"Yes,” he replied, “it may be open to the
charge that it was intemperate in tone,
and also perhaps impolitic. Hut it will be
remembered, that it was written at the
close of a most heated personal campaign,
in which I had contended with greater odds
and stronger auverse influences than any
other man had faced in Georgia in almos
a generation. The result of that campaign
then appeared to me to be> the final ov i
throw of the hopes and ambitions of a life.
But whether the letter then written under
those circumstances was temperate or in
temperate, it is utterly untrue that it con
tained the expression of any such senti
ment or intention as is alleged in 'I lq' Jour
nal. On the contrary, in that letter, al
though written when in the very depths of
personal defeat, the duty of the democratic
minority, including myself, to be bound by
the action of the majority is repeatedly
recognized and asserted.
“I want to say,” he added, “as that let
ter is now again brought forward, that
many’ who opposed me in that campaign
are now my friends, and that there are
some harsh expressions in it that 1 would
not now repeat. But so far as concerns any
thing in that letter expressing an intention
to vote the democratic ticket or not, as 1
pleased, there is nothing to explain, and I
have only to squarely deny' that there is
any such thing in it.
“You will notice,” he further said. “that,
the article in The Journal criticises another
letter of mine, which it says does not
■jingle’ with the Wilson tariff bill.
Well, I will be ready to meet
that question at the proper time and place.
