subject. Could you not call Cleveland's attention to the very great importance of this matter, and get him to say a word to Stevenson? Mr. Cleveland will also have to take very high reform ground in his letter of acceptance to recover the ground among Independents which has been lost by obnoxious party arrangements.
I have had another savage attack of my trouble, and I fear I have now to accept it as certain that I shall not be able to take any part in the campaign as a speaker.
P.S. I regret extremely to hear that you will not be able to visit Lake George again before the 22d. I shall then probably be gone. Your appearance here has always been to me like a ray of sunshine. I wish I had had it oftener.
TO EDWARD M. SHEPARD
Since I wrote you last, I have read with great interest the newspaper accounts of Mr. Cleveland's conferences with the Democratic leaders of the State. Among those with whom Mr. Cleveland had been in confidential intercourse and consultation I found, aside from Mr. Whitney, only the name of the chiefs of Tammany and of the Hill faction, while the Democratic leaders not belonging to the machine were conspicuously absent. The impression conveyed was, that the management of the Cleveland campaign in this State looks upon the conciliation of the machine as the most important object to be accomplished, regardless of what it may otherwise involve. I do not mean to discuss the nature of this policy here, but merely wish to say that my letter to the citizens of Brooklyn, who invited me to speak, does not fit this situation. I should not consider the matter of so much consequence had not Mr. Cleveland himself, personally, become so conspicuous in it.
