ave been able by adhering
to the Republican Party to accomplish, in my humble judgment,
ten-fold the good that has been accomplished by men who have
ten times more ability and capacity for such service, who
have left the party.

When Governor Boutwell, the President of the Anti-Imperialist
League, wrote me that he thought I could do more good for
that cause by staying in the Republican Party than by leaving
it, and when he declared in a public interview in Boston that
of course Mr. Hoar would remain in the Republican Party, he
was right. If he had taken the same course himself, he would
have been a powerful help in saving his country from what
has happened. If the gentlemen who acted with him in that
way had remained Republicans, and the gentlemen who agreed
with him, who have remained Republicans, who abandoned public
life, had kept in it, they would have saved the country from
what they and I deemed a grievous mistake and calamity. There
was but one vote lacking for the defeat of the Spanish Treaty.
There was but one vote lacking for the passage of the Teller
resolution. If Mr. Speaker Reed, the most powerful Republican
in the country, next to President McKinley, had stayed in
the House; if Mr. Harrison, as I earnestly desired, had come
back to the Senate; if Governor Boutwell and Mr. Adams had
uttered their counsel as Republicans, the Republicans would
have done with the Philippine Islands what we did with Cuba
and Japan. I could cite a hundred illustrations, were they
needed, to prove what I say to be true. There was undoubtedly
great corruption and mal-administration in the country in
the time of President Grant. Selfish men and ambitious men
got the ear of that simple and confiding President. They
studied Grant, some of them, as the shoemaker measures the
foot of his customer. Mr. Sumner and Mr. Schurz and Mr.
Trumbull and Mr. Greeley and the New York _Tribune,_ and
the Springfield _Republican,_ and the Chicago _Tribune,_ and
the St. Louis _Republican,_ and scores of other men and other
papers left the party. They were, so long as they maintained
that attitude, absolutely without political influence from
that moment. When the great reforms which were attempted
were accomplished, they were not there. The reforms were
accomplished. But their names were wanting from the honorable
roll of the men who accomplished them. President Grant himself
and President Hayes and Judge Hoar and Mr. Cox and Genera