Chapt Seven- A Life-Changing Faith

I have read a fiery gospel in burnished rows of steel ************************************************************** As ye deal with my contemners so with you Grace shall deal ************************************************************** Let the hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel ************************************************************** Since God is marching on. ************************************************************** Glory, glory Hallelujah, Glory, glory Hallelujah, Glory, glory Hallelujah, His truth is marching on.

                     1861- Julia Ward Howe 

Chapter 7

A Life-Changing Faith

Lucy Ware Webb Hayes was born to be first lady, in fact the first wife of an American President to be popularly awarded that title. She was a natural hostess, a woman loved and admired long before the nation discovered and embraced her. Lucy had been matched with Rutherford B. Hayes, her husband to be, by her future mother in law, which says something positive for arranged marriages. Rutherford was dubious at first, considering the young, freckled sprite to be a giggling kid and no more. It had not been so long since Lucy had gotten into a scrape with the schoolmarm, protecting her cousin from a spanking, after she had brought him to school for a visit. She was not just unorthodox, she could be courageously insolent.

But after Hayes established his law practice, she had matured, powdered her freckles, and morphed into a comely beauty, who housed a powerful intellect. She was fun, cerebral, and a bit defiant, and he fell madly in love with her. Then she had to be convinced. Lucy was actively courted, and became the prize of Cincinnati, and eventually chose the lawyer whose mother had chosen her, and it did not hurt that his sister was a close confidant, who conspired to see the two become one.

Lucy was a rare catch. College educated. Liberally inclined. A fierce Abolitionist. She was pushing for Civil Rights and social justice for all, long before the American people understood those things. She was a “John Brown” Yankee. Her own grandfather, a Kentucky plantation owner, had seen the evils of his ways and freed his own slaves in his Will, when she was a young girl. She thought all Americans should follow his lead, absorb the losses, and save the country's soul. Lucy encouraged any group dedicated to the rights promised to all Americans in the Constitution, including the budding Women's Suffrage movement. When the war broke out over Abolition, or a state's right not to adopt it, she was one of those fire-breathing Abolitionists who considered force the only alternative. Had she been a man, she would have joined the army and fought in the cause for Negro Emancipation.

Lucy was outspoken, the way educated, somewhat self-righteous elites can be when they believe they are right and have lost patience with the masses. She could be quite radical, and thus less diplomatic than her popular husband. The War Between the States had been a horrible alternative for peaceful, Christian people to use to settle their differences, but once it had been set into motion, she was all for the South paying dearly for its sinful ways. And they did.

After President Lincoln was assassinated by a Southern conspiracy, Mrs. Hayes was out of her mind for justice to be administered: “I am sick of the endless talk of Forgiveness- taking them back like brothers... Justice and mercy should go together.”

Luckily for President Hayes, his wife did not like crowds or public appearances, and he was able to walk the straight and narrow path of electability. Lucy grew to hate politics, and then made the hurdle, putting her revulsion aside, seeing the challenge and desperate need of being a force for good in a dark world.

But Lucy was no blow-hard, relying on pronouncements to be her legacy. She was known even as a young woman to be an activist, seeing after the care of soldier's orphans, and the soldier's graves. She would not forget or forgive the South easily with so many men crippled, daily reminders of the damage done to her country. She also gave time and resources to the deaf and mute at the Deaf and Dumb Asylum and at the Reform Farm for Boys.

Rutherford B. Hayes was an exemplary attorney, a respected general during the Civil War, a successful Governor of Ohio, and then he ran for President of the United States. His election was the most controversial of his time. Neither candidate won outright and a special commission had to be appointed to decide the results of the election. When he was named the winner, winning by one solitary vote, the Democrats immediately went into convulsions and determined to challenge his election and his presidency in every way, and obstruct any and all of his agenda, during the first half of his administration.

It did not help that his wife Lucy had her own, somewhat unpopular agenda. Besides Abolition which was already under her belt, she championed Women's Suffrage and something far more controversial, Prohibition of alcohol.

The country had no suspicions about such trivialities after the election was settled, and after Hayes' inauguration, a reporter claimed that “Mr. and Mrs. Hayes are the finest-looking type of man and woman that I have ever seen take up their abode in the White House.” But those charitable first impressions soon evaporated, when the Hayes moved in, and adopted the policy of no alcoholic beverages to be served. Howling skepticism reverberated throughout Washington. Next the new first lady ejected the White House billiard table, exiled to permanent storage. Many a deal, yes some crooked, had been struck over that venerated green felt during the Grant Administration. But Lucy stuck to her principles; no gaming, and no alcohol, and she only made exceptions on the latter for European guests who could not adjust during brief trans-Atlantic visits. So Lucy was fierce, sometimes even intolerant, but merciful.

They called her “Lemonade Lucy” but the country loved her anyway. And Hayes turned out to be a good president, worth the idiosyncrasies, and since he had promised he would only serve one term, some of the Democrats relaxed and worked with him during the second half of his term. Providence was smiling on his presidency, in spite of the mountain of opposition. It was as if the modern Industrial Revolution crowned his office, as the White House and the whole country modernized with many household inventions. Unlike a couple of the Presidents before him, Rutherford Hayes avoided scandals and doubts about his integrity, and finally managed to get things done in spite of partisan bickering, and assumptions by the Democrats that he was fraudulently elected.

Democrats during his term were almost under a strange curse. After his first two years, a fresh review of the '76 election returns was called for by the Democratic congress, as sanctimonious Democratic partisans tore into the quagmire with hopes of proving foul play by the Republicans. The Potter committee, led by his Democratic opponent's trusted friend, dug their credibility hole even deeper after unearthing evidence of Democratic bribery of election officials all over the South.

This ended the discussion, but this trend, of Democrats accusing their opponents of what they routinely do themselves, in vain efforts to embarrass or dethrone Republicans, began during the Hayes presidency. It did not work then, and in fact backfired, and yet they have never ceased to try.

Perhaps Hayes' most important accomplishment, encouraged by General W. T. Sherman, commander of the United States Army, and a personal friend, was to withdraw the marshal law which had governed the Southern States since the Civil War. Army presence was reduced and Hayes pursued a policy of conciliation with the Southern states. Like Lincoln, he took a lot of flak for showing respect or compassion towards his enemies, but like the fallen martyr, he was almost obsessed with the idea of national unity. Republicans were skeptical and the Democrats fairly ungrateful, but Hayes made decisions based on fairness and magnanimity. He operated simply on the credo that “He serves his party best who serves his country best.”

Lucy became known among Washington elites as a devoted philanthropist, but only as a woman would. Not with pompous committees or public funds, but with emissaries driving one quiet wagon-load of groceries at a time, paid from her own purse, to needy local families. She was often seen visiting disabled soldiers at the National Soldier's Home, and she managed twelve conservatories (greenhouses) on the White House Grounds which provided flowers for every Washington occasion.

When the noble Hayes left the White House, it was with great admiration and not a small sense of loss. But for the Hayes, after four years of relentless partisanship and obstruction, they were more than happy to adhere to the President's original plan, to serve just one term.

The American people were doomed to generations of nasty political maneuverings and congressional gridlock, and mostly because of ruthless career politicians, who were much more concerned about gaining power and their own re-elections than governing the country. President Hayes knew that going in, and could only hope to inspire others to limit their terms as well. He was casting his pearls to swine. Some say his happy last words as he was leaving were “Out of a scrape- out of a scrape!” But he made his mark on the country, and won many admirers. The doorman noted that when they left, he had never seen so many crying well-wishers, calling to say good-bye.

A basically private person, Lucy was glad to retire and go home, raise chickens and tend her orchards. She loved nothing more than to sit quietly at a bank and fish for trout. She reluctantly served as titular head of the Methodist-Episcopal Church's Women's Home Missionary Society for many years, considered the only person who could keep the peace and move the organization's goals forward. She lived a lifetime of service. President Hayes always considered her a great asset, even a Providential gift to his life, and the country as well. “A better wife I never hoped to have...” he once offered, “Blessings on his head who first invented marriage.” She had given him eight children, and raised five sons and one daughter to maturity. She spoiled them all, and cultivated exemplary Americans who held her in the highest of esteem.

By the time she was able to consider publicly endorsing Women's suffrage, the movement had been commandeered by a radical element which she could not completely accept. Unfortunately, as often happens with desperate political movements, Women's Suffrage had become the kitchen sink of fringe causes, notorious “unwomanly women” allied with Spiritualism, naturalism, lesbianism, and several other controversial bohemian movements which were in direct conflict with her religious convictions. Lucy Hayes always was for Women's Suffrage, and always said so. But she could never, out of Victorian politeness and for political reasons, say why she chose to decline in joining forces with them. The Hayes already had all of the controversy they could handle, and had President Hayes adopted Lucy's suffragist leanings, he would have been remembered instead as the least effective president in our history.

A lot of life is making hard choices. Wise people learn over time to make choices based not on passion or prestige, but on posterity. Will we have regrets later? Even shame? Lucy Hayes lived a full, productive life, not talking about idealistic things she might do, but doing those things she could do, things she could see through to the finish, and most of it was in service to others.

In many ways, our first ladies are our national mothers. Many of them were as stellar as the men they married, if not more so. The advice they gave their children would often times be good advice for our own children. When one of their sons went off to college, Lucy and Rutherford had advice, but she not being a prolific letter writer, used as few words as possible. Together they admonished him to write often...

Master Scott Hayes

“Tell all your doings... I'm sure you will guard your habits. Good manners should also have your attention.... have regard for the feelings of others. Make all around you happy.” She lived what she preached.

And Lucy added: “Be careful of your conduct... Card playing reserved for home- (don't let your youthful affections become entangled... )”

                                   

                                                    Rutherford Hayes Jr.

Lucy had advice for us as well. It may have been said to her associates at the Home Mission Society, but it could be adopted by every American citizen. She always exemplified the stated goals of her organization;

“The lifting of the lowly of our own country...” which ought to be of interest to every man and woman. Later Lucy warned that our immigration policies could be importing devastating influences, (in those days from Ireland) that we must guard against. Heathenism was worming into American society, and young women were being brought and indentured into prostitution. She warned that the Negroes were “still in chains … to ignorance and vice of generations of bondage.”

But in spite of all the hardships and troubles in her country, she always insisted that “The best hope for humanity is in America.”