Explanatory Notes        Apparatus Notes ()

Source: Harvard University, Houghton Library, Cambridge, Mass ([MH-H])

Cue: "Praise God from"

Source format: "MS, copy received"

Letter type: "copy received"

Notes:

Last modified:

Revision History: VF

Published on MTPO: 2022

Print Publication:

This edited text supersedes the previously published text
MTPDocEd
To William Dean Howells
per Telegraph Operator
9 November 1876 • Hartford, Conn. (MS, copy received: MH-H, UCCL 01388)

blank no. 1.

the western union telegraph company.

the rules of this company require that all messages received for transmission, shall be written on the message blanks of the company, under and subject to the conditions printed thereon, which conditions have been agreed to by the sender of the following message.

william orton, pres’t,

a. r. brewer, sec’y.new york.


15 dated Hartford Ct 187 6

received at Camb.Nov. 9th

to W. D. Howells

37 Concord Ave




Praise God from whom all blessings flow praise him all creatures here below praise him above ye heavenly host praise fFather Son & Holy Ghost, The congregation will rise & sing

Mark1explanatory note

31 paid

Textual Commentary
Source text(s):

MS, copy received, telegram blank filled out by the receiving telegraph operator, MH-H, shelf mark bMS Am 1784 (98).

Previous Publication:

MTHL , 1:163.

Provenance:

See Howells Letters in Description of Provenanceclick to open link.

Explanatory Notes
1 

Clemens celebrated an early electoral college count, which gave Hayes the 185 electoral votes necessary for election, to Tilden’s 184 (including six from Connecticut). This result was challenged, however, once it became clear that Tilden had won the popular vote and that he claimed 20 of the electoral votes—from Oregon, Louisiana, South Carolina, and Florida— initially tallied for Hayes. The resulting dispute led to a congressional act, signed by President Grant on 29 January 1877, creating an Electoral Commission consisting of five senators, five representatives, and five Supreme Court justices, to investigate the matter, with its decision to be final unless both houses of Congress rejected it. The commission, on which Republicans outnumbered Democrats 8 to 7, began its investigation of the contested electoral votes on 1 February 1877. On 28 February, by a strictly partisan vote, it awarded all of them to Hayes. On 2 March 1877, two days before the presidential term was to begin, the House of Representatives rejected the commission’s decision, but the Senate accepted it and Hayes was declared the winner. Although Clemens was jubilant when he thought Hayes had won a clear-cut victory, it is not known how he felt by the time the Electoral Commission had done its work. Remembering the episode thirty years later, however, he called Hayes’s election a “cold-blooded” swindle (see 11 Oct 1876 to Howellsclick to open link, n. 9; “Hayes Elected,” Hartford Courant, 9 Nov 1876, 2; “The Battle Won,” New York Times, 9 Nov 1876, 1; DAH , 1:286–87; Annual Cyclopaedia 1877 , 163–221, 747–48). Howells’s responses to this telegram and the preceding one, if any, have not been found.

Top