Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/200

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN

into the movement, Francis B. Reeves, George E. Mapes, Howard M. Jenkins, Lockwood, Henry Reed, Barker, Perot and myself, representatives of every phase of independent thought. The speeches ran the gamut from my own conservatism to the radicalism of Lea, who declared his purpose to oppose any ticket, no matter how good, which might be nominated by the “bosses.” Finally, under the advice of Mitchell, it was determined that a committee of five, to be appointed by him, should give the stalwarts an opportunity for a conference if they so desired. The members of this committee were Charles S. Wolfe, I. D. McKee, Francis B. Reeves, Senator J. W. Lee and Wharton Barker. On a day selected they met at the Continental Hotel M. S. Quay, Thomas Y. Cooper, Christopher Magee, John F. Hartranft, Thomas Cochran and J. Howard Reeder. The Independents presented a demand, in the nature of an ultimatum, that the slated candidates be withdrawn, the convention be postponed and that delegates be elected by a popular vote. This was not acceded to and the war went on. Beaver was nominated in the regular convention and John Stewart by the Independents, and the result was that after an earnest and somewhat bitter struggle Robert E. Pattison, a Democrat, from the office of Lewis C. Cassidy in Philadelphia, who had been controller of the city, was elected governor. In the Twenty-ninth ward, where I lived and where the usual Republican majority was about two thousand, I was nominated for the assembly by the Independent Republicans, was endorsed by the Democrats, by the Committee of One Hundred, by the temperance people, by the Liquor Men's League and was supported by editorials in all of the newspapers of the city which pointed out to the citizens the exceptional opportunity they had to secure an intelligent and upright representative. Nevertheless, it rang to me a little hollow when I found among my earnest advocates Samuel Josephs, a sleek Democratic politician of a type none too savory, and all of the brewers

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