ally
arrested, and thenceforth greater activity characterised the canvass.
Conkling spoke often; Woodford, who had done yeoman service in the
West, repeated his happily illustrated arguments; and Evarts crowded
Cooper Union. In the same hall Edwards Pierrepont, fresh from the
Court of St. James, made a strenuous though belated appeal. Speaking
for the Democrats, Kernan advocated the gold standard, declaring it
essential to commercial and the workingmen's prosperity. Erastus
Brooks shared the same view, and Dorsheimer, with his exquisite choice
of words, endeavoured to explain it to a Tammany mass meeting. John
Kelly, cold, unyielding, precise, likewise talked. There was little
elasticity about him. He dominated Tammany like a martinet, naming its
tickets, selecting its appointees, and outlining its policies. Indeed,
his rule had developed so distinctly into a one-man power that four
anti-Tammany organisations had at last combined with the Republicans
in one supreme effort to crush him, and with closed ranks and firm
purpose this coalition exhibited an unwavering earnestness seldom
presented in a local campaign.[1618] It was intimated that Kelly having
in mind his reappointment as city comptroller in 1880, sought
surreptitiously to aid Cooper.[1619] Kelly saw his danger. He
recognised the power of his opponents, the weakness of Schell whom he
had himself named for mayor, and the strength of Cooper, a son of the
distinguished philanthropist, whose independence of character had
brought an honourable career; but the assertion that the Boss, bowing
to the general public sentiment, gave Cooper support must be dismissed
with the apocryphal story that Conkling was in close alliance with
Tammany. Doubtless Kelly's disturbed mind saw clearly that he must
eventually divide his foes to recover lost prestige. Nevertheless, it
was after November 5, the day of Tammany's blighting overthrow, that
he shaped his next political move.

[Footnote 1618: In reference to Kelly's despotic rule see speeches of
Anti-Tammany opponents in New York _Tribune_ (first page), October 31,
1878.]

[Footnote 1619: Myers, _History of Tammany_, p. 310.]

The election returns disclosed that the greatly increased
Greenback-Labour vote, aggregating 75,000, had correspondingly
weakened the Democratic party, especially in the metropolis, thus
electing Danforth to the Court of Appeals, Cooper as mayor, the entire
anti-Tammany-Republican ticket, a large majorit