TILDEN TO PRESIDENT CLEVELAND
"Greystone, Yonkers, New York, Oct. 21, '85.
"To His Excellency, Grover Cleveland.
"My dear Sir,—Mr. D. A. McKnight, the law clerk in the Patent Office, is the author of a book of great ability entitled The Electoral System of the United States.
"Without adopting all of his views, his independence, integrity, and conscientiousness are shown by the fact that his masterly analysis of the doings of the electoral commission, in which he exposes the inconsistencies of their decisions, and condemns them as illegal and unconstitutional, was published in a volume printed in 1878, with a preface dated March 10, 1877. At that time Mr. McKnight was holding his present office under the administration of Mr. Hayes.
"I understand that his resignation has recently been requested, in order to give the appointment to some other person.
"Mr. McKnight is confessedly an excellent officer, serving the government with fidelity and skill; and is personally free from every objection.
"Under these circumstances, I take the liberty of appealing to you for an intimation in favor of the retention of Mr. McKnight, or his promotion to a higher grade in the service.
"The Democratic party of the United States have beheld, with indignation, the chief agents in the frauds, perjuries, and forgeries by which a pretext of documentary evidence was furnished on which to base a false count, rewarded by their appointment in numerous cases to most important civil trusts.
"It would scarcely be anticipated that a Democratic administration should have so little sympathy with, or respect for the popular feeling on this subject as to discard a meritorious officer having the peculiar claim to its recognition which the facts I have narrated show Mr. McKnight to possess.