it would cause
great dissatisfaction when they got home.

"What is the matter?" I said. "Our people do not want a Father
Confessor in the White House," was the answer. Although General
Sherman was a Protestant, it is well known that his wife was
a Catholic. Soon after, Mr. Curtis came over to my seat and
said: "Mr. Hoar, I cannot carry out our agreement." "What
is the matter?" said I. "There is an insurrection in the
New York delegation," was his reply. "They do not want a
Father Confessor in the White House." So we agreed we should
have to give it up. When I came back to Washington, I called
at John Sherman's house and talked over the convention with
him. I told him the story I have just related. He said he
was not surprised, and that he believed the unwillingness
to have the religious faith of his wife made matter of public
discussion had a good deal to do with his brother's refusal to
permit himself to be a candidate.

While the convention of 1884 did not nominate the candidate
favored by the Republicans of Massachusetts, the action of
the State, in my opinion, was decisive in defeating the nomination
of President Arthur. But for that there would have been no
movement for Edmunds, and his support would have gone to the
President. Mr. Blaine, who was nominated, was defeated at
the election. The event proved him a much stronger candidate
than I had supposed, and his subsequent career in the Department
of State, I believe, satisfied a majority of his countrymen
that he would have made an able and discreet President. I
suppose it would hardly be denied now by persons acquainted
with the details of the management of the Democratic campaign,
at any rate I have heard the fact admitted by several very
distinguished Democrats, members of the Senate of the United
States, that the plurality of the vote of New York was really
cast for Mr. Blaine, and that he was unjustly deprived of
election by the fraud at Long Island City by which votes cast
for the Butler Electoral Ticket were counted for Cleveland.
I suppose also that but for the utterances of a foolish clergyman
named Burchard, Mr. Blaine's majority in that State would
have been so large that these frauds would have been ineffectual.

CHAPTER XXX
FOUR NATIONAL CONVENTIONS
1888

In 1888 there was a very strong, almost irresistible feeling
among Republicans in the country that Blaine should be put
in nomination again, although he had peremptorily and