as a matter of precaution, to meet again a half-hour
before the coming in of the convention, to make sure the thing
was to go through all right. I suppose that everybody in
that room when he left it felt as certain as of any event
in the future that Mr. Allison would be nominated in the convention.

But when we met at the time fixed, the three delegates at
large from New York said they were sorry they could not carry
out their engagement. Mr. Depew, who had been supported as
a candidate by his State in the earlier ballots, had made
a speech withdrawing his name. But when the action of the
meeting was reported to him, he said he had been compelled
to withdraw by the opposition of the Agrarian element, which
was hostile to railroads. He was then President of the New
York Central and Hudson River Railroad Company. He said that
his opposition to him came largely from Iowa, and from the
Northwest, where was found the chief support of Allison; that
while he had withdrawn his own name, he would not so far submit
to such an unreasonable and socialistic sentiment as to give
his consent that it should dictate a candidate for the Republican
Party. The three other delegates at large were therefore
compelled to refuse their support to the arrangement which
had been conditionally agreed upon, and the thing fell through.
If it had gone on, New York, Illinois, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania,
Massachusetts, Iowa, California, and perhaps Missouri, would
have cast their votes unanimously for Allison, and his nomination
would have been sure. I think no other person ever came so
near the Presidency of the United States, and missed it.

The result was the nomination of Mr. Harrison. It was a nomination
quite agreeable to me. I had sat near him in the Senate for
six years, my seat only separated from his by that of John
Sherman, who, for a large part of the time, had been President
pro tempore. So Sherman's seat was not then occupied and
Harrison and I were next neighbors. I had become very intimate
with him, and had learned to respect him highly as a very
able, upright and wise man, although he developed, as President,
an ability which I think his most intimate friends had not
known before. Our relations then, and afterward, were exceedingly
cordial. He was a wise, pure, upright and able President,
and an eloquent orator, capable of uttering great truths in
a great way, and able to bring them home to the understanding
and convict