Railroad managers never do things by halves. Well realizing that it is in the power of a fearless executive, by his veto, to render futile the achievements of a costly lobby and to injure or benefit their interests by pursuing an aggressive or conservative policy in the enforcement of the laws, they never fail to make their influence felt in the selection of a chief magistrate, either of the Nation or of an individual State. No delegate, with their permission, ever attends a national convention, Republican or Democratic, if he is not known to favor the selection of a man as the presidential candidate of his party whose conservatism in all matters pertaining to railroad interests is well established. At these conventions the railroad companies are always represented, and their representatives do not hesitate to inform the delegates that this or that candidate is not acceptable to their corporations and cannot receive their support at the polls. During the Chicago convention of 1888 the statement was openly made that two of the Western candidates lost Eastern support because they were not acceptable to a prominent New York delegate who had come to Chicago in a threefold capacity--that of a delegate, a presidential possibility, and special representative of one of the most powerful railroad interests in the country. This same man appeared again last year at the Minneapolis convention as chief organizer of the forces of a leading candidate. His counterpart was in attendance at the Chicago convention looking after the same interests there.