Beauvoir Missi.          

19^th August 1888.

 

Hon J. H. Reagan.

           

My dear Sir,

                        Please accept my thanks for your kind attention in the matter of the investigation in the matter of iron & steel.

 

It is a noticeable fact that the metal most used & useful to man is one, the nature of which has been perhaps least understood. The fact that long continued rotation or concussion could render wrought iron granular, was, until a recent date unknown & this ignorance led to serious accidents on sl ships & locomotives & the bursting of guns. For example, the memorable explosion of "The Peacemaker" fabricated under the direction of Com Stockton 

 

The treatment of steel has produced astonishing results. I saw, in an armory in London, steel shavings so flexible that I picked up one & tied it in a bow knot.

The fact you communicate in relation to the very long steel guns they are making is interesting as an experiment for I have two doubts, 1^st as to whether they will be safe & second whether they will be equally effective with shorter guns with which it would be practicable to obtain & preserve a more perfect alignment than in one of the great length you describe. If the experiment succeeds, it would be to revive an old thing with errors of execution corrected.

 

I inferred from the newspapers that you would have a long session in which measures would be regulated by their probable influence upon the President / ial election; a sad conclusion & one which I would be glad if if I could avoid. It is certainly desirable that the Fishery Treaty should be remitted to a time for more calm, may I not say patriotic consideration. The Tariff is before you & the issue must be met. I look upon it as a contest between the taxpaying consuming people & the manufacturing banking interest but the power of wealth concentration & unity of purpose has often enabled the few to defeat the many. I grant that it may not be so in this case.

 

            With best wishes for you & yours in which Mrs Davis cordially unites

 

I am as ever

            Truly your friend

                        Jefferson Davis /

 

Hon. Jefferson Davis

            Beauvoir Miss

                        August 19/88

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