The anti-reform movement in the Democratic party seems to be gathering considerable momentum, and it looks as if the meeting of Congress would bring a tremendous pressure upon you with threats of active opposition. My experience in public life leads me to believe that there is one way, and only one, to break the force of this movement at the start and thus to ensure its defeat; and that is, not to make any compromise with it, but to meet it at once with calm, and if necessary, defiant determination. As soon as these gentlemen hear from you that whatever they may say or do, they cannot move you an inch, and that you are at any moment ready to appeal to the country against them, so that all may know whether the American people will stand by a President who is honestly resolved to redeem his promises—most of them will come to the conclusion that you are stronger than they are, that yours is the winning cause and that the best they can do for themselves is to follow you. And if they do not, you will have the people on your side.
Let me repeat once more: Your greatest danger is in having men in places of power under you who do not sympathize with you in your endeavors.
TO ALFRED T. WHITE
I have read the resolutions of the Brooklyn Independent Republican Committee with great pleasure, and from the expression of my views on the present situation, for which you ask me, you will see that we are in substantial accord.
The coming election presents itself in two aspects. In the first place, it is an election of State officers. We have therefore to select among the candidates those whose character, whose past career and whose known opinions
