He said: “I promised Switzerland for a friend of Corning’s. He brought
him over here yesterday and he is an out-and-out Republican who voted
for Blaine, and I shall not appoint him. If you want the place for
Winchester, Winchester it is.”
Next day, much to Mr. Bayard’s surprise, the commission was made out.
Mr. Cleveland had a way of sudden fancies to new and sometimes queer
people. Many of his appointments were eccentric and fell like
bombshells upon the Senate, taking the appointee’s home people
completely by surprise.
The recommendation of influential politicians seemed to have little if
any weight with him.
There came to Washington from Richmond a gentleman by the name of
Keiley, backed by the Virginia delegation for a minor consulship. The
President at once fell in love with him.
[Illustration: Mr. Watterson’s Library at “Mansfield”]
“Consul be damned,” he said. “He is worth more than that,” and named
him Ambassador to Vienna.
It turned out that Mrs. Keiley was a Jewess and would not be received
at court. Then he named him Ambassador to Italy, when it appeared that
Keiley was an intense Roman Catholic, who had made at least one
ultramontane speech, and would be _persona non grata_ at the Quirinal.
Then Cleveland dropped him. Meanwhile poor Keiley had closed out bag
and baggage at Richmond and was at his wit’s end. After much ado the
President was brought to a realizing sense and a place was found for
Keiley as consul general and diplomatic agent at Cairo, whither he
repaired. At the end of the four years he came to Paris and one day,
crossing the Place de la Concorde, he was run over by a truck and
killed. He deserved a longer career and a better fate, for he was a man
of real capacity.