Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/327

 telephone from Washington and Penrose at the other end inquired:

“When are you going to make out the appointment of Dr. Shoemaker as surgeon general?” Shoemaker was a political doctor, continually mingling the two professions which did not well fit, and I had no confidence in him whatever. So I answered:

“I do not think of appointing him at all.”

“Damn it to hell!” I overheard upon the wire.

I had written to Dr. S. Weir Mitchell and Charles C. Harrison to suggest to me a suitable and competent physician for this position. They recommended Dr. Robert G. Le Conte, a man of professional attainment and now one of the trustees of the University of Pennsylvania, and I appointed him. He remained long enough to secure his title as colonel, but with the first encampment, when there was work to do, he resigned and that plan failed. I then appointed Dr. Weaver, much less showy but more stable and useful, and he proved to be entirely acceptable.

There had been much adverse comment upon affairs at the Eastern Penitentiary, and I put at the head of it a penal expert from without the state, of wide reputation. He remained a few months and, instead of improving the institution, used it as a means of getting a larger salary elsewhere and departed. Such instances, of course, went a long way to justify the position of the politicians.

Theoretically the state had a navy, but it never owned a vessel until at this time a quarantine cutter was built for it by Neafie & Levy. The boat was launched September 17th, named the “Governor Pennypacker” and was christened by my daughter Anna, who broke a bottle of wine over the bow.

On the 22d of September, along with Elkin, I made a speech at Wilkes-Barre before the League of Republican Clubs, reviewing what had been accomplished, including the newspaper act. The resolutions adopted declared Rh