An excellent appointment, made at the suggestion of Mr. McKinley, was Judge Jacob A. Ambler of Ohio. Judge Ambler was an old-fashioned country lawyer, able, learned, and honest—a man jealous of the honor of any office he held or trust he handled, full of contempt for greed, extravagance, and grafting, shrewd in detecting them, and relentless in punishing them. His influence on the commission was most healthy. It was due to President Arthur’s knowledge of the Custom House administration (Arthur was Collector of the Port of New York from 1871 to 1878, when he was suspended by Hayes) that William H. McMahon, for twenty years an officer of the New York Custom House, was put on the board. McMahon had no interest in any phase of the question except administration, but that he knew from top to bottom, and his knowledge was invaluable to the commission. In order that there might be a statistician in the number, Arthur appointed a young man from the Census Bureau, Robert P. Porter. Porter was an Englishman and a free trader, who had found his way to America at sixteen, and had become a journalist in Chicago. In 1877 he had published an article in the _Princeton Review_ which attracted the attention of President Hayes, and from which the latter quoted fully in one of the speeches made on his Western journey in 1878. When Hayes reached Chicago on this trip, Porter was presented to him, and the President at once claimed him for the Census Bureau. Here he made many friends, among them Judge Kelley, who lost no time in converting him to protection and gladly backed him for the commission. The remaining members were John W. H. Underwood of Georgia and Alexander R. Boteler of West Virginia, two gentlemen who were appointed chiefly that their respective sections might be represented. The announcement of the commission awakened no great enthusiasm anywhere. It was not sufficiently strong in business representation to make the Industrial League feel secure, and the appointment of Mr. Hayes as chairman naturally aroused the suspicion of moderate tariff men. Nor did that portion of its work obvious to the public increase confidence. Its first business, of course, was to get information about the actual industrial condition of the country. It set out to do this chiefly by means of public hearings in various cities. Starting out in July at Long Branch for three months it junketed about from Long Branch to New York, from New York to Boston, from Boston to Rochester, from Rochester to Buffalo, then in turn to Cleveland, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cincinnati, Louisville, Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul, Des Moines, St. Louis, Nashville, Chattanooga, Atlanta, Wilmington, North Carolina, Richmond, Baltimore, New York again, then Pittsburg, Wheeling, Philadelphia, and finally back to Long Branch.