SAML. G. COURTNEY TO S. J. TILDEN
"Strictly private.
"Sunday, 5½ P.M.
"My dear Tilden,—I regret to inform you that there is a great deal of bad feeling abroad among our friends respecting the arrest of Connolly,[55] and you and Mr. Havemeyer are blamed and denounced for it, and for deserting him in the hour of his need.
Of course, as far as you are concerned, the sentiment I speak of is baseless and unfounded, and I have endeavored to set you right, and I think have succeeded; but as to Mr.
H., there is but one feeling, and that of universal condemnation.
Mr. Connolly is still in duress, and I am afraid he cannot get the required bail. What's to be done?
I mean to stand by him and sustain him now, for under my advice (together with the urgent appeals of Mr. H.) he resigned, and the result is imprisonment; and as Mr. Peckham says on his affidavit, they were awaiting only his resignation to accomplish what has been done.
"I write this to you in strict confidence.
"I think you ought to know what is going on. I am your true friend, and do not intend to have you placed in a false position.
"I am going to New York Hotel (room 131), where Connolly is. Unless you see some insuperable objection, I think you ought to call this morning and see him.
"Truly yours,
Saml. G. Courtney."
"Hon. S. J. Tilden."
EVILS OF OUR TIMES
(ENDORSED "DRAFT OF CIRCULAR," ALL IN TILDEN'S SCRIPT)
"Centralism in the government, and corruption in administration are the twin evils of our times. They threaten with swift destruction civil liberty and the whole fabric of our free institutions.
"National Government.
"The Democratic party was originally organized by Jefferson to oppose these evils. It ruled the country for fifty of the seventy years of the present century, and protected us from disunion on the one hand and from centralism on the other, and from corruption. Under twelve years of rule of the Republican party, the Federal government is rapidly usurping power from the localities and from individuals, and has become more corrupt than was ever imagined possible. The masses of the Republicans, like the masses of all parties, are honest. No doubt some allowance ought to be made for the effect of a great war. But the system of false finance which has corrupted us into a nation of gamblers was as unnecessary as corrupting. And the principle and measures of the Republican party, their centralism, tariffs not for revenue but to control the labor and capital of the people, legislative grants and jobs of all kinds tend to corruption. And the ideal standard of their statesmen is lower than any ever held by the followers of Jefferson and Jackson.
"State Government.
"In 1846, twenty-five years ago, I went to the Assembly to sustain the administration of Silas Wright. Not a man in either House was even suspected of corruption. The Democracy under Martin Van Buren, Silas Wright, William L. Marcy, and Azariah C. Flagg had ruled the State during the life of the old Constitution from 1821 to 1846. They were all men not only of transcendent ability, but of personal purity. They gathered around them men of like character in all the counties. They wielded party power not only in favor of good measures, but in favor of good men. No corrupt Senator or Assemblyman could live in their atmosphere. The race ran out.
"From 1846 to 1870—23 years—the Democracy never had a majority in the Senate, and but twice a small majority in the Assembly. Those bodies became what the Republicans, and the party from which they sprang, have made them. When William H. Seward and Thurlow Weed came into power the character of the legislative bodies fell in an instant, and during all the 23 years of Republican ascendancy it continued to fall."