"I saw Manning a moment and told him he nor C. had acknowledged your invitation. He seemed surprised, and said he understood that he sent word to you this eve., and I think C. understood that M. had done so both for himself and C. I told him I did not so understand him. He said to write you to-day that C. was all right in every way. That he spent the entire evening with him on Friday, and that among other things he talked with him about going to see you. That C. said he had agreed to go to N. Y. and listen to those who wanted to talk to him, and that he should go Feb. 1, or within a day or so of it, one way or the other. That he should simply hear what they had to say, and should make no committals in any way; and that after he had heard them, he and M. should go to you. C. told M. that was his idea of the best way to do it—if agreeable to you. I think he said that C. insisted upon his going to N. Y. with him. They therefore will visit you the last of the first week in Feb'y—if nothing happens. I had a very hasty talk with M., as I had but five minutes before my train started. I think I ought to say that C. has considerable dread of A. H. G. (Andrew H. Green). He said G. abused every one and found fault with everything, and evidently had an idea that G. represented to some extent your views. I undeceived him about that. I found M. feared that G. would get hold of his letters to you also, and that, I think, is one reason why M. likes better to send messages than to write, although he probably learned that from you. I do not know as I should have written the above about G., but thought you ought to know it.
"Yours very truly,
"Smith M. Weed."
R. T. MERRICK TO TILDEN
"Private and confidential.
"Washington City, Feb'y 1st, 1885.
"My dear Mr. Tilden,—On the day after my return to New York from Greystone, I had a conversation with Mr. Jones as to the fusing of himself and his political associates, in regard to the appointment of Mr. Manning as Secretary of the Treasury.
"Mr. Jones spoke, very decidedly, for himself and Mr. Horace White, in favor of the appointment, and was of opinion that it would meet the approval of all the leading independents, especially in view of the fact that such an appointment was, probably, the only means by which the danger—as he characterized it—of Mr. Whitney's accession to that office could be avoided. He represented that he and his friends were opposed to the appointment of the last-named gentleman to any place in Cleveland's cabinet.
"He requested me to say to you that, in his interview with Mr. Cleveland on Sunday last, he stated to him that, but for your course, in reference to him, he certainly would never have been nominated—and that he impressed upon him the extent of his obligations to you.
"In all that he said—as far as I am informed—on this subject he was right, and would have been right had he gone further and given the President-elect a broader view of the situation.
"But for you, and the wonderful power and wisdom with which you conducted the Democratic party up to and through the campaign of '76, the rule of the Republican party would have remained unbroken for another quarter of a century.