answer to this I prepared
a resolution of regret to be incorporated in the platform. It raised
stubborn opposition. David A. Wells and Joseph Pulitzer, who were
fellow members of the committee, were with me in my contention, but the
objection to making it a part of the platform grew so pronounced that
they thought I had best not insist upon it.

The day wore on and the latent opposition seemed to increase. I had been
named chairman of the committee and had at a single sitting that morning
written a completed platform. Each plank of this was severally and
closely scrutinized. It was well into the afternoon before we reached
the plank I chiefly cared about. When I read this the storm broke. Half
the committee rose against it. At the close, with more heat than was
either courteous or tactful, I said: "Gentlemen, I wish to do no more
than bid farewell to a leader who four years ago took the Democratic
party at its lowest fortunes and made it a power again. He is well on
his way to the grave. I would place a wreath of flowers on that grave.
I ask only this of you. Refuse me, and by God, I will go to that mob
yonder and, dead or alive, nominate him, and you will be powerless to
prevent!"

Mr. Barksdale, of Mississippi, a suave gentleman, who had led the
dissenters, said, "We do not refuse you. But you say that we 'regret'
Mr. Tilden's withdrawal. Now I do not regret it, nor do those who agree
with me. Could you not substitute some other expression?"

"I don't stand on words," I answered. "What would you suggest?"

Mr. Barksdale said: "Would not the words 'We have received with the
deepest sensibility Mr. Tilden's letter of withdrawal,' answer your
purpose?"

"Certainly," said I, and the plank in the platform, as it was amended,
was adopted unanimously.

Mr. Tilden did not die. He outlived all his immediate rivals. Four years
later, in 1884, his party stood ready again to put him at its head.
In nominating Mr. Cleveland it thought it was accepting his dictation
reenforced by the enormous majority--nearly 200,000--by which Mr.
Cleveland, as candidate for Governor, had carried New York in the
preceding State election. Yet, when the votes in the presidential
election came to be counted, he carried it, if indeed he carried it at
all, by less than 1,100 majority, the result hanging in the balance for
nearly a week.

II

In the convention of 1884, which met at Chicago, we had a veritable
monkey-and-parrot time. It w