Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/362

AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN

Rudolph Blankenburg in Philadelphia and Henry Watterson in the Louisville Courier-Journal, both made efforts to reply to Quay's letter. The platform adopted by the convention set forth:

“We heartily endorse the wise, bold, fearless, honest, economical and efficient administration of Governor Samuel W. Pennypacker,” and the convention selected me as a delegate to the National Republican Convention to nominate candidates for the Presidency and Vice Presidency.

A versifier wrote:

Surprise and consternation reign,

For after weeks of stress and strain

And labor which was all in vain.

The boys who split the welkin

With ringing Pennypacker cries,

Their programme must forthwith revise,

And shifting round contrarywise,

Must raise the roof for Elkin.

It is a pleasure to turn from the literature of journalism to the literature of the schools of learning.

The University of Pennsylvania on February 22d conferred upon me the degree of Doctor of Laws. In presenting me, J. Levering Jones said to the provost, Charles C. Harrison:

We have escorted here this morning, with formal courtesy and demonstration and brought into the presence of this imposing assemblage, the Governor of this Commonwealth, because he has by merit attained high public station and won an honorable name in letters and in law. He is a successor of the sagacious and virtuous Penn; the chief magistrate of a state imperial in domain, resources and population, possessing greater wealth than England in the days of Elizabeth, and a culture as wide and universally diffused as the England of our own times. Patient and reflective in temperament, industrious in mental habit, with the inherent tastes of a scholar, at the bar he was not satisfied merely to advise a client or formulate arguments before the court; he remained the indefatigable student of history, ever