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