the debates, and as I look back now
I do not think I ever saw a man apparently so affected as General
Garfield was when it was announced that he was the nominee of the
Republican party for the Presidency of the United States. Seemingly
he almost utterly collapsed. He sank into his seat, overcome. He
was taken out of the convention and to a room in the Grand Pacific,
where I met him a very few minutes afterward.

After General Garfield was elected to the Presidency, but before
his inauguration, I determined that I would urge upon him the
appointment of Mr. Robert T. Lincoln as a member of his cabinet.
I thought then that his selection would not only be an honor to
the State, but that the great name of Lincoln, so fresh then in
the minds of the people, would materially strengthen General
Garfield's administration.

With this purpose in view, I visited Garfield at his home in Mentor.
This journey was an extremely difficult one, owing to the circumstance
that the snow was yet deep on the ground; so I arranged with the
conductor to stop at the nearest point to General Garfield's house
to let me off, which he did. I walked from the train through banks
of snow, and after the hardest kind of a walk, finally reached his
house.

I at once told him the mission on which I had come. We had quite
a long talk, at the end of which he announced that he would appoint
Mr. Lincoln his Secretary of War.

In this connection I desire to say a few words concerning Robert
T. Lincoln. He is still living. I have known him from boyhood.
He has the integrity and the character which so distinguished his
father, and was marked in his mother's people as well. It is my
firm conviction that long ago Robert T. Lincoln could have been
President of the United States had he possessed the slightest
political aspiration. He has never been ambitious for public
office; but, on the contrary, it has always seemed to me that the
Presidency was especially repugnant to him, which would be natural,
considering the untimely death of his father, if for no other
reason. He was almost forced to take an active interest in public
affairs, but as soon as he was permitted to do so he retired to
private life to engage in large business undertakings, and finally
to become the head of the Pullman Company.

It seems strange to me that he should consider the presidency of
a private corporation, no matter how great the emoluments, above
the Presidency of the grea