Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/370

 John Hay wrote: “I was greatly struck with it when I saw it in the newspapers and have read it again with the greatest interest and renewed admiration.” Vice President Charles W. Fairbanks wrote: “It was a perfect gem.”

General Daniel E. Sickles, who was there, wrote: “You said a great deal worth remembering, in a short space of time. . . . The charm is perfect.” And Edward Everett Hale, who was also present, published in the Boston Christian Register a report in which he said:

The following day I attended the funeral of Senator Quay and heard the services in the Presbyterian Church at Beaver, where he had lived his home life and the people were most able to understand and appreciate his character. Clergymen of different denominations participated and the Rev. J. R. Ramsey delivered the funeral sermon.

The death of Quay left Senator Boies Penrose as the titular head of the Republican party in the state. On the 3d of June, along with Dr. Henry D. Heller, the quarantine physician, Charles H. Heustis, health officer, Lieutenant Governor William M. Brown, Senator Penrose and many others, I went down the Delaware River upon the tugboat which had been given my name to inspect the quarantine station. On the way I took occasion to have a talk with Penrose and told him in effect that circumstances had imposed a certain responsibility upon him and me and that he could depend upon me to do all that properly could be done to maintain the control of the state by the 354