During the following autumn, in spite of my absorption in university interests, I was elected a delegate to the State Convention, and in October made a few political speeches, the most important being at Clinton, the site of Hamilton College. This was done at the special request of Senator Conkling, and on my way I passed a day with him at Utica, taking a long drive through the adjacent country. Never was he more charming. The bitter and sarcastic mood seemed to have dropped off him; the overbearing manner had left no traces; he was full of delightful reminiscences and it was a day to be remembered.
I also spoke at various other places and, last of all, at Clifton Springs, but received there a rebuff which was not without its uses.
I had thought my speeches successful; but at the latter place, taking the cars next morning, I heard a dialogue between two railway employees, as follows:
``Bill, did you go to the meetin' last night?'' ``Yes.'' ``How was it?'' ``It wa'n't no meetin', leastwise no P'LITICAL meetin'; there wa'n't nothin' in it fur the boys; it was only one of them scientific college purfessors lecturin'.'' And so I sped homeward, pondering on many things, but strengthened, by this homely criticism, in my determination to give my efforts henceforth to the new university.
CHAPTER IX
GENERAL GRANT AND SANTO DOMINGO—1868-1871
During the two or three years following my senatorial term, work in the founding and building of Cornell University was so engrossing that there was little time for any effort which could be called political. In the early spring of 1868 I went to Europe to examine institutions for scientific and technological instruction, and to secure professors and equipment, and during about six months I visited a great number of such schools, especially those in agriculture, mechanical, civil, and mining engineering and the like in England, France, Germany, and Italy; bought largely of books and apparatus, discussed the problems at issue with Europeans who seemed likely to know most about them, secured sundry professors, and returned in September just in time to take part in the opening of Cornell University and be inaugurated as its first president. Of all this I shall speak more in detail hereafter.
There was no especial temptation to activity in the political campaign of that year; for the election of General Grant was sure, and my main memory of the period is a visit to Auburn to hear Mr. Seward.
It had been his wont for many years, when he came home to cast his vote, to meet his neighbors on the eve of the election and give his views of the situation and of its resultant duties. These occasions had come to be anticipated with the deepest interest by the whole region round about, and what had begun as a little gathering of neighors had now become such an assembly that the largest hall in the place was crowded with voters of all parties.
But this year came a disappointment. Although the contest was between General Grant,—who on various decisive battle-fields had done everything to save the administration of which Mr. Seward had been a leading member, —and on the other side, Governor Horatio Seymour, who had done all in his power to wreck it, Mr. Seward devoted his speech to optimistic generalities, hardly alluding to the candidates, and leaving the general impression that one side was just as worthy of support as the other.