really nothing in sound reason to support them and are usually urged only to bolster up certain candidates for the respective places. The only really important thing is to get the right men.
On the whole, if I were in your place, I would not be in a hurry. If by the middle of February you have finally made up your mind as to who shall be in your Cabinet, you will have done much better than a good many of your predecessors, some of whom had to make up their Cabinets in part after their inauguration. You certainly want time to inform yourself and to look at the problem from various points of view. I see from the papers that you have consulted Mr. Bayard, as Mr. Stetson told me you would, and I am glad of it, for it would be difficult to find anywhere a better man to consult.
I hope you have not misunderstood what I said to Mr. Stetson about the impracticability of my responding to your wish that I should visit you at Albany. I assure you it was not in any sense a question of pride with me, but merely one of expediency. I have no doubt you, as well as myself, would prefer to avoid the various interpretations which inevitably would follow such a visit. But I scarcely need tell you that I shall always be most sincerely glad to serve you with such suggestion or information as may come from me, and I highly appreciate that confidence on your part which calls them forth. There are matters of detail which it might perhaps be more convenient to talk than to write about, and I need not add that if an interview can be arranged in a manner not liable to the objections mentioned, I shall embrace the opportunity with very great pleasure.
This letter has grown much longer than I intended; but you are partly at fault yourself, having called for an expression of my views “at length.”—Very sincerely yours.
