of your career. I thought that if anybody was capable of gratitude
it is you, and I have had unfortunate experiences with many."
I never was able to resist an appeal of this kind, so I said
impulsively: "Mr. Greeley, I will go."

The meeting was a marvellous success for the purpose for which
it was called. It was purely a Republican gathering. The crowd
was several times larger than the hall could accommodate.
Henry R. Selden, one of the judges of the Court of Appeals and
one of the most eminent and respected Republicans of the State,
presided. The two hundred vice-presidents and secretaries upon
the platform I had known intimately for years as Republican leaders
of their counties and districts. The demonstration so impressed
the Democratic State leaders that at the national Democratic
convention Mr. Greeley was indorsed.

There were two State conventions held simultaneously that year,
one Democratic and one Liberal Republican. In the division of
offices the Democratic party, being the larger, was given the
governorship and the Liberal Republicans had the lieutenant-
governorship. I was elected as the presiding officer of the
Liberal Republican convention and also was made unanimously its
nominee for lieutenant-governor. The Democratic convention
nominated Francis Kernan, one of the most distinguished lawyers
of the State, and afterwards United States senator.

If the election had been held early in the canvass there is little
doubt but that Mr. Greeley would have carried the State by an
overwhelming majority. His difficulty was that for a quarter of a
century, as editor of the New York Tribune, he had been the most