very glad to have a conversation with you on these and some other points in your letter of acceptance before it comes out. If this be agreeable to you, may I suggest that you be kind enough to ask Captain Lee to meet me at the depot and to take me where I may see you?
TO CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, JR.
I have just got back from the West and find here your note of the 29th of June addressed to Mr. Lodge and communicated by him to me. You are perfectly right in saying that we should go one way or the other. I have in the meantime been anxiously endeavoring to ascertain how I for my part could render the best service to the cause we have at heart, and I have come to a very clear conclusion.
The result of the Cincinnati Convention appeared at first as the triumph of a respectable compromise candidate; the result of the St. Louis Convention as the triumph of a great name with the attachment of an ambiguous platform and the most objectionable man imaginable as a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Neither side satisfactory and yet a third movement out of the question.
In order to ascertain what could be done I put myself in correspondence with Hayes, volunteering certain suggestions with regard to his letter of acceptance. I had from him a most satisfactory response. I have since met him twice and discussed all sorts of things with him. His letter of acceptance, containing his political program, will be an agreeable surprise to you, if it comes out as it was determined upon Friday evening. It is our platform in every word with the pledge of an honest man as a candidate for the Presidency attached to it. Unless I
