of Republicans and
Democrats with Justice Joseph P. Bradley of the Supreme Court as the
fifteenth member, chosen on account of his neutral position. It decided
that the Republican nominee was entitled to the electoral votes of
Florida, Louisiana and South Carolina, and the Electoral College
accordingly awarded the Presidency to Mr. Hayes by a vote of 186 to 185.

The Tilden campaign was engineered by Manton Marble, an able man and the
editor of the New York _World_. I had known Mr. Tilden when he was a
great adherent of Martin Van Buren. He was a small, insignificant
looking man whose whole life was given up to politics. As I remember him
in general, he was expounding upon his favorite subject regardless of
"time and tide." His father had been affiliated with the celebrated
"Albany Regency," and the son, inheriting his views, became one of the
ablest as well as shrewdest political leaders that the Democratic party
in New York has ever known. As a lawyer his great ability was
universally recognized, and yet his last will was successfully
contested, although it had been drawn up by him with almost infinite
care and with the most scrupulous regard for details and engrossed with
his own hand.

I saw the Hayes inaugural-parade from a window on the corner of
Fifteenth Street and New York Avenue. All through the day there was a
suppressed feeling of uncertainty and excitement, but at the appointed
hour the President-elect drove to the Capitol in the usual manner and
took the oath of office. The procession which escorted him to the White
House was by no means so imposing as others I had seen, among them that
of eight years later at Cleveland's first inauguration, when General
Fitzhugh Lee rode at the head of the Virginia troops and received a
greater ovation than the new President himself. It was late in February
before it was definitely known what the final decision of the Electoral
Commission would be, and the uncertainty arising from this fact,
together with the prevailing political disquietude, doubtless had much
effect in limiting the size of the parade.

I soon made the acquaintance of President and Mrs. Hayes and was always
a welcome guest at the White House. The latter was of commanding
presence and endowed with great beauty, while she possessed moral and
intellectual traits that not only endeared her in time to the residents
of the Capital but also won for her the respect and admiration of the
people at large. She w