their significance was not instantly appreciated. As he afterward told his friends in private conversation, he was at the moment preoccupied in thinking over the answer which he was to make. He therefore took no notice of Dr. Burchard's peroration, tho it must have been personally offensive to him as the son of a Catholic mother. He had, besides, himself just returned from visiting his sister, who was the Mother Superior of a convent in Indiana. Yet it was only after the delegation had withdrawn that he fully realized the serious blunder that he had made. He took immediate steps to suppress the word "Romanism" in the reports that were to appear in friendly newspapers. But it was too late. The Horatian maxim, Volat irrevocabile verbum, was to find a striking illustration of its truth. In less than twenty-four hours every Democratic paper in the country had spread before its readers the Burchard alliteration. Every Catholic voter in the State had read it upon handbills, and had been told that Mr. Blaine had allowed a slur upon his own mother's faith to pass unrebuked. Tammany Still, the result seemed doubtful. Hall had not yet been won over. Its leader was John Kelly, a rough and ready politician, but an honest man, according to his lights. He had opposed Mr. Cleveland's nomination, pronouncing him no Democrat, and declaring that if elected he would prove a traitor to the party. Kelly held in his control the vote of Tammany Hall; and, as a last resort, Mr. Hendricks was summoned from Indiana to exert his influence. He made the journey of a thousand miles and conferred with Kelly until a late hour of the night. Hendricks was a party man of the straitest type, an old-time Democrat of the Middle West. He carried his point, and Kelly promised that for Hendricks's sake the Tammany vote should be cast for the party ticket. Then came the day of the election on November 4th. Early on the following morning it was known that Cleveland had carried all the Southern States, besides New Jersey, Connecticut, and Indiana. New York was still in doubt, but it seemed to have gone Democratic. The New York Sun, which had supported the farcical Greenback candidacy of General B. F. Butler, and which was bitterly opposed to Cleveland, conceded his election. The Tribune, on the other hand, kept its flag still flying, and declared that Blaine had won. It was evident that the result depended upon a few hundred votes in the outlying counties of New York. A very ugly feeling was manifested among the Democrats. They suspected that a plot was on foot to cheat them of their rights and to repeat the discreditable history of 1876. Mobs filled the streets in the vicinity of the newspaper offices, watching intently every bulletin that was posted, and from time to time breaking out into savage cheers or groans. Violence was attempted in several cities, and bodies of men marched up and down as they had done at the outbreak of the Civil War. The excitement was most intense in the city of New York, where it was believed that Jay Gould, who controlled the Western Union Telegraph Company, was leagued with the more unscrupulous of the Republican managers to tamper with the delayed returns. An angry mob marched to the Western Union Build ing with shouts of "Hang Jay Gould!" Gould besought police protection; and then from some inner hiding-place he dispatched a telegram to Mr. Cleveland, conceding his election and effusively congratulating him upon it. On the evening of the 18th of November, the official count was ended; and then the country knew that a plurality of 1,149 votes in the State of New York had given the Presidency to Mr. Cleveland. On that same night, Mr. Blaine appeared at the door of his house in Augusta, Maine, and said to a somber, sullen crowd which had assembled there: "Friends and neighbors, the national contest is over, and by the narrowest of margins we have lost." The election of Mr. Cleveland marks an epoch in our national history, the importance of which can only now be fully understood It meant that, with the exception of the negro question, the issues springing from the Civil War had been definitely settled. It meant the beginning of a true reunion of all States and sections. It meant that the nation had turned its back upon the past, and was about to move forward with confidence and courage to a future of material prosperity, and to a greatness of which no one at that time could form an adequate conception. And it meant, altho none then surmised it, that, as a result of new conditions, there was ultimately to be effected a momentous change in the whole social and political structure of the American Republic. THE DEATH AND FUNERAL OF GENERAL GRANT (1885) BY GENERAL JAMES GRANT WILSON1 Early in the summer of 1884 the General began to feel a slight pain in his mouth and throat, which increased and developed into cancer of the tongue-a painful and incurable disease. As he gradually grew weaker, the whole nation watched with solicitude the progress of his malady, and prayers were offered in many pulpits in the land for his recovery; day after day expressions of sympathy came not only from all quarters of our own country, but from distant lands. Old strifes and enmities were all forgotten in the presence of approaching death, and the Blue and the Gray alike uttered the warmest expressions of sympathy for the dying soldier. Early in the month of April there was a marked improvement in General Grant's condition, and, among some of his more sanguine friends, hopes were entertained and exprest of his ultimate recovery. Through the length and breadth of the land the morning and evening 1 From Wilson's "Life of General Grant." By permission of the publishers, D. Appleton & Company. Copyright, 1897. General Wilson served in the Civil War as a volunteer, and at the close of the conflict was a brevet Brigadier-General of Volunteers. He afterward devoted himself to literary and editorial work, and is still living (December, 1911). It journals contained daily bulletins of one or more columns concerning the condition of the illustrious patient, and many of the leading papers of Great Britain and other lands published daily telegrams. Fortunately his prayer was answered that he might be permitted to live to complete his Military Memoirs, which were substantially finished. may be doubted if since the world began any book has been written under similar conditions. It far surpasses Sir Walter Scott's gallant efforts to maintain the integrity of his character, that he might bequeath an untarnished name and a fantastic mansion to a long line of Scotts of Abbotsford. Seeing the last enemy approach, the dying but undaunted soldier, suffering almost constant, and at times the severest agony, determined to "fight it out" bravely as he did when he faced General Lee in the Wilderness struggle. This Grant did, to the general astonishment of publishers, physicians, family, and friends, the fruit of this great effort being a fortune for his family. It was probably the most successful expensive book ever issued-more than a quarter of a million copies having been ordered in advance of publication, and nearly half a million of dollars having been received as copyright. In clearness and accuracy of statement, in literary style and finish, it compares favorably with the models of English literature. The General, contrary to the expectations of his physicians and friends, survived to see the twentieth anniversary of the surrender of Lee's army, and to exchange greetings with his family on the return of the anniversary which may be said to have substantially broken the Confederacy and |