210 POLITICAL LIFE-X 



contempt on the men who made them. Nothing could have 

 been further from the wish of either candidate than that 

 such accusations should be made against his opponent, but 

 each was powerless: the vile flood of slander raged on. 

 But I am glad here to recall the fact that when, at a later 

 period, one of the worst inventors of slander against Mr. 

 Elaine sought reward in the shape of office from President 

 Cleveland, he was indignantly spurned. 



In politics I took very little part. During the summer 

 my main thoughts were directed toward a controversy be- 

 fore the Board of Regents, in regard to the system of 

 higher education in the State of New York, with my 

 old friend President Anderson of Rochester, who had 

 vigorously attacked some ideas which seemed to me essen- 

 tial to any proper development of university education 

 in America ; and this was hardly finished when I was asked 

 to take part in organizing the American Historical Associ- 

 ation at Saratoga, and to give the opening address. This, 

 with other pursuits of an academic nature, left me little 

 time for the political campaign. 



But there occurred one little incident to which I still 

 look back with amusement. My old friends and con- 

 stituents in Syracuse had sent me a general invitation to 

 come over from the university and preside at some one 

 of their Republican mass-meetings. My answer was that 

 as to the "hack speakers" of the campaign, with their ven- 

 erable gags, stale jokes, and nauseating slanders, I had no 

 desire to hear them, and did not care to sit on the platform 

 with them ; but that when they had a speaker to whom I 

 cared to listen I would gladly come. The result was that 

 one day I received a letter inviting me to preside over a 

 mass-meeting at Syracuse, at which Mr. McKinley was to 

 make the speech. I accepted gladly and on the appointed 

 evening arrived at the Syracuse railway station. There 

 I found the mayor of the city ready to take me in his car- 

 riage to the hall where the meeting was to be held ; but we 

 had hardly left the station when he said to me: "Mr. 

 White, I am very sorry, but Mr. McKinley has been de- 



