you got any reasons except sentimental
ones?" I said I had no others, except those I had stated.
The gentlemen went out very down-hearted, and said when they
got out that of course he would veto the bill. I said: "I
think I know the man pretty well, and I think there is more
than an even chance that he will sign it," and he did.

Just before his term of office ended, he was in the President's
Room, at the Capitol, to dispose of bills when there was not
time to take them to the White House before the hour of twelve
o'clock, on the 4th of March. Many measures had been passed
within an hour of the time of adjournment, among them a bill
for the relief of the widow of Jefferson Davis. She had written
a Memoir of her husband, on the sale of which it was understood
she depended for her livelihood in her advancing years. But
the publishers had neglected a technicality which, if the
decision of one Circuit Judge were good law, made the copyright
void. So she was at the mercy of her publishers, and it was
feared that they meant to take advantage of the defect. She
applied through General Gordon, then a member of the Senate,
to Congress for relief. A bill passed the two Houses, which
I had drawn, providing that where the copies required by law
to be deposited in the Library of Congress, had not been so
deposited within the time required by law, the author of the
book might deposit them at a later time, and the copyright
should not be rendered void. This was made a general law.
Just before twelve o'clock, when the Senators were in their
seats ready for the inauguration of President Harrison's successor,
which was to take place in about ten minutes, General Gordon
came to me in great distress, saying: "The Attorney-General
says the President means to refuse to sign that bill and that
he can do nothing with him. Can you help us?" I had devised
the plan, and had got it through the Senate. I went into
the President's Room with General Gordon and said to the President
that I wanted to speak to him about that bill, and began my
story when he broke in upon me, very uncivilly, and said:
"We cannot pass laws to take care of hard individual cases."
I said: "No, Mr. President, we cannot pass laws to take care
of individual cases, but where a general law is just and proper,
it is no objection to it that it also affords relief in a
case of individual injustice." The President made some remark
to the effect that the people of th