REFORMER
for superannuated officials and merited promotion within each department of the public service.”
The members of the Executive Committee were now Wharton Barker, chairman, Samuel S. Hollingsworth, Samuel W. Pennypacker, Edward R. Wood, Henry Reed, Mayer Sulzberger and Silas W. Pettit. The fact that of these seven, one went to city councils, three to the bench and one to the governor's chair has a lesson for ambitious young men. The surest road to success in public life is to ascertain some principle, right in itself and beneficial to the state, and cling to it until the world understands, as in time it surely will.
The importance of money is very much exaggerated. I have known the most successful merchant in America to seek the United States Senate, and a coal miner, said to be worth thirty millions of dollars, to seek the governorship, and both of them failed. The effort to build up popularity by promising to give the people not what they ought to have, but what they are crying for at the moment, to spread the sail for all the winds that may happen to blow is likewise to follow the path which ends at Sahara.
In order to make a test of our hold upon Garfield, we determined upon a candidate for one of the important offices in Philadelphia, not one of ourselves; and Barker, Hollingsworth, Pettit, Wood and myself made a pilgrimage to Washington. One of the party suggested that before seeing the President, we make a call of courtesy upon the Attorney General. MacVeagh soon discovered our errand and without invitation said: “I will go over with you,” and at once proceeded to take charge of the party. He is nothing unless adroit and with an assumption that we were unknown introduced us to the President as very good friends of his from Philadelphia engaged in dilettante politics and seeking to better a wicked world. Garfield, robust, alert and cordial took the cue at once and as one speech after another was made wore a half-concealed smile which boded ill.
