e only to the Election Bill."

At the next December session the Bill was taken up for consideration
and, after a few days' debate, there was a motion to lay it
aside. Since the measure had been first introduced, the sentiment
in certain parts of the country in favor of the free coinage
of silver had been strengthened. Several of the Republican
Senators were among its most zealous advocates. There was
a motion to lay aside the Election Bill which was adopted
by a bare majority--the Democrats voting for it and several
of the Silver Republican Senators, so-called. All but one
of these had signed their names to the promise I have printed.
I never have known by what process of reasoning they reconciled
their action with their word. But I know that in heated political
strife men of honor, even men of ability, sometimes deceive
themselves by a casuistic reasoning which would not convince
them at other times.

The Election Bill deeply excited the whole country. Its
supporters were denounced by the Democratic papers everywhere,
North and South, with a bitterness which I hardly knew before
that the English language was capable of expressing. My mail
was crowded with letters, many of them anonymous, the rest
generally quite as anonymous, even if the writer's name were
signed, denouncing me with all the vigor and all the scurrility
of which the writers were capable. I think this is the last
great outbreak of anger which has spread through the American
people.

I got, however, a good deal of consolation from the stanch
friendship and support of the Republicans of Massachusetts,
which never failed me during the very height of this storm.
Whittier sent me a volume of poetry which he had just published,
with the inscription written on the blank leaf in his own
hand, "To George F. Hoar, with the love of his old friend,
John G. Whittier." I think I would have gone through ten
times as much objurgation as I had to encounter for those
few words.

There has never since been an attempt to protect National
elections by National authority. The last vestige of the
National statute for securing purity of elections was repealed
in President Cleveland's second Administration, under the
lead of Senator Hill of New York. I have reflected very carefully
as to my duty in that matter. I am clearly of the opinion
that Congress has the power to regulate the matter of elections
of Members of the House of Representatives and to make su