fees and prerequisites, be adopted. Complaint having been made by the state commissioner of railroads and telegraphs that many “clear and palpable violations of law” had been committed by railroad companies, Gov. Hayes asked, in his message of 1872, that a commission of five citizens be organized, with ample power to investigate the management of railroad companies, and to report the information acquired with a recommendation of such measures as they might deem expedient. He also, believing that “publicity is a great corrector of official abuses,” recommended that it be made the duty of the governor, on satisfactory information that the public good required an investigation of the affairs of any public office or the conduct of any public officer, whether state or local, to appoint one or more citizens, who should have ample powers to make such investigation. Gov. Hayes's administration of the executive office of his state won general approval, without distinction of party. At the expiration of his term, when a senator of the United States was to be elected, and several Republican members of the legislature were disinclined to vote for John Sherman, who controlled a majority of the Republican votes, Gov. Hayes was approached with the assurance that he could be elected senator by the anti-Sherman Republicans with the aid of the Democratic members of the legislature; but he positively declined.
In July, 1872, Gov. Hayes was strongly urged by many Republicans in Cincinnati to accept a nomination for congress. Wishing to retire permanently from political life, he declined; but when he was nominated in spite of his protests, he finally yielded his consent. In his speeches during the canvass he put forward as the principal issues an honest financial policy and civil-service reform. Several sentences on civil-service reform that he pronounced in a speech at Glendale, on 4 Sept., 1872, were to appear again in his letter accepting the nomination for the presidency four years later. In 1872 the current of public sentiment in Cincinnati ran against the Republican party, and Gov. Hayes was defeated in the election by a majority of 1,500. President Grant offered him the office of assistant treasurer of the United States at Cincinnati, which he declined. In 1873 he established his home at Fremont, in the northern part of Ohio, with the firm intention of final retirement from public life. In 1874 he came into possession of a considerable estate as the heir of his uncle, Sardis Birchard. In 1875 the Republican state convention again nominated him for the governorship. He not only had not desired that nomination, but whenever spoken or written to about it, uniformly replied that his retirement was absolute, and that neither his interests nor his tastes permitted him to accept. But the circumstances were such as to overcome his reluctance. In 1873 the Democratic candidate, William Allen (q. v.), was elected governor of Ohio. His administration was honest and economical, and he was personally popular, and his renomination by the Democratic party in 1875 seemed to be a foregone conclusion. It was equally certain that the Democratic convention would declare itself in favor of a circulation of irredeemable paper money, and against the resumption of specie payments. Under such circumstances the Republicans felt themselves compelled to put into the field against him the strongest available candidate they had, and a large majority of them turned at once to Gov. Hayes. But he had declared himself in favor of Judge Taft, of Cincinnati, and urged the delegates from his county to vote for that gentleman, which they did. Notwithstanding this, the convention nominated Hayes on the first ballot by an overwhelming majority. When he, at Fremont, received the telegraphic announcement of his nomination, he at once wrote a letter declining the honor; but upon the further information that Judge Taft's son, withdrawing the name of his father, had moved in the convention to make the nomination unanimous, he accepted. Thus he became the leader of the advocates of a sound and stable currency in that memorable state canvass, the public discussions in which did so much to mould the sentiments of the people, especially in the western states, with regard to that important subject. The Democratic convention adopted a platform declaring that the volume of the currency (meaning the irredeemable paper currency of the United States) should be made and kept equal to the wants of trade; that the national bank currency should be retired, and greenbacks issued in its stead; and that at least half of the customs duties should be made payable in the government paper money. The Republicans were by no means as united in favor of honest money as might have been desired, and Gov. Hayes was appealed to by many of his party friends not to oppose an increase of the paper currency; but he resolutely declared his opinions in favor of honest money in a series of speeches, appealing to honor and sober judgment of the people with that warmth of patriotic feeling and that good sense in the statement of political issues which, uttered in language always temperate and kindly, gave him the ear of opponents as well as friends. The canvass, on account of the national questions involved in it, attracted attention in all parts of the country, and Gov. Hayes was well supported by speakers from other states. Another subject had been thrust upon the people of Ohio by a legislative attempt to divide the school fund between Catholics and Protestants, and Hayes vigorously advocated the cause of secular education. After an ardent struggle, he carried the election by a majority of 5,500. He had thus not only won the distinction of being elected three times governor of his state, but, as the successful leader in a campaign for an honest money system, he was advanced to a very prominent position among the public men of the country, and his name appeared at once among those of possible candidates for the presidency.
While thus spoken of and written to, he earnestly insisted upon the maintenance by his party of an uncompromising position concerning the money question. To James A. Garfield he wrote in March, 1876: “The previous question will again be irredeemable paper as a permanent policy, or a policy which seeks a return to coin. My opinion is decidedly against yielding a hair-breadth.” On 29 March, 1876, the Republican state convention of Ohio passed a resolution to present Rutherford B. Hayes to the National Republican convention for the nomination for president, and instructing the state delegation to support him. The National Republican convention met at Cincinnati on 14 June, 1876. The principal candidates before it were James G. Blaine, Oliver P. Morton, Benjamin H. Bristow, Roscoe Conkling, Gov. Hayes, and John F. Hartranft. The name of Hayes was presented to the convention by Gen. Noyes in an exceedingly judicious and well-tempered speech, dwelling not only upon his high personal character, but upon the fact that he had no enemies and possessed peculiarly the qualities “calculated best to compromise all difficulties and to soften all antagonisms.” Hayes had sixty-one votes on the first ballot, 378 being necessary to a choice, and his
