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the success which he achieved in life. He is an able lawyer, and
as State's Attorney he was one of the most vigorous of prosecutors.
He was nominated and elected Governor, and gave the State an honest
and capable administration. He was renominated, but local questions
in the State, combined with the Democratic landslide of 1892,
resulted in his defeat. President McKinley, on my recommendation,
appointed Governor Fifer a member of the Interstate Commerce
Commission, in which position he served with credit for some years.
He resigned voluntarily and returned to his home in Bloomington to
resume the practice of law. I have always liked Governor Fifer,
and consider him one of the foremost citizens of the State living
to-day.

Returning to the Peoria Convention, over which Governor Fifer
presided, I will only say that Mr. Reeves had the votes in that
convention to be nominated; but for reasons I do not have to discuss,
he did not secure the nomination, and the Hon. Richard Yates became
the nominee. I was endorsed by the convention as the candidate of
the Republican party to succeed myself as United States Senator.
The opposition to me in the convention was by Governor Tanner and
his friends, he being the only avowed candidate against me. I
thought that the endorsement of that convention should have settled
the matter; but the contest went on, and Messrs. Hitt, Cannon, and
Prince entered it actively. Several others were standing around
waiting for a chance, and this continued to be the situation until
the Legislature met in January. A sufficient number of the members
of the Legislature to elect me had pledged themselves in writing
to stand by me as long as I was a candidate. The other candidates,
probably aside from Governor Tanner, did not believe I had these
written pledges. I told them so, but they did not believe me.
Governor Tanner and his friends realized that I would have a majority
of the caucus, and they then began scheming for the purpose of
having a secret ballot in the caucus, hoping that if certain members
who had been pledged to me would not have to vote openly, they
would go back on the pledges and vote secretly for one of the other
candidates, thus defeating me. I had enough votes to defeat the
secret ballot proposition, as many of the supporters of Tanner were
really in favor of my re-election. Hon. Fred A. Busse, one of the
most influential members of the State Senate at that time, and more