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“Mr. Hendricks is a man whom very few understand,” she told reporters assembled outside her house. “I often tell him he ought not to be in politics, for he is as sensitive as a woman.” In a crack deeply offensive to Cleveland, Eliza Hendricks added, “Thomas was put on to strengthen a bad nomination.” (Mrs. Hendricks later claimed to have been misquoted.)

Tammany Hall was dust, so disgusted with the nomination of Cleveland its delegates boycotted the final session of the convention. Tammany delegates were intensely resented, and they found it prudent to remove their Tammany badges lest they be physically accosted on the streets. Kelly and his people packed their gripsacks and boarded a train out of Chicago at 6:00 p.m. that Friday. Thirty-seven hours later, they pulled into the depot in Manhattan. In the contemptuous words of The New York Times, Tammany’s braves, “shorn of their plumes . . . drank very little firewater” on the depressing train trip home.

Somebody asked John Kelly what he would do next. “I do not know,” he said.

“What do you think of the nomination?”

“I think that it means defeat. I thought so before it was made, and I think so still. I am sorry that the convention was so blind as not to see it.”

In Augusta, Maine, James Blaine was already immersed in preparations for the fall presidential campaign. Publicly, Blaine said he considered Cleveland to be a weak nominee because no one outside New York State knew much about the man. Privately, however, Blaine confided to his son that he was deeply concerned. Cleveland would make a formidable opponent. New York was the key to victory. The candidate who took New York would be the next president, and Cleveland had the home court advantage. Fortunately, Blaine was in possession of some dynamite. It came in the form of a letter, sent to him on June 30. A Buffalo physician, Dr. Samuel A. Warren, had written it, and the contents could have enormous consequences to the campaign. If the information was true, it could finish the Democrats. Cleveland might even have to withdraw. Blaine was enormously appreciative, and had had his private secretary, Thomas Sherman, write a thank-you note to Dr. Warren.

“I am directed by Mr. Blaine to thank you for your kindness of June 30, which he has read with interest, and referred confidentially to the secretary of the Republican National Committee.”

9

“A TERRIBLE TALE”

MARK TWAIN MOVED to Buffalo when he was already a prominent writer whose masterpieces The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, yet to be written, would later bring him international fame. In 1869, he bought a one-third interest in the Buffalo Express newspaper for $25,000 and became co-editor of the paper.

When Twain appeared at the Express office building at 14 East Swan Street for his first day on the job, he was upset to see just a single soul in the entire city room. Where the hell was his staff? The city room’s lone occupant stared at the squat little stranger with the shaggy mustache.

“Is there someone you wish to see?” he inquired.

Twain thought about it, then said, “Well, yes, I should like to see some young man offer the new editor a chair.”

Twain had seen the Express as a worthy investment but had not been prepared for the stress that came with ownership. A year later, he sold his interest in the paper for $10,000, a huge loss, and left Buffalo. Like a lot of great writers, he made a rotten businessman.

Just a year after Twain abandoned Buffalo for good, Jacob Riis, who had immigrated to the United States from Denmark, was working as a day laborer doing carpentry for the railroad; he’d also started to write about the appalling social conditions that had resulted from the rapid growth of cities he’d passed through.

One day, when Riis found himself in Buffalo, he sought out the offices of the Express and applied for a reporting job. Told that the managing editor was at lunch, the eager twenty-one-year-old