kling, present and
commanding in person.

The course of the proceedings of the convention from the first was
a preparation for the final scenes, the putting of Garfield against
Conkling and working up a rivalry between them having a marked effect;
and this was not so much for Garfield as against Conkling. Garfield
grieved to think Sherman would misunderstand him, and was apprehensive
as to the feeling of the New York delegation. "How do your people feel
about this?" Garfield asked a New Yorker, when he had returned to his
hotel the nominee.

"Well, they feel badly and bitterly," was the reply.

"Yes," said Garfield, "I suppose they do. It is as Wellington
said, 'next to the sadness of defeat, the saddest moment is that of
victory.'" This remark was quite in Garfield's method and manner.

Mr. Sherman's failure was made inevitable in this, as in other
conventions, by the strange absence, always observable in New York, of
appreciation of the unparalleled services to the country of his public
labors culminating in the resumption of specie payments. That is the
real secret and chief fault of the convention.

Ex-Governor Dennison of Ohio appeared at the headquarters of the New
York delegation after the Garfield nomination, and Senator Conkling
greeted him cordially. There Dennison said, so that the whole
delegation heard, that he was the bearer of a message from the
delegation of Ohio, that they would give a solid vote for any man New
York would be pleased to name for Vice-President. "Even," said Senator
Conkling promptly, in his finest cynical way, "if that man should be
Chester A. Arthur?"

Dennison's answer was, after a moment, "Yes;" and Conkling put the
question of supporting Arthur to a vote, making a motion that he
was the choice of the delegation for the Vice-Presidency, and it was
carried immediately. This was understood to be pretty hard on the Ohio
people, including especially Sherman and Garfield. Of course, under
the lead of New York and Ohio, the convention ratified the motion
of Conkling, and the ticket was Garfield and Arthur. And so ample
preparation was made for the bitterness of the coming time--for the
troubled administration of Garfield and its tragic close.

GARFIELD'S ADMINISTRATION.

There have been limitations upon the candor of all persons who have
undertaken to write the story of the tragedy of the administration of
Garfield, and partisanism in personalities has had too much attention.