had used in his campaigns, and the audiences its canvas walls sheltered, there under the flaring torches, were inspired by his spirit as once they had been by his presence, and with the enthusiasm of them fresh in my heart I set out from Cleveland that last week of the campaign for the long drive to Columbus, where the campaign was to close.
It was a hot day in early September; the clouds were piled high in the west as we started, and the air was suffocating in its dense humidity; plainly it was to be a day of thunder and lightning and tropical showers. My friend, Henry W. Ashley, who understands democracy to the fundamentals (his father was the friend of Lincoln and wrote the Fifteenth Amendment), was with us, for he was ever an interested spectator of our politics. We went by the way of Oberlin because Ashley wished to see the college campus and indulge some sentimental reflections in a scene that had been so vitally associated with the old struggle of the abolitionists. The storm which had been so ominously threatening all the morning broke upon us as we slowly made our way through the country south of Oberlin, as desolate a tract as one could find, and we were charged as heavily with depression as were the clouds with rain as we thought of the futility of attempting to convince the inhabitants of such a land that they had any responsibility for the problems that were vexing the people in the cities of the state. I remember a village through which we passed; it was about noon, according to our watches, though, since in the
