Early in his Senatorial service Mr. Chandler was made the chairman of this committee, and Mr. Edmunds its secretary. The two men were admirably matched. Mr. Edmunds was a natural planner, keen in his intuitions, shrewd in observation, and a skillful judge of the bearing and tendency of party and public policies. In determining what was the most promising line of attack, where the weakest points of the enemy's lines were to be found, wherein the strength of any position lay, or what strategy would make victory the most certain and complete, he had no superior. When his acute and experienced judgment was reinforced by Mr. Chandler's vigor in execution, influence with public men, and large wealth great results never failed to follow. These two men quickly made the Congressional Committee one of the most powerful agencies of party warfare known in American politics. In many campaigns its influence was almost literally felt in every Northern township, and its labors were not without some effect, more frequently greater than less, in unifying and invigorating the contest in every Congressional district from Maine to Texas and Florida to Oregon. Its work was done quietly, but most thoroughly; its managers rather shunned than courted publicity; and the people at large, who were informed and inspired by its labors, knew nothing of its methods and activity, hardly the fact of its existence. From 1866 to 1874 Mr. Chandler was very active in connection with this committee, and never failed to provide the agencies and the resources for the adequate carrying on of its work. When its treasury grew empty his private check made good any deficiency, and repeatedly his advances upon its account reached tens of thousands of dollars. His confidence in Secretary Edmunds was implicit, and the latter's mature recommendations never failed because of any lack of means. In 1870 the work of this committee was especially productive; its value became much more clearly apparent then than had ever been the case before, and Mr. Chandler repeatedly said to the President and other Republican leaders, "Judge Edmunds is the Bismark of this campaign." In 1872 Mr. Edmunds first suggested the necessity of meeting the Greeley movement by the thorough searching of the files of the New York _Tribune_ and of Mr. Greeley's record, for the ample material therein contained which would make impossible his support by the Democratic masses. Mr. Chandler approved of this plan, and promised that the money needed should be forthcoming. Before all the work was completed, his advances had reached nearly $30,000. At times, in the course of efforts of this character, Mr. Edmunds guided the pens of upward of three hundred writers gathered under his general supervision, while the results of their labors informed the editorial pages of thousands of Republican newspapers, and thus reached millions of voting readers. For some time, also, a monthly periodical named _The Republic_ was