y serve it. In one of our spats
I remember saying to him, "You seem, Mr. President, to think you are the
only pebble on the beach--the one honest and brave man in the party--hut
let me assure you of my own knowledge that there are others." His answer
was, "Oh, you go to ----!"

He split his party wide open. The ostensible cause was the money issue.
But, underlying this, there was a deal of personal embitterment. Had he
been a man of foresight--or even of ordinary discernment--he might have
held it together and with it behind him have carried the gold standard.

I had contended for a sound currency from the outset of the fiscal
contention, fighting first the green-back craze and then the free silver
craze against an overwhelming majority in the West and South, nowhere
more radically relentless than in Kentucky. Both movements had their
origin on economic fallacies and found their backing in dishonest
purpose to escape honest indebtedness.

Through Mr. Cleveland the party of Jefferson, Jackson, and Tilden was
converted from a Democrat into a Populist, falling into the arms of Mr.
Bryan, whose domination proved as baleful in one way as Mr. Cleveland's
had been in another, the final result shipwreck, with the extinguishment
of all but the label.

Mr. Bryan was a young man of notable gifts of speech and boundless
self-assertion. When he found himself well in the saddle he began
to rule despotically and to ride furiously. A party leader more
short-sighted could hardly be imagined. None of his judgments came true.
As a consequence the Republicans for a long time had everything their
own way, and, save for the Taft-Roosevelt quarrel, might have held their
power indefinitely. All history tells us that the personal equation must
be reckoned with in public life. Assuredly it cuts no mean figure in
human affairs. And, when politicians fall out--well--the other side
comes in.

Chapter the Twenty-First

Stephen Foster, the Song-Writer--A Friend Comes to the Rescu
His Originality--"My Old Kentucky Home" and the "Old Folks at
Home"--General Sherman and "Marching Through Georgia"

I have received many letters touching what I said a little while ago of
Stephen Collins Foster, the song writer. In that matter I had, and
could have had, no unkindly thought or purpose. The story of the musical
scrapbook rested not with me, but as I stated, upon the averment of Will
S. Hays, a rival song writer. But that the melo