REMINISCENCES 89
been in office nearly fifty years, part of the time as Vice- President. Hamlin seldom had anything to say, and then only a few words, in a conversational tone, in reply to a question or explaining something, never anything like a "speech." But he always delivered the goods. When he went hunting he nearly always brought in meat. While his colleagues would be orating, Hamlin would perhaps go up to the President or one of the departments to get an appoint- ment, or order, or recommendation for his state or for a con- stituent, and take off his old battered hat, and that old hat would never be put on again until he got what he went for. It was current rumor around the Senate that every President and every Secretary for generations had learned from experi- ence that when that old stovepipe made its appearance and was set down on the floor or desk, there would be something doing before it would ever be taken up again to ornament the head of a statesman. Then there was old Simon Cameron, of Pennsylvania, the greatest Roman of them all. He started out like Ben Franklin as a poor printer boy. When he got into politics his party was in a minority in the legislature. He pulled over two or three of the majority party and elected himself Senator. It was never known just how he did it. But it gave him a great reputation all his life as a worker of wonders. For forty years or more he controlled the politics of the great State of Pennsylvania, and made and unmade presidents, and was a senator, a cabinet officer or foreign minister for nearly half a century. He said he had been called a leader of the people but he never was. He found out which way the people were going and marched right along with them in the front ranks. He could not have a rival, and did not need to be jealous of any other senator. They might orate all day, or two or three days at a time, as Conkling did in favor of the electoral commission bill to settle the dispute between Hayes and Tilden for the Presidency in 1877, but that did not disturb or arouse the envy of Simon Cameron, who had then perhaps lived 80 years, and had been used to
