In the year '69 I had made twenty-eight speeches in California, and eighty on the Pacific coast. I also made a trip over the Union Pacific Railway, on the first train over that line, and made addresses at many places throughout the country. The following year, '70, I seriously set myself to the task of appealing to the people directly for support, and began a series of public addresses on the issues of the day. But this year's work was interrupted by my trip around the world in eighty days, which consumed the end of the year, from the 1st of August to Christmas. In '71 I fought hard from January to December, making the total of my speeches to the people 800, and having spoken directly, up to that time, to something like 2,000,000 persons. Of course, my campaign was made on independent lines entirely. I was not the nominee nor the complaisant tool of any party or faction. I made my race as one who came from the bosom of the people, and who represented the highest interests of the people. It was just here that failure came. I thought I knew something of the people, and felt confident that they would prefer a man of independence, who had accomplished something for them, to a man who was a mere tool of his party, a distributor of patronage to his friends and relatives, or to one who was a mere stalking-horse. But I was mistaken. The people, as Barnum has said, love to be humbugged, and are quite ready to pay tribute to the political boss and spoilsman. A remarkable feature of my campaign was that, instead of scattering money broadcast, to draw crowds or to win votes, I made a charge for admission to hear my addresses. I spoke to audiences that paid to hear me talk to them in my own behalf and in theirs. In three years of active work--with the interruption of my trip around the world in '70--I took in $90,000 in admission charges. In spite of these charges, I spoke to more people and had greater audiences to listen to me than any other speaker during that heated campaign. There was another remarkable thing about my campaign. I possessed tremendous power over audiences. So long as I could reach them with my voice, or talk with them or shake hands with them, I could hold them; but the moment they got out of my reach they got away from me, and slipped back again to the sway of the political bosses. I saw that my chance of getting the nomination was lost long before the assembling of the Liberal Republican Convention of '72 in Cincinnati. I was not astonished by the result of that convention, except that I did not expect the nomination of Greeley, which I considered as a piece of political treachery, a deliberately calculated movement in the interest of Grant. But I still felt, vainly, indeed, some hope that the people would see the futility of supporting Greeley, and of placing me at the head of the ticket.