304 AS UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT-II 



that prostituted pettifogger, the indifference of the com- 

 mittee, and the laughter of the audience. It was a scene 

 for a painter, and 1 trust that some day it will be fitly 

 perpetuated for the university. 



This struggle being ended, the Assembly committee 

 could not be induced to report the bill. It was easy, after 

 such a speech, for its members to pose as protectors of 

 the State against a swindler and a monopoly; the chair- 

 man, who, shortly after the close of the session, was mys- 

 teriously given a position in the New York custom-house, 

 made pretext after pretext without reporting, until it be- 

 came evident that we must have a struggle in the Assembly 

 and drag the bill out of the committee in spite of him. 

 To do this required a two-thirds vote. Ail our friends 

 were set to work, and some pains taken to scare the cor- 

 porations which had allied themselves with the enemy, in 

 regard to the fate of their own bills, by making them 

 understand that, unless they stopped their interested op- 

 position to the university bill in the House, a feeling 

 would be created in the Senate very unfortunate for them. 

 In this way their clutch upon sundry members of the 

 Assembly was somewhat relaxed, and these were allowed 

 to vote according to their conscience's. 



The Cornell bill was advocated most earnestly in the 

 House by ]\Ir. Henry J>. Lord: in his unpretentious way 

 he marshaled the university forces, and moved that the bill 

 be taken from the committee and referred to the Commit- 

 tee of the AVhole. Xow came a struggle. Most of the 

 best men in the Assembly stood by us; but the waverers 

 men who feared local pressure, sectarian hostility, or 

 the opposition of Mr. Cook to measures of their own- 

 attempted, if not to oppose the Cornell bill, at least to 

 evade a vote upon it. In order to give them a little tone 

 and strength, Mr. Cornell went with me to various lead- 

 ing editors in the city of Xe\v York, and \ve explained 

 the whole matter to them, securing editorial articles fa- 

 vorable to the university, the most prominent among these 

 gentlemen being Horace Greeley of the kk Tribune," Kras- 



