he had taken his buggy and had driven around
Franklin County visiting everybody, had upset the local ring, and came
to the Legislature as his own master. There is surely something in
American traditions that does tend toward real democracy in spite of our
faults and shortcomings. In most other countries two men of as different
antecedents, ancestry, and surroundings as Billy O'Neill and I would
have had far more difficulty in coming together. I came from the biggest
city in America and from the wealthiest ward of that city, and he from
a backwoods county where he kept a store at a crossroads. In all the
unimportant things we seemed far apart. But in all the important things
we were close together. We looked at all questions from substantially
the same view-point, and we stood shoulder to shoulder in every
legislative fight during those three years. He abhorred demagogy just
as he abhorred corruption. He had thought much on political problems; he
admired Alexander Hamilton as much as I did, being a strong believer
in a powerful National government; and we both of us differed from
Alexander Hamilton in being stout adherents of Abraham Lincoln's views
wherever the rights of the people were concerned. Any man who has met
with success, if he will be frank with himself, must admit that there
has been a big element of fortune in the success. Fortune favored me,
whereas her hand was heavy against Billy O'Neill. All his life he had to
strive hard to wring his bread from harsh surroundings and a reluctant
fate; if fate had been but a little kinder, I believe he would have had
a great political career; and he would have done good service for the
country in any position in which he might have been put.

There were other Republicans, like Isaac Hunt and Jonas van Duzer and
Walter Howe and Henry Sprague, who were among my close friends and
allies; and a gigantic one-eyed veteran of the Civil War, a gallant
General, Curtis from St. Lawrence County; and a capital fellow, whom
afterwards, when Governor, I put on the bench, Kruse, from Cattaraugus
County. Kruse was a German by birth; as far as I know, the only German
from Cattaraugus County at that time; and, besides being a German, he
was also a Prohibitionist. Among the Democrats were Hamden Robb and
Thomas Newbold, and Tom Welch of Niagara, who did a great service in
getting the State to set aside Niagara Falls Park--after a discouraging
experience with the first Governor before whom w