ote 1334: Interview, New York _Tribune_, September 23, 1871.]

Although it had become well known that Tilden would not compromise,
Tweed lost none of his former prestige. His control of the State
convention which assembled at Rochester on October 4 (1871) seemed as
firm as on that day in 1870 when he renominated John T. Hoffman. It
was still the fashion to praise all he said and all he did. Before his
arrival the Reformers claimed a majority, but as the up-State
delegates crowded his rooms to bend the obsequious knee he reduced
these claims to a count, finding only forty-two disobedient members.
He was too tactful, however, to appear in the convention hall. His
duty was to give orders, and like a soldier he pitched his
headquarters near the scene of action, boasting that his friends were
everywhere ready for battle.

In his opening speech Tilden touched the Ring frauds with the delicacy
of a surgeon examining an abscess, and the faint response that greeted
his condemnation of corruption satisfied him that the convention did
not appreciate the danger of party blood-poisoning. The truth of this
diagnosis more fully appeared when Tammany, "in the interest of
harmony," waived its right to participate in the proceedings. The
whirlwind of applause which greeted this "unselfish act" had scarcely
subsided when a delegate from Kings county, acting for Tweed, moved
the previous question on a resolution reciting that hereafter, on the
call of the roll, the city of New York be omitted since it presented
no delegation bearing the prestige of regularity. This threw the
Reformers into an animated counsel. They knew of the proposed
withdrawal of Tammany, which seemed to them to smooth the way for the
acceptance of their credentials, but the resolution came with
startling suddenness. It narrowed the question of their admission to a
mere technicality and cut off debate. Tilden, appreciating the
ambuscade into which he had fallen, exhausted every expedient to
modify the parliamentary situation, knowing it to be in the power of
the convention to accept another delegation regardless of its
regularity, as the Republicans had done at Syracuse in the previous
week. But the delegates derisively laughed at his awkward predicament
as they adopted the resolution by a vote of 90 to 4.

By this act the convention clearly indicated its purpose to treat the
fraud issue as a local matter and to keep it out of the State
campaign. It intended to denou