re, and
if I can't fairly account for it without being suspected of receiving
bribes, or gifts, or stealing, then he can repeat these baseless
accusations with an easy conscience.

"You may ask why I have not met these derogatory reports before.
Perhaps I ought, but I feel the humiliation of such a controversy,
and thought it time enough when a specific charge was made. And
I am told by Mr. Hedges, my former law partner, that in my absence,
last summer, he corrected some gross misstatements in your paper
about me, and that you refused or neglected to publish it--even to
notice it. As, however, you now, in a courteous way, invite this
letter, I take great pleasure in accepting your offer.

"Very truly yours,
"John Sherman.
"Messrs. Faran & McLean, editors of the 'Enquirer.'"

I doubted the policy of my publishing such a letter, or of taking
any notice of so indefinite a charge, but the response from the
press was fair, especially from the "Shield and Banner," a Democratic
paper printed in Mansfield, as follows:

"We publish a letter of Hon. John Sherman to the editors the
Cincinnati 'Enquirer.' It is hardly necessary that we should say
that we have no sympathy with the political creed of John Sherman.
Between him and us there is a vast and wide difference; but we are
not, we trust, so much of the partisan that we cannot do justice
to a neighbor, if that neighbor differs with us. We have known
John Sherman, not only during all his public life, but from the
time we became a resident of Mansfield, now covering a period of
thirty years, and we have always known him as industrious, prudent
and careful in his profession, and economical and thrifty in his
business. We placed very little credence in the rumors that he
was a man of immense wealth. His property is mostly in real estate.
He was fortunate in getting hold of very desirable property in and
around our city, and the advance in that has doubtless given him
a competence; but it is folly to charge him with being a millionaire.
We have, in common with our neighbors, enjoyed his hospitality,
and his style of living is neither extravagant nor ostentatious.

"Mr. Sherman is one of our townsmen, and although all wrong as a
politician and statesman, and holding to a creed we utterly
disapprove, he is a highminded and honorable man, and we are bound
to accept his statement about his pecuniary affairs as true."

I have often since been accused of the crime of "b