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[[preprinted]]
MILWAUKEE SCHOOL OF MUSIC
[[wavy line]]
JOHN C. FILLMORE, DIRECTOR.

Milwaukee, Wis.,
[[/preprinted]]
 Dec. 25th, 1893.
[[preprinted]]189[[preprinted]]

My dear Miss Fletcher:---Your long and excellent letter came this morning and with it your beautiful present, for which I heartily thank you^[[,]] although it was by no means needed to remind me of your frien^[[d]]ly inter^[[e]]st.---I am delighted with your success at Vassar and I am also glad that you met Dr. Dvorak and others.  I have the greatest faith in your ability to make those people see things through your eyes. I wish I had only a tithe of your power in that line. ^[[I]] am a good fighter, but not a good persuader. Consequently, I am not at all sure that you were right in asking me to write the open letter for the CENTURY; and I am quite sure you are wrong in attributing to my writing any superiority over your own. However, you have enough to do without it; and I am willing to do all I can. So I enclose a letter for your criticism. Cut out the phr^[[ase]] which includes Dvorak's name if you think best, and make any other modifications you may see fit. Perhaps you may think it too pugnacious; but a lot of those fellows have got to have their noses rapped^[[,]] sooner or later, perhaps Dvorak included. I am the boy who can do that with great pleasure. My wife, who has lived with me 28 years, informs me, [[strikethrough]] wi [[/strikethrough]] with marital frankness, that there is nothing I enjoy so much as telling a man what I think of him;--provided I do not think well of him. That will be the real trouble with me if I should ever enter the Gov't service. If Powell is a MAN, he will stand frank speech and we shall be good friends; if he is a cur, there will be the very devil to pay befo^[[re]] six months are over. (Please excuse my French).

The idea of getting me an appointment regardless of the Eth. Bureau and independent of it originates with my friends here who are engineering the plan. I will tell them what you say, and they will probably take their own course regardless of it; fo^[[r]] they seem to think they know. I am in their hands and shall have to abide by the result. But do not fail to give  me your opinion and counsel, just the same. I will let you know what they say, as soon as I have seen them. The specification of the amount of salary was Mendel's work. He believes in the omnipotence of Senator Mitchell and in his ability to arrange a permanent place for me, with Powell's aid or in spite of him, if need be. I will impress on him your belief as to that point.  [[underline]] Inter nos [[/underline]], I have very little faith in the project myself. I am not going to accept a place which will not [[underline]] probably [[/underline]] be permanent, at least; and Powell must be made to understand that. I can do without this work, if it can do without me. And I am not going to be the plaything of any ignoramus, whatever his official position. I can do better service in Milwaukee as a free man than in Washington as a slave.