After General Garfield was elected to the Presidency, but before his inauguration, I determined that I would urge upon him the appointment of Mr. Robert T. Lincoln as a member of his cabinet. I thought then that his selection would not only be an honor to the State, but that the great name of Lincoln, so fresh then in the minds of the people, would materially strengthen General Garfield's administration.
With this purpose in view, I visited Garfield at his home in Mentor. This journey was an extremely difficult one, owing to the circumstance that the snow was yet deep on the ground; so I arranged with the conductor to stop at the nearest point to General Garfield's house to let me off, which he did. I walked from the train through banks of snow, and after the hardest kind of a walk, finally reached his house.
I at once told him the mission on which I had come. We had quite a long talk, at the end of which he announced that he would appoint Mr. Lincoln his Secretary of War.
In this connection I desire to say a few words concerning Robert T. Lincoln. He is still living. I have known him from boyhood. He has the integrity and the character which so distinguished his father, and was marked in his mother's people as well. It is my firm conviction that long ago Robert T. Lincoln could have been President of the United States had he possessed the slightest political aspiration. He has never been ambitious for public office; but, on the contrary, it has always seemed to me that the Presidency was especially repugnant to him, which would be natural, considering the untimely death of his father, if for no other reason. He was almost forced to take an active interest in public affairs, but as soon as he was permitted to do so he retired to private life to engage in large business undertakings, and finally to become the head of the Pullman Company.
It seems strange to me that he should consider the presidency of a private corporation, no matter how great the emoluments, above the Presidency of the greatest of all Republics. How unlike his father! He was a most excellent Secretary of War, and one of General Garfield's cabinet officers whom General Arthur invited to remain in his cabinet, which he did.