182 POLITICAL LIFE-IX 



keeping aloof as much as possible from politics. But in 

 the political campaign of 1878 I could not but be inter 

 ested. It was different from any other that I had known, 

 for the &quot;Greenback Craze&quot; bloomed out as never before 

 and seemed likely to poison the whole country. Great 

 hardships had arisen from the fact that debts which had 

 been made under a depreciated currency had to be paid 

 in money of greater value. Men who, in what were known 

 as &quot;flush times, &quot; had bought farms, paid down half 

 the price, and mortgaged them for the other half, found 

 now, when their mortgages became due, that they could 

 not sell the property for enough to cover the lien upon it. 

 Besides this, the great army of speculators throughout 

 the country found the constant depreciation of prices 

 bringing them to bankruptcy. In the cry for more green 

 backs, that is, for continued issues of paper money, 

 demagogism undoubtedly had a large part ; but there were 

 many excellent men who were influenced by it, and among 

 them Peter Cooper of New York, founder of the great 

 institution which bears his name, one of the purest and 

 best men I have ever known. 



This cry for more currency was echoed from one end 

 of the country to the other. In various States, and espe 

 cially in Ohio, it seemed to carry everything before it, 

 nearly all the public men of note, including nearly all the 

 leading Democrats and very many of the foremost Repub 

 licans, bowing down to it, the main exceptions being John 

 Sherman and Garfield. 



In central New York the mania seemed, early in the sum 

 mer, to take strong hold. In Syracuse John Wieting, an 

 amazingly fluent speaker with much popular humor, who 

 had never before shown any interest in politics, took the 

 stump for an unlimited issue of government paper cur 

 rency, received the nomination to Congress from the 

 Democrats and sundry independent organizations, and 

 for a time seemed to carry everything before him. A 

 similar state of things prevailed at Ithaca and the region 

 round about Cayuga Lake. Two or three people much 



