The Days of a Man 1:1876 



ability and unblemished character, he made no 

 compromises with corruption or injustice. He was 

 therefore not at ease in the presidential chair, and 

 suffered the contumely cast upon him by dissatisfied 

 partisans. I myself had voted for Tilden, having — 

 since 1872 — lost all confidence in the dominant or 

 Conkling faction of the Republican party. And it 

 seemed to me, everything considered, that Tilden 

 was fairly elected, but that his own high sense of 

 duty prevented him from contesting the final de- 

 cision. To have done so in those critical times 

 might have led to bloodshed and perhaps to civil 

 war. 



Four years earlier, when Grant was nominated 

 for the second time, I should have cast my ballot 

 for Greeley had I not been too recent an arrival in 

 Illinois to have the privilege of voting. I thought 

 then — as I do now — that moderation and con- 

 ciliation toward the South would have been a wise 

 and successful policy. But "waving the bloody 

 Greeley s shitt " was preferred by the Republican leaders. 

 And the argument that the Republican party had 

 saved the Union was used as a cover by which the 

 financial interests of the Northern cities got a 

 strangle-hold on American public affairs, which they 

 have never entirely relinquished. 



In connection with my studies for the Ohio re- 

 port, I visited the venerable physician and accom- 

 plished naturalist, Jared P. Kirtland, at his home in 

 Cleveland. Dr. Kirtland was the author of an ex- 

 cellent memoir on the Fishes of Ohio. He was 

 much interested in the task I had been set, and 

 gladly turned over to me the remainder of his col- 

 lections. Later in the year 1 was fortunate in 



C 158 3 



defeat 



