In the national platform, over the protest of Whitney, his organizer, and Vilas, his spokesman, I had forced him to stand on that gospel. He flew into a rage and threatened to modify, if not to repudiate, the plank in his letter of acceptance. We were still on friendly terms and, upon reaching 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which followed cut a certain figure in the political chronicle of the time, the correspondence may not be historically out of date, or biographically uninteresting:
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.
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.