impression upon his audience. The charge against him of which he most feared the effect, but which was most easy to refute, was that in his own business life he had sweated his employees and opposed their organization. Whenever he spoke in a town in which his own firm possessed interests, he challenged his opponents or his hearers to bring forward a single case in which any one or any group of his employees had been ill-treated by his firm. He could always show that he had paid the highest prevailing wages, and that his laborers were neither crushed nor had any sense of being crushed. And he could show, furthermore, that so far from being hostile to labor organization, he had been unusually friendly to those unions with which his business had brought him into contact. The record of his personal relations to his employees was in every respect thoroughly good, and his opponents in attacking him on that score were trying to storm his intrenchments at their strongest possible point. This phase of the campaign was a source of great benefit to Mr. Hanna. When the canvass was over, his associates, who had been watching closely the effect of his public appearance upon popular opinion, felt sure that he had

won out.

The event justified their anticipations. On the day after the election Mr. Hanna's victory appeared certain. The Republicans were conceded a majority of fifteen on the joint ballot, which seemed to provide a margin large enough for all probable contingencies. Only a very few of the Senators and Assemblymen elected had not been specifically pledged to Mr. Hanna. The name of no other Republican candidate had even been mentioned. It looked like plain sailing. Yet the results were no sooner announced than Mr. Hanna and his friends began to anticipate trouble. On the morning of the election day the Cleveland Leader sounded a warning against treachery and asserted that ballots were being circulated, indicating the method whereby a voter might defeat Mr. Hanna and elect the rest of the Republican ticket. It was remarked after the returns came in that, whereas Governor Bushnell had a plurality of about 28,000, the total plurality of the Republican legislative candidates was less than one-third of that figure. A day or two later Mr. Allen O. Myers, a prominent Democratic machine

politician, asserted confidently in an interview that Mr. Hanna could not hold together the Republican majority in the Legislature. He frankly confessed that the Democrats had planned to sacrifice their candidate for Governor to the capture of the Legislature.

Mr. Hanna's friends have always believed that his enemies, even before the election, deliberately conspired to defeat him by underhand means. They had submitted to his appointment as Senator because they felt sure that in the year of reaction which would probably follow upon a great Republican victory he could not be elected. When they found as a consequence of his appearance on the stump that he was becoming personally popular instead, as they had expected, unpopular, they tried to defeat him (so it was charged) by trading votes for the Governor against votes for legislative candidates. Of course these charges were never proved, but they were made plausible both by the election returns and by the alliance between the Democrats and the Republican malcontents, which was publicly announced after the election.

Among the Republicans the leaders in this conspiracy were Governor Asa T. Bushnell, Charles L. Kurtz, and Robert E. McKisson, Mayor of Cleveland. What Mr. Bushnell's grievance was, I do not know. He was a well-to-do manufacturer and a man of many excellent qualities. He had always been associated with the faction in Ohio politics inimical to Mr. Hanna; but that fact should not have been sufficient to justify an honorable man in assisting so dubious a conspiracy. He may have resented the pressure which had forced him to appoint Mr. Hanna as Senator and have resolved that his appointee should be succeeded by another man. But during the canvass he had spoken from the same platform as Mr. Hanna and had both tacitly and explicitly approved him as the regular Republican candidate for Senator. Nevertheless the day after the election he announced that a Republican would be elected Senator, but carefully eschewed the mention of Mr. Hanna's name-indicating that his line of action had already been chosen. Later he appointed to the position of Oil Inspector Charles L. Kurtz, who was the leader of the Republican malcontents. Mr. Kurtz had a personal grievance against Mr.

Hanna, which is said to have been based on a misunderstanding.

Neither the Governor nor Mr. Kurtz, however, could have done anything to endanger Mr. Hanna's election, had they not been aided by the local political situation in the two largest cities in the state. The Mayor of Cleveland at that time was Robert E. McKisson. His first election had taken place in the spring of 1895, and was the result of one of those independent movements within the local organization which so frequently disconcerted the plans of the regular Republican machine in Cleveland. McKisson had requested Mr. Hanna's support for his candidacy and had been sharply turned down, because in Mr. Hanna's opinion he had done nothing to entitle him to so responsible a position. He was nominated at the primary in spite of Mr. Hanna's opposition and had been elected. Judging from contemporary newspaper comments, he began by being a fairly good mayor, but later he sought to build up a personal machine at the expense of the city administration. He was reelected in 1897, but in the meantime he had become very much disliked by the prominent business men of Cleveland. McKisson on his side had always retained a lively personal animosity against Mr. Hanna- although his ill-feeling had not prevented him from speaking from the same platform as Mr. Hanna and recommending the latter's election. He himself had never been mentioned as a senatorial candidate. He was still very powerful in Cuyahoga County and could control the votes of three Republican legislators.

The situation in Cincinnati and Hamilton County was different but equally dangerous. A combination had taken place between the Democrats and the independent Republicans for the purpose of beating the local Republican machine, headed by "Boss" Cox. A joint legislative ticket had been nominated, and there had been elected some few legislative candidates who were really "Silver Republicans," and who were not pledged to support Mr. Hanna. The chief interest of these men was to secure the passage of certain legislation which would help them in their fight against the local machine; but while not pledged to Mr. Hanna, they had not entered into any alliance with his enemies.

It soon became apparent that considering the probable strength of Mr. Hanna's opponents, he could not be elected without the support of certain of these independent Republicans from Hamilton County. Some weeks before the Legislature assembled, Mr. James R. Garfield, Senator from Lake County, went to Cincinnati at Mr. Hanna's request in order to interview these gentlemen and see what could be done. In that city the leaders in the Republican revolt against the machine were Edward O. Eshelby, publisher of the Commercial Tribune, and Judge Goebel. Through these gentlemen a meeting was arranged with Senator Voight, who was the Republican member of the senatorial delegation from Hamilton County. Mr. Garfield is not sure whether an Assemblyman named Charles F. Droste, who was a "Silver Republican" by conviction, was present or not. The net result of this interview was neither entirely discouraging nor entirely reassuring. Senator Voight stated that while his personal feelings were favorable to Mr. Hanna he did not like the latter's alliance with Cox before the election. He made it plain that his first interest was to obtain the antimachine legislation desired by the independent Republican movement, and he would give no definite assurances of coöperation. Nevertheless Mr. Garfield returned to Cleveland with the impression that Senator Voight would join the Hanna Republicans in organizing the Senate. He was not sure about Droste, the "Silver Republican"; and as to the other doubtful member of the delegation from Hamilton County, a druggist named John C. Otis, who had been outspoken against Mr. Hanna, he never had any expectation of securing the man's support.

As the time for the meeting of the Legislature drew near, it became definitely known that two Assemblymen from Cuyahoga County, Mason and Bramley, would oppose Mr. Hanna. Both of these men had been pledged before the election to vote for him; but in one way or another they were induced by Mayor McKisson to repudiate their pledges. The Senator from Cuyahoga County, Vernon H. Burke, was non-committal, but it was feared that he also would violate a similar pledge. A week before the date of meeting Mr. Hanna himself went to Columbus and opened headquarters at the Neil House. He had with him as assistants, not merely his personal supporters in and out of the

Legislature, but prominent Republicans like George K. Nash, Charles Grosvenor and his counsel, Mr. Andrew Squire. Mr. Theodore E. Burton and many personal friends from Cleveland also went to Columbus to work in Mr. Hanna's interest. By this time they could count noses with some accuracy, and the result looked very dubious. Governor Bushnell was using the state patronage to beat Mr. Hanna, and a number of more or less prominent Republicans from different parts of the state joined the cabal. Senator Foraker did not come out openly against Mr. Hanna, but the fight was being carried on by his political associates. In the only interview with him published during the contest, he stated merely that he was doing his best to keep out of it.

During the first few days the fight went against Mr. Hanna. Vernon H. Burke, the Senator from Cuyahoga County, absented himself on the day the Senate assembled (the first Monday in January) and that body was consequently organized by the Democrats. The vote stood seventeen to eighteen. When Mr. Burke finally appeared he voted with the Democrats, thus increasing their strength to nineteen against seventeen for Mr. Hanna. Senator Voight of Hamilton voted with the Republicans, having reached an understanding with Mr. Garfield and the regular Republican Senators that the latter would support any antimachine legislation for Hamilton County, which sought to restore popular political control in that district.

In the House, also, Mr. Hanna fared ill. Ten Assemblymen did not appear at the preliminary Republican caucus. The absentees included, besides Messrs. Bramley and Mason, J. C. Otis of Hamilton, D. O. Rutan of Harrison, William A. Scott of Fulton and John P. Jones of Stark. These six men, together with Burke, were the Republicans who voted against Mr. Hanna on the official ballot. All of them, except Otis and Rutan, had been pledged to Mr. Hanna. Of the other four absentees one was sick. Assemblyman Charles F. Droste attended the caucus. Thus the "bipartisan" combination succeeded also in organizing the Assembly. Nine Republicans voted with the fortyseven Democrats and elected as Speaker, Mason, the antiHanna convert from Cuyahoga County. If a vote had been taken on that day, the allies could apparently have mustered on