For many years my friends have insisted upon my putting in
permanent form the incidents in my life which have interested
them. It has been my good fortune to take part in history-making
meetings and to know more or less intimately people prominent
in world affairs in many countries. Every one so situated has
a flood of recollections which pour out when occasion stirs the
memory. Often the listeners wish these transcribed for their
own use.
My classmate at Yale in the class of 1856, John D. Champlin, a man
of letters and an accomplished editor, rescued from my own
scattered records and newspaper files material for eight volumes.
My secretary has selected and compiled for publication two volumes
since. These are principally speeches, addresses, and contributions
which have appeared in public. Several writers, without my
knowledge, have selected special matter from these volumes
and made books.
Andrew D. White, Senator Hoar, and Senator Foraker, with whom
I was associated for years, have published full and valuable
autobiographies. I do not attempt anything so elaborate or
complete. Never having kept a diary, I am dependent upon a good
memory. I have discarded the stories which could not well be
published until long after I have joined the majority.
I trust and earnestly hope there is nothing in these recollections
which can offend anybody. It has been my object so to picture
events and narrate stories as to illumine the periods through
which I have passed for eighty-eight years, and the people whom
I have known and mightily enjoyed.