TO JACOB D. COX
I have received your kind letter of the 7th inst. and am happy to see that you appreciate the character and tendency of the movement recently inaugurated at Nashville. The best citizens of that place, of both parties, are in it, and I hope to see it spread in a short time over the whole State. Similar organizations are being started in Texas; I have letters from Louisiana and Mississippi expressing the desire to do the same thing, and if the matter is pushed with the necessary energy, we may see an association of this kind in every Congressional district of the South before next spring. We shall have one here at St. Louis, with branch associations all over the State. There are “Reform Clubs” in a great many Northern cities; and in my opinion an effort should be made to unite in them the progressive men of both parties and then to establish a central committee to give the proper correspondence to the movement North and South. I shall, probably, speak at Louisville on Wednesday, and deliver a lecture on Civil Service Reform at Cincinnati on Thursday. I hope to see you on that occasion and to exchange views.
Would not the “Central Republican Association” be now prepared to open its ranks to progressive Democrats and to work in harmony with the movement commenced in the South? It would be a great step ahead and give a powerful impulse to similar endeavors in the Northern States. Let me ask you to take the matter into consideration.
In our conversations at Cincinnati I forgot to mention one reason—and it is one of the most important—why
