92 H. R. KINCAID
credit for the success of the University at Eugene. B. F. Dorris, Judge J. J. Walton, W. J. J. Scott and others are entitled to much credit for organizing a society which helped the plan to locate the University at Eugene, but had not the bill been carefully looked after by one who had influence with the clerk and Speaker their efforts would have failed. The bill providing for the locks at Oregon City also became a law after a bitter fight against it by its opponents who called it "the lock and dam swindle."
The most exciting time in Congress while I was in Wash- ington, with the exception of the impeachment trial of Presi- dent Andrew Johnson, was the long and almost revolutionary struggle over the Presidency in 1877, when the Republicans claimed that Rutherford B. Hayes, of Ohio, had been elected, and the Democrats claimed that Samuel J. Tilden, of New York, had been elected at the election in 1876. Dr. J. W. Watts, postmaster at a little town in the Willamette Valley, I believe the place was Lafayette I am writing these sketches entirely from beginning to end from memory without referring to any records was one of the three electors from Oregon. The other two were Gen. W. H. Odell and, if I remember the name, John C. Cartwright. The Democrats objected to allow- ing Dr. Watt's vote to be counted for President, because ac- cording to their construction of a law a Federal "officer" could not hold the office of elector, and they held that a postmaster was an "officer" and an elector was an "officer," and no "officer" of the United States could hold two offices at the same time. I believe Watts had resigned. Governor Grover had appointed a man named [Eugene A.] Cronin to cast the vote in place of Watts. The Democrats also objected to the vote of an elector from the State of Florida. If Dr. Watts and the Florida elector, either one or both, I don't remember which, should be counted out, Tilden was elected. If one or both should be counted in Hayes was elected. The Ore- gon electors, including Governor Grover's man, Cronin, were
