Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1886-07-28
Friendly Advice to Cleveland.
LETTER OF BILL NYE's WHICH HAS JUST
SEEN THE LIGHT.
HUDSON, WIS, June 8, '66.
Tho Hon Grover CLEVELAND WashinrtO

HUDSON, WIS, June 3, 'S6.
The Hon. Grover Cleveland, Washington,
DC.
My DEAR SIR:-You have now assumed
new duty and taken upon yourself an ad-
ditional responsibility Not content with
the great weight Of national affairs suffi-
cient to crush any other pachyderm, you
have cheerfully and almost gleefully be-
come married man. While l cannot agree
with you politically, Grover, l am forced to
admire your courage.
This morning new life opens out to
you-the life of married man. IL is in
deed a humliating situation. To be a
President of the United States, the rousta-
bout of free people, is trying situation;
but to be a newly-married President, mar
ried in the full glare of official life, with
the eye of divided constituency upon you,
is to place yourself where nerve is abso-
lately essential. I am surprised, Grover,
honestly, as between man and man, that
you should have tried to add housekeeping
to all this other agony. Had you been
young and tender under the wings, l might
have understood it; but you must admit, in
the quiet and sanctity of your own home,
Grover, that you are no gosling. You have
arrived at mans estate. You have climbed
the barbed-wire fence which separates the
fluff aud bloom and blossom and bumble-
bees of impetuous youth from the yellow
fields and shadowy orchards of middle life.
You now stand in the full glare of life's
meridian. You are entering upon new
experience. Possibly you think that be-
cause you are President the annoyance pc
culiar to the life of new, green groom will
not reach you Do not fool yourself in this
matter. Others have made the same mis-
take. Position, wealth, aud fame cannot
shut out the awkward and trying circum
stances which attend the married man even
as the sparks are prone to fly upward.
| 1t will seem odd to you at first, Mr.. Pres
ident, after the AFFAIRS of the nation have
been put aside for the day and the Govern
ment fire-proof safe locked up for the night,
to go to your boudoir and converse with a
bride with one corner of her mouth full of
pins. A man may write pretty fair mes
sage to Congress, one that will be accepted
and printed all over the country, and yet he
may not be fitted to hold conversation
with one corner of a woman's mouth while
the other is filled with pins. To some men
it is given to be great as Statesmen, while
to others it is given to be fluent converse
| tionalists under these circumstances.
Mr.. President, may be taking a great
liberty in writing to you and touching up
on your private affairs, but 1 noticed that
everybody else was doing it, and SO / have
nerved myself up to write to you, having
once been a married man myself, though
not under the same circumstances. When
l was married / was only plain justice of
the peace, plodding quietly along and
striving to do my duty. You were then
sheriff of your county. Little did we think
in those days that now you would be a
freshly married President and the author
of several pieces which have been printed
in the papers. Little did we think then,
when l was justice of the peace in Wy
oming and you sheriff in New York. that
to day your timothy lawn would be kicked
all to pieces by your admiring constituents,
while would be known and loved wherev-
er the English language is known and TAM
pered with.
So we have risen together, you to point
from which you may be easily observed and
fayed alive by the newspapers, while am
the same pleasant, uuassuming, gentleman
ly friend of the poor that | was when only
a justice of tne peace and comparatively un
known.
/ cannot close this letter without ex
pressing wish that your married life may
be a. joyous one, as the paper of Laramie
| has said, sand that no cloud may ever come
to mar the horizon of your welded bliss. >
(fhis sentence is not my own. | copy i
verbatim from a wedding notice of my owI
, written by a Western journalist who is nov
) lat the Old Woman's home.l
81 Mr. President, ! hope yer viii not fee