as understood was to commence on the 25th of August. I carefully
dictated my opening speech, which was delivered at Findlay on that
day to a large audience. It was printed and circulated, but most
of the points discussed have been settled by the march of time.
Some of them it may be of interest to recall. I contrasted the
condition of Findlay then to Findlay when I first saw it, but if
the contrast was to be made now it would be more striking. I
described the formation and history of parties as they then existed,
and assumed that as Hoadley, who had been an Abolitionist or
Republican and a supporter of the war, was then the Democratic
candidate for governor, and that as Ewing and Bookwalter, the latest
Democratic candidates for governor, had also been Republicans, we
could assume this as a confession that the measures of the Republican
party were right. I said: "All these distinguished and able
gentlemen have been Republican partisans, as I have; and Judge
Hoadley has, I think, been rather more free in his denunciation of
the Democratic party than I have. To the extent, therefore, of
acquiescence in the great issues that have divided us in the past,
_the Democratic party concedes that we were right_."

I then presented the liquor question and the Scott law. I defended
the tax imposed by this law as a wise tax, the principle of which
had been adopted in most of the states and in the chief countries
of Europe. Hoadley, instead of meeting this argument fairly,
attacked the proposed amendments to the constitution prohibiting
the sale of spirits and beer as a part of the creed of the Republican
party, instead of a mere reference to the people of a disputed
policy. This was the display of the skill of the trained lawyer
to evade the real issue of the "Scott" bill. He treated the
reduction of the duty on wool with the same dexterity, charging it
upon the Republican party, when he knew that every Democratic vote
had been cast for it, and for even a greater reduction, and that
nearly every Republican vote had been cast against it. The entire
canvass of Hoadley was an ingenious evasion of the real issues,
and in its want of frankness and fairness was in marked contrast
with the speeches of Foraker.

After the Findlay meeting I went to Cincinnati and attended the
harvest home festival in Green township, and read an address on
the life and work of A. J. Downing, a noted horticulturalist and
writer on rural architectu