Upon my return to the hotel I found the senator very indignant. He said that he had gone to the Opera House with the committee; that, of course, no meeting had been advertised there, but a band had been placed on the balcony to play, as if it were a dime museum attraction inside; that a few farmers' wives had straggled in to have an opportunity to partake from their baskets their luncheons, and that he had left the Opera House and returned to the hotel. The committee coming in and narrating what had occurred at the Fair Grounds, did not help his imperious temper. The committee begged for a large meeting, which was to be held in the evening, but Conkling refused and ordered me to do the same, and we left on the first train. The cordial relations which had existed up to that time were somehow severed and he became very hostile. General Grant, as president, of course, never had had experience or opportunity to know anything of practical politics. It was said that prior to his election he had never voted but once, and that was before the war, when he voted the Democratic ticket for James Buchanan. All the senators, representatives, and public men who began to press around him, seeking the appointment to office of their friends, were unknown to him personally. He decided rapidly whom among them he could trust, and once having arrived at that conclusion, his decision was irrevocable. He would stand by a friend, without regard to its effect upon himself, to the last ditch. Of course, each of the two United States senators, Conkling and Fenton, wanted his exclusive favor. It is impossible to conceive of two men so totally different in every characteristic. Grant liked Conkling as much as he disliked Fenton. The result was that he transferred the federal patronage of the State to Senator Conkling. Conkling was a born leader, very autocratic and dictatorial. He immediately began to remove Fenton officials and to replace them with members of his own organization. As there was no civil service at that time and public officers were necessarily active politicians, Senator Conkling in a few years destroyed the organization which Fenton had built up as governor, and became master of the Republican party in the State. The test came at the State convention at Saratoga. Senator Conkling at that time had become hostile to me, why I do not know, nor could his friends, who were most of them mine also, find out. He directed that I must not be elected a delegate to the convention. The collector of the port of New York, in order to make that decree effective, filled my district in Westchester County with appointees from the Custom House.