Passaic, N. J., December 17, 1905.
Hon. Thomas E. Watson, New York.
Dear Sir: Every month your Magazine grows better and your editorials are great in their unborrowed simplicity, power and naturalness, and in their humble consciousness of truth and right.
(1) But how do you manage to call Napoleon a Democrat? I reverence the word Democrat, it is my religion as well as my politics, and I don’t like to hear such an unquestioned authority as you call him a Democrat. It will be an interesting article, I think, if you answer my objection.
(2) In an answer to a correspondent in regard to the best English histories you omit the favorite—my favorite—and I think the best—John Richard Green’s Shorter History of the English People. Why did you omit it? Another interesting article.
(3) I can’t understand what you mean by saying that the “cry of the people ground down by their masters, was what brought Napoleon back from Elba.” I have read your history of Napoleon, too. Was it not solely his ambition, and he saw in the disaffection of the people a chance to swell his armies?
Let me congratulate you on Clarence Darrow’s story. It has the element that made Burns and Wordsworth.
Please accept my congratulations. Wishing you a Merry Christmas and you and your Magazine a Happy and Prosperous New Year.
Yours very truly,
⸺ ⸺.