GOVERNOR, 1903
“No,” said Quay. “If you return that money Elkin will use it somewhere else against me. You deposit it in your name in a trust company and get three per cent interest. After the campaign is over Elkin is sure to be dead broke. Then you give him that money. He will be glad and you will help him and me too.”
There was a stormy time at the convention in June. Louis A. Watres, a wealthy man living in Scran ton, who had been lieutenant governor, was also a candidate with twenty-six delegates. His role was that of a dark horse, but he turned his delegates over to Quay on the first ballot. I had two hundred and six votes and Elkin one hundred and fifty-two. The delegates sang their coarse improvised song:
| Sit down, you beggars, sit down, |
| Elkin will have his say |
| But not to-day; |
| Sit down, you beggars, sit down, |
| One, two, three, four. |
| Who in hell are we for? |
| Pennypacker, Pennypacker, |
| Pennypacker, Pennypacker. |
It was all over and the old political warrior had won what he declared to be at the time, and what proved to be, his last battle. A telegram informing me of the result was handed me while sitting in the trial of a case in the quarter sessions court just as I was about to charge the jury. A newspaper the next morning reported:
The case was a long and tedious one, involving several complex questions in law and requiring careful attention to uninteresting facts and statistics. In his charge to the jury Judge Pennypacker reviewed the evidence at length. He did not omit an important feature of the evidence and even took occasion to clarify some of the less important testimony. His statement of the law was not only satisfactory to both sides, but his language was as clear and terse as the rhetoric of the text-books.
