The administration of President Arthur did not begin auspiciously. The circumstances of his nomination and of his succession were against him in the hour of his inheritance. Nor were his record and his affiliations regarded with favor. Under Hayes he had been removed from the office of Collector of the Port of New York on the grounds that his methods in the Custom House had been political rather than businesslike. He was regarded as an excellent gentleman, with a weakness for his friends. Reckoned as an ally of Conkling, then in deep disfavor, he had been fiercely caricatured and criticised, as we have seen. Curtis, in an editorial more or less sympathetic, referred to him as "an amiable gentleman, long engaged in practical politics, with no administrative experience except such as he acquired as Collector of the Port." The fact that he had maintained a demeanor that was at once discreet, dignified and delicate, through all the trying weeks of Garfield's illness, was the one thing which the majority of the press had to say in his

behalf. Nast greeted him with an emblematic cartoon, in which Justice confers on him the sword of power, with the admonition that he

"Use the same

With the like bold, just and impartial spirit
As you have done against me."

To which Arthur replies:

"The tide of blood in me

Hath proudly flowed in vanity till now;
Now doth it turn and ebb back to the sea."

The new President's brief inaugural address made a good impression. It was modest and sympathetic and awakened in the American people that responsive sympathy which is the first step toward confi

dence. Nast never

again found cause

to criticise Arthur,
and eventually be- 1861
came his loyal ad-

mirer and friend.

The

administra

tion of President Ar

thur proved to be

one of the most dignified, careful and upright in our history. Fairness, firmness and calmness were his executive attributes. The men who had scoffed and railed at him learned to honor his

integrity and to respect his attainments. We have only to recall the succession of Andrew Johnson-under conditions somewhat different, it is true, though scarcely less trying-to realize the debt of gratitude this nation owes to Chester A. Arthur.

Yet the autumn elections of 1881 did not bespeak favorable conditions. There was a general" scratching" and " bolting " -a shattering of old idols, the upbuilding of new. Every word and act of the President were regarded as significant. It was prophesied that the usual fate of Vice-Presidents who succeed the Chief Magistrate would overtake him. It was not until his annual message in December that the tide really turned in his favor. It was a moderate document, full and clear, and distinguished for its elegance of diction. Feuds and factions which had threatened to wreck a party and disgrace a nation were-for the time at least-relegated to the background. The new year opened with the public eye directed at Congress rather than toward the President.

During 1882 the work of Nast became somewhat less positive than heretofore. It became more the semi-critical pictorial comment of to-day than a distinct and dominating force. More and more the policy was absorbing the individual, and with an outreach that was circumscribed, and an uncertainty as to the acceptance of his work, which now, as in the days of his earliest employment, was critically considered and debated upon, the time had come which five years before Parton had foreseen, when he wrote, "That feeling of doubt would paralyze your arm in another than the physical sense."

It was not that his work was less appreciated by his publishers, or that the relations betwen them were less cordial. A connection which had endured for twenty years had become something more than a mere matter of business. The younger Harper families and the family of Nast had grown up almost as one. They constantly visited back and forth and the intimacy

between them was that of blood relationship and genuine affection. The difficulty lay in the fact that, as the new times were not the old times, so the new conditions were not the old conditions; the new publishers were not the old publishers; the new cartoonist must become part of a policy where the old cartoonist had been an individual and a leader of men. His career had begun so early in life that he had lived to see the old order change while he was yet in the full bloom of manhood and power. It was difficult for him to comprehend the situation or to consider it fairly. He grew ever more restive under the restraints, and dreamed more continuously of the newspaper which was to be his own, and free. He had been an autocrat and a leader so long-so firmly sustained and so surely vindicatedthat he had no doubt of his ability to continue his success on the old lines. He yielded with poor grace to this new order of things which was to make him but a part of a vast complex mechanism, the whole kept in motion and whirled and driven by a resistless tide of events. Neither did he doubt that eventually some of the money which he had invested, and continued to invest as fast as it accumulated, would return to him in great increase, when all would be well again.

The Star Route investigations and prosecutions which had been dragging through courts and committee rooms came prominently to the fore in 1882. These Routes were mail lines, indicated on the postal maps by a star, leading to points not reached by the railways. Mail to these points was carried by vehicle or on horse-back. A ring of officials controlled the contracts for payment of the carriers, and, somewhat after the manner of the old Tweed transactions, arranged to have such contracts drawn for amounts from five to ten times the cost of service. The bills were allowed and the profits, which ran into millions, were divided—just as the bills of every ring have been allowed and allotted and will continue so to be until the millennium's dawn.

These frauds had been known for some time and when Postmaster General James took charge of his department he declared that he would push the prosecutions regardless of whom they might involve. Thomas W. Brady, Second Assistant Postmaster General, was charged with being party to the Star Route transactions. He was defiant, and announced that he would publish a "Hubbell" letter written by Garfield unless the prosecution was brought to a close. Brady declared Garfield had meant that besides obtaining "voluntary contributions" from the Government employees he was to get funds from the Star Route contractors. Brady's trial was postponed and he was not convicted. Ex-Senator Stephen W. Dorsey of Arkansas was likewise supposed to be a prominent offender, and, among others, was indicted for conspiracy. Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll believed Dorsey innocent of the charge and became his counsel. It has been claimed that Colonel Ingersoll received large sums for his services. On the contrary, he received nothing whatever, but lost a very considerable amount through indorsing the notes of the men he defended. He was severely criticised, however, and the caricaturists, Nast among them, had their way with him. In one of Nast's pictures