AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PENNSYLVANIAN
and requiring them to print the names of owners and editors was repealed after this fashion. The latter part of it was immediately re-enacted and this enabled it to be said, with a conscience none too nice, that the whole act had been repealed. By this course the administration secured such popularity as could be gained by newspaper favorable report.
3. An act of assembly provided for a commission to erect a statue to Senator Quay “on the capitol grounds at Harrisburg.” The commission had prepared, by a competent artist, a marble statue to be placed in one of the capitol arches and it was now ready for erection. There was the usual outcry and, in obedience to it, instead of to the law, the statue lay in a box for two years. This was a plain and direct violation of a statute by those sworn to see that the laws were enforced. At the next session of the legislature a mandatory act was passed and the statue was put in its place.
4. Neither the district attorney of the county nor the attorney general conducted the prosecution of those who had so well builded the capitol. Private counsel of capacity and experience were employed for the purpose. But the attorney general sat with them through all of the trials and saw to it that the weight of the commonwealth was thrown against the defendants.
It cannot be said that regard for the public weal inspired any of these acts. Nor so far as the head of the administration is concerned was there any ill will or personal motive. In his kindly and good-hearted way, no doubt, he wished things were otherwise. But it was a case of sheer lack of will power to resist the influences surrounding him.
1524 Walnut Street,
Philadelphia.
My dear Governor:
You did it better than well, and personally I thank you. I did not say with what double gratitude the senators of our Big