"How goes the battle?"

"Good. We have got you fellows on the run. Mr. Carpenter is beaten already. All it needs now is to record the vote." "Oh, I think you are mistaken."

"Say, Keyes, you have it in your power to end all this trouble and elect a Senator that everyone will be pleased with, and I appeal to you to do it."

"How can it be done? I am all attention. If you damned traitors would only give in and stand by the caucus nominee, there would be no trouble. How can I unite the party now? The joint convention meets in an hour."

"I will tell you how. You are chairman of the State Central Committee. The people look to you for guidance. Take the responsibility to withdraw Mr. Carpenter's name and substitute the name of Judge Dixon, Judge Cole, Gen. Fairchild, Horace Rublee, E. H. Brodhead or any other capable Republican, and all the bolters will fall into line. Let the Republican who is first on the roll, when his name is called by the clerk, state to the convention that the friends of Mr. Carpenter are satisfied that he cannot be elected, and that, at a hasty conference of his supporters, it had been agreed that his name should be withdrawn and the name of should be substituted. Every Republican would follow his lead, and everything would be lovely. It is a choice for you between that and defeat."

"If I should do that without Carpenter's consent I should be denounced as a traitor. No; if you fellows want to trample party discipline under your feet you must take the responsibility. We realize that the situation is critical, but not desperate. Let the galled jade wince."

The joint convention met in a few minutes. It was presided over by the Lieutenant-Governor, who was opposed to Carpenter, but he knew nothing of parliamentary law, and could be easily fooled on a point of order. What we feared most was that after the roll was called, and before the result was announced, enough Democrats would change their votes from Cameron to Carpenter to elect him. Charges of corruption had been frequent, and it was anybody's race. The roll call proceeded and everybody kept tally.

The scene was intensely dramatic. The bolters voted solidly for Cameron, and so did the Democrats, according to agreement. When Cameron got a majority a half-suppressed cheer was heard, and a thrill of satisfaction ran over the crowded Assembly chamber, like a ripple over the surface of a lake. When the roll was completed, but before the result was announced, one Mulholland, a Democrat, from Manitowoc county, got up and changed his vote from Cameron to Carpenter! At this a great shout went up that pierced the heavens! Was this the beginning of the end? Had the Carpenter crowd really secured enough Democratic votes to elect him, and were they now to change? There was treason in the air, and everybody's nerves were at extreme tension! The chief clerk waited a moment for others to change their votes, but no other changes were made, and Mr. Cameron was declared elected!

Judge Doolittle did not care a fig who the successful candidate was; he had no love for Mr. Cameron, but he gladly accepted him, as he seemed to be, and undoubtedly was, the only Republican who could command the solid vote of the Democratic members.

Judge Keyes was an interested spectator of the proceedings, as may well be imagined, and when all was over he walked silently out of the Assembly chamber, looking very pale, and no doubt murmuring to himself the oft-repeated words of Shakespeare: "Can such things be,

And overcome us like a summer's cloud,

Without our special wonder?"

The certainty that Governor Taylor would be renominated by his party for a second term, and the fact that he had beaten so excellent and popular a man as General Washburn two years before, made it necessary for the Republicans to look over their list of available gubernatorial candidates very carefully, and after doing so the choice fell upon Harrison Ludington of Milwaukee. Ludington did not meet the usual number of willing aspirants in the nominating convention, but found it easy sailing. Taylor's majority of over 15,000 two years before made Republican candidates a little shy, and the contests for nominations on the State ticket were not animated. Ludington had been elected mayor

of Milwaukee at a time when the Democracy had a large majority in the city, when they could control it, and that fact gave him prestige as a popular man throughout the state. He was known as a successful merchant and business man in pioneer days when the wheat that the farmers hauled into the city over mud roads was sold for 40 and 50 cents a bushel and the purchaser was expected to shoulder some of the bags himself in helping to unload the wagons. He had amassed a comfortable fortune by legitimate methods, was regarded as an honest and honorable man, full of practical ideas, and an original Republican. He had made an excellent mayor, and there was no reason for thinking that he would not serve the people faithfully and well as the Governor of the State. He was elected over Taylor by a few hundred majority, after a well contested campaign, although all the other candidates on the ticket with him failed to pull through. The old habit of the people to elect the Governor of one party, and fill the rest of the State offices with his opponents in politicsas in case of Farwell and Bashford, and partially the case in Randall's first election was repeated in Ludington's time, and the Republicans only succeeded in electing the Governor, all the other offices going to the Democrats. His administration was not attended by any political excitement whatever, and at the end of his term, 1878, he retired to private life with a clean record. and the respect and confidence of all who knew him. He died at his home in Milwaukee June 17, 1891.

Note-Of course Mr. Thomson knew, on the subject of the senatorial contest of 1875, a great deal more than he has written. In the newspaper form in which this Political History of Wisconsin originally appeared, he said, in a parenthesis: "The inside story of this whole affair forms one of the most interesting incidents in our political history, but there is not room for it in the brief space allotted to these papers in The Sentinel."

CHAPTER XVIII.

THE GREENBACK EPIDEMIC.

William E. Smith had long been a candidate for gubernatorial honors on the Republican ticket. He was a resident of Dodge county and had been prominent in the affairs of State. He had been a member of the State Senate in 1858, 1859, 1864 and 1865, member of the Assembly in 1858, and Speaker of that body in 1871. He had also served four years as State Treasurer, from 1866 to 1870. In all these responsible positions he had acquitted himself with so much credit that his popularity kept pace with his ambition, and when he offered himself as a candidate for the nomination of Governor, it was not strange that he had a large following. He was of Scotch birth, coming to America with his parents when a mere child, and working on the farm and clerking in a store until he attained his majority. Mr. Smith was not an educated man in the sense that he had been graduated from a college or university, but that he had acquired that sort of practical education which fits a man to discharge well all the public duties imposed upon him by his fellow citizens, was amply proven by his successful career of four years in the highest office in the gift of the electors of the State. One of the curiosities of Wisconsin's political history is that of the nineteen gentlemen who have filled the office of Governor, not one was a college graduate. And it can in truth be added in this connection that one of the best rulers the State has ever had, a worthy citizen, a gallant soldier, an able executive, and a useful member of the President's cabinet, could neither speak nor write the English language correctly. And yet there were those among the executives who were excellent lawyers, eloquent orators, practical business men, gallant soldiers, foreign ministers, former congressmen and members of the cabinet. Unlike the practice in many