Page:The Presidents of the United States, 1789-1914, v. IV.djvu/36

16 LIVES OF THE PRESIDENTS these ninety-four speeches he made no slip. He said nothing that needed apology or explanation from his friends. Verbatim reports of the ad dresses were printed from day to day in all the leading papers of the country, and he never in any thing he said gave his political opponents ground for unfriendly criticism. It is an open secret that some of the members of the National Republican committee were terrified when they learned that the "Hoosier" candidate had commenced the campaign by these free-spoken, off-hand talks with his neigh bors. They proposed that some one should go to Indianapolis and put a stop to the business. A gentleman who knew Gen. Harrison s ability told them not to be alarmed, and at the end of a week the fearful gentlemen had changed their minds and said that if they would allow Gen. Harrison to go on in that way he would elect himself in spite of any blundering of the committee or campaign managers. A few extracts from some of these speeches may give an idea of their quality. To the California delegation the day after the nomination he said: "I feel sure, too, my fellow-citizens, that we have joined now a contest of great principles, and that the armies which are to fight out this great contest before the American people will encamp upon the high plains of principle and not in the low swamps of personal defamation or detraction." To a num-