168 POLITICAL LIFE-VIII 



friends, neighbors, and students, they naturally, for a 

 time, disquieted me. One of the charges then made has 

 often amused me as I have looked back upon it since, and 

 is worth referring to as an example of the looseness of 

 statement common among the best of American political 

 journals during exciting political contests. This charge 

 was that I had "sought to bribe people to support the 

 administration by offering them consulates. " This was 

 echoed in various parts of the State. 



The facts were as follows : An individual who had made 

 some money as a sutler in connection with the army had 

 obtained control of a local paper at Syracuse, and, through 

 the influence thus gained, an election to the lower house of 

 the State legislature. During the winter which he passed 

 at Albany he was one of three or four Republicans who 

 voted with the Democrats in behalf of the measures pro- 

 posed by Tweed, the municipal arch-robber afterward 

 convicted and punished for his crimes against the city of 

 New York. Just at this particular time Tweed was at the 

 height of his power, and at a previous session of the 

 legislature he had carried his measures through the As- 

 sembly by the votes of three or four Republicans who were 

 needed in addition to the Democratic votes in order to 

 give him the required majority. Many leading Republi- 

 can journals had published the names of these three or 

 four men with black lines around them, charging them, 

 apparently justly, with having sold themselves to Tweed 

 for money, and among them the person above referred 

 to. Though he controlled a newspaper in Syracuse, he 

 had been unable to secure renomination to the legislature, 

 and, shortly afterward, in order to secure rehabilitation 

 as well as pelf, sought an appointment to the Syracuse 

 postmastership. Senator Conkling, mindful of the man's 

 record, having opposed the appointment, and the Presi- 

 dent having declined to make it, the local paper under 

 control of this person turned most bitterly against the ad- 

 ministration, and day after day poured forth diatribes 

 against the policy and the persons of all connected with 



