" All
seemed to me lost save honor and conviction. I had become the embodiment
of my own epigram, "a tariff for revenue only." Mr. Cleveland, in the
beginning very much taken by it, had grown first lukewarm and then
frightened. His "Free Trade" message of 1887 had been regarded by the party
as an answering voice. But I knew better.
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chronicle of the time, the correspondence may not be historically out of
date, or biographically uninteresting:
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.
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