convention assembled in Madison September 1, 1869. Mr. Rublee had been appointed minister to Switzerland, and a new man had to be elected in his place. Mr. E. W. Keyes was made chairman. The other members were Gen. F. C. Winkler, G. W. Hazelton, John R. Bennett, O. B. Thomas, A. Scott Sloan, James Coleman, Henry Kleinpell, Frank Leland, A. Guesnier, G. H. Gile, H. B. Philleo and G. W. Woodward. All the members of this committee afterward became prominent in our politics. Judge Keyes was for eight years chairman of the State Committee, and was a prominent candidate for the United States Senate in the hot contest of 1879; three of the others were elected to Congress, namely, Hazelton, Thomas and Sloan; Judge Bennett was elected circuit judge; Gen. Winkler was twice a candidate for Congress, and three of the others were prominent Republican editors in the State.

Mr. Keyes was reëlected chairman in 1871-'73 and '75, each time by ballot. At the convention that assembled September 11, 1877, in calling the convention to order Mr. Keyes made the announcement that he should decline the election as chairman for another term. Mr. Horace Rublee, who had returned from his mission abroad, was prevailed upon to accept his old position as chairman, and he was unanimously elected. In 1879 R. H. Baker, of Racine, was appointed chairman and served one term. Mr. Edward Sanderson was elected chairman in 1881, and served two years. In 1884 Horace A. Taylor was elected chairman of the committee, and was reëlected in 1886, serving four years. In August, 1888, the State Convention was held in the city of Milwaukee, and Henry C. Payne was elected chairman, and was reëlected in 1890. In 1892 Mr. H. C. Thom was appointed chairman of the committee, and was reëlected in 1894. Mr. Thom died Lefore the expiration of his term, and E. D. Coe was appointed in his place. The chairman in the successful campaign of 1898 was Joseph B. Treat, who holds the position at the present time.

The two longest terms as chairman of the Republican State Central Committee were served by Horace Rublee, twelve years, and E. W. Keyes, eight years-the two gentlemen named directing the affairs of the party during twenty of the forty-six years of its existence.

While it is customary to refer to the heads of political campaign committees as "bosses," and to charge them with all sorts of sinister ambitions and methods of operation while they are in power, it is the popular judgment regarding the men of both the principal political parties in Wisconsin who have held the posts of generalsin-chief during the campaigns of the past forty years, that they have been citizens of bright intelligence and large ability who have worked devotedly for the success of political principles in which they enthusiastically believed. The political history of Wisconsin has, during the whole of that period, been remarkably free from scandal. Questions at issue have been hotly contested, and there has at times. been some acrimony, but the votes of the people have decided the result, and there has never been any doubt that, minor local disputes out of the question, those votes have been counted as they were cast. Wisconsin has gained an enviable reputation as a clean, orderly, well-governed State-a model which certain of her sister commonwealths would do well to follow--and the elevated character of the men who have held political chairmanships has no doubt been a factor in producing her creditable record.

喜茶

CHAPTER XXV.

BIOGRAPHICAL.

It was Emerson who said, "There is properly no history, only biography." Of course he did not mean to be literally understood. His object was to make an epigram that should sharply call attention to an important truth by overstating it. There is history, but there is biography also, and biography supplements and illuminates history to an extent which is appreciable no less in this age than it was in the age of Plutarch. The collection presented herewith of sketches of men who have contributed and are contributing to the making of the political history of Wisconsin, is representative, but lays no claim to completeness. Had Mr. Thomson lived, he would have lent to the presentation of the facts here outlined the graces of his literary style. As it is, they are baldly set forth by another hand. But they are facts which, lacking the adventitious aid of ornament, possess no small degree of interest. It is significant that almost without exception the men who have risen to political prominence in Wisconsin were poor boys, obliged to struggle in order to obtain scholastic training, and in some cases forced to go without more than the merest rudiments of that culture which comes from systematic study under the supervision of teachers in the high school, the academy, and the college. William P. Lyon, who became Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was a clerk in a country store at the early age of 11. Jeremiah M. Rusk, who rose to be a Brigadier-General in the Civil War, three times elected Congressman, three times elected Governor of the State, and a useful member of the Cabinet of President Harrison, had but a few terms of rural schooling and was by his father's death left with the responsibility of working a large farm and caring for his mother and sister at the age of 16. Very few of those who entered college were able to do so until they had, by their