Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/189

 admiration for Grant, although recognizing his great force of character; as a general his campaigns displayed more resolution than military skill. His ultimate great success depended upon the fact that Meade had delivered the crushing blow to the main army of the rebels at Gettysburg. His unjust use of the power of the presidency to elevate Sheridan, with much less achievement, to the head of the army over Meade was probably influenced by his recognition of that fact. His conduct of the presidential office was coarse, and it seemed to me that with his temperament and the hold which his military achievement gave him upon the minds of the people and his willingness to continue in the office indefinitely, he was dangerous to the institutions of the country. In February, 1880, there was organized in Philadelphia a movement with the imposing title of “The National Republican League.” William Rotch Wister, a distinguished lawyer, was chairman; Charles Wheeler, of the wealthy iron firm of Morris, Wheeler & Co., whose daughter later married a Japanese and went to Japan to live, was the treasurer; and Hampton L. Carson, later Attorney General for the Commonwealth, was the secretary; Wharton Barker, a banker, then supposed to be worth a million dollars; John McLaughlin; Henry C. Lea, the famous historian; Samuel W. Pennypacker; T. Morris Perot; Wayne MacVeagh, who reaped reward from the movement; Joseph G. Rosengarten, a man of letters, whose family gathered a fortune from quinine; E. Dunbar Lockwood, a worthy man in a chronic attitude of criticism, and J. Lapsley Wilson, constituted the executive committee. They sent an address signed by about one hundred and fifty influential citizens to the State Convention which contained this patent threat: “We, therefore, beg of you so to act that the influence of the great State of Pennsylvania may be thrown in favor of one who can be conscientiously supported and against those whom the honest voter may feel himself obliged to oppose at the polls.” There was wide comment Rh