mittee, of which Horace Greeley was then chairman,
petitioned the State committee for a reorganisation. So long as Fenton
controlled State conventions and State committees, Smith's iron rule
easily suppressed such seceders; but when the State committee revealed
a majority of Conkling men, with Cornell as chairman, these
malcontents found ready listeners and active sympathisers.

[Footnote 1292: _Ibid._, April 4, 1871.]

[Footnote 1293: "Mr. Murphy's 'weeding out' process is exactly the one
which the devil would use if he were appointed collector of this port,
and that he would perform it on exactly the same principles and with
the same objects and results as Mr. Murphy performs it, we challenge
any one to deny who is familiar with the devil's character and habits
and Mr. Murphy's late doings."--_The Nation_, January 19, 1871.

"No collector was ever more destitute of fit qualifications for the
office." He made "three hundred and thirty-eight removals every five
days during the eighteen months" he held office. Report of D.B. Eaton,
chairman of the Civil Service Commission, p. 23.]

Alonzo B. Cornell, then thirty-nine years old, had already entered
upon his famous career. From the time he began life as a boy of
fifteen in an Erie Railroad telegraph office, he had achieved
phenomenal success in business. His talents as an organiser easily
opened the way. He became manager of the Western Union telegraph
lines, the promoter of a steamboat company for Lake Cayuga, and the
director of a national bank at Ithaca. Indeed, he forged ahead so
rapidly that soon after leaving the employ of the Western Union, Jay
Gould charged him with manipulating a "blind pool" in telegraph
stocks.[1294] His education and experience also made him an expert in
political manipulation, until, in 1868, he shone as the Republican
candidate for lieutenant-governor. After his defeat and Grant's
election, he became surveyor of the port of New York, a supporter of
Conkling, and the champion of a second term for the President. His
silence, deepened by cold, dull eyes, justified the title of "Sphinx,"
while his massive head, with bulging brows, indicated intellectual and
executive power. He was not an educated man. Passing at an early age
from his studies at Ithaca Academy into business no time was left him,
if the disposition had been his, to specialise any branch of political
economic science. He could talk of politics and the rapid growth of
American in