"EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, COLUMBUS, O., _December 13, 1884_.
"MY DEAR SIR,--Your letter of the 5th inst. was received in
due course of mail, and I embrace the first opportunity to reply.
"While my ambition, and I think my qualifications, for public
service are in the line of my profession, I should not feel at
liberty to refuse any duty consistent with my personal dignity and
self-respect which the President might assign me. I am well aware
that he must have a wider survey of the situation than I can have,
and that he must bear the chief responsibility of failure. As I
said in my former letter, I am too good a soldier not to take orders
cheerfully and obey them ungrudgingly.
"My dear Mr. Tilden, if I had had the least doubt of your esteem and
regard I should not have written you as I did or as I do.
"You intimate a doubt whether you will be consulted by President
Cleveland with reference to his cabinet. This disturbs and
distresses me. To begin by ignoring you, especially if the men whose
timidity and self-seeking sacrificed you and the cause in 1877 are
taken into confidence, would be a sad prophecy of disaster to come.
A statesman can get along, sometimes, by selfishly disregarding
considerations of gratitude to the elements that made him--in other
words, by kicking down the ladder by which he has climbed; but
if he add to this the closing of his ears to the wisest and most
far-seeing of his counsellors he is lost. The new administration
may perhaps safely throw Ohio overboard, although our fight here in
October made success in November possible, as the national committee
has fully acknowledged to our State committee; the new President
may perhaps safely turn his back upon the men who risked their own
political lives to save his at Chicago, but it will be a sad day for
him and for his government if he ignore you and do not seek your
counsels.
"The circumstances to which I alluded as not to be written are well
known to Mr. Smith M. Weed and to Mr. William L. Scott (I think) and
possibly to Mr. Daniel Manning.
"I have the honor to be,
"Very truly your friend,
"GEO. HOADLY."