er religions
are as good as ours, and in many respects better. This gave him
breadth of intellectual horizon and enlarged his sympathy for the
failures of the world. I regard his death as a great loss, and
his life as a lesson and inspiration.

--_Inter-Ocean_, Chicago, October 13, 1894.

SENATOR SHERMAN AND HIS BOOK.*

[* No one is better qualified than Robert G. Ingersoll to talk
about Senator Sherman's book and the questions it raises in political
history. Mr. Ingersoll was for years a resident of Washington and
a next-door neighbor to Mr. Sherman; he was for an even longer period
the intimate personal friend of James G. Blaine; he knew Garfield
from almost daily contact, and of the Republican National Conventions
concerning which Senator Sherman has raised points of controversy
Mr. Ingersoll can say, as the North Carolinian said of the Confederacy:
"Part of whom I am which."

He placed Blaine's name before the convention at Cincinnati in
1876. He made the first of the three great nominating speeches in
convention history, Conkling and Garfield making the others in 1880.

The figure of the Plumed Knight which Mr. Ingersoll created to
characterize Mr. Blaine is part of the latter's memory. At Chicago,
four years later, when Garfield, dazed by the irresistible doubt
of the convention, was on the point of refusing that in the acceptance
of which he had no voluntary part, Ingersoll was the adviser who
showed him that duty to Sherman required no such action.]

_Question_. What do you think of Senator Sherman's book--especially
the part about Garfield?

_Answer_. Of course, I have only read a few extracts from Mr.
Sherman's reminiscences, but I am perfectly satisfied that the
Senator is mistaken about Garfield's course. The truth is that
Garfield captured the convention by his course from day to day,
and especially by the speech he made for Sherman. After that
speech, and it was a good one, the best Garfield ever made, the
convention said, "Speak for yourself, John."

It was perfectly apparent that if the Blaine and Sherman forces
should try to unite, Grant would be nominated. It had to be Grant
or a new man, and that man was Garfield. It all came about without
Garfield's help, except in the way I have said. Garfield even went
so far as to declare that under no circumstances could he accept,
because he was for Sherman, and honestly for him. He told me that
he would not allow his name to go before