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,