246 POLITICAL LIFE-XII 



some government official who had been guilty of gross 

 rudeness, and said, 'Mr. President, he has insulted you, 

 and he has insulted me'; thereupon the President said 

 calmly, 'Mr. Secretary, if he has insulted me, I forgive 

 him; if he has insulted you, I shall remove him from 

 office.' " 



Newspapers were teeming with misrepresentations of 

 the President's course, but they failed to ruffle him. On 

 his asking if I was taking any part in the campaign, I re- 

 ferred to a speech that I had made on the Fourth of July 

 in Leipsic, and another to the Cornell University students 

 just before my departure, with the remark that I felt that 

 a foreign diplomatic representative coming home and 

 throwing himself eagerly into the campaign might pos- 

 sibly do more harm than good. In this remark he acqui- 

 esced, and said: "I shall not, myself, make any speeches 

 whatever ; nor shall I give any public receptions. My rec- 

 ord is before the American people, and they must pass 

 judgment upon it. In this respect I shall go back to what 

 seems to me the better practice of the early Presidents." 

 I was struck by the justice of this, and told him so, al- 

 though I felt obliged to say that he would be under fearful 

 temptation to speak before the campaign had gone much 

 farther. He smiled, but held to his determination, despite 

 the fact that his opponent invaded all parts of the Union 

 in an oratorical frenzy, in one case making a speech at 

 half-past two in the morning to a crowd assembled at a 

 railway station, and making during one day thirty-one 

 speeches, teeming with every kind of campaign misrepre- 

 sentation; but the President was faithful to his promise, 

 littered no word in reply, and was reflected. 



Not only at home, but abroad, as I can amply testify, the 

 news of his reelection was received with general satisfac- 

 tion, and most of all by those who wish well to our country 

 and cherish hopes that government by the people and for 

 the people may not be brought to naught by the wild 

 demagogism which has wrecked all great republics thus 

 far. 



