tor
Alcorn, in accordance with the uniform custom on such occasions, would
escort his colleague to the desk of the President of the Senate to be
sworn in. This Senator Alcorn refused to do. When Mr. Bruce's name was
called Senator Alcorn did not move; he remained in his seat, apparently
giving his attention to his private correspondence. Mr. Bruce, somewhat
nervous and slightly excited, started to the President's desk
unattended. Senator Roscoe Conkling, of New York, who was sitting near
by, immediately rose and extended his arm to Mr. Bruce and escorted him
to the President's desk, standing by the new Senator's side until the
oath had been administered, and then tendering him his hearty
congratulations, in which all the other Republican Senators, except
Senator Alcorn, subsequently joined.

This gracious act on the part of the New York Senator made for him a
lifelong friend and admirer in the person of Senator Bruce. This
friendship was so strong that Senator Bruce named his first and only son
Roscoe Conkling, in honor of the able, distinguished, and gallant
Senator from New York.

Senator Alcorn's action in this matter was the occasion of considerable
unfavorable criticism and comment, some of his critics going so far as
to intimate that his action was due to the fact that Mr. Bruce was a
colored man. But, from my knowledge of the man and of the circumstances
connected with the case, I am satisfied this was not true. His antipathy
to Mr. Bruce grew out of the fact that Mr. Bruce had opposed him and had
supported Ames in the fight for Governor in 1873.

So far as I have been able to learn, I am the only one of the Senator's
friends and admirers who opposed his course in that contest that he ever
forgave. He, no doubt, felt that I was under less personal obligations
to him than many others who pursued the same course that I did, since
he had never rendered me any effective personal or political service,
except when he brought the Independent members of the House in line for
me in the contest for Speaker of that body in 1872; and even then his
action was not so much a matter of personal friendship for me as it was
in the interest of securing an endorsement of his own administration as
Governor.

In Mr. Bruce's case he took an entirely different view of the matter. He
believed that he had been the making of Mr. Bruce. Mr. Bruce had come to
the State in 1869 and had taken an active part in the campaign of that
year. W