Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/344

 and we were not viewing the subject from the same angle. And I still think it was good politics, since it did away with all talk about secret plotting. On the 12th of December I was the guest of honor at the dinner of the Pennsylvania Society of New York, a most successful society, the active spirit in which is Barr Ferree, and there I met Governor Odell of New York and Governor Edwin Warfield of Maryland.

At the urgent request of Provost Harrison of the University of Pennsylvania, I left my work and went down to Washington in order to secure Roosevelt as the orator for the following 22d of February ceremonies in the Academy of Music. Quay had promised to help me. He met me with his carriage at the depot and entertained me at his home. The following day, through his arrangement, we lunched with the President and Mrs. Roosevelt at the White House. The details of this luncheon are given elsewhere in my personal sketch of the President. On this occasion Quay brought up the subject of the nomination for the Supreme Court and I told him I had given up all thought of being a candidate. The reasons which influenced me were:

I had taken with me to Harrisburg a number of gentlemen who never would have entered this kind of life but for me, and to abandon them to the mercies of political chance, almost at the outset, would have been to have treated them unfairly. I had taken the responsibility of leaving the judgeship behind me when I became governor, the things I had hoped to do were still in large part not accomplished, and to leave the wheel now for the sake of comfort would be pure vacillation and weakness.

In a column on the front page, the Ledger, December 24th, explained to its readers the purpose of my visit to Washington, with the staring headline: “Why Did Pennypacker Go to Washington?” in this way:

“A sensation is due which will recall and perhaps 328