xpect that any words of mine will
be received by you with sentiments either of confidence or favor.

I was admonished by a certain distrust, if not disdain, visited upon the
honest challenge I ventured to offer your Civil Service policy, when you
were actually in office, that you did not differ from some other great
men I have known in an unwillingness, or at least an inability,
to accept, without resentment, the question of your infallibility.
Nevertheless, I was then, as I am now, your friend, and not your enemy,
animated by the single purpose to serve the country, through you, as,
wanting your great opportunities, I could not serve it through myself.

During the four years when you were President, I asked you but for one
thing that lay near my heart. You granted that handsomely; and, if you
had given me all you had to give beside, you could not have laid me
under greater obligation. It is a gratification to me to know, and it
ought to be some warrant both of my intelligence and fidelity for you to
remember that that matter resulted in credit to the Administration and
benefit to the public service.

But to the point; I had at St. Louis in 1888 and at Chicago, the present
year, to oppose what was represented as your judgment and desire in the
adoption of a tariff plank in our national platform; successfully in
both cases. The inclosed articles set forth the reasons forcing upon
me a different conclusion from yours, in terms that may appear to you
bluntly specific, but I hope not personally offensive; certainly not by
intention, for, whilst I would not suppress the truth to please you or
any man, I have a decent regard for the sensibilities and the rights
of all men, particularly of men so eminent as to be beyond the reach of
anything except insolence and injustice. Assuredly in your case, I am
incapable of even so much as the covert thought of either, entertaining
for you absolute respect and regard. But, my dear Mr. President, I do
not think that you appreciate the overwhelming force of the revenue
reform issue, which has made you its idol.

[Illustration: A Corner of "Mansfield"--Home of Henry Watterson]

If you will allow me to say so, in perfect frankness and without
intending to be rude or unkind, the gentlemen immediately about you,
gentlemen upon whom you rely for material aid and energetic party
management, are not, as to the Tariff, Democrats at all; and have
little conception of the place in the popular m