238 POLITICAL LIFE-XII 



honor on the one side, and, on the other, Mr. McKinley, 

 supporting a policy of financial honesty. Having then 

 been called upon to preside over a Republican meeting at 

 Ithaca, I made a speech which was published and widely 

 circulated, giving the reasons why all thinking men of both 

 parties ought to rally in support of the Republican candi- 

 date, and this I followed with an open letter to many lead- 

 ing Democrats in the State. It was begun as a private 

 letter to a valued Democratic friend, Mr. Oscar S. Straus, 

 who has twice proved himself a most useful and patri- 

 otic minister of the United States at Constantinople. But, 

 as my pen was moving, another Democratic friend came 

 into my mind, then another, and again another, until 

 finally my views were given in an open letter to them all ; 

 and this having been submitted to a friend in New York, 

 with permission to use it as he thought best, he published 

 it. The result seemed fortunate. It was at once caught 

 up by the press and republished in all parts of the country. 

 I cannot claim that the gentlemen to whom I wrote were 

 influenced by it, but certain it is that in spite of their ear- 

 nest differences from President McKinley on very impor- 

 tant questions, their feeling that this campaign involved 

 issues superior to any of those which had hitherto ex- 

 isted, led all of them, either directly or indirectly, to sup- 

 port him. 



At the suggestion of various friends, I also republished 

 in a more extended form my pamphlet on * l Paper Money 

 Inflation in France : How it Came, What it Brought, and 

 How it Ended," which had first been published at the sug- 

 gestion of General Garfield and others, as throwing light 

 on the results of a debased currency, and it was now widely 

 circulated in all parts of the country. 



Mr. McKinley was elected, and thus, in my judgment, 

 was averted the greatest peril which our Republic has en- 

 countered since the beginning of the Civil War. Having 

 now some time for myself, I accepted sundry invitations 

 to address the students of two of the greater State univer- 

 sities of the West. It gave me pleasure to visit them, on 



