it best not to bend from the course I had started upon recognize fairly both wings of the party."

It is of course obvious, that Garfield's adhering to his original Stalwart nominations, even after the rupture with Conkling, disproves the contention that the Robertson appointment" was merely an attempt to build up a Blaine-Garfield machine in New York in opposition to that of Conkling." A man building up a machine does not give important and lucrative offices to adherents of an opponent, as Garfield now did.

On the same day that the original Conkling nominations were confirmed Blaine underwent another defeat, a personal one this time. Early in the winter he had urged upon Garfield the extreme importance of finding a place for W. E. Chandler, as a man who, he said, "possesses the singular faculty or series of faculties that would make him extraordinarily useful to any President," and would be invaluable in organizing for the the nomination and campaign of 1884.

While there is no sign that Garfield was especially concerned over Chandler's organizing capacity, he did agree to please Blaine by nominating him for Solicitor General. But this raised a serious difficulty with McVeagh, the Attorney General, who absolutely refused to serve in the same department with Chandler, since he had been publicly attacked by him in the past. He told Garfield flatly that if the nomination were persisted in he would resign (March 25). Garfield did his best to remove his objections and urged Blaine to play his part. But Blaine would hear of nothing but McVeagh's submission.

He wrote to Garfield a long and intense letter, demanding that he compel McVeagh to withdraw his objections, or, if worst came to worst, to let him carry out his threat; but on no account to permit Chandler to be kept out. His reasons mingled the high and low in his most characteristic manner. "You can never surrender," he wrote, "without a fatal compromise of your own power and dignity. . . . If McVeagh carries his point you will have seven masters in the cabinet instead of seven ministers under your constitutional direction. If McVeagh succeeds in driving Chandler off, Windom can readily exclude McPherson, and you will thus

be deprived of the services of men who will not only be admirable officers in their respective departments, but will guard with jealous care the politics of your administration and organize with ability and fidelity in your own personal interests. As against either of these two men, weighed as of value to you and your administration in the future, McVeagh is not a unit to a thousand." He went so far as to enclose a draft letter to McVeagh, laying down the law to him.

But for all Blaine's masterfulness, Garfield forced him to yield to McVeagh. The journal says: "Mar. 26. I called on Blaine who is in bed with inflammatory rheumatism and he agreed to have Chandler decline after he is confirmed." Even this slight satisfaction was, however, denied Blaine for the Senate on May 10 actually rejected the nomination.

Here also as in the case of the cabinet, Blaine's habits of assiduous personal attention and numerous private notes, coupled with Garfield's apparent deference in manner, created an impression at the time that far outran the facts. So far as the papers in existence go, they show that Garfield studied out his own policy and stuck to it, regardless of Blaine's efforts to alter, or modify his intentions. They also show that when it came to a definite "show-down" as in the Chandler case, Garfield sided with McVeagh against Blaine. In fact, the whole historical treatment of this period needs revising, if not rewriting. So far from Blaine's monopolizing Garfield's confidence and directing his policies, the journals and letters show that Windom, McVeagh and James commanded Garfield's full and unqualified support in the numerous important and delicate questions that confronted them in these few short months and that McVeagh in particular played a part altogether more significant in domestic affairs than did Blaine who was interested only in appointments and spoils. McVeagh was deep in the refunding plan and at the heart of the Star Route investigation.

It is with interest that, after following through these dealings, one turns to Blaine's famous eulogy of February, 1882, and reads what he there said of Garfield's administration. Blaine undoubtedly felt that in combativeness, in self-assertiveness, and in political management Garfield was weak.

He said as much in dealing with Garfield's Congressional career. But what he said as to his executive ability gains added force when one realizes what Blaine had learned about his peculiar kind of patient, conciliatory power during the preceding year. "From the very outset," said Blaine, "he exhibited administrative talent of a high order. He grasped the helm of office with the hand of a master. In this respect, indeed, he surprised many who were most intimately associated with him in the government, and especially those who feared that he might be lacking in the executive faculty." In the Robertson affair, Blaine continued, "he was never for one moment actuated by any motive of gain to himself or of loss to others. Least of all men did he harbor revenge, rarely did he even show resentment and malice was not in his nature. But after most anxious deliberation and the coolest survey of all the circumstances, he solemnly believed that the true prerogatives of the Executive were involved in the issue which had been raised, and that he would be unfaithful to his supreme obligation if he failed to maintain in all their vigor the constitutional rights and dignities of his great office. In all the bearings of the subject the President was content in his mind, justified in his conscience and immovable in his conclusions."

Blaine spoke the truth. He well knew that the murdered President had been his own master, and that not even he, the magnetic, dominating, imperious leader, with all his intimate friendship, had been able through months of futile battering and fuming to sway him one hair's breadth from the plans he had himself worked out.

ANNUAL MEETING, APRIL, 1924.

HE Annual Meeting of the Society was held in the
Dowse Library on Thursday, April 10, at three o'clock

in the afternoon, President LODGE in the chair.

The record of the March meeting was read and approved. The Librarian reported the following accessions:

From Robert K. Richardson, of Beloit, Wisconsin, the Journal and Commonplace Book of John Newhall, kept in Boston, Jan. 1 to August 22, 1825.

From Mrs. Frederick C. Shattuck, manuscripts of her grandfather, Henry Lee, Jr., (1782-1867) relating to commercial interests in Massachusetts, 1823-1857.

From Miss Josephine MacChord Shaw, papers of the family of Chief Justice Lemuel Shaw, 1805-1902.

From Miss Cordelia Phinney, of Barnstable, a receipt from Christopher Gore, May 29, 1786.

From the Estate of A. Scott Harris, through Sumner B. Pearmain, Executor, the Testimonial of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to Alphonso S. Harris, of Company A, 50th Infantry in the Civil War, dated at Boston, April 19, 1870.

From Howard M. Chapin, of Providence, photostat negatives of papers of the General Assembly, Bermuda Islands, 1699-1702, relating to the illegal proceedings of Gilbert Nelson, Chief Justice of the Islands.

From Mrs. William P. Fowler, of North Andover, by deposit, a number of letters received by William Plumer, of New Hampshire, from John Adams, De Witt Clinton, John Quincy Adams, Levi Woodbury and others, 1804-1886; several letters of Franklin Pierce to Asa P. Fowler, of Concord, N. H., 1837 to 1845, when their partnership was dissolved; also a number of papers of Rev. Edward Everett Hale.

The Cabinet-Keeper reported the following gifts:

From the Estate of A. Scott Harris, a colored lithograph of the Battle of Port Hudson, March 14, 1863.

Photographs and engravings were received from Miss Emma Rodman, Charles Warren and Grenville H. Norcross.

Medals, bank bills and insignia were received from Miss A. C.

Storer, Mrs. Kingsmill Marrs, Charles H. Taylor, Howard M. Chapin, Society of Daughters of Colonial Wars, Grenville H. Norcross and Gideon M. Mansfield.

By purchase, a Huguenot half dollar, struck to commemorate the settlement of New Amsterdam.

The Corresponding Secretary reported that a letter had been received from William Lawrence Clements accepting Corresponding Membership, and one from Jerome D. Greene, Chief Marshal, acknowledging the receipt of the Society's greeting to President Eliot on his ninetieth birthday.

Philip Alexander Bruce of Charlottesville, Va., was elected a Corresponding Member of the Society.

The Society then proceeded to the business of the Annual Meeting, and

Dr. FARLOW read the

REPORT OF THE COUNCIL.

In greeting President Eliot in October, 1923, on the fiftieth anniversary of his election as a member the Society noticed in a fitting manner the tenth instance in its history of a semicentennial in membership. The occasion was the more notable as five months later Mr. Eliot entered upon his ninety-first year, still a strong influence and actively interested in the world's movements. The presence of Dr. George Macaulay Trevelyan, a Corresponding Member, at the meeting in March was a pleasant reminder of what he and his father, an Honorary Member, have done to give a broader interpretation to the history of the American Revolution. In holding an exhibition in November of the work of Mr. Theodore Spicer-Simson, the Society recognized an old yet in modern times a somewhat novel form of art - the portrait medal — but little practised in this country. As a master worker Mr. Spicer-Simson showed more than one hundred of his pieces, proving its adaptation to many forms of expression in bronze. Three of his medals are in the Cabinet of the Society, those of Prof. Barrett Wendell and of Mr. Thomas E. Watson having been received since the exhibition. The publications of the Society in the last year were: