ults in the country
and in the Commonwealth. He was absolutely incorruptible,
either by money or by office. He was a man of clean hands
and a pure heart. His methods were as open as the daylight.
He conducted the great campaign against General Butler, when
he was Chairman of the State committee. He came to Boston
and found the knees of Boston trembling, people shaking in
their shoes and their teeth chattering. He went into the
committee room, put things to rights, organized a campaign
never approached for thoroughness and efficiency in this Commonwealth,
and during the whole time there sat at the table next his
own a beautiful and refined young lady hearing and knowing
everything that went on from the beginning of the campaign
until the end. He had no political secrets. He never, to
use a common phrase, "laid his ear to the ground." He never
listened for the stamping of feet or the clapping of hands or
the shouting or excitement or acclaim of the multitude. His
ear was to the sky. He used to speak with infinite scorn of
settling questions of righteousness by a show of hands. He
had a perfect faith in the American people and the people
of Massachusetts, but it was a faith in the American people
and the people of Massachusetts, governed by reason and not
by passion, acting under constitutional restraints, listening
ever for the voice of duty, a people acting not on the first
impulse, but on sober second thought. He was often in the
minority, and once or twice in his life a bolter. He was
never afraid of being in the minority. But he never was contented
until he had changed or helped to change that minority into
a majority. He was a politician almost from his cradle to
his grave. He believed that the highest human occupation
was to take a share in the leadership and direction of a self-
governing people. He was a very tolerant, friendly and considerate
man, in dealing with men who differed from himself. He would
pardon sinners. He would pardon politicians with whose efforts
there was, as he thought, even a mingling of ambition and
self-seeking. But he had nothing but hatred and contempt
for men who received all the benefits of the Republic, but
shrank from any labor or sacrifice in its behalf. To his
mind the one base creature in the Commonwealth was the man
who said he was no politician. He thoroughly believed in
Ralph Waldo Emerson's saying, which he borrowed from his brother
Charles: "That is t