s had been instituted in good
faith,--upon an honest belief that the chief executive had committed
offenses which merited punishment,--the resignation would not have been
accepted. The fact that it was accepted,--and that, too, without
hesitation or question,--was equivalent to a confession that the purpose
of the proceedings was to get possession of the office. Short work was
made of the Lieutenant-Governor's case; and State Senator John M.
Stone, the Democratic President pro tem. of the State Senate, was duly
sworn in and installed as the acting Governor of the State. Thus
terminated a long series of questionable acts, the inauguration of which
had no other purpose than to secure the ascendency of one political
party over another in the administration of the government of the State.

The sanguinary revolution in the State of Mississippi in 1875 was
claimed to be in the interest of good administration and honest
government; it was an attempt to wrest the State from the control of
dishonest men,--negroes, carpet baggers, and scalawags,--and place it in
control of intelligent, pure, and honest white men. With that end in
view, Geo. M. Buchanan, a brave and gallant ex-Confederate soldier, was,
through questionable and indefensible methods, defeated for the office
of State Treasurer, and Wm. L. Hemmingway was declared elected. Yet when
the change took place it was found that every dollar of the public money
was accounted for. During the whole period of Republican administration
not a dollar had been misappropriated, nor had there been a single
defalcation, although millions of dollars had passed through the hands
of the fiscal agents of the State and of the different counties.

How was it with the new reform administration? Treasurer Hemmingway had
been in office only a comparatively short while when the startling
information was given out that he was a defaulter to the amount of
$315,612.19. William L. Hemmingway a defaulter! Could such a thing be
possible? Yes, it was an admitted and undisputed fact.

Mr. Hemmingway had been quite prominent in the politics of the State;
but those who knew the man, and I was one of those, had every reason to
believe that he was an honest man, and that he was the personification
of integrity. He was neither a speculator nor a gambler. Even after the
defalcation was made known there was nothing to indicate that any part
of the money had been appropriated to his own use. Yet the money had