He was so sure of his election in 1888 that he could not
be induced to see the danger of the situation in his own State of New York,
where David Bennett Hill, who had succeeded him in the governorship, was a
candidate for reelection, and whom he personally detested, had become the
ruling party force. He lost the State, and with it the election, while Hill
won, and thereby arose an ugly faction fight.
I did not believe as the quadrennial period approached in 1892 that Mr.
Cleveland could be elected. I still think he owed his election, and
Harrison his defeat, to the Homestead riots of the midsummer, which
transferred the labor vote bodily from the Republicans to the Democrats.
Mainly on account of this belief I opposed his nomination that year.
In the Kentucky State Convention I made my opposition resonant, if not
effective. "I understand," I said in an address to the assembled delegates,
"that you are all for Grover Cleveland?"
There came an affirmative roar.
"Well," I continued, "I am not, and if you send me to the National
Convention I will not vote for his nomination, if his be the only name
presented, because I firmly believe that his nomination will mean the
marching through a slaughter-house to an open grave, and I refuse to be
party to such a folly."
The answer of the convention was my appointment by acclamation, but it was
many a day before I heard the last of my unlucky figure of speech.
Notwithstanding this splendid indorsement, I went to the National
Convention feeling very like the traditional "poor boy at a frolic.
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