AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
self by trying to conjecture. He may have wanted to escape from my power to name the permanent occupant by having me make an appointment in its nature temporary. It is certain that he had the purpose of putting me on the Supreme Court, sooner or later. He may even have considered the nomination of Elkin and thus disposing of a formidable rival, or he may have retained all of these purposes in mind as possibilities. It seldom happens that men are able to analyze even their own motives correctly.
At this interview he suggested the probability that Thompson would be content with a term of thirteen months and that it might open a way for my own nomination. I wrote to him November 26th:
I have appointed the Honorable Samuel Gustine Thompson a judge of the Supreme Court. As you are aware, you have suggested to me the probability of my own nomination for that office by the approaching Convention of the Republican Party. Though that position would be entirely agreeable to me, you will perhaps pardon me for saying that I doubt the wisdom of such a course of action from your point of view of responsibility for the outcome of the party deliberations. I write this letter to say that should you find the difficulties greater than you supposed, or should you become convinced that this course is not suitable or feasible, you need not feel in the least embarrassed by the fact that you have made the suggestion.
November 24th, at the Hotel Schenley, at Pittsburgh, along with Judge Buffington, United States Senator J. B. Foraker and others, I spoke to over two hundred of the city's wealthy men and expressed a pet thought.
“What has occurred in New York when she recently absorbed Brooklyn, what has occurred in Chicago when she took into her embrace the whole of Cooke County, must inevitably happen to Pittsburgh. Sitting at the head of the Ohio with her iron and coal, she is to become the foremost of all the inland American cities.”
On the 28th I spoke at the Founders' Day dinner at The
