ce that it would not be told.

It was long after the event that I ventured to tell the story. Suppose
that package had fallen just a few feet farther away and been swept
down by the stream, how many years of faithful service would it have
required upon my part to wipe out the effect of that one piece of
carelessness! I could no longer have enjoyed the confidence of those
whose confidence was essential to success had fortune not favored me.
I have never since believed in being too hard on a young man, even if
he does commit a dreadful mistake or two; and I have always tried in
judging such to remember the difference it would have made in my own
career but for an accident which restored to me that lost package at
the edge of the stream a few miles from Hollidaysburg. I could go
straight to the very spot to-day, and often as I passed over that line
afterwards I never failed to see that light-brown package lying upon
the bank. It seemed to be calling:

"All right, my boy! the good gods were with you, but don't do it
again!"

At an early age I became a strong anti-slavery partisan and hailed
with enthusiasm the first national meeting of the Republican Party in
Pittsburgh, February 22, 1856, although too young to vote. I watched
the prominent men as they walked the streets, lost in admiration for
Senators Wilson, Hale, and others. Some time before I had organized
among the railroad men a club of a hundred for the "New York Weekly
Tribune," and ventured occasionally upon short notes to the great
editor, Horace Greeley, who did so much to arouse the people to action
upon this vital question.

The first time I saw my work in type in the then flaming organ of
freedom certainly marked a stage in my career. I kept that "Tribune"
for years. Looking back to-day one cannot help regretting so high a
price as the Civil War had to be paid to free our land from the curse,
but it was not slavery alone that needed abolition. The loose Federal
system with State rights so prominent would inevitably have prevented,
or at least long delayed, the formation of one solid, all-powerful,
central government. The tendency under the Southern idea was
centrifugal. To-day it is centripetal, all drawn toward the center
under the sway of the Supreme Court, the decisions of which are, very
properly, half the dicta of lawyers and half the work of statesmen.
Uniformity in many fields must be secured. Marriage, divorce,
bankruptcy, railroad supervision, c