by the courts. To these might have been added a number of zealous partisans of the Sanford E. Church school, who used their position chiefly to advance the interests And then Horace Greeley was there.

of their party.

He meant business," and could not endure long, dilatory speeches. So thoroughly out of patience was he with some of the long-winded members, that on several occasions he left the convention in disgust when they arose to speak.

The delegates from this (then the eighteenth) district to that convention were James A. Bell, Marcus Bickford, and M. H. Merwin of Jefferson county, and Edward A. Brown of Lewis.

From the seventeenth district the delegates were W. C. Brown, E. A. Merritt, L. W. Russell, and Joel J. Seaver.

The twenty-first district was represented by Lester M. Case and Loren Fowler of Madison, and M. Lindley Lee and Elias Root of Oswego.

Mr. Bell and Mr. (now Judge) Merwin were both superior men for the positions to which they were chosen. They were thoroughly practical. Mr. Bell's knowledge of state affairs, which he had acquired in the senate, eminently qualified him for a seat in the convention, and enabled him to offer such amendments to that instrument as his experience and the growth of the state required. He was a member of the important committee on canals, and chairman of the one on the salt springs of the state.

His thorough investigations and exhaustive report on the salt springs unearthed many of the devices which manufacturers and combinations employed to enrich themselves at the expense of the state, and showed, in an alarming manner, that the state was unfit to manage any financial operation. He likewise learned that however much the Syracusans differed on other subjects— religion or politics-they were always united on salt.

The legislature of 1867 was considered to be a bad one, and the consequence was, the republican party was held responsible, and badly defeated at the election held in the fall. The democrats elected their state ticket, headed by Homer A. Nelson for secretary of state. William F. Allen was elected comptroller, Wheeler H. Bristol treasurer, Marshall B. Champlin attorney general, and Van R. Richmond state engineer and surveyor. The democrats also carried the assembly by a consider. able majority, which elected William Hitchman speaker, and Cornelius W. Armstrong clerk.

Whether this branch of the legislature was an im provement upon its predecessor, I cannot say; but the senate was evidently a regenerated body, for Boss Tweed, Mike Norton, Harry Genet, and several other bright and shining democratic lights took seats as senators the first of January, 1868, for the first time.

CHAPTER LVI.

The Greeley Campaign in 1872-How an Editor Got into It-How He Ran for Congress, and Didn't Get There.

The Syracuse Standard, in writing up its own history for fifty-eight years, made a few mistakes, most of them of no special importance to the public generally, though they do not tally with the exact truth. For instance, it states that Mr. Farmer, after "working at the case several months" on the New York Tribune, on the first day of January, 1841, became the partner of A. L. Smith in the publication of the Standard. As the Tribune was not started until three or four months subsequent to this date, of course he did not work in the Tribune office, but I believe he was employed on the "Log Cabin" during the campaign of 1840. I think the Standard is wrong as to the year in which Mr. F. died, but that is of little consequence. The most important error it makes relates to the Watertown Times, which it says supported the liberal republican Greeley movement in 1872. The fact is, the Times favored the re-election of General Grant, and opposed the Greeley ticket as strenuously as any journal in the state. Probably the author of the Standard article, remembering that the writer was a "little wayward" in 1872, labored under the impression that the Times fell out by the wayside. But it didn't do it. It was loyal to the republican party and to Grant.

As no explanation of my conduct during the Greeley campaign of 1872 has ever been given, perhaps I shall be pardoned for making it now.

I will remark at the outset that I took no part in the nomination of Mr. Greeley for president. I did not

attend the Cincinnati convention, and had I been there I should not have favored the idea of bringing him into the field. While I had a very high opinion of Mr. Greeley as a journalist for I don't think he has ever had his equal in that capacity in this country-I never could see any sensible reason for his wanting an office. He was a failure as a representative in congress, and would have been a failure in the senate had he been chosen to a seat in that branch of the national legislature. Just what he would have done as an executive, of course no one knows, but I do not imagine he would have been a brilliant success. I was in a convention in which he was a formidable candidate for governor, and felt constrained to vote against him, not because I was not his friend, but because I was his friend, and therefore thought he had better stay at the head of the Tribune, and let some one else take the gubernatorial chair. The woods are full of men who will creditably fill the office of governor, but they are "mighty scarce" who are capable of discharging the duties of a first-class editor, and I had the impression that there was no man in the country competent to take Mr. Greeley's place, and I still think I was right.

For these and other considerations I should have felt bound to withhold my support from Mr. Greeley had I been a member of the convention which put him in nomination for the presidency. But he had friends there who thought his designation would be a good stroke of policy. They strongly urged his claims, and succeeded in their purposes. He was made the nominee of a party or faction styling itself "Liberal Republican," and I judge that Mr. Greeley was gratified and flattered by the action of the convention.

Most brilliant men have their weaknesses, and Mr. Greeley was not an exception. No child was ever more pleased with a top than was Horace Greeley with an

office. He withdrew from the firm of Seward, Weed & Greeley for the silly reason that having good offices at their disposal, they had overlooked his claims. They had a better opinion of him than he had of himself. They thought that to tender an office to a man of Mr. Greeley's calibre, confessedly one of the great lights of the world, would be the next thing to an insult; but Mr. Greeley was indignant, and displayed traits of character entirely unworthy a man of his talents and standing, because they failed to do it.

"O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us

To see oursels as ithers see us!

It would frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion."

However, Mr. Greeley was nominated for the first office within the gift of the American people. I was cleaning up my door-yard when a republican neighbor communicated to me the information. It gratified him more than it did me.

Two or three days afterward, Mr. George W. Flower, who had attended the convention from this section of the state, came into the Times office with a call for a meeting to ratify the nominations made at Cincinnati, which he wished printed in hand-bill form. While there he observed:

"Brockway, you will support this ticket, I suppose?" I replied, without hesitation and frankly: "I presume if I live till fall, I shall give Mr. Greeley my vote."

A mere politician would have measured his words. He would have wanted time to consider the matter, and he might have said one thing and forgotten all about it the next day. There are men in politics who pursue this course, and often with success. They are accounted shrewd and smart.

A day or two later Mr. Flower came after his handbills, and, while talking with me, remarked: