Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/359

 This open letter was as much of a surprise to me as it was to everybody else. Never before had Quay been known to give publicity in advance to his views upon a measure yet to be determined. It showed his loyalty, courage, vigor and capacity for expression. It presented my cause with an effectiveness which it would have been impossible for me to have given. It threw the line of assault into confusion. It pointed out to the lawyers what it is remarkable they had not seen for themselves, that since an appointment comes from one source of power, the governor, and an election from another source of power, the people, there was no real connection between them, and that I could have avoided the whole ground of their censure by simply leaving the judicial office vacant until the election. The condemnation of the impropriety of Brown, which might with good grace have been given by Dickson, Simpson and Beeber, while they were reading lessons in dialectics, had been administered by a United States Senator who had placed him on the Bench, and Brown never uttered a word thereafter.

The convention met on the 5th of April. None of the men around me, save Carson, had any intimation of what I was going to do. I doubt whether the political leaders, save Quay, were any better informed. On the 2d of April the Committee of Lawyers published another long pronunciamento. On the 5th, the headline of the Record said: “Pennypacker's Excuse to Run is Made to Order,” and the headline of the Press said: “Pennypacker Will Accept Nomination.” In the morning the eighty-six delegates from Philadelphia met and unanimously endorsed my nomination. At 4 P. M. David H. Lane, with a committee, came to the department and officially tendered to me the nomination. The time to speak had come. My response had been roughly written on a loose sheet of office paper. Lane made a neat and sensible speech, and then I read: Rh