HENBY WATTERSON 521 war associations. A meeting of the leaders of this movement was held at Ashland. But not even the spell of Clay could endow the party with the breath of life. Mr. Watterson was charged with treason, with insincerity, with being a dreamer when they wanted a doer. On this yelping pack of curs bark- ing at his heels he bestowed very little attention but trained his editorial guns on the corruption in the Bepublican Party. To the Courier-Journal as much as to any other organ was due the revolt of 1872 in the Bepublican Party. Editor Wat- terson, while a journalistic Bohemian, had become acquainted with Horace Greeley. The liberal Bepublican movement was not successful in electing Greeley, but it was successful in bringing to an end the orgy of unrighteousness known as the government at Washington. Mr. Watterson sat as a delegate-at-large in the Democratic national convention of 1872 which endorsed Greeley. Four years later he presided over the Democratic convention at St. Louis which nominated his friend, Samuel J. Tilden, for the presidency. Into the campaign which followed he threw his whole soul. He is never so much at home or so effective as an editor as when denouncing fraud, shams, or dishonesty of any kind. These hurt his artistic soul like brambles on a fair estate. In this campaign he was confident of victory. As soon as he learned of the frauds in the Southern elections he set out for New Orleans, arriving there ahead of the Bepub- Ucans. The situation was not very promising. It seemed that the party which had the most money would get a favor- able report by the election commissioners. It happened during the previous campaign that Mr. Wat- terson, in answer to a request from Mr. Tilden, had been elected to Congress to fill a vacancy. This, the only case in which he violated his determination not to hold office, enabled him to take part in the famous struggle in Congress over counting the votes in the Hayes-Tilden election. His experi- ence in this session of Congress did not increase his taste for office, and when his partial term was over he never afterwards permitted himself to be elected or appointed to office. High office was within his reach many times. He might have been
