Harrison, Caroline Scott, and Mary Lord Harrison | Letters by both of President Benjamin Harrison's wives

Property from the Collection of Elsie and Philip Sang

Harrison, Caroline Scott, and Mary Lord Harrison

Caroline Scott Harrison, Autograph letter signed ("your loving Mother"), to her son Russell Benjamin Harrison — Mary Lord Harrison, Autograph letter signed ("Mary Lord Harrison"), to Rodney Durham Stevens

The first, 8 pages (7 x 4 3/8 in.; 176 x 110 mm)on two bifolia joined with transparent tape, Washington, 23 April 1884. The second, 3 pages (6 1/2 x 5 1/8 in.; 167 x 131 mm) on a bifolium of embossed blue personal letterhead (Eleven Hundred and Sixty Fifth Avenue), New York, 29 December 1938; mounting remnant on verso of second leaf.

Writing as the wife of a United States Senator, Caroline Harrison, sends a lengthy and rollicking political letter to her only son, who had married earlier in the year. While the letter begins with family news, Mrs. Harrison quickly turns to a detailed accounting of various stratagems being employed to win the 1884 Republican presidential nomination, since incumbent Chester A. Arthur had signaled that poor health would prevent his standing for election on his own (he had succeeded to the office following Garfield's assassination). Harrison focuses her ire on John W. Foster, U.S. Minister to Spain, and Walter Q. Gresham, Postmaster General, who in her estimation were working to undermine President Arthur to the advantage of former Secretary of State—and the eventual 1884 presidential nominee—James G. Blaine. Even worse, in her estimation, they were trying to rally Benjamin Harrison to their cause by "talking of the necessity of harmony in Indiana," where all three had their political base.

"Arthur is a thorough politician," Mrs. Harrison confides, "and it hardly seems possible that this thing could go on without his finding it out and giving G. what he deserves for his unfaithfulness to him. I don't know but that it is an arranged thing but your father does not believe it. I suppose time will show Mr. Foster is a trickster he was the man who arranged and brought the Greenback candidate in '76 [Peter Cooper] and in that way he helped to defeat the state ticket. … just think of a man who is under obligation to Arthur for a foreign appointment, and another man who is under obligations to A for all he is, planning to make a benefit from a disaster to their chief." In support of the adage that politics make strange bedfellows, John Foster would shortly serve as Benjamin Harrison's Secretary of State, while Walter Gresham would fill the same post for Democrat Grover Cleveland.

After Caroline Harrison died, in the White House in 1892, Benjamin Harrison was remarried to her niece and secretary in 1896; neither Russell Harrison nor his sister, Mary, attended the wedding. Thirty-seven years after President Harrison's death, the second Mrs. Harrison wrote of him fondly to Mr. Stevens: "Thank you very much for your kind letter and I appreciate your admiration for my husband, he certainly deserved all that you said of him. I have no picture of myself to send, but enclose one of my husband you asked for, 'to place on your desk.' This photo was taken during President Harrison's Administration."

PROVENANCE

Dr. Max Thorek, Chicago (his ink-stamp on blank page of Mary Lord Harrison letter)