Page:Men of Mark in America vol 2.djvu/158

120 night taking fifty-three ballots without a choice, and then adjourned to October 2, when the convention again sat all day and night and took seventy-eight more ballots; and on the one hundred and thirty-first ballot Elisha W. Converse was nominated, and in the election was defeated by Henry B. Lovering, Democrat, by eight hundred and fifty-nine votes. This incident is given a place to show the tenacity that has made Senator Lodge famous in the political field. In 1884 he received the unanimous vote of the Republican caucus for representative from the sixth Massachusetts district to the forty-ninth Congress; but in the election he was defeated by Henry B. Lovering, the Democratic representative in the forty-eighth Congress. He received fourteen thousand eight hundred and eighty-one votes to fifteen thousand one hundred and forty-six for Lovering and five hundred and thirty for Johnson, Prohibitionist. He was elected chairman of the Republican state committee, 1883-84, and in 1884 was a delegate-at-large from Massachusetts to the Republican national convention that met at Chicago, June 3, and nominated Blaine and Logan. He resigned the chairmanship of the Republican state committee in January, 1885; and in September of the same year he was made chairman of the committee on resolutions in the Republican state convention which met at Springfield. In the Republican state convention of 1886 he was made president of the convention; and the same year he was nominated for representative from the sixth Massachusetts district to the fiftieth Congress and was elected over his formerly successful Democratic opponent, Henry B. Lovering, receiving thirteen thousand four hundred and ninety-five votes to twelve thousand seven hundred and fifty-seven for Lovering and four hundred and fifty-eight for Norcross, Prohibitionist. In the fiftieth Congress he served on the committee on Elections. He was elected in 1888 a representative to the fifty-first Congress receiving nineteen thousand five hundred and ninety-eight votes, Roland G. Usher his Democratic opponent receiving fourteen thousand three hundred and four votes and George A. Crossman eight hundred and eighty-five votes. He was made chairman of the committee on Election of President, Vice-President and Representatives in Congress and a member of the committee on Naval Affairs. In November, 1890, he was elected a representative to the fifty-second Congress receiving fourteen thousand five hundred and seventy-nine votes, William Everett, Democrat, receiving thirteen thousand five hundred