Albany, April 24th 1877.
Dear Mrs Gibbons,
You must not let the stories
about Governor Tilden’s private habits disturb you,
for in the long run a lie never hurts anyone
but its author. Mr. Tilden is a bigot in nothing,
not even in temperance, drinks when he pleases, what
he pleases, and as much as he pleases. I will not
say that he has never been intoxicated, for I doubt
if I have any male acquaintance who has not
been. But in the course of a long acquaintance
of thirty years and upwards and an intimacy
during the past three years more close perhaps
than has been engaged by any other person outside
of his family, working with him and eating
with him daily for weeks together, I have never
seen him in all that period when it would
have occurred to me to suspect him of a
tendency to excess either in eating or in drinking,
On the contrary if I were to select the attitude
of his character which deserves in my estimation
to rank among those for which he is specially
distinguished, it would be that of moderation,
caution, and self-control, which are the bases
of the only kind of temperance that can be relied
upon or that, in fact, amounts to anything.
Were it not that according to the Nation proverb,
“Most clubs will be found under the olive tree
that bears the best fruit.” I should have lost
my temper and my patience more frequently
than I did during the late campaign of vituperation
and detraction, of which Governor Tilden was the
special notion. But as I said before and
repeat with an amplification, “No wrong hurts
any one but its author”
My wife desires me to thank you for
your attention to her wishes. She leaves me with
the family on Thursday for the Squirrels
Very Sincerely your friend
John Bigelow
