"And I have never hesitated to choose what business I would decline. At the outset of the famous litigation of the Erie, under the presidency of Mr. Eldridge, it was communicated to me that the Erie desired to retain me; and afterwards Mr. J. C. Bancroft Davis, in its behalf, twice came to my office to offer me retainers. I declined. In 1869, Mr. James McHenry, when acting in apparent unison with the Erie, several times pressed upon me retainers in behalf of his scheme of reorganization of the A. & G. W.; but, after considering his scheme, I declined. In the same year Mr. James Fisk, Jr., called upon me with Mr. Jay Gould. Mr. Fisk said, with many flattering suggestions, that they desired to retain me in reference to a matter then pending, and in the course of the interview he stated that they had paid within a year $125,000 to a member of the bar, whose name he mentioned. I declined. "I do not mean to imply that there would have been anything wrong in acting as counsel for the Erie in a proper case; but simply, when an act of mine is challenged, to state facts which are pertinent to my vindication. I have ever stood, not only in my personal conduct, but in my public influence, for the dignity and honor of the bar and the purity of the bench, and against whatever should tend to weaken or degrade the administration of justice. I did so, in 1869, when the evils of corrupt times were growing and powerful. I accepted issue in the Democratic State convention of that year. On the 1st of February, 1870, at the meeting which resulted in the formation of the Bar Association, I uttered these unpremeditated thoughts: "'If the bar is to become merely a method of making money, making it in the most convenient way possible, _but making it_ AT ALL HAZARDS, then the bar is _degraded_. If the bar is to be merely an institution that seeks to win causes, and to win them by _back-door access to the judiciary_, then it is not only _degraded_, but it is CORRUPT.' * * * * * "Sir, I believe that this country is to-night at about the lowest point in the great cycle which we have occasionally to traverse. I believe that there will come a sounder and a better public sentiment, in which speculation and gambling and jobbing and corruption will lose their power, and in which free government will vindicate its rights to the confidence of mankind. If I did not believe this, I should think that a very great part of my own life was lost, and all the traditions I have derived from my ancestors. "The better day, to which--in that dark hour--I looked with hope and faith, is now dawning upon our city, State, and country. "Very truly, yours, &c., "S. J. TILDEN." "NEW YORK, _March 16th, 1872_." G. W. CASS TO S. J. TILDEN "NEW YORK, _March 18, 1872_.