between himself and Mr. Cleveland, and Mr. Cleveland told him that he had filled all the positions except those of Secretary of the Navy and Attorney-General. A discussion of names for each position followed and mine was brought up-with the suggestion on Sigourney's part that it was possible I might be induced to accept the office of Attorney-General. Mr. Cleveland thereupon asked him to request me to come to Lakewood on the day which he named.

On Sigourney's mentioning the matter to me I at first declined to consider it or to go to Lakewood on what seemed to me a perfectly useless errand. But on reflection, it seemed discourteous not to do so and I went. Mr. Cleveland first offered me the office of Secretary of the Navy, which I positively refused. He then offered me the office of Attorney-General, which I did not peremptorily decline, though I expressed my aversion to leave the practice of my profession and enter into public life. Mr. Cleveland urged it, with the result that, after a good deal of discussion, I left the matter with him in this way: I told him there was much better Cabinet material in New England than myself—men much more familiar with politics and much more ambitious in that direction — and that I could name one who, I thought, would undoubtedly accept the position. He thereupon called for the name and I mentioned John Quincy Adams of Boston. Mr. Cleveland said if I could get Mr. Adams to serve he should be delighted to have him in the Cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. He, however, insisted that, if Mr. Adams for any reason would not serve, I should consider myself as booked for the position of Attorney-General. I assented to the condition, not feeling in my own mind at the time the slightest doubt that Mr. Adams would readily accede to Mr. Cleveland's wishes. It was arranged, therefore, that I should see Mr. Adams and offer him the naval portfolio,

and that, upon obtaining his answer I should telegraph a message in a form which Mr. Cleveland wrote out and is as follows:

"A-(Yes) He will go with you" (which meant that Adams would accept.)

"O-(Yes) I will go with you" — (which meant that Adams declined and I would be AttorneyGeneral.)

"A-(To consult) He will meet you at " (which meant that Adams would go to see Cleveland.)

My recollection is that I arrived in Boston about six in the afternoon and immediately went to Mr. Adams's house, saw him personally, and on behalf of Mr. Cleveland tendered him the office of Secretary of the Navy. To my astonishment as well as dismay, he absolutely declined....1

I had counted on Mr. Adams's willingness to go into the Cabinet with so much certainty that his refusal to do so entirely upset my calculations. Instead of sending the agreed-upon message to Mr. Cleveland, therefore, in the afternoon of the next day I telegraphed him as follows: [Telegram not preserved.] In the course of the next forenoon I received the following telegram in reply - "Nothing will now excuse you but the act of God or the public enemy."

Upon receipt of this telegram-no new circumstances having intervened upon which I could fairly ground my declination of the office- I considered myself fairly com

1 Olney here ventured upon a supposition which appears not to have been wholly correct and which, being unnecessary to his own story, is therefore omitted.

mitted to Mr. Cleveland and arranged to be in Washington by the 4th of March.1

When the news of this selection got about, most of the country asked, Who is Olney? The newspapers began to be humorous about the impossibility of obtaining a photograph. They sought interviews in vain, and published biographies which were meager and uninforming. It is possible to do a little better now.

1 Mr. George F. Parker, who was much with Cleveland at the time here referred to, has given an account of this appointment which differs from the foregoing with respect to minor points. (Saturday Evening Post, June 9, 1923.) Among Olney's contemporary papers there are some which confirm Mr. Parker's idea that Peter B. Olney, Richard's younger brother, had as much or more to do with the preliminary stages of the appointment than did Sigourney Butler. Olney's abilities had been drawn to Cleveland's attention as early as 1888. Patrick Collins then urged the President to appoint him to the Supreme Court. It doesn't appear whether Olney had any knowledge of the matter.

O

II

HIS EARLIER YEARS

LNEY was born in Oxford, Worcester Country,

Massachusetts, September 15, 1835. A grandfather after whom he was named had moved from Rhode Island in 1811. This first Richard came of the large Olney family which had descended from the original Thomas, a Salem settler of 1635, who followed Roger Williams to Rhode Island, and became a proprietor and founder of the Providence Plantations. Richard, who settled in Massachusetts, is reputed to have been a large person physically and a man of great energy, who possessed even more than his fair allowance of the individualism and strongheadedness for which the citizens of Rhode Island were famous - or notorious, according to the point of view- from Roger Williams's time until days within living memory. He turned his back on his native State and his relatives there so completely that his descendants have never known more than that he was one of the Rhode Island Olneys and had been born in Smithfield. In Massachusetts he became a pioneer in the textile industry and established mills at East Douglas and later in Oxford. In that sturdy little community he became a "prominent citizen, merchant and manufacturer, who held many town offices and showed marked ability as a man of affairs." He had a number of children whom he ruled with an iron hand as long as he could and with some of whom he then quarreled and parted. His eldest son Wilson, a man of more kindly