_"Private and confidential._
"17 DUPONT CIRCLE, WASHINGTON, D. C., _Mch. 8/85_.
"MY DEAR SIR,--I am dreadfully embarrassed financially,
and, although very reluctant, seek employment in the government,
since I see no other way open to me as a means of livelihood. I have
rendered the Democratic party some service. You, perhaps more than
any one else, know and appreciate the work I have done during the
past ten or twelve years. I came to Washington comparatively unknown
to all the public men of the country save Judge Black. Grant's first
term was just closing, and jobbery and fraud were rioting in every
department of the government. At considerable personal peril, and
with inevitable social ostracism to myself and family, I began the
work of exposing rogues and roguery, rascals and rascality. You
signalized your life by overthrowing the Tweed ring, and destroying
those who organized it and profited by its robberies. You exposed
and broke up the canal frauds. You were rich and powerful
politically, but you know how potent those whom you brought to grief
were to do you injury.
"My first work in Washington was to assail the Navy ring, and to
make known the jobs and frauds by which the Navy had been ruined,
and millions of dollars stolen from the public treasury to enrich
contractors. I followed this work systematically for years, and
I do not exaggerate when I say that the country would not have a
realizing sense to-day of the way its Navy has been destroyed and
its Treasury robbed of hundreds of millions if my work had not been
done.
"The first Democratic House of Representatives after the war was
elected chiefly because of the exposure of the Credit Mobilier fraud
and other disclosures of jobbery which resulted from my work. I
broke up the Shepherd ring in this city and drove out the robbers.
For eight years I labored without intermission to destroy the Star
Mail-route ring, and finally made it possible to bring the guilty
to punishment. That the result was a scandal upon, and a perversion
of, justice was no fault of mine. That I was deprived of the credit
due me for exposing the frauds never grieved me, because I was not
working for glory, but to make good government possible. What I did
to bring to just punishment the authors and abettors of the great
fraud of 1876, and to make forever odious that great crime, you know.
"That I have incurred the hostility of many and excited the envy
of still more is but the natural sequence of the work I have done.
Politicians are not prone to remember those who made their success
possible, unless you are a present potential factor. Of course, in
all that I did I had a fearless newspaper with a great circulation
as an engine to work with. But I created, in no small degree, the
power I used and the influence I exerted. When I began my work here
the _Sun_ had only a _local_ circulation and a _local_ reputation.
It secured, largely through my work, a _national_ circulation and
reputation. It profited largely by my work, while I received only a
modest salary and fell heir to all the enmities provoked.
"Pardon me for wearying you with this long letter, but of all the
Democrats I know you are the only one upon whom I feel that I can
rely for some appreciative exertion in my behalf, now that the
party, in whose faith I was born, and for which the best years
of my life, and the best energies of my poor abilities have been
exerted, is in power. I know I am not egotistical when I say that I
know more of the inner workings of the government than any man in
Washington. I have, for nearly fourteen years, made every department
of the Federal government a close study. I know where and how the
jobs and frauds have been worked, and how the rottenness can be
exposed, and, moreover, can point out the defects of the Treasury
system which made many of these possible. I could be invaluable in
many ways here, but I would prefer a quiet place abroad. I confess
that I am not _en rapport_ with many of those who are likely to be
most influential with the administration. My tastes are naturally
literary, and I have been at work for several years upon the
history of the last four months of Buchanan's administration. I
have a book of 600 pages nearly ready for the press, the principal
data for which I got from Judge Black. The preparation for this
work naturally led me to study closely and carefully the political
history of the United States, so I could succinctly and graphically
deal with the course which led to the Civil War. Becoming deeply
interested in the subject, I began writing _The Political History
of the United States_. I have nearly completed the first draft of
the first volume of this work, and I want the means and leisure to
complete it. The place of all others which I would like, and which
would enable me to have the resources at hand, would be the Consul
Generalship to London; but I presume that it is useless to aspire to
that. Some one with more social and political influence than I can
command will get it. But I think that I might aspire to be Consul
at Liverpool. That place was given to Packard, of Louisiana, as the
price of his yielding gracefully to the Hayes Commission, which, in
pursuance of the _bargain_ made with Southern Democrats in 1876,
went to Louisiana to install the Nichols government. Inasmuch as I
contributed largely to make the work of that commission odious, and
to have the Returning Board indicted and convicted, I think it would
not be presumptuous to claim Packard's place.
"May I not ask you to take more than an ordinary interest in my
behalf? My lifelong friend, who knew me from childhood, and who
always took the deepest interest in my welfare, is no more. You
esteemed him at his true worth. You know how emphatic he always
spoke in my behalf. If Judge Black was alive, he would join heartily
in any effort to secure me the place I seek. But I know no one now,
save yourself, to whom I can appeal. There are possibly a _few_ who
would damn me with faint praise.
"I know how many there are who will importune you, and that there
are others with more and better claims upon you; but I am sure that
none _needs_ your good offices more, and that none will appreciate
them higher than
"Yours truly,
"A. M. GIBSON."