I suspect, that my ear was not sufficiently sensitive to take that up.
I never cared anything for the Spanish War, and thought we had made a mistake in doing what we did for Cuba and think my opinion has been justified for she never has appreciated our work. If England had done such a thing as we did for Cuba, she never would have released her hold upon it, and, in my opinion, for her own good as well as ours, we should have retained it as a Territory and ultimately, when her population was of sufficient character to justify it, made an independent state of it. If she were now a part of the United State, the troublesome question of the Tariff as to her, would not now arise. It is not apparent in my opinion, that she would be greatly benefited at the present time by being part of the United States.
I was greatly interested in the World War, and trained for several months in the Home Guard of Massachusetts, going several times a week to the Cadet Armory to drill. When the examination came, the examiners said they would not reject me, but advised me not to go in on account of my age. I have a letter from Colonel Deckrow thanking me for my service and also advising that I not go on account of my age.
My friends, Samuel L. Powers and Samuel W. McCall were in the same class, 1874 {ed.: at Dartmouth}. He {ed.: Samuel McCall} always called me by my middle name Watson, and I always called him Sam. He and Sam Powers hired desk room in my office when they first came to Boston to practice law. I did what I could to get McCall elected to the U.S. Senate when Weeks succeeded in defeating him, and immediately after that I wrote him a letter suggesting that Massachusetts needed him to redeem the State, which then had a Democratic Governor. The first time he tried, he was defeated, but the second time he succeeded and was the war governor for Massachusetts during our part in the World War. I used to have many talks with him as to what policies should be pursued and finally I remember telling him that it was not much use for me to see him about it and take up the time needed for his public duties, because he always did the things I wanted done. In my opinion, he was a very able man and ought to have gone to the United States Senate. I never believed that it was in his power to stop his son’s father-in-law, Lawson, from butting in, splitting the Republican vote and defeating Weeks second term. He told me it was not in his power. I remember one time of going into his office and telling him of my experience in climbing to the top of Mr. Rainier and how near I came to losing my life in coming down. He was busy writing when I went into his office. He leaned back in his chair, clasping his hand back of his head, and when I finished he said, “Watson, you ought to write that up for the paper.” I said, “Sam, if I could write as well as you can, I would.”
My last year in the Massachusetts Legislature, I was chairman of the Finance Committee, now the Ways and Means Committee. The then Attorney General asked me to come to his office, which was then in the Way House, on Mount Vernon Street, and when I got there, met Henry Cabot Lodge. He asked me to vote against a bill then pending, dividing the State in to Congressional Districts. The bill was gotten up by a man, as chairman of the Committee, who at one time had desk room in my law office and tried his best to make trouble between me and a young man whom he brought in there as his student, even going so far as to attempt to get a Judge of the Municipal Court to issue a warrant for my arrest. The Judge, although it was purely an ex parte matter, would not do it and he failed. He had also pretended to work with me in attempted effort to overcome a cut and dried nomination in politics in old Ward 10. That evening I saw him in the law office of the man who succeeded in beating us. In my opinion, he was never my friend and succeeded in putting me into a hopelessly Democratic district. I had lived in that District for some time and knew I should probably have to continue to live in it, as I have to the present time. I told Mr. Lodge that although it put me into a hopelessly Democratic District, it gave all the Districts safely Republican except three, and it gave the Republicans a fighting chance in two of those three. That we knew Governor Russell, who was then serving his first term, would sign the bill, and that if he were elected the next year, as he was, we could not probably get nearly as good a bill before him as he would know we would have to re-district the State that year, and that I considered it my public duty to vote for that bill, which I did. I was never able to get anything in Massachusetts politics after that. I tried to get on the State Committee the next year, but was turned down. At the very next election, the hopeless Democratic District, into which I voted to put myself, was the only district in all New England that sent a Democrat to Congress.
It so happened that a short time ago, the same Attorney General who sent for me told a story in a meeting of the Bostonian Society, of which I am a life member, about John Langdon’s participation in the Revolutionary War just before the battle of Bennington, in which he represented that he had heard the story from a well known story teller of Boston, making it indefinite whether it was Jamaica Rum or St. Croix Rum, or some other brand, and wound up by saying, “So, rum won the war of the Revolution.” When he sat down, I arose and said that I had heard the story somewhat differently, that when Stark wanted to make his expedition to Bennington to cut off Burgoyne’s retreat, they went to John Langdon, who was a wealthy man living near Portsmouth, and asked him to contribute. He said he had a hogshead of New England Rum and a thousand dollars in hard money, and he would contribute them both. So, I said, “It was not Rum alone that won the Revolution, but hard money had something to do with it.” After the meeting, a clerk of the Society came to me and said, “The ex-Attorney asks, who is this man, who undertakes to improve on this story of this famous Boston story teller?” The ex-Attorney was standing at the time with quite a party of gentlemen who were at the president’s table, and I stepped up to him and asked him if he had forgotten the time when he sent for me to come to his office to meet Mr. Lodge. He said in reply, “I have found Lodge out. I think him a bad man,” and he ran away.
I was rather sorry that he did run away, for if he had stayed, I should have told him, in the presence of the gentlemen standing about, that that was not my view. I considered Lodge a great man, and that he had been a noble representative of Massachusetts in the Senate. When a nomination paper of his, for his last election, was sent to me, I got fifty names upon it and have a letter from him thanking me for that service. I heard his speech at the American House on one of the hottest nights I have ever experienced in which he had samples of various commodities illustrating his speech on the tariff question. When I passed around with others to shake hands with him, I told him that I considered it necessary that he should be returned to the Senate in order to hold our Foreign Relations steady. I also should have told the attorney general that Lodge’s work in saving us from the League of Nations justified all that any of us could ever do for him.
I also made it my business that Summer to see ex-Governor Sam McCall, when he first returned to Boston from his European trip, to seek an interview with him before the newspaper men could get hold of him, and I urged him to come out in support of Lodge. I saw him at the Union Club. I found him very bitter toward Lodge. He said, “When I go to see Lodge in Washington, he will hold out one finger for me to take.” I said, “Sam, you must not in politics mind those things.” And I said many other things to him which I will not repeat here, but which I think had some influence, for I had the satisfaction of hearing him make a speech in favor of Lodge’s re-election, and I saw Lodge attending McCall’s funeral in Winchester. I give myself the credit of having done something to create a better state of feeling between those two men. The longer I live, the better I realize that it is unwise to harbor any feelings of ill-will and animosity towards anybody. Life is too short to spend it that way.
Born in 1848 in Derry, New Hampshire, the second child and first son of Daniel and Lucy Ladd, Nathaniel Watson Ladd went on to graduate from Dartmouth College and to study law at Boston University. He became a Boston lawyer and political figure, serving on the Boston Common Council, and later in the State Legislature. He was also a founder of the Boston Athletic Association. He died in 1932.
In this section, Nathaniel Watson Ladd speaks of some of his political background and activities.
My father was a Democrat and my grandfather Ladd was a Democrat, but my grandfather Dustin was a Republican. My mother read Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and one of the earliest things I can remember was her taking me on her knee and telling me of the wrong to the Black Man, and asking me when I got to be a man to promise that I would do something for them, but they were all freed before I became a man. In 1865, Mother put a Freemont & Dayton flag in my hand {ed.: Republican candidate for President in 1865}. My Father said that he would not have a black Republican in the house. That frightened me a little, but Mother said it was the right flag to carry, and I carried it. In 1928, when Colonel Deckrow heard of this, he asked me to ride in a carriage in the Hoover Torch Light Parade and carry a banner marked “carried a Freemont & Dayton Flag in 1856.” Thus my mother made me a Republican, and I have been a Republican all my life, casting my first vote for General Grant in 1868, and my second vote for President for him in 1872. And my first voting place in Boston was in Faneuil Hall.
I was thirteen when the Civil War started and had a very strong desire to go in some capacity, and tried to learn to be a Drummer Boy, but there was no music in me. I tried later to learn to play the piano, but failed. The fact is, I suspect, that my ear was not sufficiently sensitive to take that up.
I never cared anything for the Spanish War, and thought we had made a mistake in doing what we did for Cuba and think my opinion has been justified for she never has appreciated our work. If England had done such a thing as we did for Cuba, she never would have released her hold upon it, and, in my opinion, for her own good as well as ours, we should have retained it as a Territory and ultimately, when her population was of sufficient character to justify it, made an independent state of it. If she were now a part of the United State, the troublesome question of the Tariff as to her, would not now arise. It is not apparent in my opinion, that she would be greatly benefited at the present time by being part of the United States.
I was greatly interested in the World War, and trained for several months in the Home Guard of Massachusetts, going several times a week to the Cadet Armory to drill. When the examination came, the examiners said they would not reject me, but advised me not to go in on account of my age. I have a letter from Colonel Deckrow thanking me for my service and also advising that I not go on account of my age.
My friends, Samuel L. Powers and Samuel W. McCall were in the same class, 1874 {ed.: at Dartmouth}. He {ed.: Samuel McCall} always called me by my middle name Watson, and I always called him Sam. He and Sam Powers hired desk room in my office when they first came to Boston to practice law. I did what I could to get McCall elected to the U.S. Senate when Weeks succeeded in defeating him, and immediately after that I wrote him a letter suggesting that Massachusetts needed him to redeem the State, which then had a Democratic Governor. The first time he tried, he was defeated, but the second time he succeeded and was the war governor for Massachusetts during our part in the World War. I used to have many talks with him as to what policies should be pursued and finally I remember telling him that it was not much use for me to see him about it and take up the time needed for his public duties, because he always did the things I wanted done. In my opinion, he was a very able man and ought to have gone to the United States Senate. I never believed that it was in his power to stop his son’s father-in-law, Lawson, from butting in, splitting the Republican vote and defeating Weeks second term. He told me it was not in his power. I remember one time of going into his office and telling him of my experience in climbing to the top of Mr. Rainier and how near I came to losing my life in coming down. He was busy writing when I went into his office. He leaned back in his chair, clasping his hand back of his head, and when I finished he said, “Watson, you ought to write that up for the paper.” I said, “Sam, if I could write as well as you can, I would.”
My last year in the Massachusetts Legislature, I was chairman of the Finance Committee, now the Ways and Means Committee. The then Attorney General asked me to come to his office, which was then in the Way House, on Mount Vernon Street, and when I got there, met Henry Cabot Lodge. He asked me to vote against a bill then pending, dividing the State in to Congressional Districts. The bill was gotten up by a man, as chairman of the Committee, who at one time had desk room in my law office and tried his best to make trouble between me and a young man whom he brought in there as his student, even going so far as to attempt to get a Judge of the Municipal Court to issue a warrant for my arrest. The Judge, although it was purely an ex parte matter, would not do it and he failed. He had also pretended to work with me in attempted effort to overcome a cut and dried nomination in politics in old Ward 10. That evening I saw him in the law office of the man who succeeded in beating us. In my opinion, he was never my friend and succeeded in putting me into a hopelessly Democratic district. I had lived in that District for some time and knew I should probably have to continue to live in it, as I have to the present time. I told Mr. Lodge that although it put me into a hopelessly Democratic District, it gave all the Districts safely Republican except three, and it gave the Republicans a fighting chance in two of those three. That we knew Governor Russell, who was then serving his first term, would sign the bill, and that if he were elected the next year, as he was, we could not probably get nearly as good a bill before him as he would know we would have to re-district the State that year, and that I considered it my public duty to vote for that bill, which I did. I was never able to get anything in Massachusetts politics after that. I tried to get on the State Committee the next year, but was turned down. At the very next election, the hopeless Democratic District, into which I voted to put myself, was the only district in all New England that sent a Democrat to Congress.
It so happened that a short time ago, the same Attorney General who sent for me told a story in a meeting of the Bostonian Society, of which I am a life member, about John Langdon’s participation in the Revolutionary War just before the battle of Bennington, in which he represented that he had heard the story from a well known story teller of Boston, making it indefinite whether it was Jamaica Rum or St. Croix Rum, or some other brand, and wound up by saying, “So, rum won the war of the Revolution.” When he sat down, I arose and said that I had heard the story somewhat differently, that when Stark wanted to make his expedition to Bennington to cut off Burgoyne’s retreat, they went to John Langdon, who was a wealthy man living near Portsmouth, and asked him to contribute. He said he had a hogshead of New England Rum and a thousand dollars in hard money, and he would contribute them both. So, I said, “It was not Rum alone that won the Revolution, but hard money had something to do with it.” After the meeting, a clerk of the Society came to me and said, “The ex-Attorney asks, who is this man, who undertakes to improve on this story of this famous Boston story teller?” The ex-Attorney was standing at the time with quite a party of gentlemen who were at the president’s table, and I stepped up to him and asked him if he had forgotten the time when he sent for me to come to his office to meet Mr. Lodge. He said in reply, “I have found Lodge out. I think him a bad man,” and he ran away.
I was rather sorry that he did run away, for if he had stayed, I should have told him, in the presence of the gentlemen standing about, that that was not my view. I considered Lodge a great man, and that he had been a noble representative of Massachusetts in the Senate. When a nomination paper of his, for his last election, was sent to me, I got fifty names upon it and have a letter from him thanking me for that service. I heard his speech at the American House on one of the hottest nights I have ever experienced in which he had samples of various commodities illustrating his speech on the tariff question. When I passed around with others to shake hands with him, I told him that I considered it necessary that he should be returned to the Senate in order to hold our Foreign Relations steady. I also should have told the attorney general that Lodge’s work in saving us from the League of Nations justified all that any of us could ever do for him.
I also made it my business that Summer to see ex-Governor Sam McCall, when he first returned to Boston from his European trip, to seek an interview with him before the newspaper men could get hold of him, and I urged him to come out in support of Lodge. I saw him at the Union Club. I found him very bitter toward Lodge. He said, “When I go to see Lodge in Washington, he will hold out one finger for me to take.” I said, “Sam, you must not in politics mind those things.” And I said many other things to him which I will not repeat here, but which I think had some influence, for I had the satisfaction of hearing him make a speech in favor of Lodge’s re-election, and I saw Lodge attending McCall’s funeral in Winchester. I give myself the credit of having done something to create a better state of feeling between those two men. The longer I live, the better I realize that it is unwise to harbor any feelings of ill-will and animosity towards anybody. Life is too short to spend it that way.
