Louisville, July 22, 1892.—My Dear Sir: I do not see how you could
misunderstand the spirit in which I wrote, or be offended by my plain
words. They were addressed as from one friend to another, as from one
Democrat to another. If you entertain the idea that this is a false
view of our relative positions, and that your eminence lifts you above
both comradeship and counsels, I have nothing to say except to regret
that, in underestimating your breadth of character I exposed myself too
contumely.
You do, indeed, ride a wave of fortune and favor. You are quite beyond
the reach of insult, real or fancied. You could well afford to be more
tolerant.
In answer to the ignorance of my service to the Democratic party, which
you are at such pains to indicate—and, particularly, with reference to
the sectional issue and the issue of tariff reform—I might, if I wanted
to be unamiable, suggest to you a more attentive perusal of the
proceedings of the three national conventions which nominated you for
President.
But I purpose nothing of the sort. In the last five national
conventions my efforts were decisive in framing the platform of the
party. In each of them I closed the debate, moved the previous question
and was sustained by the convention. In all of them, except the last, I
was a maker, not a smasher. Touching what happened at Chicago, the
present year, I had a right, in common with good Democrats, to be
anxious; and out of that sense of anxiety alone I wrote you. I am sorry
that my temerity was deemed by you intrusive and, entering a respectful
protest against a ban which I cannot believe to be deserved by me, and
assuring you that I shall not again trouble you in that way, I am, your
obedient servant,