Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 2.djvu/46

26 He appointed a set of men upon whom he believed he could rely to do his bidding, and having the power to keep or remove them, as he pleased, he cracked his whip over them to his heart's content. His plan of operations was very simple. He followed his registrars as they were making the list of voters from place to place, attended nearly all their meetings, and controlled them in all their actions. In this way he had, in the first place, all the Democrats rejected against whom, by any possibility, the disfranchising provisions of the constitution could be construed. Heavy work was done, but his mind was not relieved of doubt. He was so thoroughly despised by a great many Republicans that he thought it best to have a good many of them cut off by the board of review. Thus a number of Union officers and soldiers and other citizens of high respectability, who would have voted for Grant and Colfax but not for Conklin, were disfranchised for disloyalty.

But even this did not relieve him of doubt. He hit upon a most ingenious expedient, and that was simply to disqualify his competitors. Shortly before the day of election he had the candidate who was nominated against him struck off, late enough, as he thought, to render another nomination impossible. The name of this decapitated opponent was David H. Hickman, a gentleman of great moral worth, an unflinching Union man during the war, and formerly a member of the legislature. But Conklin did not feel quite safe yet; and so he had also the only man cut off who, as he suspected, was likely, if there was still time, to be nominated in Hickman's place—a Dr. Hunter, also a Union man.

But, wonderful as it may seem, fortune did not smile upon the intrepid Conklin. The Democratic committee nominated at the eleventh hour Hon. James S. Rollins. My colleague knows him well; he is the same who in 1857