Chapter IV: Mr. Watterson to Mr. Cleveland

I said in answer:

Louisville, July 22, 1892.--My Dear Sir: I do not see how you could misunderstand the spirit in which I wrote, or be offended by my plain words. They were addressed as from one friend to another, as from one Democrat to another. If you entertain the idea that this is a false view of our relative positions, and that your eminence lifts you above both comradeship and counsels, I have nothing to say except to regret that, in underestimating your breadth of character I exposed myself too contumely.

You do, indeed, ride a wave of fortune and favor. You are quite beyond the reach of insult, real or fancied. You could well afford to be more tolerant.

In answer to the ignorance of my service to the Democratic party, which you are at such pains to indicate--and, particularly, with reference to the sectional issue and the issue of tariff reform--I might, if I wanted to be unamiable, suggest to you a more attentive perusal of the proceedings of the three national conventions which nominated you for President.

But I purpose nothing of the sort. In the last five national conventions my efforts were decisive in framing the platform of the party. In each of them I closed the debate, moved the previous question and was sustained by the convention. In all of them, except the last, I was a maker, not a smasher. Touching what happened at Chicago, the present year, I had a right, in common with good Democrats, to be anxious; and out of that sense of anxiety alone I wrote you. I am sorry that my temerity was deemed by you intrusive and, entering a respectful protest against a ban which I cannot believe to be deserved by me, and assuring you that I shall not again trouble you in that way, I am, your obedient servant,

HENRY WATTERSON.

The Hon. Grover Cleveland.