Excellent ALS from Cleveland to Frank M. Thorn of New York. ALS, four pages on two adjoining sheets, 4.25 x 6.75, November 26, 1903. In full: “I have received the copies of ‘What’s the use?’ which you sent me, and have read the Horvath article with indignant amazement, and your reply, (not altogether correct in some small details), with grateful satisfaction.
Somehow I have never been able to suppose that anyone believed that I was dishonest or self-serving in the discharge of the duties pertaining to the great office of President; and it has never seemed to me that any decently inclined man needed any assurance from me on that subject. I have often wished that any word spoken and every act done in the transactions upon which scandalous charges against me are dirtily based, could have been heard and seen by every American citizen. In this condition of mind I have not been able to bring myself to the humiliation and degradation of pleading my honesty.
Through some tribulation I have been able there for [sic] to keep my faith in the American people as ‘the best people in the world.’ I have no idea that Mr. Horvath believes what he has written; and I am usually able to look upon such deliverances as his, as a sort of adulteration or allay of American decency which prevents our people from being ‘too good to live.’
I certainly have no occasion to feel cast down on account of the silly attacks of the ‘base sort,’ in the light of the recent evidence of just and generous appreciation of my work among those amenable to American manliness and fair play.
And a man should be abundantly satisfied when added to this there are those so friendly and so competent as you, at hand, to stand up in his defense. You have certainly done me no small service; and I thank you for it from the bottom of my heart.” In fine condition, with a tiny edge separation at horizontal mailing fold. Accompanied by the original mailing envelope, addressed in Cleveland’s hand.
After stirring up the Buffalo newspaper scene writing under the pen names Hy Slocum, Frank Clive, and possibly Carl Byng—frequently contributing to the Buffalo Express before being banned from the paper by co-owner Samuel Clemens—New York attorney Frank Manly Thorn turned his attention to Democratic politics. After years of campaigning for local fellow attorney-turned-President Grover Cleveland, Thorn was appointed chief clerk of the Internal Revenue Bureau, a position he held through Cleveland’s first administration. Returning to his home in New York at the end of the 1880s, Thorn remained a dedicated supporter, combining his friendship, political interest, and writing ambitions into frequent publications defending Cleveland’s reputation. A wonderfully heart-felt letter from Cleveland regarding the publication ‘What’s the use?’—one of Cleveland’s most famous quotes regarding the presidency—to his longtime friend and supporter, in his corner for over two tumultuous decades. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RR Auction COA.
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