Page:Memoirs of Henry Villard, volume 1.djvu/117

1858] Those I had to deal with were mainly grocers, saloon-keepers, and small mechanics. It was hard to collect past dues, and much harder to enlist new subscribers. My attempts in the latter direction exposed me to no little rudeness, and the pecuniary results of my efforts were so meagre that my collections were not equal to my current expenditures.

I felt it my duty to write Mr. Ottendorfer frankly, at the expiration of a month, that I was afraid I should not prove a successful canvasser, and to propose a new plan of operations. The public press was filled at the time with references to the approaching contest on the stump for the succession to the United States Senate between Senator Stephen A. Douglas and Abraham Lincoln in Illinois. The eyes of the whole country were fixed upon the former as the champion in the Senate of the wing of the Democratic party which had adopted his fallacious doctrine that the people of the Territories should be left free to regulate their domestic institutions — that is, to establish or to keep out slavery, as they saw fit — against the other wing, having the countenance of President Buchanan, which favored the introduction of slavery in Kansas and the other unsettled parts of the Union. Abraham Lincoln was the representative of the young Republican party. A series of joint debates between the two leaders had been arranged, which it was evident would form the principal political event of the season. I suggested to my employers to let me proceed at once to Illinois and observe the approaching political campaign there as the Staats-Zeitung's special correspondent. To my great joy, my proposition was readily accepted, and I proceeded without delay to Chicago.

I reached there just in time to witness the grand ovation given to Senator Douglas on his arrival from Washington.