met at luncheon in
the Boyne Club; Mr. Barbour, President of the Railroad, Mr. Scherer, of
the Boyne Iron Works and other corporations, Mr. Leonard Dickinson, of
the Corn National Bank, Mr. Halsey, a prominent banker from the other
great city of the state, Mr. Grunewald, Chairman of the Republican State
Committee, and Mr. Frederick Grierson, who had become a very important
man in our community. At four o'clock they emerged from the club:
citizens in Boyne Street who saw them chatting amicably on the steps
little suspected that in the last three hours these gentlemen had chosen
and practically elected the man who was to succeed Mr. Wade as United
States Senator in Washington. Those were the days in which great affairs
were simply and efficiently handled. No democratic nonsense about leaving
the choice to an electorate that did not know what it wanted.

The man chosen to fill this high position was Theodore Watling. He said
he would think about the matter.

In the nation at large, through the defection of certain Northern states
neither so conservative nor fortunate as ours, the Democratic party was
in power, which naturally implies financial depression. There was no
question about our ability to send a Republican Senator; the choice in
the Boyne Club was final; but before the legislature should ratify it, a
year or so hence, it were just as well that the people of the state
should be convinced that they desired Mr. Watling more than any other
man; and surely enough, in a little while such a conviction sprang up
spontaneously. In offices and restaurants and hotels, men began to
suggest to each other what a fine thing it would be if Theodore Watling
might be persuaded to accept the toga; at the banks, when customers
called to renew their notes and tight money was discussed and Democrats
excoriated, it was generally agreed that the obvious thing to do was to
get a safe man in the Senate. From the very first, Watling sentiment
stirred like spring sap after a hard winter.

The country newspapers, watered by providential rains, began to put forth
tender little editorial shoots, which Mr. Judah B. Tallant presently
collected and presented in a charming bouquet in the Morning Era. "The
Voice of the State Press;" thus was the column headed; and the remarks of
the Hon. Fitch Truesdale, of the St. Helen's Messenger, were given a
special prominence. Mr. Truesdale was the first, in his section, to be
inspired by the happy thought t