WILLIAM E. DODGE, JOHN C. GREEN, HENRY F. VAIL, GEORGE T. ADEE, REV. SAMUEL OSGOOD, WILLIAM H. FOGG, BENJAMIN B. SHERMAN, ROBERT L. STEWART, WILLIAM HENRY ANTHON, E. D. MORGAN, JAMES BUELL, H. B. CLAFLIN, W. R. VERMILYE, WM. M. VERMILYE, CHARLES L. FROST, NATHANIEL HAYDEN, JESSE HOYT, WILLIAM BARTON PEAKE, EMIL SAUER, JACOB OTTO, JOSEPH STUART, J. STUART, THOS. GARNER ANTHONY, FREDERICK S. WINSTON, MORRIS FRANKLIN, WM. C. BRYANT, R. H. McCURDY, JOSEPH SELIGMAN, THEODORE ROOSEVELT, WILLIAM ORTON, CHARLES P. KIRKLAND, PETER COOPER, HUGH J. HASTINGS, SAMUEL B. RUGGLES, CORTLANDT PALMER, JONATHAN EDWARDS, CHARLES KNEELAND, S. R. COMSTOCK, PITT COOK, THOMAS J. OWEN, OTIS D. SWAN, GEORGE OPDYKE, HARPER & BROS., JOHN C. HAMILTON, GEO. W. T. LORD, SAMUEL T. SKIDMORE, JONATHAN STURGES, WM. H. VANDERBILT, SHEPARD KNAPP, WM. H. ASPINWALL, J. S. ROCKWELL. It is sad to reflect that these are all now numbered with the mighty dead. These names will serve to show the great number of prominent people gradually departing from us every few years. The name of the number of those yet alive who signed that petition is legion. In fact those who did not sign it were those whose names were not worth having. To put it mildly, I secured through their own signatures, by this method, all whose names were desirable. Our forces having been mustered in this way, the next thing was to disconcert the enemy, and inspire our own party by showing our available strength, and the power and enthusiasm behind the movement. This we proceeded to do by calling a mass meeting at the Cooper Institute for April 17, 1872. The meeting was an immense success, in numbers, brains and respectability. The hall was crowded and the outside meeting was several times larger. Mr. A. T. Stewart had been invited to preside. He had been a warm friend of General Grant, but had then become lukewarm and indifferent, owing to the fact that he had failed to obtain a Custom House promotion for one of his wife’s near relations. I had endeavored for several days to soften Stewart’s heart and get him to consent to be chairman of the meeting, but he was incorrigible. Finally, I succeeded in extorting a promise from him that if he did not vote for General Grant he would not vote against him, but beyond this it was impossible to mollify him. He was a paragon of obduracy when he had once resolved upon any course. Even the recollection that he, though an alien born, had been offered the second highest position of trust in the nation, Secretary of the Treasury, which he could not accept on account of being in business, failed to draw out his feelings of gratitude sufficiently to forget the fancied slight of refusing his wife’s relative promotion.