home, I wrote him the following letter. It reads like ancient history,
but, as the quarrel which followed cut a certain figure in the political
chronicle of the time, the correspondence may not be historically out of
date, or biographically uninteresting:



II


MR. WATTERSON TO MR. CLEVELAND

Courier-Journal Office, Louisville, July 9, 1892.--My Dear Mr. President:
I inclose you two editorial articles from the Courier-Journal, and, that
their spirit and purpose may not be misunderstood by you, I wish to add a
word or two of a kind directly and entirely personal.

To a man of your robust understanding and strong will, opposition and
criticism are apt to be taken as more or less unfriendly; and, as you are
at present advised, I can hardly expect 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.