Garfield presented Sherman's name. At the outset General Grant led, Blame was a close second and Sherman third. This order continued for thirty-five ballots. By that time Blaine and Grant had fought each other to a standstill. The General's three hundred and six held together without a break, and Blaine's forces were equally determined.[1] There was little chance of compromise, as Grant and Blaine were not on speaking terms, and Conkling and Blaine looked upon each other with unconcealed hatred. Since Sherman was handicapped by lack of united support in his own state, the natural solution of the problem seemed to be the choice of some other leader who might harmonize the contending factions. On the thirty-fourth ballot, seventeen votes were given to Garfield; on the next, fifty; then a stampede began, in spite of a protest by Garfield, and on the thirty-sixth ballot a union of the Blaine and Sherman forces made him the choice of the convention. The nominee for the vice-presidency was Chester A. Arthur, who was one of the leading supporters of Grant and a member of the Conkling group. The choice of Garfield was well received by the country, perhaps the more so as a relief from the danger of a third term. The nominee was a man of great industry, possessed of a store of information, tactful, modest, popular, an effective orator, and a veteran of the war. His rise from canal boy to candidate for the presidency exemplified the possibilities before industrious youth and gave rise to many a homily on democratic America. Yet his friends had to defend his relation to a paving scandal in the District of Columbia and an unwise connection with the Credit Mobilier of 1873. In neither of these cases does Garfield seem to have been corrupt, but in neither does he appear in a highly favorable light.[2] As the Republicans were dispersing, the Greenback convention was assembling. Their strength in the campaign was almost negligible but their platform presaged the future. Money to be issued only by the government, the volume of money increased, ameliorative labor legislation, restriction of Chinese immigration, regulation of interstate commerce, an income tax, government for the people rather than for classes, wider suffrage,--all these were advocated in concise and unmistakable terms. James B. Weaver was the presidential candidate.