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Show Prophecy That Was Full filled General Garfield's Veiled Prediction of His Own Nomination for Presi- dency Just Before Starting to the Convention. The late John H. Starin, who might have been governor of New York had he been willing to accept a nomination In the late 80s, and who was for some years a member of congress from one r,f the New York districts, was es teemed by business men as one of the ablest of American men of affairs. He accumulated a very large fortune, was prominent in civic affairs, and to him the city of New York owes a debt of gratitude for his services in aiding to establish the subway rapid transit system. "During a part of the time that I was in congress," said Mr. Starin to me several years before his death, which occured in 1909, "my seat in the house of representatives adjoined that of James A. Garfield. We became very warm friends, and I conceived so great an admiration of his ability that a year or two before the presidential conventions of 1SS0 I had come to hold the opinion that General Garfield was in many respects the most avail-abla avail-abla candidate from the west for the Republicans to nominate for the presidency. presi-dency. Of course, later on, as the delegate from my own state to the Republican Re-publican convention, I was bound to support the nomination of General Grant. But I had a lurking feeling that if we could not nominate Grant, Garfield would be our man. "It so happened that both General Garfield and I planned independently to go from Washington to Chicago to attend the convention by the same train. Garfield was chairman of the Ohio delegation, which had been instructed in-structed to support the nomination of John Sherman. We were greatly pleased when we discovered that we were to take the same train. "We both were In the house of rep- resentatives the morning of the day we were to leave for Chicago. Rather late in the afternoon Garfield turned to me, and said: 'Starin, it is time for us to start. My gripsack is in the cloak room, and I suppose yours is also. Let's go together from the Capitol Capi-tol to the railway station, and we'll keep company all the way to Chicago.' Chica-go.' "As I was taking my hat and my gripsack from the attendant in the cloak room, I heard some one say to Garfield I do not now remember who it was, except that it was a Democrat: 'Garfield, whom are you going to nominate nom-inate for president at the convention? You don't expect to nominate Sherman, Sher-man, do you? And we Democrats figure fig-ure that Blaine and Grant will neutralize neu-tralize each other's votes.' "In reply Garfield said: 'I am to nominate Sherman in behalf of the state of Ohio. Of course we all hope that he will be nominated by the con- ; ventlon.' " 'But whom are you going to nominate, nom-inate, Garfield?' persisted the Democrat. Demo-crat. "I remember perfectly how Garfield Gar-field looked when that question was repeated to him. He turned half around, there was a cordial smile upon his face one that was characteristic of him and then he said: "I don't know. It's very likely to be some one not now named. It is just as likely to be myself as anybody else.' "I was mightily impressed by that reply. It confirmed my own impression impres-sion that Garfield might be our candidate; can-didate; I had already said to one or two friends: 'We can't nominate Grant, Blaine cannot be nominated, and in my opinion Garfield will be the man.' And I am satisfied that at the time Garfield left Washington for Chicago Chi-cago in my company he had reasoned the situation out exactly as I had done." (Copyright, 1910, by the Associated Literary Lit-erary Press.) |