186 POLITICAL LIFE-IX 



sentatives. My acquaintance with him had begun several 

 years before at Syracuse, when my old school friend, his 

 college mate, Charles Elliot Fitch, brought him into my li 

 brary. My collection of books was even at that date very 

 large, and Garfield, being delighted with it, soon revealed 

 his scholarly qualities. It happened that not long before 

 this I had bought in London several hundred volumes from 

 the library left by the historian Buckle, very many of them 

 bearing copious annotations in his own hand. Garfield 

 had read Buckle s &quot;History of Civilization in England &quot; 

 with especial interest, and when I presented to him and 

 discussed with him some of these annotated volumes, there 

 began a friendly relation between us which ended only 

 with his life. 



I also met him under less favorable circumstances. 

 Happening to be in Washington at the revelation of the 

 Credit Mobilier operations, I found him in the House of 

 Eepresentatives, and evidently in the depths of suffering. 

 An effort was making to connect him with the scandal, and 

 while everything I know of him convinces me that he was 

 not dishonest, he had certainly been imprudent. This he 

 felt, and he asked me, in an almost heart-broken tone, if 

 I really believed that this had forever destroyed his influ 

 ence in the country. I answered that I believed nothing 

 of the kind; that if he came out in a straightforward, 

 manly way, without any of the prevarication which had so 

 greatly harmed some others, he would not be injured, and 

 the result showed that this advice was good. 



On our arrival at the great hall in Ithaca (October 28, 

 1878), we found floor and stage packed in every part. 

 Never had a speaker a better audience. There were present 

 very many men of all parties anxious to hear the currency 

 question honestly discussed, and among them many of the 

 more thoughtful sort misled by the idea that a wrong had 

 been done to the country in the restoration of the currency 

 to a sound basis ; and there was an enormous attendance 

 of students from the university. 



As Garfield began he showed the effects of fatigue from 



