very roughly the conduct of the Administration and the policy of Congress, adding, in his exclamatory style, "Men and brethren! a new leaf must be turned over, or there are breakers ahead. The proposed Cincinnati Convention may prove a fiasco, or it may name the next President”; and hinting that if "Roscoe Conkling & Co." are allowed to run the "Grant machine" a few months longer, it will be all up with the Republican party, and that Cincinnati will surely win. Altogether, this editorial of Greeley's forms a congeries of inconsistencies, like his political record in the large. Under such auspices the Cincinnati Convention assembled. Its proceedings will form the subject of the next two chapters. CHAPTER XIX. THE CINCINNATI CONVENTION. The Place-Gathering of the Clans-No Concert of Action-The Tariff Question-The Rival Candidates-Greeley's Name Received with Laughter-The Davis Hordes-Caucuses of the Syndicate-Opening of the Convention-A Side Show-Row in the New York Delegation-How Greeley's Strikers Captured that Body-Flank Movements--A Woman in the Case-Trouble, of Course-A Turbulent Session-Permanent Organization-Carl Schurz's Speech-Good Advice which was Not Followed. The selection of Cincinnati as the place of holding the soi disant liberal convention was most agreeable to the people of that city. For this, there were various reasons, some of propriety, others of interest. The "new departure" had taken place from this point not so many months before that it had slipped the memories of observant politicians. This city and vicinity was a hot-bed of discontent with the present Administration. The region abounded with the flash element in politics. There were lawyers of repute, ambitious of national distinction, like ex-Judges Hoadley, Stello, and Matthews, in neither of whom inhered persistency of purpose, or qualities that command permanent success. Their sworn allegiance to any cause was the sure precurser or its speedy downfall and decay. Judge Stallo, representing the extreme phases of German freedom of thought, has never been trammeled by church or party. To these effervescent orators was added Judge Cox, an excellent gentleman and average lawyer, but not above revenge for offended vanity, and willing to accept any honorable means to compass the defeat of Grant. THE LOCAL PRESS. The newspapers of the Queen City were leavened with discontent. The Enquirer being a Democratic journal, was the hereditary enemy of the incumbent of the Presidential office. The Commercial, a fierce iconoclast, was eager for anything that seemed to promise the loss of others and its own gain. Even the Gazette was known to desire a change of national standard-bearers, although hoping it would be effected within the old organization. The Germans of Northern Ohio, like all their countrymen in the United States, for obvious reasons, are directly influenced and controlled by the journals published in their language. Whatever sparks of discontent were latent among them had been assiduously fanned into flame by the Volksblatt, Courier, and Volksfreund, the three daily German newspapers of the city. Fred Hassaurek, editor of the first, is an ex-office-holder of long standing, and has had ever an eye for spoils. The Courier, an infant newspaper, just beginning to walk the devious paths of journalism, had its own reasons for desiring a change in the national management. The Volksfreund was Democratic, and an old and bitter enemy of the party in power. LOCAL FUSION OF PARTIES. Nowhere else in the country were the two great national parties so ready for fusion. One State Democratic Convention had adopted a platform expressing desire for conciliation and compromise, and the party had once suffered defeat on the issues of the new departure in a gubernatorial canvass. To offset this reverse, there had been a local victory upon a united ticket of rather pronounced character. The convention was therefore sure of a certain amount of local support and sympathy in case its action was sound and sensible. If a body of men which was to give voice to the opposition to Grant, and place a candidate in the field to defeat him, could not find moral encouragement and assistance, and accomplish its results with eclat in Cincinnati, the weakness of the cause which it espoused would be at once apparent, and its fall assured. WANT OF CONCERTED ACTION. The circumstances under which the convention assembled were anomalous. When such bodies gather in the ordinary course of events, their policy is generally foreshadowed. If the delegations from the various States are not definitely and openly instructed, their predelictions become known through some of the many channels by which private political sentiment reaches the public and becomes its property. In the present instance all was different. The feeling of opposition to the Administration was merely inchoate and unformed. The antipathy of the press was sporadic, although personally virulent wherever developed. A political change was hoped for, and in that change many hoped to come to the surface. How strong the opposition to Grant might be in special localities,— what private ambitions would be developed-toward what candidates for office the majority would incline,-who would be strongest with the masses,were questions that must be asked and answered, without any existing data for sound reasoning. The opponents of the Administration had not even settled upon their grievances. What was to be done was to find a common basis of action, and feasible means of carrying out their designs. Those who had special measures to the support of which they desired to win the new party, as personal interests to aggrandize, came upon the ground early. Rooms were engaged at the hotels two or three weeks in advance by representatives of various States, and they were soon filled. With praiseworthy hospitality the citizens of Cincinnati opened the doors of private houses to receive strangers. Quarters for the ample accommodation of several thousand guests were soon placed at the |