September 4 Thursday – William Dean Howells responded to Sam’s letter of Aug. 31 about the candidacies of Blaine and Cleveland. He did not share Sam’s perspective.

      I shall vote for Blaine. I do not believe he is guilty of the things they accuse him of; and I know they are not proved against him.

      As for Cleveland, his private life may be no worse than that of most men, but as an enemy of the contemptible, hypocritical, lopsided morality which says “a woman shall suffer all the shame of unchastity and a man none,[”] I want to see him destroyed politically by his past. The men who defend him would take their wives to the White House if he were President, but if he married his concubine—“made her an honest woman”—they would not go near him!

      I can’t stand that.

      Besides I don’t like his hangman-face. It looks dull and brutal [MTHL 2: 503].