Woodrow Wilson to John R. Thornton

I am under warm obligations to you for your frank letter of the twenty-first and thank you sincerely.
You state your position about the tolls with a candor and consistency which I sincerely admire and are quite right in supposing that I did not ask you to reverse a judgment so carefully considered but am putting my earnest request that the action of Congress in the matter of the tolls be reversed on the ground that it is, in my judgment, absolutely necessary to reverse that policy if we are to maintain cordial and friendly relations with the other countries of the world and carry our foreign policy to a successful issue along its new lines of disinterested action. I would be very much honored by your support in this position.