has made the colored voter a dependent, and not an independent, American citizen.  The Republican party emancipated him from physical bondage, for which he is grateful.  It remains for the Democratic party to emancipate him from political bondage, for which he will be equally grateful.  You are engaged, Mr. President, in a good and glorious work.  As a colored man I thank you for the brave and noble stand you have taken.  God grant that you, as a Democrat, may have influence enough to get the Democratic party as an organization to support you in the noble stand you have so bravely taken.”

The President thanked me for my expressions of good-will, and thus terminated what to me was a remarkable as well as a pleasant and most agreeable interview.

A few days later a messenger from the State Department called at my office and informed me that the Secretary of State, Judge Gresham, desired to see me.  Judge Gresham and I had been warm personal friends for many years.  He had occupied many positions of prominence and responsibility.  He had been a major-general in the Union army, and was with Sherman’s army during that celebrated March through Georgia.  He was one of the leading candidates for the Presidential nomination before the National Republican Convention at Chicago in 1888, when General Benjamin Harrison, of Indiana, was nominated.

I was a member of that Convention and one of Judge Gresham’s active supporters.  In the campaign that followed Judge Gresham gave General Harrison his active and loyal support, but, for some unaccountable reason, he supported Mr. Cleveland against General Harrison in 1892.  Mr. Cleveland was not only elected, but, contrary to public expectation, he carried the State of Illinois,—­a State in which Judge Gresham was known to be very popular, especially among the colored people of Chicago; many of whom, it was said, voted for Mr. Cleveland through the efforts and influence of Judge Gresham.  Mr. Cleveland evidently believed that his success in Illinois was due largely to Judge Gresham, and as evidence of that fact, and because Judge Gresham was known to be a very able man, Mr. Cleveland paid him the distinguished honor of appointing him to the leading position in his cabinet,—­that of Secretary of State.

When I called at the State Department the Judge invited me to a seat in his private office.  He said there was an important matter about which he desired to talk with me.  My name, he said, had been the subject of a recent conversation between the President and himself.  The President, he said, was well aware of the cordial relations existing between us, and believed that if any man could influence my action he, Gresham, was that man.