Page:The autobiography of a Pennsylvanian.djvu/449

 Mrs. Jennings was among those present. I then had the opportunity to go over the battlefields of Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville.

On the 21st of June Governor E. C. Stokes of New Jersey and I delivered addresses at the dedication of the monument at Red Bank. A dreadfully hot day, a long ride amid shouting throngs over dusty country roads, and a crowded platform, covered with canvas just above our heads which shut out the air, were the incidents which marked the occasion. Stokes is a small man with a pronounced moustache, keen and alert and canny enough to keep his head above water in New Jersey politics.

About this time I appointed the first board of registration commissioners to register voters in Philadelphia, and selected George G. Pierie, Clinton Rogers Woodruff, J. Henry Scattergood and John Cadwalader, Jr. Pierie and Scattergood were acceptable to Penrose and the party managers. Cadwalader I appointed against the earnest protest of the leaders of both the Republican and Democratic parties, because he was a gentleman who I knew would be fair, though narrow, and beyond influence, and partly because of my great regard for his father. I have found as a general thing that nice people have little sense of gratitude. They are apt to feel that they confer a favor by accepting what is given them. At the close of my administration Woodruff wrote a doubting sketch of me for the Yale Review. Some years later, over another matter, Cadwalader wrote a paper for the Public Ledger assailing my personal motives. I also saw a sketch of himself in print, evidently supervised by him, which said he had been retained in office by Governor Stuart and made no mention of the man who put him there having to override the political forces of both parties in order to do it. It was unmanly and disingenuous. He made a capable and useful official.

This year, July 25th, the National Guard had their encampment at Gettysburg, where I again inspected, on Rh