"From the position assigned me here, I have had to deal with great questions involving our financial system of currency, taxes and debt, and I can appeal to all my associates in Congress, to each of the eminent men with whom, as Secretaries of the Treasury, I have been intimate, and to every man of the multitude with whom I have been brought into contact, to say whether I have ever been influenced in my course by pecuniary interest.
"But you say that the impression is that I am a very rich man, whereas, before I was in public affairs, my circumstances were decidedly moderate. This allegation contains two gross exaggerations. When I entered public life, I was largely engaged in my profession and other lucrative business. If I had not engaged in politics, I might have been the rich man you suppose. I am not this day relatively richer, considering the changed value of property, than I was when I entered the Senate. Some time ago it was stated in your paper that I was worth millions. A very small fraction, indeed, of one million dollars will cover all I am worth. My property consists mainly of real estate, palpable to the eye, and the rest of it is chiefly in a railroad with which I was connected before I entered public life.
"I have managed my business affairs with reasonable care, prudence, economy and success. What I have is the result of this.
"You kindly offer me an opportunity to disprove to you these reports. Well, how can I? What charge is made against me? How can I fight shadows? How can a man prove himself innocent against an innuendo?
"But as you offer me the opportunity, I now invite Mr. Faran to come to my home at Mansfield, and I will show him all I possess there, and render him a full account of all I have elsewhere, and if I can't fairly account for it without being suspected of receiving bribes, or gifts, or stealing, then he can repeat these baseless accusations with an easy conscience.
"You may ask why I have not met these derogatory reports before. Perhaps I ought, but I feel the humiliation of such a controversy, and thought it time enough when a specific charge was made. And I am told by Mr. Hedges, my former law partner, that in my absence, last summer, he corrected some gross misstatements in your paper about me, and that you refused or neglected to publish it—even to notice it. As, however, you now, in a courteous way, invite this letter, I take great pleasure in accepting your offer.
"Very truly yours,
"John Sherman.
"Messrs. Faran & McLean, editors of the 'Enquirer.'"
I doubted the policy of my publishing such a letter, or of taking any notice of so indefinite a charge, but the response from the press was fair, especially from the "Shield and Banner," a Democratic paper printed in Mansfield, as follows:
"We publish a letter of Hon. John Sherman to the editors the Cincinnati 'Enquirer.' It is hardly necessary that we should say that we have no sympathy with the political creed of John Sherman. Between him and us there is a vast and wide difference; but we are not, we trust, so much of the partisan that we cannot do justice to a neighbor, if that neighbor differs with us. We have known John Sherman, not only during all his public life, but from the time we became a resident of Mansfield, now covering a period of thirty years, and we have always known him as industrious, prudent and careful in his profession, and economical and thrifty in his business. We placed very little credence in the rumors that he was a man of immense wealth. His property is mostly in real estate. He was fortunate in getting hold of very desirable property in and around our city, and the advance in that has doubtless given him a competence; but it is folly to charge him with being a millionaire. We have, in common with our neighbors, enjoyed his hospitality, and his style of living is neither extravagant nor ostentatious.
"Mr. Sherman is one of our townsmen, and although all wrong as a politician and statesman, and holding to a creed we utterly disapprove, he is a highminded and honorable man, and we are bound to accept his statement about his pecuniary affairs as true."