Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/73

 too, and I was sorrier for him then than ever, and half ashamed of some of the things I had written, but I explained to him that I had been sent by my paper in the hope that he might say something to the disadvantage of his own cause, and that my duty was to report, at least, what he had said. It was one of the hardest "noes" I ever had to say, and at last as he turned away, I regretted, perhaps more than he, and certainly more than he ever knew, that I could not let him revise his speech—since that is what most of us desire to do with most of our speeches.

When that campaign ended in the overthrow of the Republican majority in Congress, and I was sent to interview Ben Butterworth on the result, he said, in his humorous way: "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord." He was not altogether cast down by the result; in his place in Congress as a representative from a Cincinnati district he had risen to denounce the tariff, and so had his consolation. To me it seemed as if the people had at last entered the promised land, that that was the day the Lord had made for his people, but Mr. Butterworth could point out that our government was not so democratic as the British government, for instance, since it was not so responsive to the people's will. Over there, of course, after such a reverse the government would have retired, and a new one would have been formed, but here the existing administration would remain in power two years longer, and then, even if it lost in the presidential election over a year must elapse be