GOVERNOR, 1903
Those who accompanied me during the greater part of the time were William M. Brown, of New Castle, the candidate for lieutenant governor; William I. Schaffer, a leading lawyer of Chester and state reporter, and Colonel Ned Arden Flood, of Meadville. Brown, a short man with intense eyes, had all the look of a pirate, especially after he had examined the bottom of a glass, as he sometimes did, but he had many merits and I grew to be quite fond of him. He could hold his own in a scrap with great quickness and pertinacity. It is told of him that once in early youth with no prospects before him, he went into a gambling house, ventured his stakes and won $5,000. This sum was said to have been the foundation of his fortune and he never went near a gambling house again, which shows his good sense. He now had money and lived in a large and well-appointed house and I am told he has since become very rich. Schaffer and Flood were both orators of much power, but using very different methods.
Among my literary friends, Dr. S. Weir Mitchell favored my election and Henry C. Lea thought that it would only be a prolongation of existing iniquity.
One of the last speeches was at Norristown, October 30th, in which I said:
I have never sought the office of Governor of Pennsylvania. I do not seek it now; I have asked no man in this state to vote for me. I do not ask you to vote for me. The responsibility of this election rests upon you. Should I be elected next Tuesday, then without any sense of elation, with an appreciation of the great confidence you have resposed in me, I shall accept that high office which I regard as one of the highest upon the face of the earth because it is the highest executive office in the greatest of the American commonwealths, and I shall go forward to the performance of my duties with a sense of responsibility and with a determination to perform those duties to the very utmost of my abilities.
Roosevelt announced from Washington that my defeat would be “a national calamity.”
