I do not believe you suspect me of any disposition to weaken the tendencies and forces which may lead to Governor Cleveland's nomination at Chicago. I am too grave about it to be effusive, but a fortnight ago when Dorsheimer, who has been and is on very friendly terms with me, told me of his desire to go to Saratoga and urge Cleveland's nomination, I lent him both hands and the fullest assurance of my content and best wishes for his success. It was then assumed by us both that Cleveland would have an absolute majority of the State delegation and under the unit rule would be presented as the choice of the combined Democrats of the Empire State. But now that plan appears to have been thwarted or weakened. The decided preference manifested for Cleveland by the Republican opposition to Blaine and Logan caused an effort to give him an appearance of a solid support in New York, which has resulted in embarrassment to Cleveland s especial supporters in his own party in New York.
Telegrams from New York insisting that the South and West should go solidly for him because New York was solid for him, and then, e converso—that New York should go for him because the other States were so, have undoubtedly created confusion in men's minds and given rise to doubts whether he has that strength at home which would enable him to carry New York.
I am annoyed by anything that tends to jeopard the great object I have in view, the defeat of the Republican party under Blaine's leadership. Do not suppose for a moment that I have lowered my ideals of duty or lost my sense of responsibility to our country or abated that pride and self-respect that restrain me from being an applicant for public favor.
In the New York papers and in many [other] sources [I] see accounts of Governor Cleveland's strength and then again the most decided expressions of opposition to him. We who live outside of New York cannot possibly comprehend the force and direction of the currents and countercurrents in the rather turbid pool of its politics, and I confess the study is not attractive to me.
