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YALE UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES,

FIRST PART.

BY A BEEKSHIEE FAEMEE.

" The times are out of joint,"
Hamust.

LEE:
OFFICE OF THE VALLEY GLEANES,
BEEKSHIEE CO., MASSACHUSETTS.
1884.

To THE
FAEMEES OF MASSACHUSETTS,
WITHOUT DISTINCTION OF PAETY,
THESE CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES

CXh '^^o

^-p^ujU

CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES.

WHITE PLUMES AND THE WHITE FEATHER.
It is pot so much the white plume that the country has reason
to fear at the present time as it is the white feather. The
danger is that men will not act up to the standard of their con
victions. The Eepublican party has a presidential candidate
who is opposed by the strongest and most influential Eepublican
journals, distinctly on the ground of his corrupt antecedents. It
is patent that his nomination was engineered at Ciiieago by the
money, the manipulation, and the hurrahs of the Star Eoute
thieves, and receives its warmest support among the most auda
cious and unscrupulous gamblers of Wall Street. These men
are aU on the make. Birds of a feather flock together. When
Mr. Blaine was so very sick and like to die at the outcome of
the Mulligan matter, who imagined that enough life could ever
be galvanized into him to make him a presidential candidate of
the Eepublican party ? But the thieves and the gamblers rep
resent the strong idea in the Blaine canvass. " Put money in
your purse ? " No, " Put money in our purses."
Now what do the white-feather men say ? " We are Eepubli
cans and we must support the Eepublican ticket, no matter who
is the candidate." Why? The journals which made such a
hullabaloo over Greneral Butler as a bad man — can they show
that Mr. Blaine is a better ? m.
Party ftdjelity is^a good thing, but honesty, truth, and patriot
ism are better things. What constitutes the merit of party
fidelity? It is the merit of the objects the party desires to
accomplish. V»^hen it became clear to political aspirants aud

4 Chapters for the Times.
party leaders that a pubHc sentiment against slavery had been
developed that would sweep slavery away, Whigs, Democrats,
and Free Soilers combined, under the name of the Eepubhcan
party, and away slavery was swept. And shaU the combmation
that destroyed slavery make men slaves to the notion that party
fidelity requires them to work together to effect other objects in
which they have no longer a common interest? The people are
more interested in having an honest and pure administration
than they possibly can be in the success of any set of party
leaders. A man who votes from a view of party obligation for
a man or a measure he disapproves requires some new emanci
pation act to make a freeman of him. He voluntarily submits
to the basest kind of bondage.
It is not possible that the Eepublican farmers of Berkshire
County will be wheeled into line, as a flock of sheep in the
Highlands is driven by the trained dogs of the shepherd. The
Star Eoute thieves have succeeded in capturing the Eepubli
can Convention, and their nominee is the nominee of Stephen
B. Elkins, Kellogg, Brady, Price, Dorsey, Salisbury, and the
gang whose object is to run the Eepublican party for the most
money there is in it. The farmers are considering whether this
can be the best thing for the country, and if they come to the
conclusion that it is not, it wiU be hard to convince them that
party fidelity is a sufficient excuse for the betrayal of the coun
try. Our paramount duty is owing to the Eepublic, and not to
the Eepublican party.
Hostility to slavery and the preservation of a slaveless union
were the pivotal ideas of the Eepublican organization. Slavery
is gone, and nothing turns on it now. The salvation of the
Union is still an issue, and may Heaven save it from the hands
of the Elkinses, the Goulds, the Dorseys, and the Blaines !
At another time I may have a word more to say to the great
men of the Eepublican party. Meanwhile I would ask Gover
nor Eobinson what has become of the great moral stalking horse
that he curveted on so gallantly last summer and autumn?
Mr. Senator Dawes and Mr. Senator Hoar, what business have
you in the ranks of the Star Eoute thieves ? You are purists,
and have a holy horror of Democratic iniquities. Since the de
faulters of Jackson's time and Van Buren's there has never
been such a gang as the Star Eoute thieves ; and these men,

Over-Taxation Tyranny. 6
countenanced, protected, and saved from the penitentiary by Ee
publican influence, manage to dictate the nominations of the
Eepublican convention. The people rose against the party of
the defaulters, and crushed them by the election of General Har
rison. This party of the people is again in the field. They are
the only third party we require to elect an honest man, if such
a man should be offered for their suffrage.
June 30, 1884.

II.
OVER-TAXATION TYRANNY.
The Plumed Knight and the Surplus.
From the earliest times to the present, the great effort of the
governing class in kingdoms, empires, and republics has been
and is to squeeze aU. the money possible out of the people in the
shape of taxes, direct and indirect, gifts, imposts, duties, assess
ments, capitations, grants, and stealings generally. Governing
has always been a first-class business for smart men.
Excuses for taking the people's money vary from time to
time. Sometimes it is for the defense of the realm and some
times for aggressive war. Then come contracts for food and
clothing, and munitions and arms and all sorts of military
supplies, and thence " profits do accrue " to the governing class
and their friends. The people in some shape pay the piper,
and the managers and hangers-on of the government grow rich
at the people's expense. Sometimes it is for building palaces,
and for laying out gardens and terraces and bosquets, and fish
ponds and water-works. Louis XIY. and his ministers under
stood these processes in their day. The courtiers and contrac
tors — the men who pocketed the money wrung from the peo
ple — assured the people that it was the best thing in the world
for them to pay this money, — that it gave work and wages to
the builders and artisans, and made the gold circulate. The
people did not know but what it was best, they were told so with
such confidence.
Few, comparatively, profited by these levies on the people.
The men who collected the money, they feathered their nests.

6 Chapters for the Times.
The men who re.ieived the money helped themselves to what
they thought was about a fair share, liberally estimated. The
men who spent the money made their contracts judicioi:4y, and
never omitted to take their percentage. There was always a
handsome margin for the governors. Then the favored con
tractor sub-let at a splendid profit, and another circle was let m
who were interested in raising moneys from the people for the
" support of the government." These rings all told embraced
an inconsiderable number of persons, but they succeeded in con-
vinciiig the people that it was good for them to be robbed and
plundered, till from painful experience the people began to
doubt it, till doubt became conviction, and one day they rose
up and did a great deal of wild work vith gallows and guil
lotine. But what a high time it would have been for the Louises if
they had been able for a series of years not only to raise all the
money that they could spend, but a surplus of five hundred
millions of francs that they did not know what to do with !
For our French friends this would have been a diificulty, but
in our case the conundrum has been solved by Mr. James
Gillespie Blaine. Eaise from the people hundreds of millions
of dollars, and when the pension agents and pensioners are sat
isfied, and we have paid the interest on our public debt and a
large block of the principal, and have squandered millions more
in local harbor and river bills with no rivers and no harbors
behind them, and have built at the cost of untold millions all
the post-offices and custom-houses that we can find sites for, and
have glutted the appetite of the Star Eoute thieves, And have
sunk millions by the hundred in fortifications that do not for
tify, and on defensive navies that cannot defend, we will con
tinue to raise a hundred million of dollars more than we can
possibly spend, and will distribute it among the States I
That is Mr. Blaine's idea of what the people are good for, —
to pay money that by some of the numerous channels to which
I have alluded can come into the hands of the smart men who
constitute the governing class. It is the old, old story. So the
people were regarded by their rulers in Eome ; so in France, so
in England. Our rulers make a better thing . >£ it for them
selves and their friends than rulers have ever done before, and
the created wealth which in its countless manipulations enables

Over-Taxation Tyranny. 7
the governing class to raise these immense surpluses and
squander them with such reckless prodigality, comes from the
men who till the soil, work the mines, and foUow the sea. Labor
does it aU.
Thomas Jefferson told your fathers, farmers of Berkshire,
and your fathers believed in him, that we required, to make us
a happy and prosperous people, a " wise and frugal govern
ment, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall
leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of in
dustry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of
labor the bread it has earned." " This," he added, " is the sum
of good government." Therefore it was that he recommended
" economy in the public expense that labor may he lightly hu/r-
dened." James Gillespie Blaine believes in a government that shaU.
continue to levy on the people an excess over the reckless and
boimdless present expenditure of an hundred millions of dol
lars, to he distributed among the States. What wonder that the
Star Eoute thieves and the men who want to become Star Eoute
thieves rally round the Plumed Knight, who "couches his
lance," as Senator Frye tells us, for this magnificent charge on
the treasury and the people of the United States !
In a Berkshire weekly paper I have noticed a paragraph
laudatory of an article in which Judge Eobinson " explains "
his determination to support Mr. Blaine for the presidency, and
gives an " exhaustive and irresistible argument " in support of
those Eepublican journals which, " saying they would ne'er con
sent, consented " to accept him as their candidate.
When I obtain a copy of the " model article," which shows
the voters of Berkshire how a " fatal and irretrievable nomina
tion " can evolute into a very desirable election, I will pay my
respects to it. Meanwhile I would ask the Judge to "explain"
If he referred to Mr. Blaine when he wrote " no man of doubt
ful record and policy should he nominated.''^ The context in
dicates that he could have referred to no one else. What did
he Intend by the words " doubtful record " ? For if a man of
" doubtful record " ought not to be nominated, one might well
enough suppose that a man of " doubtful record " ought not to
be supported by voters who honestly entertain this opinion.
July 7, 1884.

8 Chavters for the Times.
III.
THE FIGHT BETWEEN THE OFFICiB-HOLDERS ANB THE PEOPLE.
Blaine or Cleveland'/
Two party conventions have now met and presented their
respective candidates for the presidential office. One conven-
'tlon was an exceedingly boisterous and turbulent assemblage of
custom-house officers, postmasters, and boss politicians of the
Eepublican party, who In a hurricane of shouts, yells, cat-calls,
and tin-pan cymbals nominated Mr. James G. Blaine, and went
Into Idiotic ecstasies over a helmet with a white plume paraded
as the emblem of their candidate and the sign under which they
hope to conquer the people. The master spirit of the conven
tion, more efficient, perhaps, than any other man In producing
the result, was the collector of customs from New York, — an
office-holder with many hundred obedient subordinates, repre
senting and inspired by the sentiment that the country belongs
to the office-holders, and that its revenues are their legitimate
and inalienable spoils.
For four-and-twenty years, all the offices of honor and profit
In the United States have been substantially In the possession
of the leaders and managers of the Eepublican party. No set
of men has ever held possession of them for a longer period.
The Democrats controlled them for twenty-four years, from the
Inauguration of Jefferson to the inauguration of John Quincy
Adams. Then came an interregnum. Though a Democrat, Mr.
Adams was not the nominee of the congressional caucus, and a
new party was formed In his support. Four years the govem
ment was in the hands of National Eepublicans, and the legiti
mate succession was interrupted. Mr. Adams was not magnetic
or a manipulator of men, and the power of the offices was
wielded to a great extent by his opponents. Once again the
Democratic party proper was reinstated in their possession.
Eight years xmder General Jackson, and four years under
Martin Yan Buren, the office-holders ruled the country with a
rod of iron. An hundred thousand strong, they managed the
primary meetings, packed tbe conventions, nominated the can
didates, dictated the policy of the government in their plat-

The Fight Between the Office-Rolders and the People. 9
forms, and not contented vrith the lawful fees of their offices. In
many hundreds of instances used the funds of the government
as their own. Frauds and defalcations became the order of the
day. The better portion of the Democratic party revolted
against this corrupt domination. Under the lead of Elves of
Yirginia, TaUmadge of New York, and White and Bell of Ten
nessee, the revolt was made effective. The issue was distinctly
taken between the people and the office-holders, and the people
triumphed in the election of General Harrison. The struggle
was a severe and doubtful one. The office-holders denounced
the seceding Democrats as bolters and traitors, as they denounce
the Independents now. And what they call "loyalty to the
grand old party " meant just exactly what it means to-day, —
loyalty to the office-holders, loyalty to the men who have sus
tained the corruptions of the Grant regime, the remunerating
and grateful policy of Hayes, and the questionable because
questioned record of Garfield !
The Eepublican convention that nominated Blaine was to all
intents and purposes a convention of office-holders, in the same
sense as was the convention that nominated Yan Buren in 1839.
No candidate stood the ghost of a chance in it except the two
adroit politicians who could rally and manoeuvre the forces of
the post-office, the custom-house, and the departments. Arthur
and Blaine held the convention from the start, and the result
was a foregone conclusion. For ten years Mr. Blaine has en
joyed opportunities, and has availed himself of them, to organ
ize and educate to his purposes the tremendous phalanx that
makes a business of politics and lives on its emoluments. The
men who set up for the " leadership," the men who claim to be
the " organizing force " in the Eepublican party, the men who
run the government for the money in It, have for years looked
up to Mr. Blaine as their natural-born chief, and reams of Mul
ligan letters, each more disgraceful than the rest, could not shake
their allegiance or Impair their loyalty. President Arthur's
experience has been a briefer and more local experience. His
manipulation of ward primaries Mr. Blaine has extended over
counties and states, and though Arthur nominally captured and
apparently controlled for some purposes a considerable number
of delegates to the convention, it was well understood among
them that Blaine had the inside track, and that he was the most

10 Chapters for the Times.
authentic exponent of the Eepublican doctrines as they are un
derstood by the office-holders and exhibited by the Star Eoute
thieves. Against the corrupt alliance of office-holders and jobbers in
politics, the people have put their presidential candidate in nom
ination In the person of Grover Cleveland of New York. He is
presented for our suffrages by the Democratic convention, m
obedience to the irresistible pressure of public opinion. Op
posed bitterly by the most trenchant and eccentric Democratic
journal in the country and by the most powerful faction of the
Democratic party in his own State, with statesmen and leaders
of his party more distinguished than himself in competition for
the nomination, the people have made in all quarters such an
emphatic demand for his candidacy that it would have been
madness for the Democratic convention to refuse to listen to It.
The story of Grover Cleveland Is a short one. By his fellow-
citizens he was placed in the mayoralty of Buffalo at a time
when the municipal service was badly debauched, and the level
head and the strong hand of a bold and honest reformer were
required for the public protection. In this position he distin
guished himself by the exhibition of the qualities that were de
manded. The attention of his fellow-citizens throughout the
State was directed toward him. He seemed the very man that
they wanted for the chair of the governor. He was placed in
nomination by the Democratic party of which he was a member.
The people of the State seconded the nomination, and he became
the governor of New York by the largest majority ever given to
a gubernatorial candidate. In this position he has more than
maintained, he has largely added to, his reputation as a discreet,
faithful, firm, intelligent, and honest public servant. He has
been the tool of no clique, no ring, no faction, no party. He
has had but one aim — his duty. He has known but one mas
ter—the people. And now the people rise in their strength
and with a general acclaim pronounce their judgment " Thou
hast been faithful over a few things, we will make thee ruler
over many things ! "
And why should the farmers of Berkshire turn their b k
on him, whether they have called themselves Democratr ^
Eepublicans ? The cry is raised of " loyalty to party ! " Wh^^t
does that mean, practically, but loyalty to the office-holders ?

The (yffice-Holders' Ratification. 11
The Eepublican party has accomplished its mission. It has
saved the Union and destroyed slavery. Are we called upon
to be loyal to the corruptions in the navy department, in the
land offices. In the Indian bureau, in the post-office? Are
we bound to go forever for things as they are, when we see the
people robbed of hundreds of thousands by the Star Eoute
thieves, and the Eepublican office-holders unwilling or Incom
petent to secure their punishment ? When we see the Eepub
lican counsel for the people suggesting to their attorney-gen
eral that it might be well to consult with Mr. Chandler as to
the political effect of putting a particular witness on the stand
whose testimony might damage the Eepublican party ? Justice
may suffer, but the office-holders must be protected. Loyalty
to the party, the whole length and breadth of which in the pres
ent position of the party with regard to Its essential principles,
I repeat. Is loyalty to the office-holders I Shall we hear noth
ing of loyalty to the country ? Of loyalty to truth, honor, and
patriotism ? Of loyalty to common sense and common honesty ?
Of loyalty to the principle that excessive and extravagant tax£i-
tlon is tyranny, and tyranny in its most odious shape, and that
the great want of the nation now is a frugal and honest govern
ment that labor may be less heavily burdened ?
Elected as the choice of the people, with the fuU knowledge
that he never has been and never will be the slave of a faction,
Grover Cleveland wIU give us such a government.
July 12, 1884.

IV.
THE OFFICE-HOLDERS' RATIFICATION.
Mr. Blaine's Argument for the Money Power. — Democratic Ag
gressiveness Sufficient.
In my first chapter I promised to say a word more to Gov
emor Eobinson, Senator Hoar, and Senator Dawes ; and I do
not know that a more fitting opportunity will occur than is
afforded by their appearance together at the meeting of the Ee
publicans in Boston to ratify the presidential nominations of
their not very recent convention at Chicago. In the same con-

12 Chapters'' for the Times.
nection I may redeem the promise of paying my respects to
Judge Eobinson and his pohtical papers in tho North Adams
"Transcript." The speakers at the ratificatim ni.oing dis
cussed the same topics and put forward similar arguments, with
the view of demonstrating to the Eepublicans of the State that
while Mr. Blaine ought not to have beeii nominated for the
presidency, he ought to be elected.
In our happy country, considered as a Federal Union, we have
two classes of office-holders. One class is elected by the peo-
¦ pie and the States, and the other class is appointed by the
Executive, sometimes with and sometimes without the concur
rence of the Senate, a body of office-holders elected by the
States. In practice, the Executive has little or nothing to do
with the selection of postmasters, custom-house officers, the
officers in the judicial departments or the internal revenue ser
vice. They are appointed on the recommendation of the rep
resentative in Congress In the appointee's district, or of one or
both of the U. S. senators from his State. Officers in the de
partments and the diplomatic service are appointed on similar
recommendations. This immense body of men, occupying offices
of honor or offices of profit, or offices both of honor and profit,
constitute what is called the " organizing force " of the Eepub
lican party. What that means may be gathered from the make
up of the ratification meeting held a few days since in Boston.
The presiding officer, Mr. Lodge, is an Important member of
the " organizing force," being chairman of the Eepublican State
Committee, and a Eepublican candidate for the U. S. House
of Eepresentatives. Then we have Mr. Dawes and Mr. Hoar,
senators of the United States, Mr. Long, a member of the
lower House, Governor Eobinson, whose reelection demands
loyalty to the "organizing force," an ex^coUector of customs
with a grateful recoUection of the official flesh-pots, an ex-mem
ber of Congress, and a grocer in good standing to represent the
business element as a desirable addition to the office-holding
element of the meeting. So much for the platform. On the
floor were the foUowers and henchmen, who were indebted to
the "big Indians" on the platform for their places; and, as
their chairman has phrased it in another connection, sneeze
when their master takes snuff. These men, all of them, have
an mterest distinct from that of the people. They are so con-

The Office-Holders' Ratification. 13
nected with the organization that they must be loyal to it.
There is no help for It. They are the organization, and must
be loyal to themselves ; and that is just what they mean when
they call on the rank and file to be loyal to the party, and pro
pose to shoot the deserters.
" Loyalty," his own loyalty to the convention of office-hold
ers, — for as we see it in Massachusetts, so is it through the
whole length and breadth of the country, from Maine to Louis
iana and from Maryland to California, the " organization " in
its present aspect is the result of office-holding affiliations, —
this " loyalty " is the burden of Mr. Lodge's opening address.
The only other point outside of the commonplaces of the stump
Is the philosophical reflection, born of Mr. Lodge's studies and
experience, that parties cannot arise out of personal issues. The
greatest party that ever flourished in this country was the Jack
son party. It was his devoted personal following that elected
General Jackson, and enabled him to impose his own policy
upon the country, without regard to party platforms or tradi
tions except so far as he saw fit to adopt them. General Jack
son himself was the issue, and the only vital issue, at his first
election as well as the second, and he might have changed his
policy on vital questions without losing his ascendency with the
people. Personality will have a great deal to do with the pres
ent canvass. The people believe in the integrity, the firmness,
and the patriotism of Grover Cleveland. They are consequently
attracted by his personality ; and in spite of the combination
against him of office, money, and jobbery, the people will make
him President. " With money we will get partisans, with par
tisans votes, and v/ith votes money," Is the maxim of the Dor
seys and Bradys to-day, as it was said to be of the public pil
ferers fifty years ago.
" There are two parties," is the cry of Lodge, Eobinson,
Hoar, Dawes, and Long ; " there are two parties," and you
must fight it out on that platform, no matter who are the can
didates. There are two parties, true, and there is a reserve
force of the people, of the men who are not office-holders, and
who do not want office, who owe allegiance to the Constitution
and the country, and wear the collar of no sect or faction.
They are not partisans, and are not to be fooled by the rant
and fustian of any " organizing force " that office and jobbery
may combine to shackle them with.

14 Chapters for ^he Times.
What a terrible faUing off in the curveting gubernatorial
candidate of the purists since last autumn, when he is obliged
to culminate and cap-sheaf his ratifying speech with the Bob
Acres cry of " We won't run ! " And yet here it is : " Npw we
wiU not desert our posts because somebody may call us hard
names, or because somebody may fling insinuations at the plat
form or the candidates." No ! " We won't run ! " Any man,
seemingly, would be a simpleton to run from "hard names or
an " iasinuation " only. But Governor Eobinson does run away
from the issue, and Is afraid to meet the positive charges which
he dismisses as " insinuations," and the well-deserved epithets
which he euphuistlcaUy calls " hard names."
And how is It with Mr. Senator Hoar? There are three
salient points in his speech : One Is the fact that some of the
Southern States have not yet emerged from the habits of vio
lence and disregard of human life engendered by years of war
and bloodshed. I admit it. So In the city of New York, and
In some of the villages on Long Island, shocking and barbarous
murders have been committed during this very last year by
colored ruffians. It would be as well to argue from this that all
colored men are ruffians, and that the constitutional amend
ments in behalf of the race were a great mistake, as to argue
from the fact that some Democrats were murderers in Copiah,
that all Southern Democrats are murderers, and ought there
fore to be excluded from all participation in Federal affairs for
an indefinite period.
Another point was made against the influence of Harvard
College. Senator Hoar alleges that the Influence of President
Eliot, and of a little body of men about him, has " tended In
finitely to degrade the public life of the Commonwealth." The
only comment I make on all this, is to advise the honorable
senator to walk through Memorial Hall, study the portraits,
and read the tablets. President Eliot may not be an expert in
the carriage business, or be practically wise on the tariff ques
tion, but why on this account he should figure so largely in Mr.
Hoar's ratifying speech is beyond my comprehension.
The third point is the statesmanship of Mr. Blaine.
Since Mr. Hoar's speech was delivered, the "consummate
flower " of Mr. Blaine's statesmanship has been exhibited, in
the greatest effort of his- life, his letter of acceptance of the

The Office-Holders' Ratification. 15
nomination, which Senator Hoar and his associate office-holders
have been ratifying. The success with which he keeps out of
view in this important paper all the questions that are of any
Immediate interest except to the jobbers and office-holders, is
something remarkable. It is written all over, in big capitals,
with Money! Money! Money! One would suppose the cry
came from Wall Street, and not from a rural district in Maine.
Mr. Blaine gloats over the big figures. He becomes enthusi
astic and fanatic over the millions that we have added to the
public wealth. Nay, millions are nothing ; he launches into un
counted biUions. It is enough to make the mouth water of aU
the jobbers and Star Eoute thieves in the country. His language
and figures are very like the language and figures of the Illus
trious Ward. All these big profits, he avers, are the result of
government legislation, as Ward's were the result of govern
ment contracts. Tremendous profits on paper ! Money with
out beginning or end for somebody ! For whom ? Farmers of
Berkshire, how much of it has ever found its way into you/r
pockets ? Some of it may be traced to Blaine, some to Dorsey,
some to Brady, a good deal of it into the hands of the opulent
Mr. Jones, who is running the Blaine machine In the city of
New York till the election, more into the hands of the Goulds
and the Sages and the Yanderbilts. All the rich men have
been made a good deal richer, and all the poor men relatively
poorer, by this legislation, that now threatens to bury personal
honor and public virtue under an avalanche of gold. But the
shrinkage, Mr. Blaine! How much of this fabulous wealth
exists on paper only, for you cannot have forgotten how these
profits from government undertakings sometimes wind up ? It
may be another Grant & Ward business : liabilities, 116,000,-
000; nominal assets, 127,000,000; actual assets, |65,000.
I must say one word on the aggression question. All these
speakers are apprehensive that If we make Grover Cleveland
President, we shall not have a sufficiently aggressive policy.
Aggression Is to be the supplement of money to elect Mr.
Blaine. Is he going to be more aggressive than the Demo
crats ? The Democrats made rather an aggressive assault on
the Constitution when they acquired Louisiana and the Florldas.
The Democrats made the war against England of 1812. The
Democrats announced the Monroe doctrine, and have never

16 Chapters for the Times.
abandoned It. The Democrats threatened France with war
when she was sluggish In paying up, and they got the money.
The Democrats annexed Texas. The Democrats cried out
"54.40 or fight!" when the northwestern boundary was In
dispute. The Democrats declared war against Mexico, and
acquired California and New Mexico. I am not a Democrat.
As far as these aggressions were in my time, I have not sym
pathized with them or approved them. One would suppose
that this record is aggressive enough and American enough
to make It extremely difficult for Mr. Blame to better It.
July 20, 1884.

Y.
THE DIVIDE OF THE SURPLUS.
Is it the Church and the School-House, or the CustomrHouse and
Post-0 ffyce? — Caesar's Wife, and Slander.
Before discussing new matters, permit me to refer to a topic
treated in a former chapter. It has been observed that Mr.
Blaine's Mulligan letters are not the only epistles of the gentle
man to which we take exception. His letter on the policy of so
taxing the people as to create an enormous surplus, and to
distribute it among the States, was perhaps equally conclusive
on the question of his fitness for the presidency. It was so
treated ; and it is gratifying to find that my views are confirmed
by the views of Eepublicans, who in an eminent degree deserve
and enjoy the public confidence. Senator John F. Andrew, son
of our lamented war governor, says that the proposition of
Mr. Blaine in this regard is " outrageous as well as unconstitu
tional," and " shows that he is not fit to hold the office which
he seeks." James Speed, of Kentucky, the only surviving
member of President Lincoln's cabinet, in a letter to a friend
dated the 19th inst., avers that " his [Blaine's] letter about the
surplus revenue is monstrous," and " shows him to be as unsafe
in his views of the framework of our government as he Is in
regard to international law." "Unconstitutional," "outrage
ous," « monstrous," demonstrating his unfitness for the presi
dency. Hard words these. Governor Eobinson ; why should

The Divide of the Surplus. 17
you or your friends desert your posts because " somebody "
" flings insinuations at your candidate " ?
But one word more for Senator Hoar. On reading: his
speech a second time, two or three reflections suggest them
selves. Though he starts with the remark that he " brings no
sneer at those whose judgment as to their duty may differ from
his own," he alludes to President Eliot as an " innocent," and
Mr. James Freeman Clarke as a " venerable doctor of divin
ity," In " Democratic alliance " with the murderers of Copiah.
Their judgment differs from his own as to the propriety of ele
vating to the presidency a partisan with a " doubtful record,"
and he expresses himself with a sneer that amounts to emphatic
contempt. The honorable senator, however, considers It a
feather in Mr. Blaine's cap that his nomination is the " nomi
nation of the church and of the school-house." Bishop Blaine
and Schoolmaster Logan ! Now of what church is Mr. Blaine
the nominee ? Of the Eoman Catholic Church, or the Epis
copal, or the church without a bishop ? If this is not mere
flummery and fustian. It is an averment that Mr. Blaine's nom
ination' is that of an absolutely clerical convention. This whis
tling, singing, bawling, yelling, shrieking posse of office-holders,
that ran wild at the sight of an empty helmet with a plume on
it, and behaved like a mob let loose from Bedlam, Senator
Hoar perhaps wishes us to regard as a convocation of clergy
men and scholars. If this is true, it is capable of proof. Pro
duce your vouchers, brother Hoar, and let us know if your
church was any other than that in which Dorsey Is head deacon,
and Brady Is trusted to hand round the plate.
It was not the nomination of the church and the school-house ;
the school-house and the church repudiate it. The nomination
was that of the post-office and custom-house, that organization
banded and entrenched, which finds its cohesive and impelling
power in offices and jobs and contracts. In party spoils and public
plunder. Two such masters in the art of wire-pulling, two men
so versed In the tricks and trade of politics, two such shrewd tac
ticians In marshaling and managing the mercenaries of a party,
two such adepts and experts in intrigue and strategy as Arthur
and Blaine, have never before been pitted against each other in
any contest for a presidential nomination. What they did not
know about packing conventions was not worth knowing, and

18 Chapters for the Times.
4heir combined exertions brought together the most turbulent,
unscrupulous, and greedy set of office-holders and office-seekers
that were to be found in the country. Mr. Hoar himself lets
out the fact that the convention was fuU of office-holders. He
describes the men who voted for Arthur as a solid column ot
office-holders. CoUector Eobertson led the column for Blame,
and his followers were of the same stripe. Blaine had the ad
vantage over Arthur of his ten years Federal experience in the
business, and the master hands, the old stagers, the veteran job
bers, were bound to him by stronger attractions than they cmld
find in the somewhat indolent and easy-going Arthur. They
knew that when Blaine wrote his letter about the Surplus and
the Divide, he meant business, and would not disappoint them.
The "innocent" college president and the venerable divine
were nowhere in the convention. The reformers, some three
score and ten in number, were sat down upon, incontinently ;
and, saddened, sickened, and humiliated, returned to their re
spective constituencies. Some of them concluded afterward to
swallow the leek, and ratify. They eat crow and humble pie
publicly, and call upon you, farmers of Berkshire, to show your
" loyalty " to the " organization " by following their example.
Decline the honor of dinitig with them on any such viands.
They are not wholesome.
Now about Caesar's wife. Mr. Codman had said at a meeting
of Independents that all political parties hitherto in this coun
try had acted on the belief that the presidential candidates
ought to be, like Csesar's wife, above suspicion. In the special
application of this phrase he intends that they ought to be above
the suspicion of having used their official position as the source
of private emolument. Superiority to pecuniary inducements
— a perfect immunity from the slightest mistrust on this score
— has eminently characterized every man of any party except
the Eepublican party who has ever occupied the presidential
chair. No party before the Eepublican has ever put in nomi
nation for that high place any man who has ever been charged
with prostituting political office to personal gain. Judge Eob
inson was right when he said that no man of a "doubtful
record " ought to be nominated to that office. Mr. Codman
was perfectly right when he averred that a presidential can
didate ought to be " above suspicion."

The Divide of the Surplus. 19
But what says Mr. Hoar ? He does not think It all necessary.
On the contrary, he thinks Caesar a very base feUow for enter
taining and acting on such a sentiment, and says " he never did
a baser thing than when he abandoned his wife because some
body slandered her." Or, as Governor Eobinson would phrase
It, " flung insinuations ; " or, as Senator Dawes would say, " vitu
perated ; " or Eepresentative Long, more gently, " abused " her.
Senator Hoar unintentionally slanders Caesar. The great man
did not put his wife away because somebody slandered her. A
young rake by the name of Clodius had been paying attentions
to the lady, that were noticed and checked by the vigilance of
her mother-in-law, who probably thought them a little too
marked to be honorable to her son. For this state of affairs,
Clodius was obliged to take some extra pains to gain access to
Pompeia ; and at a meeting exclusively of women, held for some
religious ceremony at Caesar's house, over which his wife pre
sided, Clodius entered the house in a female disguise. He was
discovered and ejected without ceremony, stripped of his gar
ments. The affair created a great sensation, and was brought
up in the the Senate, and in the College of Priests, where Clo
dius was charged with sacrilege. What other grounds Caesar
may have had to justify his actions we do not know. The ter
rible scandal made public the association of Clodius and Pom
peia, with all that such an association implies. Caesar as pres
ident of the College of Priests had acquiesced in the judg
ment. He separated from his wife. He did not charge her
with criminality, but circumstances were against her ; and he
assigned as the reason for the divorce that Caesar's wife must be
above suspicion. Most gentlemen in our time would prefer a
wife of that kind.
There were probably good reasons to doubt the complicity of
Pompeia in the introduction of Clodius ioto the pontifical palace,
and Caesar gave her the benefit of tbe doubt by declining to in
timate that he considered her guilty. But there is no such mo
tive of delicacy to prevent men of sense from inquiring into the
charges against Mr. Blaine. They were universally believed to
be true at the time. The very leading and most widely circu
lated Eepublican journals, with the best opportunities for know
ing the facts through their numerous correspondents and report
ers, and with every inducement to sustain regular nominations.

20 Chapters for the Times.
reiterate these charges to-day, and on account of their knowl
edge of the candidate refuse to support him. In this view of the
case, what rubbish is aU this talk about "slander" and "vitupera
tion" and " abuse," and with how little respect these "best men"
treat the intelligence of the people, when they tell you, as Mr.
Dawes tells you, that these charges, true or false, are " decora
tions " of his candidate, and make "fast friends."
Yituperatlon and abuse seem to have made " fast friends " of
Senators Hoar and Dawes, but it was the vituperation and
abuse of Massachusetts. I have a faint recollection of a field
day somewhere when the " plumed knight " couched his lance
and made a tilt at Massachusetts. The men who should have
met him In that field and chastised him for his vulgar insolence
made but a feeble defense, and Massachusetts was thought to
have had the worst of It. Does Mr. Hoar remember that day ?
Does Mr. Dawes ? Will they please rise and explain if it Is
the recollection of that day and scene that binds them by such
links of iron to the cause of the " plumed knight," and to their
remarkable estimate of his " decorations " ?
July 24, 1884.

VL
ORGANIZATION OF OFFICE-HOLDERS.
Bribing the People. — Audacious Evasion of Law.
Before commenting further on the speeches of the office
holders at the Eepublican ratification meeting in Boston, I will
tender the admission that aU the office-holders and all Eepub
lican candidates. State and Federal, wiU rally and work for
Blaine and Logan. The organization under Blaine in 1884 is
identical in its aims and purposes with the organization under
Yan Buren in 1839. It is a struggle of the office-holders against
reform. It is a struggle to perpetuate the organization which
levies an hundred millions of unnecessary taxes on labor, that
office-holders and their foUowings of jobbers, contractors, and
speculators in polities may be enriched at the pubUc expense.
Here and there you wiU find a man like Senator Andrew, but
there will be only a few such men ; the maelstrom will suck in

Organisation of Offiee-Holders. 21
the multitude. The idea of loyalty to the organization ; the in
stinct of official self-preservation ; the fear that if they do not
hang together they may hang separately ; old habits ; familiar
associations ; common interests weld together the links and rivets
of a combination that involves the whole country in its folds,
and presents ahnosts insuperable obstacles to every effort for
reform. It is now some eight years since Senator Hoar told us on a
memorable occasion what he had seen and heard of the un-
worthiness of our pubUc men. He had heard that " suspicion
haunts the footsteps of the trusted companions of the Pres
ident." He had heard in higher places than the Senate the
" shameless doctrine avowed by men grown old in public office
that the true way in which power should be gained in the re
public is to bribe the people with the offices created for their
service." He had heard from friendly lips at the time of the
great Eastern Exposition that the only product of our institu
tions In which the United States exceUed all other nations was
corruption. This suspicion, this doctrine, this "friendly" in
dictment related to the Eepublicans then occupying our public
places, — the very men who constitute and make up this organi
zation of office-holders that now caU upon the citizens of Berk
shire for the votes that are necessary to continue them in power.
Not one word of denial ; not one word of palliation ; not one
expression intimating doubt or disbelief feU at that time from
the lips of Senator Hoar. He acquiesced in, and accepted, the
impeachment. And the honorable senator sustains for the pres
idency the man who would foster, expand, and intensify this
corruption by continuing to raise from the tax-payers more
than an hundred millions of dollars In excess of of our prodigal
aud profuse requirements, as a fund, additional to the offices,
for bribing the people and perpetuating the power thus ac
quired. But not one sneer from Senator Hoar, and not one remon
strance from his brother Ebenezer, special claimants both of
the purity of the Puritans, — of saints political, the most sainted,
— not a sarcasm, not even a suggestion from either of them m
rebuke of this monstrous, this abominable proposition ! A petty
tax on tea convulsed a continent in your fathers' times. Custom
house officers in those days were as busy in the service of the

22 Chapters for the Times.
ministers as they are now ; but when they told the men of 1770
that taxation was a good thing, and the more they had of it the
better, the men of 1770 gave them a dip In the briny bay, or
treated them occasionally to a coat of feathers and tar. They
did not dig out creeks to establish ports of entry, or establish
ports of entry to build custom-houses at a cost of from f 50,000
to six or seven millions of doUars, as expedients toward squan
dering the money levied by an Insidious and iniquitous taxa
tion. The corruption described by Senator Hoar is the fruit of the
Surplus policy advocated by Mr. Blaine ; and if It prevailed in
1876, it has been growing worse ever since. Hence it is that
with an expenditure of four hundred milLions in sixteen years
in the navy department, we have to-day no available ships or ar
maments. Hence It is that with one year's expenditure of three
millions and a half in the department of justice, Attorney-Gen
eral Brewster fails to convict Brady, KeUogg, or Dorsey ; and
creates the impression in the public mind that the men whose
footsteps " suspicion haunts," and the men who have " grown
old In public service," will persistently extend an Incidental pro
tection to culprits who know too many office-holders' secrets to
be in any danger of conviction. Hence it is that with this enor
mous expenditure in the department of justice, we are told by
the officers in the land department that the public domain is
In process of unlawful appropriation, in large tracts, by land
thieves, and that it is impossible to arrest or punish their depre-
da.|ions. Hence It Is that we have for years seen a powerful
corporation, born in fraud, engineered in fraud, and managed in
fraud, successfully defying aU the power of the government 
by Its lobby outside and its feed attorneys Inside of Congress
staving off remedial legislation, — and the attorney-general un
willing or unable to enforce even the provisions of those laws
which Congress has succeeded in passing against the efforts of
capital and cormptlon. Even the penny press of Eome has
learned enough to fling Its jibe at us, when It says that for
every single brigand in the traditional costume that can be
scared up in Italy, the United States can show a hundred i
plain citizens' clothes.
The Union Pacific Eail Eoad is not the only Important boil
that evades or defies the laws of the United States. Tax

Organization of Office-Holders. 28
levied by imposts and duties are not the only taxes levied in the
United States, and Congress Is not the only body to levy them.
The National Eepublican Committee is another tax levier, and
another defier of the law. First Mr. Jones, the chairman,
issues from 244 Fifth Avenue, city of New York, a circular to
all Eepublicans "in or out of office," in which the committee
"cheerfully calls the attention of every person holding any
office, place, or employment under the United States, or any of
the departments of the government, to the provisions of the act
of congress entitled an act to regulate and improve the civil
service of the United States, approved January 16, 1883, and
states that its influence will he exerted in conforinity there
with." Shortly afterward, this announcement is foUowed by
a circular dated from No. 1142 New York Avenue, Washing
ton, D. C, which abstains carefuUy from the statement that its
influence wiU be exerted In conformity with the provisions of
the act of congress. Five individuals, three of whom describe
themselves as chairman, secretary, and treasurer, represent in
this circular that they have been requested by the Eepublican
National committee to act as a finance committee for the Dis
trict of Columbia in the collection of funds " to he used hy the
¦ said national committee in the present political campaign."
To be " used " in the political campaign ! For what purpose ?
In the light shed upon "trusted companions " of our presidents,
and of Eepublicans In "higher places" than the Senate, upon
the practices as well as the doctrines of these men, to what use
is this money to be applied ? Can you doubt that the object of
this fund is to buy votes ? And who are caUed upon to furnish
the money? We aU know that the only men in the District of
Columbia to pay money for the " campaign " of the office-hold
ers are the men who hold office, place, or employment under the
United States or some one of the departments of the govern
ment. It was for their protection, as well as for the honor of
the country, that the act in question was passed. It is that act
which these gentlemen Inform us they Intend to evade. A blue-
covered campaign pamphlet in the interest of the EepubUcan
candidate commends highly the "audacity" of Blaine as the
conspicuous trait in his character. He has succeeded in Impart
ing that audacity to A. M. Clapp, chairman. Green B. Eaum,
treasurer, and W. H. LoudermUk, secretary, of this finance

24 Chapters for the Times.
committee that have fitted up their headquarters in Washing
ton, in the neighborhood of the departments, for the express
purpose of violating the law of the United States, designed to
protect clerks in the departments from this infamous imposi
tion of blackmail, whUe General Joe Hawley, at the ratification
meeting in New York, "pointed with pride to the fact that
there was an end to political assessments ! "
In reply to some adverse comments on these chapters, i would.
simply say that If any one wUl pomt out a misstatement it wiU
give me great pleasure to correct it. I would repeat that 1 am
not a Democrat, and I have never voted for a Democratic Presi
dent. I am no office-holder or office-seeker. I have no interest
whatever which is not in common with the interests of my
brother fa,rmers, and I have no desire under heaven but so to
cast my vote that it may enure to the prosperity, liberty, and
honor of my country.
August 1, 1884.

vn.
Cleveland's nomination forced by the PEOfLB.
The Issue is, Shall Eeform or Jobbery Win ? — The Spoils and
the Bing.
In response to numerous letters from friends of the office
holders' organization. Judge Eobinson has collected in a pam
phlet several very ingenious articles on the presidential question,
Intended to show why Blaine should be elected our chief magis
trate. His task, though self-imposed, is a very difficult one.
To prove that a man whom, in his judgment, the Eepublicans
ought not to nominate, the people of the United States ought
to elect. Involves an enigma that puzzles plain men like myself,
and that can be guessed at only by the few who are unusually
clever in reading riddles and solving conundrums. If a man Is
so objectionable that he ought not even to be nominated the
only way, it seems, to correct the error is to elect him. In po
litical geometry this is certainly the Pons Asinorum.
It is to be regretted that Judge Eobinson did not reprint
with the papers now before us, the able and conclusive article

Cleveland's Nomination Forced by the People. 25
in which he demonstrated that Blaine ought not to be nomi
nated. Its exclusion from the series is very remarkable. The
missing statue In the Eoman procession excited more curiosity
and comment than the statues which were paraded. Fortu
nately the written word stands. Before coming to the articles
Intended to show that Blaine ought to be elected, let us look at
the fatal objections to his nomination distinctly formulated by
Judge Eobinson before the meeting of the Chicago convention.
Admitting Blaine to be " popular, magnetic, and brilliant,"
" accomplished, able, and patriotic," — which is pushing his
case to the f uU extent, — admitting aU this. Judge Eobinson
aUeged that the '¦'•fatal danger of his nomination remains the
same, because It Is known that the certain revolt of the Inde
pendents in New York would overwhelm him and the party in
defeat. There is no doubt among inteUigent and impartial men
of the power of the independent voters. The unparalleled de
feat of Secretary Folger settles that question." The dele
gates, he wrote, shoidd not be diverted from this consideration
by " discussing the charges against Blaine." It is singular
how strictly this kind of diversion is avoided by aU Mr. Blaine's
advocates. " It Is sufficient to know," the Judge continued,
" that his nomination would defeat and destroy the party."
''''From any and all standpoints" he added with a determina
tion that nobody should misunderstand or misrepresent him,
'¦''from any and all standpoints, Blaine's nomination would he
a fatal and irretrievable mistake." Then leaving the individ
ual and extending the range of his observations, after a discus
sion of President Arthur's claims to thfe nomination, he general
izes the situation with the emphatic announcement, " no man of
doubtful record or policy should he nominated." At the time,
the remark was applicable and applied to Blaine. After read
ing Carl Schurz's recent masterly speech at Brooklyn, nobody
can treat Mr. Blaine's record as a doubtful one. There Is no
longer any question about It. Nor can any man of inteUigence
read the letters of 1880 lately republished in the " Springfield
Eepublican," from its correspondents at Augusta and Boston,
and hesitate as to the place to be assigned to Mr. Blaine as
contractor, jobber, haunter of the departments, commissary,
lobbyist, speculator, broker, magnetizer, galvanizer, and eorrup-
tionist.

26 Chapters for the Times.
It Is not my intention in presenting the issues of this presi
dential canvass to rely on any other authority than the docu
ments and the facts which they prove. I refer now to Mr.
Schurz, because he has long been a familiar and trusted au
thority on matters of interest to the Eepublican party. Three
generations of able, patriotic, truth-loving, and truth-tellmg
men have established the " Springfield Eepublican " in the con
fidence of the people of Western Massachusetts. I feel assured
that nothing would find admission to its columns on a public
question which came from an unreliable or doubtful source.
Hence it is that In the present connection I satisfy myself with
citing the " Eepublican " and Mr. Schurz in confirmation of the
case against Mr. Blaine, with the confident assertion that no
impartial and inteUigent voter can examine the speech and the
letters in question, without arriving at the conclusion that Judge
Eobinson arrived at in regard to Mr. Blaine's nomination, that
his election would be a " fatal and Irretrievable mistake."
So much of the Judge's pamphlet as relates to the question
of party loyalty I have discussed In a previous chapter. In the
aspect in which it Is now presented, it is nothing under heaven
but a question of fidelity to the organization of office-holders,
engaged in a struggle for self-preservation. It is not necessary
to repeat what I have already suggested in this regard.
The most elaborate and perhaps the most able article in this
series Is that in which Judge Eobinson arraigns the Democratic
convention for the rules which it adopted for its own guidance.
It seems that the unit rule gave Cleveland the nomination, and
that rule Is not approved by the Judge. Why ? One reason
Is that it Is anti-Democratic. Would not one think that this
might be a recommendation to the Judge, in view of his Idea of
Democracy ? The Democrats were not Democratic enough for
him ! The adoption of the rule was a " shameful, anti-Demo
cratic, and revolting piece of machine despotism." Why, again ?
Because it disfranchises John Kelly and his strikers from the
city of New York. The Democratic convention did not con
sider this a great calamity. They were pretty prompt in doing
Mr. Kelly's business for him, without manifesting any reluc
tance whatever. The Judge asks If bolting Eepublicans can
vote to sanction such boss methods and tyranny like this?
Now as long as the Democratic convention did precisely what

Cleveland's Nomination Forced hy the People. 27
the bolting Eepublicans wanted them to do, is It rational to
suppose .that they would quarrel with the process by which the
Democrats reached the result? What is it to them that the
Democratic process is anti -Democratic? Why should they
figure as mourners at John Kelly's funeral?
Now for the climax, with which I shall dismiss this part of
the case. " Cleveland's nomination," says the Judge, " is as
pure a product of official patronage, packed primaries, boss
despotism, and bastard reform, as our politics have ever fur
nished." Let us look at this a moment. The leader of the
Blaine men in the Eepublican Convention was the collector of
customs in the city of New York, a man for whom CoUector
Merritt, against the united voice of the business men of the
city, was displaced through the Influence of Mr. Blaine. This
coUectorship has for half a century been considered the most
Important factor in a presidential contest, as far as the State of
New York is concerned. John Quincy Adams writes in his
diary, in 1840, " The long agony Is over, and Edward Curtis
is appointed collector of New York." This " long agony "
Is about aU there was of President Harrison's administration.
The contest was between Mr. Clay and Mr. Webster, which
should get control of the New York Custom-House, and the
contest was a bitter one, resulting in the triumph of the Secre
tary of State. The importance of this stronghold Mr. Blaine
recognized, and he seized the opportunity of placing his man
there In good season. He did not make any mistake about it,
and when the Chicago convention assembled, " official patron
age, packed primaries, boss despotism, and bastard reform "
were so represented in the person of Mr. Blaine's Collector
Eobertson that the President regnant himself was to all intents
nowhere in the fight for the Eepublican nomination. I do not
think the Independent Eepublicans will distress themselves at
the processes by which the Democratic convention reached their
conclusions. But every one who has watched what Mr. Decora
tion Dawes caUs the " political currents " (I really owe an
apology to the honorable senator for neglecting so long his
speech at the ratification meeting of the office-holders in Bos
ton) knows that Mr. Cleveland's nomination was simply the
result of a popular sentiment in his favor too strong to be re
sisted. It was a concession of the Democratic party to the

28 Chapters for the Times,
American people. The " political currents " run unmistakably
In the direction of reform, and we can only obtain reform by
the agency of a reform President. And when Judge Eobinson
says that Blaine and Logan " represent the platform of the
Chicago convention, with the exception of the plank relating
to the reform of the civil service," he defines distinctly and
squarely the issue betwegn reform in the person of Cleveland
and jobbery in the person of Blaine.
Another argument against voters exercising their Independent
judgment In casting their vote for the chief magistrate is, that
the Democratic party "originated" the spoUs system. This
means that WiUiam L. Marcy, some fifty years ago, in the
Senate of the United States, apropos to we forget what, in a
crisp and sententious expression, crystaUized the idea that to
the " victors belong the spoils," That is aU there is about the
Democratic origin of the spoUs system. But the Judge says
further, that the Democrats advocate the spoUs system. This is
to say, that for twenty years they have held in theory a doctrine
which the Eepublicans, during that period, have put in practice.
This shows certainly that whatever opinions the Democrats hold
they have held them honestly. " Where the carcass is, there
will the vultures be gathered." The Democrats knew where
the spoils were. If they were in pursuit of them, the way to
get them was to bargain with the Eepublican ring. The Ee
publican National Committee were ready to buy them, and to
pay for them. They are ready to do it now. It is for this very
purpose that, in audacious violation of the law, a committee Is
now sitting in Washington, under the shadow of the treasury
department, to levy taxes on the employes of the government.
Honest citizens ought to throw the whole material of the estab
lishment into the Potomac, and draw the personal out of Wash
ington at the cart's tail.
But while the Democrats out in the cold have been theorizing
on the spoils system, what have our Eepublican candidates been
doing ? Let us begin with Mr. Blaine as a contractor in war
times. He goes to the war department to offer his services to
Mr. Cameron for furnishing guns. " Oh," says Mr. Cameron
" you are a manufacturer of guns ? " " No," says Mr. Blaine.
" In the hardware and cutlefy line? " says Mr. Cameron. « J^gj,
entirely," rejoins Mr. Blaine. " WeU," the secretary must have

Cleveland's Nomination Forced hy the People. 29
asked, If he did his duty, " what knowledge have you of this
business that leads you to think your services wiU be valuable
to the government?" " Why, sir," says Mr. Blaine, rising to
the occasion, " I have been three years In the State of Kentucky
'teaching the young idea how to shoot.'" "Oh," says the
secretary, " you are an expert, then, in firearms ? " " Just so,"
says Mr. Blaine, " I am an expert, and Eepublican Speaker
of the House of Eepresentatives in Maine." Mr. Cameron
understands the situation, touches his gong, and tells the chief
clerk to make a contract with Mr. Blaine for Spencer rifles.
Now here is the point in this transaction. Mr. Blaine had
no knowledge whatever of the business he wished to contract
for, and enjoyed no special opportunities for making himself
useful to the country. He simply came in as a middle-man,
with important political Influence, to stand between the pro
ducer and the consumer, — the man who made the guns and
the government which wanted to use them, — and to take the
Uon's share of the profits. He stood, brother farmers, in the
same relation to the government as the man stands to you who
buys your milk for two cents and a half, and sells it in New
York for ten — well watered. Of course, our patriotic eon-
tractor bought as low as possible of the manufacturers, and
sold as high as possible to the war department, and all that
he received in the way of profit was so much money lost to
the treasury, — but then he was Speaker of the House of
Eepresentatives in the State of Maine. This was the use of
his political and official Influence for personal advantage In
a case where the only service he could possibly render the
government was to take a very Hberal commission out of it.
I do not doubt Mr. Blaine's patriotism. There are several
kinds of patriotism. This is Mr. Blaine's kind, — and he has
kept up this reputation from the time of gun contracts down to
the exhibition of the MuUIgan correspondence.
So much for the spoils system and the Democrats. For
twenty years they have been wandering In the wilderness with
out a chance at the flesh-pots, while Blaine has been handling
the spoils and enriching himself and his friends. And how is
it with Logan ? He defended President Grant against the scath
ing attacks of Sumner on his nepotism, and averred that the
man was a heathen who would not provide for his own house-

30 Chapters for the Times.
hold. And Logan by that token is no heathen, when the spoils
are in question. Ecce Signum.
Cornelius A. Logan, a cousin of John Alexander, Minister to ChUi.
W. F. Tucker, Jr., a son-in-law, Paymaster in the United States
Army. John A. Logan, Jr., son, cadet at West Point.
John M. Cunningham, brother-in-law, Second Lieutenant Nineteenth
Infantry. Samuel S. Errett, brother-m-law, Assistant Superintendent Yellow
stone National Park.
Cyrus Thomas, brother-in-law, ethnologist Smithsonian Institute.
Viola Thomas, niece, daughter of Cyrus, clerk Smithsonian Institute.
Susie Cunningham, sister-in-law, clerk in Treasury Department.
Enoch Blanchard, nephew, clerk in the Railway Postal Service.
MoUie E. Jenkins, niece, clerk in the Marine Hospital Service.
James Cunningham, brother-in-law, Postmaster at Birmingham, Ala.
Samuel K. Cunningham, brother-in-law, Inspector Chicago Custom
House. James V. Logan, brother, postmaster, Murphysboro, IU.
Edward HUl, nephew, Deputy United States Marshal, Southern
District of Illinois.
Mary H. Brady, former servant, clerk in Treasury Department.
Louis Norris, former servant, messenger in Interior Department,
Washington. Daniel Shepherd, private secretary, Assistant Postmaster at Chicago.
Beach Taylor, private secretary, clerk in the United States Senate.
Who will say after reading this that Logan is a heathen?
Does not it prove that he is as incapable of being a heathen as
Blaine is of being a deadhead In any profitable government
enterprise ? And when you compare the achievements in gath
ering the spoils manifested by these " decorated " (see Dawes
on Decorations) candidates, is not it a little absurd to talk
about the " spoUs " of the Democrats, who have not had a crust
from the treasury for twenty years? And don't you think,
brother farmers, that you are bound to take off your coats and
turn in and help these spoils-men, with PoweU Clayton, Stephen
W. Dorsey, Secor Eobeson, BUI Chandler, Stephen B Elkins
John Eoach, Schuyler Colfax, Brady, Kellogg, Keifer, and coml
pany, as a cabinet councU to distribute the places, control the
post-office, the custom-house, and aU the departments, manage

Cleveland's Nomination Forced by the People. 81
the expenditures of a most extravagant administration of the
pubUc service, with the nice Uttle sum of a hundred mUlions
surplus to " Divide " in the most profitable manner that their
ring can devise ? More anon.
August 10, 1884.

CHAPTEES FOR THE TIMES.
SECOND PART-
BY A BERKSHIRE FARBIER.

VIII.
OUT OF THE FRYING PAN INTO THE FIRE.
The Result of Blaine's talcing Forty-four Millions of his Cmmtrymen
into his Confidence.
Shortly after the nomination of Mr. Blaine at Chicago,
there was a ratification meeting at Washington which was ad
dressed by Senator Frye, of Maine. The honorable senator
then told his audience that in 1876 the Democrats had an over
whelming majority in the House of Eepresentatives, and that
they deliberately determined to tear the laurels off the brow of
the great Eepublican leader and make him bend low before the
American people. Thereupon, as Mr. Frye stated It, one day
Blaine went Into the House, and observing that he proposed to
take into his confidence fifty [forty-four] millions of his coun
trymen, went on " without oratory, without ornamentation, and
told his story, and when he completed the tale he charged upon
the Democrats of the House, and routed them, horse, foot, and
dragoons." Mr. Frye wound up with a hissing hot peroration.
" As Blaine," he said, " on the day of his magnificent perform
ance In the House, couched his lance and made an onset on the
Democrats which they would remember forever, so he would
now again couch his lance, and he and Logan, fighting shoulder
to shoulder," would do very much the same thing that Blaine
and Fr^e did in the House.
Mr. Frye modestly omitted to refer to his own magnificent
performance on that occasion. He might have said, " All which
I saw and part of which I was." He ought to have stated that
he then played Sancho Panza to Mr, Blaine's Don Quixote ; and

34 Chapters for the Times.
that, more fortunate than the Ulustrlous squire, he is in the
actual enjoyment of the kingdom which his master promised
him. We aU remember the doughty knight-errant's onset on
the windmiUs, and his gaUant cry, "Fly not, ye cowards and
vile caitiffs, /or it is a single knight who assaults you. . . . Al
though ye should have more arms than the giant Briareus, ye
shaU pay for it." He " set his lance In rest," and shattered^ It
into shivers in the saU of the first windmiU, with the magnifi
cent result of being tumbled heels over head on the field, so
bruised and battered that his man Sancho had as much as he
could do to pick up the pieces. Mr. Blaine's experience on the
occasion referred to was more like that of Don Quisote In his
bout with the windmill than that of a plumed knight routing
his enemies.
Let me tell the tale as the Congressional Debates tell It.
Unscrupulous Eepublican journals do not hesitate to assure
their readers that after a careful investigation of the charges
against Blaine by an impartial congressional committee he was
proved not guilty, and was honorably acquitted. This is a false
hood pure and unadorned. Senator Frye's rhodomontade may
be styled the rhetorical or ornamented falsehood. In what fol
lows you may read the truth : —
On the 31st of January, 1876, a resolution was offered In the
House of Eepresentatives by Mr. Luttrell, of California, in
structing the judiciary committee to inquire into and report
upon the affairs of the Pacific railroads, which had received
subsidies from the United States in land or money, with a view
of ascertaining if these subsidies had been properly applied and
if any claims against the companies from non-feasance or mal
feasance had accrued to the United States. The resolution was
in terms broad enough to cover any and every transaction of the
raUroads down to the time of its adoption. A week previously
a resolution had been adopted for the appointment of a special
committee of five members, to inquire into the nature and his
tory of a real estate pool in which Jay Cooke & Co. were inter
ested. On the third day of April this special committee received
additional powers from the House to investigate matters t b-
ing aUeged official misconduct of any officer of the gover t
or any member of the House that might be brought to th '
tention. Eumors concerning aUeged misdoings of the rail A

Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire. 35
were ip circulation, which were supposed more or less to impli
cate Mr. Blaine. On the 24th of April, Mr. Blaine thought
it judicious to meet one of these rumors by rising in the House
to a personal explanation in reference to the alleged sale of cer
tain bonds of the Little Eock and Fort Smith Eailroad to the
Union Pacific. What he stated on that occasion is not perti
nent to my present purpose, but will receive due attention in a
subsequent chapter. On the 2d of May the House adopted a
resolution which contemplated an investigation by the judiciary
committee of that specific transaction.
In the course of this investigation two witnesses were sum
moned to whom only it Is now necessary to refer, — Warren
Fisher and James Mulligan. On the evening of their arrival in
Washington, Fisher and Mulligan were waited upon by Mr.
Blaine before they had reported themselves to the committee.
Fisher went to Mr. Blaine's house on his invitation. MuUIgan,
however, declined, very properly, on the ground that he wished
to take the stand on the following day "untrammeled by con
versation of any kind with anybody." Twice Mr. Blaine sent
special messengers to induce MiiUigan to accept his invitation.
As this solicitation did not fetch him, Blaine and Fisher went
in person to the Elggs House and there hud an interview with
MuUIgan. Blaine requested and entreated Mulligan to deliver
to him certain letters which he had addressed to Warren Fisher,
and which MuUIgan had brought with him from Boston to cor
roborate any statement that he might have occasion to make to
the committee. Fisher had given them to Mulligan for this pur
pose. MuUIgan resisted Blaine's entreaties, though they were
reinforced by tears, threats of suicide, and proffered bribes of
political office or a foreign consulship, for which Mulligan told
him he had no IncUnation. Blaine then said, " Let me see the
letters to peruse them." Blaine pledged his honor that he would
return them, and they were given to him to read. He read
them once or twice and returned them. Mulligan took the let
ters and retired Into his room. Blaine followed him, and after
Mulligan's positive refusal to deliver the letters, Blaine said,
" I want to re-read those letters again, and I want to have them
for that purpose." Mulligan, on the same pledge of honor, de
livered the letters to Blaine, and with them his own private
memorandum of their contents. Blaine pocketed the letters

36 Chapters for the Times.
and the memorandum, and Mulligan's earnest and impassioned
demand for their restoration Blaine met with an absolute re
fusal. The truth of this statement is not denied. Mulligan had the
letters by right, and intended to use them, if it were necessary,
to protect his own reputation, which he heard was to be assailed.
If he held them wrongfully there was a lawful way for Blaine
to get possession of them. But whether he held them by right
or wrong is nothing to the purpose. Blaine pledged his honor
for the possession of them, and the thing pledged Ues in Mul
ligan's keeping to this day. Mulligan wUl Hve and die the
pawnee of the unredeemed honor of James G. Blaine. I treat
this subject now without reference to the contents of the letters.
We do not know their contents, and we never shall know them ;
but we know enough of them. A man who is capable of taking
and retaining a package of letters by a lie is capable of tamper
ing with such a package by suppression, substitution, or enlarge
ment of its contents. Under such circumstances every presump
tion of law is against the man guilty of the violence and false
hood. Even the audacious Mr. Blaine does not successfully in
any respect impeach Mr. Mulligan's veracity. When he made
his "magnificent performance" in the House chronicled by Mr.
Frye, Mr. Blaine sneered at Mr. Mulligan as " that man," or
"this man," or as the "famous witness." He averred that
MuUigaii had " selected, out of correspondence running over a
great many years, letters which he thought would be peculiarly
damaging to [him]." There Is no truth in this averment.
With a single exception, the letters were written between 1869
and 1872, — most of them after 1870, — and most of these re
lated to the " little transaction," or " small flyer," in the North
ern Pacific, and to Blaine's relations with the Little Eock and
Fort Smith Eailroad. " He came here loaded with them " says
Blaine. They were not many in number, but they were a heavv
weight to carry, — particularly for the writer of them. " He
came here for a sensation. He came here primed. He came
here on that particular errand : I was advised of it, and I ob
tained those letters under circumstances which have been no
toriously scattered through the United States, and are known to
everybody." Yes, Mr. MuUIgan went to Washington summoned by a com-

Out of the Frying Pan into the Fire. 87
mittee of the House of Eepresentatives. He carried with him
certain documents which on their face, as they were read by Mr.
Blaine himself, related to the subject-matter of their inquiry.
Mr. Blaine obtained and retained those documents by a false
hood which he bragged of as publicly known to everybody. No
wonder that the "Plumed Knight" confessed some sense of
" humiliation " and a " mortification " that he did not pretend
to conceal, when of the letters thus filched from the honest
accountant the very best he could say for himself was, " I am
not afraid to show the letters. Thank God Almighty, I am
not ashamed to show them." " There they are " (holding up
a package of letters). But he did not show them ; he read
them himself, and Instead of sending them to the Sjieaker's
desk he folded them up and put them in his pocket. And the
opportunity of thus parading the spoils thus infamously won
from an honest witness Mr. Blaine supplemented by an un-
caUed-for and unjustifiable attack on the honor and good faith
of the judiciary committee, as a question of " high privilege."
As if Mr. Blaine were altogether superior to all ordinary pro
cesses of jurisdiction, he introduced a resolution instructing the
judiciary committee to " report forthwith to the House " whether
or not they had sent a telegram to Josiah Caldwell, or had heard
by telegTam or otherwise from Josiah Caldwell, and to what
effect, and why the telegram had been suppressed. Mr. Blaine
asserted that it was now far into the fifth day since Mr. Knott,
chairman of the judiciary committee, had received a telegram
from Mr. CaldweU and had suppressed it, — as if every volunteer
telegram bearing on an individual or a case pending before the
judiciary committee should be at once circulated for the benefit
of whom It might concern. The imputation was insulting and
the claim of right in the last degree absurd. Mr. Knott ex
pressed his belief that the telegram was a put-up job, as it un
doubtedly was, and repelled the charge of suppressing it with
just indignation. Mr. Blaine's resolution was referred to the
judiciary corfimittee.
To complete the history of this " magnificent performance "
it Is indispensable to mention Mr. Frye's part in it. Mr. Blaine
was permitted to tell his story and read his letters without
interruption, except an occasional remark interjected by his
coUeague, Mr. Frye, who was on the judiciary committee, act-

38 Chapters for the Times.
ing not as Mr. Blaine's " attorney " but as his " friend," and
took occasion to ask a question when it would bring out a point
for the defense. Mr. Hale, assisted by an occasional precon
certed inquiry or suggestion. When the chairman of the sub
committee undertook to reply to some of Mr. Blaine's imputa
tions, Mr. Frye interrupted him during his short speech just
forty four times, when Mr. Blaine took up the business and
interrupted him twelve times more ; and in reply to Mr.
Blaine's insinuation that the judiciary committee intended to do
something to prevent his nomination at the presidential conven
tion then soon to meet at Cincinnati, Mr. Knott said that he
would be pleased to see him nominated, adding, " If he [Blaine]
should receive the nomination and be elected In the face of aU
the facts, all we can say Is, May the Lord have mercy on the
American people."
Nothing came of this magnificent performance of Blaine and
his bottle-holders. It was simply an exhibition of shameless and
matchless effrontery, — of impudence actuaUy astounding. It
served, however, to put on the record Mr. Blaine's defense and
the letters which made the defense necessary. Qui s' excuse
s'accuse. Shortly afterwards came the historical sunstroke.
The Cincinnati convention foUowed. The facts were fresh
in the public mind, and the result of Mr. Blaine's grandUo-
quently taking into his confidence forty-four millions of the
American people was liis loss of the Eepublican nomination. It
was confidence singularly misplaced.
August 20. '

IX.
SPEAKER BLAINE AND HIS SPLENDID THING IN THE NORTH
PACIFIC.
An Open Letter to two Senators and an Ex-Governor.
Gentlemen, — I should regret to believe that you are all
and each, jointly and severaUy, engaged in an earnest persist
ent, and utterly unscrupulous endeavor to demoralize the public
sentiment of Massachusetts on questions of vital importance to

Blaine and his Splendid Thing in the North 'Pacific. 39
the Commonwealth. Though understood to be, for the best of
reasons and for a long series of years, opposed to the elevation
of James G. Blaine to the presidency, from interested and par
tisan Inducements you first reluctantly acquiesced in his nom
ination, and you are now openly and enthusiasticaUy in the
field in his behalf, and from explanations and excuses have
warmed yourselves up to the language of eulogy and adula
tion. There is one apology for you. Pardon me if, without
any disrespect to the profession, I remind my "brother farmers
that you are aU — more or less — lawyers. From the time of
your admission to the bar you have been in the habit of accept
ing retainers for arguing In any case indifferently for plaintiff
or defendant, and have always been ready to argue as warmly
and sincerely for the one as for the other. You have been
always ready for a professional consideration to
" Give forked council, take provoking gold
From either side."
I do not say this to your personal disparagement. When a man
caUs upon you and puts up the fee, you are bound to give him
the benefit of your best abUity and your most sincere convic
tions, In placing such a construction on the facts and law of
his case as wUl best subserve his interest. In the language of
Mr. Blaine to his friend Fisher, in doing so you would naturaUy
" obey your first and best impulse." This is not discreditable ;
but pardon me again if I say that to us farmers it seems that a
habit of this kind begets inevitably an utter Indifference to the
real merits of the controversy. You always go in to vnn ; and
your cHent Is always " stainless ; " the facts that appear to his
disadvantage are always " decorations ; " and if you can so twist
the law and the facts as to secure a verdict and a judgment in
his favor, you retire with an easy conscience, though you are
certain that you have duped the jury and misled the court.
These habits of thought and speech you bring with you Into
the discussion of puIdUc questions, and they have led you into
utterances entirely unworthy of you, and of which gentlemen
not professional advocates woiUd have much reason to be
ashamed. To these remarks I am led just now by a perusal of the re
cent letter of Mr. Senator Hoar, in reply to the Brooklyn speech
of Mr. Carl Schurz. In this letter Mr. Hoar undertakes to

40 Chapters for the Times.
narrow down the case against Mr. Blaine to the charge that
he had a bad motive in his suggestions to Fisher, with the view
of securing from CaldweU an Interest in the bed-rock of the
Little Eock and Fort Smith Eailroad. If these suggestions
are capable of a creditable construction, Mr. Hoar says that
there is an end of the case against Mr. Blaine ; for this is the
whole of it. With an audacity which rivals that of his distin
guished client, the honorable senator avers to his dear young
friend, whom he Is endeavoring to train up in the way he should
go, that " Mr. Blaine is not charged with any corrupt, improper
or wrong act whatever." Mr. Hoar knows perfectly well that
the Little Eock and Fort Smith business is but the beginning
of the charges against Mr. Blaine, that it is but an item in the
charges, and "by no means the most important item, — one cir
cumstance only towards establishing the main charge, that Mr.
Blaine has been from the start a jobber of his political interest
and Influence ; a lobbyist in the departments and in Congress,
before and after he became a member of the lower House. The
picturesque description given us by Senator Edmunds felici
tously embodies and iUustrates the charges against Mr. Blaine.
That description will survive ; and It wiU go down in history,
that whenever Mr. Thurman and the senator from Vermont —
Arcades amho — joined hands to defeat any of Jay Gould's
schemes for getting the better of the government, "James
G. Blaine invariably started up from behind Gould's breast
works, musket In hand."
Yes, and a Spencer rifle, at that ! But the Spencer-rifle case
does not come on to-day, nor the Little Eock and Fort Smith
which I leave in the hands of Mr. Carl Schurz.
My present purpose is to exhibit from the documents the re
lations of Mr. James G. Blaine to the Northern Pacific Eail
road. To these relations Mr. Schurz refers very casuaUy but
in my judgment he wiU find in them, on some future occasion
matter weU worthy of public attention. Let us review the facts
as they appear In the Congressional Eecord.
The act granting lands for the construction of a railroad and
telegraph line from Lake Superior to Puget Sound — a raUroad
not yet completed — was signed by President Lincoln on the 2d
of July, 1864. There were many well-known gentlemen amonp-
the beneficiaries named in the act, such as William E. Chandler

Blaine and his Splendid Thing in the North Pacific. 41
of New Hampshire, John Gregory Smith, of Vermont, Ulysses
S. Grant, of Illinois, and notably Eichard D. Eice, of Augusta,
Me., whose name heads the list, and who was a most efficient
and influential friend of the enterprise. The corporate title
was the Northern Pacific Eailroad Company. The commis
sioners named in the act organized in the fall of 1864, and
elected Josiah Perham president of the organization. In the
year 1866 a resolution was passed by Congress, extending the
time for building the road for two years. The passage of such
resolutions, though apparently a matter of course, always calls
for a certain amount of influence and manipulation, and, I am
sorry to say, a modicum of what the Eepublican humorists of
the Blaine and Dorsey stamp are accustomed to caU soap. In
1868 another resolution, extending the time again, and changing
the charter in some respects, was called for, with more influ
ence, more manipulation, and more soap. In 1869 a further
resolution was necessary, authorizing the branch from Portland,
Oregon, to Puget Sound, — an important resolution, with the
usual influence, manipulation, and soap annexed. Mr. Blaine
was at the time Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives. Leg
islation with Its accompaniments two years in succession, and
as yet apparently no provision for the Speaker ! It was high
time for the Speaker to come to the front. We find him on
hand. During the summer following the passage of this resolu
tion, the Speaker spoke to his friend Fisher " about purchasing
an interest in the Northern Pacific Eailroad for [himself] and
any [he] might choose to associate with [himself]." The thing
had then got into such a shape that the Speaker thought he
could make a turn in it, perhaps in a quiet way through his
neighbor Eice, of Augusta. His friends, however, did not come
up to the mark. Whatever was his prospect of handUng an
interest at the time, the agreement or understanding was not
sufficiently distinct to be insisted upon. The Speaker's sad ex
perience on this occasion may have been the source of his anx
iety that Mr. Caldwell should make his " proposition definite "
on the arrangement in the Little Eock business.
"The matter passed by," wrote Mr. Blaine to his friend
Fisher, " without my being able to control it, and nothing more
was said about It." It was one of those cases, evidently, where
the least said the soonest mended.

42 Chapters for the Times.
Mr. Blaine, however, was too "graceful and efficient" a
Speaker to be left, in an enterprise of this kind. BottUng up
his resentment, he watched his opportunities. He did not have
to wait long. In 1870 a very important resolution was acted
upon by Congress, authorizing the Northern Pacific Eailroad to
issue its mortgage bonds and for other purposes ; and there was
a very loud call, of course, for more influence, more manipula
tion, and more soap. On the 31st of May In that year the reso
lution was certified by Schuyler Colfax, President of the Senate,
and James G. Blaine, Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives,
and approved by U. S. Grant, President of the United States.
Since that time aU these gentlemen have attained a very disrep
utable prominence in financial and speculative circles.
The passage of this resolution was the turning-point in the
history of the Northern Pacific Eailroad. Before this time the
original commissioners had failed in aU their schemes for float
ing the enterprise, and had sold out their interests for $200,000
or some other inconsiderable sum to J. Gregory Smith, E. D.
Eice, William G. Moorhead, and their associates. One month
afterwards, on the first day of July, 1870, an Indenture was
made between the Northern Pacific Eailroad, of the first part,
and Jay Cooke and John Edgar Thomson, of Philadelphia,
trustees, of the second part, for the Issue and the security of the
bonds authorized by this important resolution. Meanwhile the
Interests In the road had been divided into twenty-four parts
twelve of which were assigned to Jay Cooke, to be used in push
ing his sale of the bonds and " for other purposes." The other
twelve remained in the hands of Smith, Eice, Windom Moor
head, and others, who recouped their expenses out of the first
Issue of bonds, and held their shares gratuitously as compensa
tion for their smartness and sagacity. They organized bv an-
pointing themselves directors, and made J. Gregory Smith of
St. Albans, Yt., president, and E. D. Eice, of Augusta Me
vice-president. From Augusta, Me., a few weeks after aU this'
Mr. Speaker Blaine writes to his friend Fisher that the " ad 1 ''
tional legislation has been obtained ; " and, by a "strange re
lution of circumstances," he adds, " I am again able to cent 1
an interest, and if you desire it you can have It."
Eest here a moment and reflect on the charges necessarU
involved in this mere statement of facts. Suppose that M

Blaine and his Splendid Thing in the North Pacific. 43
Speaker Blaine had never written or spoken one word more on
the subject, how would it stand ? In 1869 he had an Interest in
the Northern Pacific, or thought he had, but lost control of It.
In 1870 there was " additional legislation " — James G. Blaine
in the Speaker's chair, familiar with the channels In which he
could make himself useful, and the modes of bringing his offi
cial services to the notice of parties in interest. Jay Cooke be
came financial agent of the company. It was again on its legs,
and E. D. Eice, of Augusta, Me., was its vice-president. James
G. Blaine, of Augusta, Me., and Speaker of the House, by this
" strange revolution of circumstances," regained control of the
Interest which he had previously lost. Is there any connection
between this legislation and this control ? Is there any connec
tion between Jay Cooke and this control ? Is there any connec
tion between Vice-President Eice, of Augusta, Me., and this
control ? Cut off the whole matter here, and wUl Mr. Senator
Hoar advise his dear young friend that these facts do not charge
Mr. Blaine with anything "improper " or " wrong" ? Does he
design or desire to corrupt the political morals of his dear young
friend ?
If Mr. Hoar sees nothing Improper or wrong, Mr. Blaine has
a clearer moral perception than the honorable senator. Let us
resume the investigation. When, under the circumstances
stated, Mr. Blaine reopens the negotiation with his friend
Fisher, what face does he put on the transaction? He de
scribes the Interest he controls with an unctuous exhibition of
Its possibilities. It was a matter of 1425,000 of stock and
275,000 acres of land, which he controUed, and the " whole
thing " could be had for 125,000, " less than one third of what
some other sales of smaU Interests have gone at." Now, was it
right and proper for a Speaker of the House who had taken
part in this "additional legislation " to accept the " control " of
this interest for one third of what other people were paying for
simUar Interests, or to accept it at all ? Mr. Hoar thinks there
is nothing corrupt, nothing even Improper, in this ! What did
Mr. Blaine think of it at the time ? If it was an honorable
transaction, why should Mr. Blaine have hesitated to tell his
friend Fisher just what his " control " amounted to, and how
he got it ? Why should he have said or written, " The chance
Is a very rare one. / can't touch it, but I obey my first and

44 Chapters for the Times.
best Impulse In offering it to you." "All such chances as
this since Jay Cooke got the road have been accompanied vrith
the obligation to take a large amount of the bonds at 90, and
hold them not less than three years." "Of course, In conferring
with others, keep my name quiet, mentioning it to no one but
Mr. CaldweU."
What did the Speaker offer to his friend Fisher ? An inter
est that he had acquired in the Northern Pacific Eailroad.
Why did he say that he could not touch it, when he was touch
ing it all the time ? One reason was to impress upon his friend
Fisher that he had acquired this interest through his official
influence, and that such a rare opportunity could not have oc
curred to a person less influential and important. This would
seemingly enhance its value and account for the large estimate
that the Speaker had put upon it. Then, again. It would nat
uraUy occur to Fisher, If this is such a splendid thing, why
does not Blaine keep it himself? The objection was antici
pated, and Blaine meets it in advance. " I can't touch it " (In
nuendo) because it is by my official position only that I am able
to acquire it. Hence this Inexpensive and judicious parade of
delicacy that must have amused Fisher very much indeed.'
" I can't touch It," says the virtuous Mr. Blaine ; but he was
evidently extremely anxious to get 125,000 for it for somebody.
Was it for Jay Cooke or for Eichard D. Eice that he was
" placing " these securities, or was it for James G. Blaine ?
He was not above doing a brokerage business for a handsome
commission. He could not " touch " it, but he could " control "
it In the interest of anybody who could pay him 125,000. He
could sell it, or buy it, or deliver it ; but he could not think of
toucjiing it. Mr. Blaine considered that improper. Fisher
could have the whole thing for §25,000 ; but perhaps he would
not care to invest so much himself. In that case he could brln^
in ten of his friends to take each a " small flyer," or five of
them to have a " splendid thing " of it, — a thing which even
the Speaker of the House of Eepresentatives of the United
States might consider and caU absolutely splendid. But snlen
did as it was, and dog-cheap as it was, and rare as the chance
was, the Speaker could not touch it, but could only negotiate
the disposition of it with his friend Fisher, under the strict and
significant injunction, " Keep my name quiet." Mr. Hoar is

Blaine and his Splendid Thing in the North Pacific. 45
sure there is nothing wrong about this, and Mr. Dawes looks
upon it as a " decoration."
Does not all this show that, with a native delicacy more sen
sitive than that of Mr. Hoar, Mr. Blaine was conscious that this
was a transaction in which it was disreputable for him to be
known, and which it was improper and wrong for him to med
dle with ? As much as that we certainly have under his own
hand. Let us go a step farther. The next thing we find is that
some arrangement was made for the disposition of this interest in
some way or other by Fisher. Mr. Blaine received the |25,000
he was in search of, but whether it came from the sale of smaU
flyers or the larger flyers, whether the interest was retailed or
wholesaled, does not distinctly appear. All we know is that
Mr. Blaine received $25,000 " in trust." He could not touch
the part, but he touched the money for it. Why In trust ? In
declarations of trust it may be said to be usual to name the
cestui que trust. Here Is a trust in the clouds. For whom
did he hold this money in trust ? For himself ? For Mr. Jay
Cooke, or Mr. E. D. Eice, or Mr. Fisher ? Or was it for Mr.
Elisha Atkins, in whose name the certificates of the Interest in
the Northern Pacific were to be issued ?
This sale by Blaine, and this trust money receipted for, seem
to have been the source of considerable trouble as yet quite un
explained. Less than a year afterwards, on the 24th of Octo
ber, 1871, Mr. Fisher wrote to Mr. Blaine urging a settlement
of the Northern Pacific Eailroad account of $25,000. This
letter, or a copy of it, was in the package which Mulligan deliv
ered to Blaine, and was numbered eight in MuUigan's memoran
dum. This would probably have thrown some light on the mat
ter, but Mr. Blaine did not produce it. He said that it was not
in the package. Its absence is much to be regretted and diffi
cult to be explained. In the February foUowing, Mr. Fisher
wrote twice to Blaine, teUing him he would not receive the share,
and demanding a return of the $25,000. Mr. Blaine wrote him
that was Impossible. He would deliver the interest, but he
would not pay back the money, falling back on his readiness to
'¦'¦fulfill his memorandum," or to " make a further sale of the
shares in the Northern Pacific Railroad." Whether or not
Blaine compelled Fisher to accept the specified Interest, or Fisher

46 Chapters for the Times.
compelled Blaine to disgorge the money received " in trust,"
does not appear in the report of the proceedings and the debate
In the House of Eepresentatives. From other sources than the
debate we learn of the final repayment of this trust money, but
this wUl afford a subject of future consideration.
In the face of these facts, established by public statutes, offi
cial documents, and Mr. Blaine's letters, proving beyond a doubt
that Mr. Blaine received, or expected to receive, from Jay
Cooke or from other representatives of the twenty-four parts,
one eighth of one part ; that the transaction was of such a na
ture that he could not appear in it ; that the interest was of
such a nature that he was obliged to get rid of it promptly for
one third of what similar interests were aUeged to be selling
for, — In the face of all these facts, Mr. William Walter Phelps
affects to discredit — what? '¦'¦The alleged connection of Mr.
Blaine with a share in the Northern Pacific enterprise." With
an effrontery equal to that of his friend Blaine, he substantiaUy
denies that the Speaker ever had, in " any form whatever,"
the " remotest interest in the Northern Pacific company." That
is the idea Intended to be conveyed to the public. Is it true or
is It a downright and direct falsehood ? I do not answer this
question, but I beg of Messrs. Dawes, Long, and Hoar to ex
plain it.
August 30, 1884. postscript.
In the foregoing letter I have stood upon ' the bed-rock and
hard-pan of statutes and proved documents.
Now, Mr. WiUiam Walter Phelps, what becomes of your
statement that Mr. Blaine never had the remotest interest in
any share in the Northern Pacific Eailroad ? Had he the " con
trol " of this interest, or was he raising money on false pretenses ?
I pause for Mr. Phelps's reply.

A Bad Attack of Vipers, and the Remedy. 47
X.
A BAD ATTACK OF VIPERS, AND THE REMEDY.
Mr. Dawes's Decorations and Mr. Hoar's Panegyrics of Blaine.
This chapter I shall devote to a few odds and ends that re
quire to be disposed of, before taking up some more serious
questions. I am under some undischarged obligations to Judge
Eobinson no less than to Senator Dawes, and I am in arrears to
Governor Long.
In demonstrating why Mr. Blaine should be elected to the
presidency, the most potent reasons exhibited by the Judge, on
which I have not yet commented, are to be found in a remark
able string of vituperative epithets applied to the leaders of the
Democratic party and the Democratic party itself. It is pain
ful to reflect upon the opinion entertained by the Judge of more
than one half the American people. If the popular majority,
now Indicated by a majority of seventy in the House, should
happen to elect a President, it is clear that the J udge must look
upon our governmental experiment as a failure. He believes in
a government of the people, for the people, and by the people,
— but only when a majority of the people are of his way of
thinking. We are told by Judge Eobinson that the election of a Demo
cratic President is the election of a Democratic Senate, a Demo
cratic House, and a Democratic Cabinet. He is wrong so far
as the House and Senate are concerned, but he is right in re
gard to the Cabinet. On this point let us pause a moment.
The prominent candidates for Mr. Blaine's Cabinet wiU be the
men who experienced epileptic fits over the plumed helmet at
Chicago ; and those of them who howled the loudest wiU stand
the best chance. Outside of that ring will be the most promi
nent of the Star Eoute thieves. Among them, beyond all ques
tion, vriU be "my dear Dorsey," Stephen W. Dorsey, formerly
of Arkansas, and mixed up like Blaine with the swindling land
grant railroads in that State. WUliam E. Chandler and Secor
Eobeson are cronies of Blaine not less conspicuous than Dorsey.
I have a letter before me coming from the very highest author-

48 Chapters for the Times.
Ity which shows that they would be just the men to help Blaine
get rid of the surplus. " The so-caUed reconstruction of the
four monitors," my correspondent writes, "is the baldest rob
bery. Four miUions wiU be wanted to complete the job, and
the vessels wiU be wortliless when finished." Yote for Blaine,
and you 'U get the right man in the navy department to spend
your money without giving you any more navy than you have
now, after an expenditure of four hundred miUions.
Stephen B. Elkins and Benjamin Franklin Jones, the finan
ciers for Blaine, who are engaged in levying iUegal contribu
tions on reluctant federal office-holders, and procuring subscrib
ers for a comic newspaper, by which they hope to laugh Blaine
into the presidency, — one or the other of them, for they are
both millionaires, wiU probably be Blaine's Secretary of the
Treasury, unless that place is already j)romised to General But
ler. Then Brady would be the most eligible man for Post
master-General, or WiUiam Pitt Kellogg, or possibly WiUiam
H. Kemble, the eminent Pennsylvanian Eepublican, might be
propitiated by a cabinet office, and " stay bought." Mr. Dec
oration Dawes is rapidly qualifying for a seat among these
worthies, by his unremitting efforts by speech and by telegram
to debauch the pubhc sentiment of Massachusetts and to lower
the standard by which her people have hitherto measured their
public men. And if there is any virtue in the grossest flattery.
and the most vulgar adulation, even George Frisbie Hoar might
raise himself to the level of the baser foUowers of the Plumed
Knight, and justly feel that he had entitled himself to a Cabi
net appointment from the slanderer of his native Common
wealth. Now, as far as the public welfare is concerned, would the
Commonwealth suffer any detriment if, instead of a rino- com
posed of such materials, we should have such a Cabinet of Dem
ocratic statesmen as an honorable and honest public servant
like Grover Cleveland would undoubtedly select for us ? What
great calamity would befaU the country if we should see
Thomas F. Bayard in the State Department, Samuel J. Eandall
or Senator Edmunds's friend AUen G. Thurman in the Treas
ury, Abraham S. Hewitt, WiUiam S. Holman, 'Joseph E
McDonald, William C. Endicott, or Mayor Prince in the other
departments ? There is only one Eobinsonlan answer to this •

A Bad Attack of Vipers, and the Remedy. 49
The Star Eoute thieves are Eepublicans — therefore aU saints.
The statesmen are Democrats — therefore aU devils.
Let us consider the Judge's arguments. " Vipers of treason,
disloyal, fanatics 'of free trade, copperheads, repudiation and
ruin, curse and terror, black with devotion to slavery, conspira^
tors against liberty, relentless opponents of free baUot and free
count, crimes against the baUot box. Southern oligarchy, dark
and damning treason, bloody overthrow, fights and hates the
civil service, plunder poUtics, notorious fraud, practices the
spoils system, constant conspiracy, constant crime, hypocrisy
and depravity, vilest nest of vipers," — et cetera ! et cetera !
Hold on a moment. These epithets embody the idaa that a
man who counts himself as one of one half of the American
people entertains of the other half. Is there any reason or good
sense in this ?
Prescribing for other people is something I do not undertake.
But for myself I can say that if I ever have an acute attack of
such venomous parts of speech I shall immediately take to my
bed and request my friends to telephone for Dr. Holcombe or
Dr. Greenleaf , with instructions that I should be bolused, blis
tered, and bled to their heart's content, and even then I should
not expect to be out in season to vote at the next presidential
election. Nor should I expect to vote at aU, except on a favor
able return to a writ de lunatico inquirendo.
This does not leave me much space for Senator Dawes, but I
do not require much for a gentleman who pronounces the unre-
biiked slanderer of Massachusetts, the official jobber, the seK-
convicted pawner of his veracity and honor, a " stainless " man,
only " decorated " by the proofs of his venality and corruption.
Senator Dawes laid himself out at the ratification meeting in
Boston. He there advocated Blaine's election because the Ee
publican party had twenty-five years of achievement behind it.
What do we care for what a party has behind it. We want to
know what a party has in It, around it, and before it ; and
when we see prominent in it, and engaged in running it, water
thieves, land thieves, post-office thieves, jobbers, lobbyists, and
corruptionists, what nonsense it is to talk about what is behind
It, be it a whole century of great achievements !
Then Senator Dawes had a good deal to say about the mar
velous manifestation of the irresistible power of political currents
4

50 Chapters for the Times.
in a nation of fifty miUions of freemen. I am quite at a loss
to understand how he applies this rather grandiloquent and
rhetorical observation. It reads to me like a sentence cut out
of one of his sophomore forensics, and rather rubbishy for a
sophomore. There is something also about "intense American
ism," and " political currents " figure again as bearing on their
"bosom" the "future grandeur or humiliation of the repub-
Uc." This last I do not comprehend, unless it is an allusion
to the Mulligan letters, which Mr. Blaine very properly said he
could not read without " humUiation." The " intense Ameri
canism " idea seems to have been quite eliminated from the can
vass — g,s a Eepublican peculiarity. Our Democratic brethren
assert a louder claim to it, and the inanagers of the Blaine can
vass drop it in their solicitude to get up a comic newspaper
where it would not cut any figure at aU. " The coming strug
gle for a more pronounced American policy " is merged in
the coming struggle on the question whether we shall have an
honest man or a jobber for our President. Anything more in
tensely American than the war with England and the war with
Mexico, and the acquisition of Louisiana, the Floridas, and Cali
fornia, can hardly be desirable.
I wiU not be unjust to the honorable senator. If he is not an
orator and a rhetorician he is nothing and nowhere, so I wiU
pick, out a plum or two from a pie which Johnnie Horner mio'ht
have plumed himself upon. "Let us," said Mr. Dawes, "lift
the discipline of the campaign to the level of the great issues and
stake, and not stop to pick up bird-seed by Indifference to the
forces which are pushing the republic on to its destiny." Eead
this, brother farmers, and tell me what on earth the orator
means. What idea do you get from " lifting the discipline of
the campaign " ? Does this refer to the " discipline " that
Elkins and Jones are establishing in the matter of the bri
bery fund among the office-holders at Washington ? And the
" stake " ? Is that the heritage of the office-holders, and the
hundred million surplus that Mr. Blaine would continue to raise
for the vultures and harpies who fasten on it ? " Pick up bird
seed by indifference," — what can this mean ? Brother farmers
are you going to take your opinions on the say-so of a man who
is capable of stirring up such a muddle of nonsense as this
an argument to induce thinking men to vote for a jobber like

A Bad Attack of Vipers, and the Remedy. 51
Blaine ? Eead the documents. Study them for yourselves. We
are just as competent to form a judgment on them as Mr. Dawes.
If you think a man is " decorated " by dishonor, vote as Mr.
Dawes teUs you. If you think a man is " decorated " by obtain
ing " control " of an interest in a railroad under circumstances
In which he cannot touch it, and under circumstances in which
he cannot permit his name to appear, and puts off that interest
on his friends under circumstances which authorize them to de
mand and obtain the return of the money, — if you think as Mr.
Dawes does, that such a " little transaction in Boston " is a " dec
oration," by all means vote as Mr. Dawes tells you to vote. If
you think a public man " decorated " by taking ten neighbors
into his confidence and putting off upon them wildcat railroad
securities under circumstances which give those neighbors a
" moral claim " upon the broker for a return of the money,
votg by all means with the men who are of the same opinion.
If you think a man " decorated " by sharp practices, vote for
Mr. Blaine. If you think a man " decorated " by venality, vote
for Mr. Blaine. If you think a man " decorated " by corruption,
vote for Mr. Blaine. Yote as Mr. Dawes and Mr. Hoar teU
you to vote. But if you do not think so, and are not prepared
to accept the opinions of " our best men," as their friends some
times call the honorable senators (as if they were any better
than we are), in the place of your own judgment and your own
convictions, I repeat my injunction: Eead the documents and
decide for yourselves.
Now for the ex-governor. Lawyer Long read the evidence
formerly and entertained a very decided opinion that Mr. Blaine
was guUty as charged in the indictment. After Mr. Blaine's
nomination at Chicago, Lawyer Long looked over the evidence
again and thought the charges were not proven. This result
was brought about by what Mr. Blaine would call a " strange
revolution of circumstances."
It may be well, brother farmers, to remember, in estimating
the value of their advice, that Messrs. Hoar, Dawes, and Long
are all lawyers and all office-holders.
September 2.

52 Chapters for the Times.
XL
A HOST OF LAWYERS RETAINED FOR THE DEFENSE.
The Mulligan Literature and the Northern Pacific.
Another lawyer In the field, but this time not an office
holder ! Another counsel for the defendant on hand, by elabo
rate sophistry and ingenious diminution to whittle away the
presentment of the Grand Inquest of the Nation ! To Dawes,
Long, Lodge, Hoar, and Eobinson we have now to add the name
of E. M. Morse, Jr., president of the recent Eepublican State
Convention. Six special attorneys for the man in the dock, but,
thank God, I have not yet heard of a single tiller of the soU who
has come forward and said to his fellow citizens of Massachu
setts that James G. Blaine, as a candidate for the presidency,
rises to the standard of her traditions, her character, and her
requirements. I have not yet heard one farmer assert that the
election of James G. Blaine to the presidency, in the face of
admitted and undenied facts, would be otherwise than a great
calamity for the American people.
In a previous chapter I have anticipated Mr. Morse's bold
statement in regard to Mr. Blaine's "alleged" connection v/ith
the North Pacific Eailroad. On behalf of his client. Counselor
Morse says that the " only thing " the MuUIgan letters show in
regard to the mysterious block of North Pacific is that Mr.
Blaine " determined that he could not take it, and that he did
not take It." They show no such thing, but they prove dis
tinctly that Mr. Blaine was determined to get $25,000 for the
block, and that he did get it. They show that for some reason
or other Fisher was dunning him for two years to refund that
$25,000, whether for a failure of consideration or misrepre
sentation as to the value of the block does not appear. Thev
show that in some way or other Fisher had got the Plumed
Knight in an uncommonly tight place, in this regard, and the
correspondence leaves him there, with $25,000 in his pocket
" In trust " for the Lord knows whom.
The money was paid to Blaine " in trust " in November 1870
It is stated, but not in the correspondence, that Fisher finallv

A Host of Lawyers Retained for the Defense. 53
succeeded in procuring a return of the trust money in the fall
of 1872. ^
In view of aU the circumstances, it would, indeed, be strange
if the Mulligan letters did not possess the great public interest
which Mr. Morse very justly attributes to them. On this point
I wUl give counsel for the defense the benefit of his statement
in his own words : —
" But the assailants of Mr. Blaine fall back upon the ' Mulligan
letters.' How they revel in those letters ! How they print them and
reprint them ! How they read them and read them over again !
Surely no correspondence was ever so carefully studied. These schol
ars and statesmen forget for the moment the classic letters of Cicero and
of Webster, tliese youths care no more for the love songs of Petrarch
to his Laura ; all are alike absorbed in constant, steady, and intense
perusal of the ' Mulligan letters.' Here, it is claimed, is full confes
sion, if not of any specific act of corruption, yet of dishonest purpose
or habit of mind. But with all deference to those whose judgment
leads them honestly to that conclusion, I deny emphatically that such
is the fair and reasonable interpretation of those letters. I cannot
undertake here to analyze this correspondence."
Admitting that this correspondence could not have been ju
diciously analyzed on this occasion, I think Mr. Morse is entirely
right in this view of the MuUIgan letters. It shows that Mr.
Morse is well aware of what the people are thinking about, and
feels that they are in search of the right material for reflection.
These letters are read and are carrying reading people to just
conclusions In regard to their author. On the other hand, the
special campaign literature of the Eepublicans seems to be quite
neglected. The Eepublican Congressional Committee, for in
stance, have printed twenty-one campaign pamphlets, eighteen
of them trashy speeches or letters of members of Congress on
the tariff, which nobody will read, and which the committee
are trying to peddle round at from forty cents to a dollar a hun
dred, — and no buyers. The American people have no appre
hension that the country is in any danger from the inability of
capital to take care of itself. They know that capital buys up
state legislatures, and attorneys, general as weU as special, and
courts of justice, and government departments, and the cynical
and malicious go so far as to say that the members of neither
House of Congress are whoUy inaccessible to its blandishments.

54 Chapters for the Time^.
We all know that with the millionaires and lesser capitalists in
the two Houses, and the potent influences that can be brought to
bear on the impecunious, there is just about as much chance for
the breaking out of the millennium as there is for any encroach
ment by either party on the real or supposed Interests of capital,
whether involved in the tariff policy or any other policy. The
most that can be done by a Democratic majority is to apply
the knife to the cancerous surplus that is corrupting the body
politic, and the sooner that is done the better.
Little wonder that there is no market for the long-winded
themes and forensics on the tariff, that have been, presumably,
written for the members by their clerks, and have been already
circulated at the public expense in CongTessional Debates. But
the Mulligan letters are quite another thing. They always
pique and sometimes gratify curiosity. The annals of the world
do not exhibit such a collection. It is entirely and absolutely
unique. Why should not we forget for the moment the classic
letters of Cicero and Webster ? To what contemporary Piscator
did the great Eoman orator ever address himself in a vein so
interesting? In what letters of Webster, or of any other Amer
ican statesman, can we find such labyrinths of occult circum
stances, such appeals for mysterious settlements, such disavowals
of obviously corrupt interests, such familiarity with " smaU
flyers " and splendid chances " and what the " whole tliino- could
be had for," such intimate knowledge of how lobbies had " thino-s
set up," such dunnings for the return of money receipted for
"in trust," — such proofs, in short, that the man whom Mr.
Phelps represents as so entirely " absorbed in public affairs " as
to require a financial guardian was a man who never lost a
chance to use his political and official influence for the acquire
ment of money, from the time he undertook, by methods with
which aU Pennsylvanian poUticIans were famiUar, to infuse
Simon Cameron with an enthusiasm for Spencer rifles down to
the moment when he " couched his lance " at the Democratic
hordes, and landed himself in the convenient asylum of a sun
stroke. Then there never were letters since the world was made that
have produced such different impressions on the same indi
viduals at different periods. Governor Long and Senator Hoa
have been for years in the habit of regarding them as very

A Host of Lawyers Retained for the Defense. 55
naughty. Even Senator Dawes for a long time did not con
sider them as peculiarly " decorative." It is said, indeed, that
when Blaine uttered his malicious invective against Massachu
setts, though Dawes and Hoar did not say much publicly in
rebuke of the slanderer, they did give out in an undertone
that it was not much matter what such a man might say against
Massachusetts; Massachusetts could stand it. Even partisan
editors of the most pronounced Eepublican stamp entertained
no doubt as to the purport and effect of these letters when they
were first published. The " New York Tribune," the " Chicago
Tribune," the "Cincinnati Commercial," and the "Cincinnati
Gazette " considered the letters " dark, stubborn, and destructive
facts," not to be " sponged out." The " Cincinnati Gazette "
said on the 10th of June, 1876 : " No man can successfully
stand before the people of the country as the Eepublican can
didate for the presidency, covered all over as Blaine is with his
own letters." Now, with Dawes, the " Gazette " considers them
decorations. Senator Hoar does not go quite so far. He rather
inclines to the opinion that they come under the head of warts
or wrinkles.
Mr. Morse suggests that the dudes even have given up the
sonnets of Petrarch to his Laura, in exchange for the Mulligan
letters. Why not ? Is there any comparison in present interest
between the sonnets of the Italian to his mistress and the let
ters of Petrarch Blaine to Laura Fisher ? When Petrarch had
a " splendid thing," was not It always his " first and best im
pulse " to offer it to his Laura? If you desire emotional writ
ing, gush of 'sentiment, depth of pathos, bursts of gratitude, sly
allusions, picturesque attitudes, skillful ballooning, pregnant in
sinuations, — are they not all to be found in that memorable
package which Blaine was not "afraid " and was not " ashamed"
to show to forty-four millions of his countrymen, though he but
toned It up in his breast pocket as if this " courageous and high-
spirited gentleman " was really very much ashamed and very
much alarmed?
While I am writing this I receive the " New York Times,"
containing a letter of Mr. George Bliss, in reply to a letter of
mine to Mr. Morse, in regard to his assertions in the matter of
the North Pacific, or the "little transaction in Boston" that
never became a transaction at all. What Mr. Bliss has to do

56 ' Chapters for the Times.
with Mr. Morse's correspondence I cannot imagine. He is the
seventh lawyer who appears as counsel for the defendant in this
Massachusetts jurisdiction. Mr. BUss is the gentleman who re
ceived from the surplus an hundred dollars a day for many
months, for teaching us how not to convict Brady, Dorsey, and
Kellogg. He is the same gentleman who suggested to Attor
ney-General Brewster a consultation with BUI Chandler as to
the political effect of the probable testimony of a particular
witness before putting him on the stand. If he has as good
luck in defending Blaine as he had in convicting Dorsey, per
haps he will be Mr. Brewster's successor.
September 9.

XIL
WHITEWASHING, PAINTING, AND GILDING
BY EMINENT HANDS.
The Bar and the Press.
These chapters have been addressed to the farmers of Massa
chusetts without distinction of party. I have lived long enough
to know that in the philosophy of proverbs there is nothing
truer than that party is the madness of the many for the elevar
tion, enrichment, and aggrandizement of the few. I believe
that the salvation of our institutions rests in the hands of men
engaged In the pursuits of agriculture, the men who are always
honestly adding something to our wealth and prosperity. From
their labor comes by far the largest addition to the created cap
ital of the country. Out of what they raise comes the transpor
tation that gives value to the railroads. Out of what they raise
comes the traffic that creates oil kings, and wheat kings and
cotton kings, and pork kings, and the army of buyers and sell
ers in the marts of commerce and the stock exchanges of our
great cities. Out of the earth and the sea comes the surplus
The tillers of the soil and the toilers on the sea  the farm
ers, the miners, and the fishermen — produce the hundreds of
millions of dollars that are annually raised from the American
people by iniquitous taxation. From them comes the one bun

Whitewashing, Painting, and Gilding. 57
dred millions of surplus, raised that the morals of the people
may be corrupted, and that our presidential election may degen
erate into a struggle in which custom-house officers, collectors of
internal revenue, postmasters, contractors, jobbers, land thieves
and water thieves, and conspicuously Star Eoute thieves, come
to the front, — make the nominations, organize the committees,
organize the office-holders, levy unlawful assessments on the
timid and reluctant subordinates in public service, and prepare
the way for the carnival of spoils and plunder that they look
forward to uuder the auspices of Blaine.
The worst feature in this canvass, said a prominent Eepubli
can to me the other day, is the attempt of such men as Dawes
and Hoar to make light of the facts proved by the Mulligan let
ters. " I am a Eepublican, and shall vote for their candidate,"
he said, " because I hate the Democrats, not because I love
Blaine. I am a party man, and would vote for the Devil if he
managed by hook or crook to get the nomination. I will not
disgrace myself, however, by saying that these charges decorate
Mr. Blaine, or that he is an unspotted candidate, as Dawes and
Hoar Insist. It does Blaine no good and is calculated to lower
the standard of public morals." But my Eepublican friend did
not admit that his own standard of political morals was consid
erably lowered when he declared that he must draw the line
somewhere, and drew it the wrong side of Satan.
One of the most striking circumstances of this canvass is the
comparison it inevitably provokes between the honorable inde
pendence of the press and the disreputable partisan advocacy of
the bar. Before the meeting of the convention, Mr. William
Walter Phelps appeared as the volunteer attorney for his client
Mr. Blaine. He aspired to do an effective job of whitewash
ing. He went through every count of the indictment against
Mr. Blaine, and claimed to have disposed of them all in his
favor. More' than an attorney, he assumed to be the nearest
friend of the illustrious candidate, and was prepared to vouch
not only for all Ms actions, but for aU his thoughts and aspira
tions. He told Mr. Blaine's story, not as his representative
merely, but as himself. He denied, he explained, he asserted,
as by authority. Mr. Phelps's defense only confirmed the pre
vailing opinion of his client's guilt, and that impression was
particularly pronounced In the State of Massachusetts. The

58 Chapters for the Times.
delegates to the Eepublican convention from this State were
unanimous in the opinion that the charges were not disproved
by Mr. Phelps. They protested that Mr. Phelps had made out
no case ; that in any event Blaine's record was a doubtful one,
and to nominate him for the presidency, even under Mr. Phelps's
coat of whitewash, would be to invite inevitable and deserved
defeat. But when our delegates returned from Chicago swearing that
Mr. Blaine was too black for any Mr. Phelps to whitewash, they
concluded that those of them who were office-holders and those
of them who desired to become office-holders — whether for the
honors or profits — must stick to the organization and go in
strong, even if the nominee was Beelzebub. Then they devised
the plan of supplementing Mr. Phelps's whitewash with a coat of
paint, and, of all people in the world, who should they get but
the great moral painter of the Commonwealth to lay it on with
a trowel. Senator Hoar contracted to paint out all the " warts
and wrinkles," and to make Mr. Blaine (skin-deep) as present
able as any man in the country. He beat all to pieces Senator
Frye's dazzling j)icture of the Plumed Knight couching his lance
at poor Mulligan. He painted Blaine in all sorts of scenes and
attitudes, omitting alwa.ys that memorable field in which the
Plumed Knight unhorsed two distinguished warriors who wielded
the battle-axes of Massachusetts. But the painting, — first in
water colors and afterwards in oils, — though it helped the
whitewash, was not entirely satisfactory. Something more
was called for, and brother Dawes — a most competent artist In
that line — was employed to do a job of gilding, and did he not
" decorate " his subject ? After this whitewashing, painting
and gilding by these three eminent masters, Messrs. Lodge
Long, Morse, Governor Eobinson, and George Bliss were brought
forward to frame and glass him and exhibit him to a confidino'
public, in such a style that his most intimate friends, even Fisher
and CaldweU, would never know him.
In a former chapter I have alluded to the struggle of the re
formers against the office-holders in 1840. This Conservative
bolt from the Democratic party corresponded with the Indepen
dent bolt from the Eepublican party in 1884. At that time
considerable number of gentlemen, who held office by popular or
by legislative election, separated themselves from the Democratic

Whitewashing, Painting, and Gilding. 59
party, and opposed its presidential candidate. This was the case
especially in Yirginia, New York, and Pennsylvania. But the
Democratic press at that time foUowed the lead of the office
holders proper. There was a feeble protest from a journal in
the city of New York, started in the interest and through tho
influence of Senator TaUmadge. There was another journal at
Nashville that joined the bolt, and the editor of it had to go
about with pistols in his pockets to protect himself against his
old political associates and friends. The journals in question
bolted before the renomination of Yan Buren, and stuck to their
bolt, but their circulation was small and their power limited.
They were hardly a factor in the contest, which was mainly car
ried on by speech in the immense popular gatherings that were
rallied against the office-holders and the defaulters, while the Ee
publican bolters of 1884 have a press in their own party that is
of incalculable significance and influence in the fight against the
candidate of the office-holders and the Star Eoute thieves.
It is entirely without precedent in our history, or in the his
tory of any other people, that the leading journals of a party
should oppose its candidate for the highest office, on the ground
that he had been guilty of making money during his public
career by the abuse of his political and official opportunities. ¦
When has such a charge been brought against Pitt, or Peel, or
Gladstone, or Derby, or Disraeli, or any English minister?
What public man of the United States has ever been suspected
of such an offense against political morality ? The people re
luctantly pardoned a single corrupt act In the case of one Ee
publican President, but Lot Morrill spoke with the voice of a
prophet when he said in 1880 that the EepubUcan President
would be elected that time, " but unless new methods are used
In the party and better men become its leaders he will be the
last one elected." Its best leaders are faUing away from it, —
Speed, and Schurz, and Bristow, and Curtis, and ConkUng, and
Codman, — aU opposed to Blaine, and most of them in .active
opposition, while there come to the rescue Dorsey, Elkins, Clay
ton, Brady, KeUogg, BHss, Joyce, Eobeson, Keifer, Gould, Field,
and the grand old army of office-holding martyrs who have
monopolized for twenty years the " smaU flyers " and " splendid
things " in the gift of the EepubUcan organization, and intend
to hold them If they can for their natural Uves against aU
comers.

60 Chapters for the Times.
I have alluded to the course of the press in this contest as in
honorable contrast to that of the bar on the Massachusetts arena.
Among the lawyers retained for the defense of Mr. Blaine I owe
an apology to Mr. Ebenezer Eockwood Hoar for hitherto omit
ting the brother of the senator. There are now eight counsel
ors on the list. It is gratifying to those who know how fas
tidious he is to find that there is one man in the world for
whom the Judge Is proud to profess reverence. We agree
with him when he says it is impossible to get up a party in
this country on the issue whether or not people dislike Mr.
Blaine. Gil Bias, and Scapin, and Figaro, and all the pleasant
rogues of the Continental novelists and dramatists, — who dis
likes them ? Who dislikes Dorsey ? Dislike is not the word to
apply to agreeable, dashing feUows like Blaine, Elkins, and
Dorsey. But does not the Judge misrepresent the real issue ?
Is it the question whether we like or dislike Mr. Blaine ? The
question is not whether Blaine is a pleasant fellow, — that we
admit, — but is he a man of such antecedents and such asso
ciations as ought to win the respect and confidence of the Ameri
can people, and command their suffrage for the highest office
in their gift ? That is a very different question. And with due
deference to Judge Hoar, I think he does great injustice to him
self, as well as to the press, when he utters the somewhat misap
plied observation that " this campaign is not to be carried on or
influenced to any extent by the ribaldry of scurrilous news
papers." Nobody is likely to be influenced by ribaldry or scur-
riUty, but the only ribald and scurrilous attack that I have yet
noticed In the Massachusetts newspapers was published in a
journal supposed to be in the special confidence of Mr. Blaine
and was put in circulation by the Eepublican state committee
under the auspices of Mr. Lodge. It is not the ribald and scur
rilous press of the EepubUcan party that opposes Mr. Blaine.
It is those journals which have rendered the most efficient ser
vice in the EepubUcan cause, which have always been active and
prominent in advancing and protecting great pubhc interests
and have uniformly maintained the highest character for abU
ity and Integrity.
Take the EepubUcan journals of Massachusetts. A very
eminent lawyer for the defense said to me the other day « Th
'DaUy Advertiser'— -yes — an old fogy newspaper that has

Whitewashing, Painting, and Gilding. 61
not had any influence for forty years." For nearly three fourths
of a century it has been a leading journal in New England.
Federal at first. National Eepublican, Whig, and Eepublican
since ; honest, able, truthful, and cohservative always. Never
before has that journal taken a stand against the regular nomi
nee of its party for any office whatever. Is there not a strong
significance in the fact that it opposes Mr. Blame now ? If its
founder, Nathan Hale, were living to-day, he would say that the
" Advertiser " was right, and that his son Edward had better
stick to his sermons and novelettes, in which he has acquired
deserved distinction, than meddle with politics. I think I can
hear that pure and wise map, who exercised so long such de
cided, indeed almost autocratic. Influence among Boston gentle
men, x saying, "Edward, my son, don't write any more about
politics in the ' Independent ; ' you mean well, but you really
don't know anything about it." When a gentleman undertakes
to give the weight of his name to his opimons, and is not con
tented to let them pass upon their merits, he should be sure that
he knows something of the subject he discusses. Mr. E. E.
Hale is too incorrupt himself to understand Blaine and his con
federates. But the " Advertiser " is only one of several leading Eepub
lican newspapers In Massachusetts that have never been ribald
or scurrilous, and that are ardent in their opposition to Blaine.
From the days of Lynde M. Walter, its founder, to the present
days, the " Evening Transcript " has been in the same political
Une with the "Advertiser," — for many years not so decidedly
political, but uniformly working in the interest of sound morals
and honest politics. So the Boston " Herald," with its vast cir
culation and its remarkable political intelligence and ability,
and the Springfield "Eepublican," the great organ of opinion
in Western Massachusetts. Can any sensible man fail to under
stand the meaning and the importance of such a persistent and
such an overwhelming revolt in the journals of a great party
against the presidential candidate of that j)arty on the ground
that he is a corrupt man, and that he has been put forward and
Is now sustained by corrupt confederktes ?
So with the New York press. Could anything be more pre
posterous than the cry that the " Evening Post " is a free trader,
and is therefore opposed to the Eepublican nomination ? Two

62 Chapters for the Times.
distinguished natives of Berkshire, William C. Bryant and
Theodore Sedgwick, put the " Evening Post " on its free-trade
course fifty years ago. It was at that time Democratic, and
maintained its position in the Democratic ranks untU it became
one of the foremost Eepublican journals of the country. In
spite of its IncUnation to free trade, it has supported from that
time to this aU the Eepublican candidates for all offices, and
has been a warm advocate in behalf of aU the presidential nomi
nees of the party, from Lincoln to Garfield. Did Eepublicans
ever object to the support of the " Post," or fail to recognize its
conspicuous position in the Eepublican ranks, because it enter
tained theoretical opinions on ecoi^mical questions that differed
from those of Senator Edmunds ? Did the " Post " withhold
its advocacy from Mr. Edmunds as a presidential candidate,
because Mr. Edmunds differed from the " Post " on the tariff
question ?
Look at the New York " Times." Its founder, Henry J. Eay
mond, stood godfather at the baptism of the Eepublican party.
He wrote the address issued by its first convention, and the
journal he established, in connection with its present editor, has
always been the faithful, earnest, and consistent advocate of Ee
publican principles. In every battle that has been fought In its
day against corruption, the " Times " has been in the thick of the
fray. Wherever the peculators and robbers have shown them
selves, in municipal, state, or national directions, the " Times "
has pursued them and declared war to the knife against them.
It broke up the Tweed ring, and made Tilden's opportunity for
him. It exposed the rascalities In the history of the Union
Pacific, of which Blaine was the defender, and which led to that
oft-repeated exhibition of himself which Senator Edmunds has
fixed on a permanent canvas. It seconded Postmaster-General
James's movement on the Star Eoute thieves, and if the prose
cution of them under Bliss had been half as efficient as the
presentation of their cases by the " Times," they would have
been surveying this contest from the loop-holes of a snug re
tirement, instead of figuring to-day conspicuously in the open
as magnates and leaders? of the Eepublican party. So with the
independent " Herald," the " Telegram," the " Staats-Zeitung "
"Harper's Weekly," "Puck," the "Graphic." Is there not'a
momentous interest and significance in the fact that aU these

Whitewashing, Painting, and Gilding. 63
Eepublican and Independent journals are in formidable array
against the Eepublican presidential candidate ? Can Judge
Hoar or any other judge truthfully say that such journals are
ribald and scurrilous, and that the campaign is not to be in
fluenced by them to any extent in comparison with the influence
that Is to be exercised by the whitewashing, painting, and gild
ing of Phelps, Dawes, and the Brothers Hoar ?
But while I write the papers are put Into my hands which
show that the warts and wrinkles and the deforming spots have
broken out again through aU these coats of sm'face ajsplications,
showing through in spite of the whitewash, the paint, the gold,
and the varnish. More Mulligan letters, Mr. Morse ! More
contributions to the literature of jobbery and corruption !
These new letters prove not only that Blaine was himseff a
first-class liar, but that he tried to make his generous and lib
eral friend lie for him, and believe that this lying was honor
able for both, and consistent with " the most scrupulous integ
rity." I find, too, some new points in the Northern Pacific
business, in which Blaine figures in the Lie Direct, and his
friend Phelps in the Lie with Circumstance. Between them
they have involved you, Mr. Morse, in a disingenuousness which
Is not creditable, and which I think you owe it to yourself to
explain. I may recur to this, for I consider it important.
September 15.

Published at the Yalley Gleaner Office, Lee, Berkshire
County, Massachusetts.
Single copies, post-paid, 8 cents.
§5.00 a hundred; $40.00 a thousand.

CHAPTERS FOR THE TIMES.
THIRD PART.
BY A BEEKSHIEE FAEMEE.

XIII.
speculating and JOBBING STATESMEN.
Does a Nomination Change a Candidate whom Massachusetts Citi
zens have three times rejected ?
A Eepublican of Eepublicans, one who has never joined the
Independents, writes me from Boston as follows : " It strikes
me that Blaine Is knocked 'higher than a kite ' by the last
batch of Mulligan letters. It can't be necessary to spend much
more powder on him." Knowing the writer, and knowing him
to be a representative of thousands of citizens in Massachusetts
who are not allied to office or office-holders, and who judge of
public men and public measures for themselves, I consider this
simple expression of opinion from such a quarter a fact of very
great significance. If the class of inteUigent men of affairs
whom he represents come to the same conclusion (and I do not
see how It can be otherwise), it is in the power of the Democrats,
under the lead of such eminently worthy men as Endicott and
Grinnell, to give the electoral vote of Massachusetts to Grover
Cleveland. I say that it is in their power — unless they see fit
to throw away their suffrages on a personal favorite who stands
no possible chance of securing the electoral vote for himself.
To this subject I shall revert in a future chapter. Meanwhile,
I desire my brother farmers to reflect on this suggestion.
To the moral of this new batch of MuUIgan letters, and of
aU the MuUIgan letters now before the people, I propose to
devote this chapter, and I desire the farmers of Massachusetts

66 Chapters for the Times.
whom It may reach to ponder well on the facts that it wiU pre
sent for their consideration. It touches a subject of infinite
moment, and cannot be dismissed as the outcome of a ribald and
scurrilous press. It touches the vice and canker of the times
— the greed of gold. It iUustrates the monstrous evils that
flow from excessive and oppressive taxation, creating the enor
mous surplus that, in the hands of money-loving, ambitious, and
unscrupulous men, is a fund for undermining the virtue of the
people, and sapping the corner-stone of the Eepublic.
It Is only In connection with the lesson to be learned from It,
and the emphatic warning that it speaks to the American people,
that I venture with great reluctance to comment on the humilia
tion of President Grant. At a comparatively advanced period
In his life he was smitten with the speculative avarice that en
grossed James G. Blaine from the very commencement of his
political career. As far as the people can know. General Grant
entered the pubUc service in honorable poverty and left it with
a respectable competence. No such stains as disgraced a Marl
borough attach to his military history. His hands were clean.
He never appeared as a claim agent, for twenty-five per cent.
commission, to coUect trumped-up bills for railroad corporations
to pay them for a service voluntarily and gratuitously proffered.
He exercised no underhand personal or official influence in rec
ommending to the war department inventions of speculative
partners in the way of " wonderful " rifles, involving wonderful
patent fees which we farmers know the like of, in a small way.
In the levies of the barbed-wire peddlers and lightnin"--rod men.
Twice, with a large majority of his grateful countrymen, I took
an active interest in the elevation of General Grant to the pres
idency. I had no hesitation whatever in supporting him for a
third term against the two men who combined to defeat his
nomination, and who had both yielded to the seductions of the
tempter. In the face of Blaine's theatrical exhibition of his
case In the House of Eepresentatives ; in the face of his sup
pression of facts, his Interception of witnesses, his bullying and
abuse of the Judiciary Committee, his cringing appeals to Mul-
Hgan for the letters, the pawning of his word of honor to Mul-
Ugan and leaving it in pawn, his pretended communication of
the contents of the letters to his countrymen, without giving any
human being the opportunity of ascertaining whether or not

Speculating and Jobbing Statesmen. 67
the communication was honestly made, his indecent charge
against the committee in respect to the manufactured telegram
of Josiah CaldweU which Mr. Knott was warranted In saying
was a "put-up job," his phenomenal lying through the whole
matter, — va. the face of aU this we could not hesitate to prefer
the nomination of General Grant for a third term to the nom
ination of Blaine for a first term.
Up to that time nothing had occurred to shake popular con
fidence In the sound judgment of General Grant, or to lead the
pubHc to suppose that he was greedy of gold, or capable of
using any methods of a questionable nature for its acquisition.
He afterwards fell Into the hands of men who saw money in the
use of his name and of his prestige in their speculative operar
tions. He succumbed to the temptation. He posed as the at
tractive figure-head in Jay Gould's South-Western railroad
schemes. Bad led to worse. The plain and honest soldier
became an avaricious, money-loving, money-seeking speculator.
After having attained the topmost heights of human ambition,
after having been for years the first man in the first nation of
the world, he feU. Instead of following the example of all his
predecessors in the presidency, and enjoying an unostentatious
retirement in moderate and honorable circumstances, he began
to feel that all his military and civic honors were nothing unless
he could supplement them with large material wealth. He
thirsted for a fortune that would enable him to compete in show
and splendor with the railroad kings, the pork monopolists, the
great bankers, the wheat speculators, and the forestaUers, en
grossers, and regraters of the Mining, Produce, and Stock Ex
changes. He became the slave of a sordid passion for money, and the
associate, as it turned out, of swindlers and thieves. The great
soldier, the eminent civilian, put up his name and his fame as
the valuable banking capital of a plunder shop. The most emi
nent living man of the nation was used as the decoy duck of
sharpers and blacklegs. Not knowingly, -^ but he was daz
zled and hoodwinked by the exhibition of fabulous profits and
marvelous accumulations. He thought he was on the higbway
to boundless wealth when he could borrow on his note of hand
$150,000 of his brother miUionaire Mr. Yanderbilt. And the
next day he was a beggar, — involved in pecuniary obligations

68 Chapters for the Times.
from which he can never be rescued, — the blind partner and the
stolid victim in the most stupendous and audacious frauds that
have ever been chronicled in our financial history.
With the knowledge we now possess of the character of Gen
eral Grant, derived from the notorious financial transactions, or
rather the fraudulent operations of the house of Grant, Ward &
Co., would intelligent and reflecting men entertain the idea for
a moment of reelecting him to the presidency of the United
States ? I think not.
The character of James G. Blaine Is familiar to us in advance.
If we elect him to the presidency we elect a man whom we know
to be a rapacious jobber. His love of money; his persistent
and Inveterate pursuit of it ; his implications in aU manner of
methods for obtaining it ; his " small flyers ; " his " splendid
things;" his "wonderful" rifles; his "very rare chances;"
his receipt " in trust " of moneys that were not forthcoming for
more than a year after they were imperatively demanded ; his
" little transactions in Boston " that were not transacted ; his
extreme solicitude for the " protection of his private correspond
ence ; " his unredeemed honor in the hands of James Mulligan ;
his " extreme frankness " in communicating nothing whatever in
addition to his own letters to avoid " evil surmises, and still more
evil Inferences ; " his " natural desire to make as much as he
fairly could " out of the sale of Little Eock bonds to his neigh
bors substantiaUy at fifty per cent, above the market price ; his
"botheration" at not being able to obtain a definite and ex
pressed arrangement with CaldweU ; his extreme satisfaction for
the term of eight years with Fisher's " unbounded liberality,"
contrasted with his inability to bring Caldwell to a " definite
proposition;" his " fearful embarrassments " in consequence of
Fisher's "positive cruelty" in the matter of bonds that Blaine
purchased only "to the amount of $30,000," and on the "same
terms as everybody else ; " his expressed " endeavor," when
writing to Fisher, to bring his own official usefulness to Cald
well's attention " not toh^ indelicate ; " his efforts to secure the
bank at Little Eock and the United States arsenal for Fisher
and CaldweU as a matter of "favoritism," and his suggestion
that national banks are "very profitable institutions " thus cast
mg "an anchor to the windward" for subsequent appeals to
Fishers kindness and generosity and to CaldweU's undoubted-

Speculating and Jobbing Statesmen. 69
disposition to treat him handsomely; his wiUingness to keep
things quiet, to let nobody know that he had ever done anything
in Maine, so that Fisher might have no embarrassment in speak
ing to CaldweU ; his mixing himself up in matters which he
"^ could not touch," and in which his name could not be men
tioned ; his placing himself by his use of trust funds in such a
position as would permit his correspondent to write him in a
mysterious but significant manner, but without rebuke, — " I
should judge it was for your interest to settle the matter at once,
and have no further delay ; " his deafness to the frequent im
portunities for return of trust money till Fisher was compelled
to surrender his obligations to the parties in interest ; Fisher's
unanswered assertions to him that he had advanced hum very
large sums of money, for which Blaine had never paid/rom his
own pocket one dollar of principal or interest, and had paid him
very large sums of money without one dollar of expense to him
[Blaine] : All this, with aU that it impUes, and much more
of the same sort, we knov/ about James G. Blaine before the
presidential election. Much of this, but not all, we knew as
long ago as 1876.
In that year Massachusetts Eepublicans sent delegates to the
National Convention who knew what was then known about
Blaine, and who protested that a man with such a record could
never receive the support of Massachusetts, and that his nomina
tion would be a fatal and irretrievable mistake, sure to result in
deserved disaster and defeat. They returned home and their
constituents approved their course.
In 1880 Massachusetts Eepublicans sent delegates to another
convention, In which the same old ring of Blaine men reap
peared. They were well disciplined, trained and banded, bent
upon getting the candidate of their choice, and hot in pursuit of
the " splendid things " that could be evolved from the manipu
lation of a revenue of $350,000,000. But the Massachusetts
delegates stood firm in their opposition to Blaine. They ap
pealed to his " doubtful record," they brought up the pitiful
picture of Blaine " almost on his laiees " to Mulligan, and they
asked themselves and each other if a man who had ever stood in
such an attitude before the American people could be so white
washed and painted as to appear worthy to occupy the seat
which had been sometime filled by those incorruptible sons of

70 Chapters for the Times.
Massachusetts — John Adams and John Quincy Adams. They
asked themselves the question if It were possible for the human
imagination to conceive of these great patriots and sages trading
on their official opportunities ; the subjects of a congressional in
vestigation on charges of corruption ; and In their fright and
shame pawning their honor, without redeeming it, to rescue from
public exhibition the damning evidences of their dishonorable
traffic. They answered this question to themselves and each
other in the negative. They decided that the nomination of
such a man could not be sustained in the State, and they com
promised on Garfield. A convention of American citizens for
the first time in American history submitted to our suffrages for
the highest office in their gift a man who had been suspected of
jobbery and of lying about it. Never before had any party vent
ured on such a step. There had been Federal, Democratic, Na
tional Eepublican, Whig, Democratic Eepublican, Anti-Masonic,
Free Soil and Know Nothing conventions, and never before had
any statesman been presented by any convention whose name
had been associated with a job and a lie. Garfield was the
entering wedge. The election of Garfield In 1880 alone made
possible the nomination of Blaine in 1884.
When the convention of 1884 came, two previous campaigns
had enabled Mr. Blaine to get his " organizing force " thoroughly
well in hand. It had been through eight years of discipline and
education. He knew, and the country knew, just how many
Blaine delegates had been returned to the convention, though I
think Senator Hoar stated that he did not believe Blaine knew
anything about it. There were none counted from Massachu
setts. The Massachusetts delegates went to the convention as
determined as ever to oppose Mr. Blaine for the same causes of
opposition which governed them in 1876 and 1880. We know
the delegates who figured there prominently in his behalf and
we know that they were not of a character to influence the judg
ment of inteUigent and honest men In favor of. their candidate.
We all remember the scenes that were enacted on that occasion
— the theatrical shows of enthusiasm, the transparencies the
banners, the shouting, the music, aU the surroundings ' that
money could buy, and that money could have bought for Mr.
Edmunds as well as for Mr. Blaine if the friends of Mr Ed-
tounds could have condescended to use It. The clamor and con-

Speculating and Jobbing Statesmen. 71
fusion were never before paraUeled in a convention, unless it
may have been in a convention of Sans Culottes in the Fau
bourg St. Antoine In the days of the French Eevolution. Noise
and brass carried the day. Mr. Blaine's tactics prevaUed. The
money ring and the Star Eoute thieves dominated the conven
tion completely, and the Massachusetts men were obUged to aor
quiesce reluctantly in the nomination of the candidate whom they
had, in two previous conventions, opposed to the bitter end with
the entire approbation of their constituents. Why opposed?
On account of his political opinions ? No — on account of his
corrupt record.
When this campaign opened Mr. B. F. Jones, whom Mr.
Blaine appointed to the responsible post of Eepublican money
raiser for the purpose of buying voters, undertook to tell us
what the people were going to talk about this fall. He said the
Issue was to be the tariff. Jones thought an issue was some
thing to be made to order, and that the order would be filled as
readily as a call for a hundred barrels of petroleum. WUliam
E. Chandler announced at Washington another issue, to be run
with the tariff side by side — and that was to keep before the
people the confederate brigadiers. The last issue has been ex
perimented on with such moderate success by Judge Eobinson
and the Hoars that Blaine has determined to confine the fight
as far as possible to the tariff and the surplus. He declared
this in his somewhat turgid declamation on the result of the
Maine election, when he said the speakers and newspapers in
Maine had been talking and writing very diligently and exclu
sively about the tariff. But from the start it was Intended that
his orators and editors, local or Itinerant, should preach nothing
but the gospel of money and the gospel of hate, as announced by
Jones and Chandler.
Both these issues have been practically eliminated from our
canvass. The living Issue, the only issue of the slightest im
portance in this campaign, is the issue on which the EepubUcan
delegates from Massachusetts have three times gone into the
presidential convention, and three times decided it against Mr.
Blaine. And now the men who represented In that convention
the hostile sentiments of Massachusetts, as far as they are office
holders or candidates for office, have come out one and all as the
panegyrists and eulogists of Mr. Blaine. If we beUeve them,

72 Chapters for the Times.
for the first time In the history of the world, we have found an
angel Instead of a man to govern us. Citizens of Massachu
setts ! There are the records. You can read for yourselves.
Eead them in the light of the lives of your own good and great
men, and do not listen to the infamous doctrine that you must
accept a lower standard for the men of to-day. Look on your
Adamses and Quincys, your Otises and Sumners, your Brookses
and Eustises, your SuUivaiis and Everetts, your Choates and
Websters, your Mortons and Andrewses, your Aliens and New-
tons, your Winthrops and Endicotts, your Cabots and Parsonses,
your Gores and Sewalls, your Lincolns and Saltonstalls. I could
run up the list from scores to hundreds of well-known names,
and not one public man of them was ever stained with a job
or a lie.
September 20, 1884.

XIV.
HOW BLAINE TOOK HIS MAINE NEIGHBORS INTO HIS CONFI
DENCE.
Governor Long's Mud and Miasma.
I HAD intended to devote a chapter to an explanation of the
methods by which Mr. Blaine took ten of his neighbors into his
confidence, and gave them ten considerable "flyers" in his Lit
tle Eock and Fort Smith enterprise, that he has been lying
about, and getting other people to lie about, for the last eio-ht
years. "
With this purpose stiU in embryo, I find the thing explained
In a summary way in one of Mr. Blaine's organs in the city of
New York — not the "Sun," but the "Tribune." The latter
journal, which now represents a distinguished California miU
ionaire, is much less useful to the Star Eoute thieves than the
sheet which a New York miUionaire pubUshes for his amuse
ment to the dismay of the Democratic party.
The "Tribune" explains the Little Eock business by saying
that " He [Blaine] had faUen among sharpers." It was a case
of stock-watering on a large scale, and Blaine instead of beino-
an accompUce was a victim. This presents the matter in a new
Hght. Let us see how it will bear examination.

How Blaine took his Maine Neighbors into his Confidence. 73
It is generally understood that Jay Gould and the late C.
Yanderbilt were the most distinguished stook-waterers that
ever figured in this country, but I think this a mistake. These
gentlemen watered their stocks after they put them upon the
public, but if you want to see a really thorough drenching of a
railroad beforehand, a choice specimen of an enterprise that is
drowned in the water required to fioat its securities, you have
got to study the contracts and bargains of Sharper Fisher and
Broker Blaine. The true inwardness of their transactions in a
business point of view has never been thoroughly canvassed.
Mr. Schurz's exhaustive study is confined to Mr. Blaine's con
nection with this matter In its bearing upon the ex-Speaker as
a public servant, huckstering his official opportunities of useful
ness, for purposes of personal gain. But how do the facts in
the case exhibit him as a man of business ? Has he manifested
good judgment and a disposition to honorable dealing as be
tween himself and Fisher, or as between himself and his neigh
bors ? This is a mine that has not yet to my knowledge been
thoroughly explored.
On the 29th of June, 1869, some three or four months after
Mr. Blaine's election as Speaker of the House, and after his
ruling that was so important to the Little Eock and Fort Smith
EaUroad, Mr. Blaine acknowledged a very generous offer from
Mr. Fisher to admit him to a participation in the new railroad
enterprise. This offer took the form eventually of an arrange
ment between them of a private nature, by which Mr. Blaine,
without the Investment of a doUar of his own, was to obtain
subscriptions from his friends in Maine for building the road,
and secure in compensation a large amount of bonds and cash
free of cost. Mr. Blaine was known to his friends and neigh
bors as a man who had made a great deal of money out of his
government contracts, and as enjoying singularly favorable op
portunities from his pohtical and official position of procuring
" splendid things " for himself, and persons in whom he felt an
Interest. When, therefore, Mr. Blaine took his neighbors into
his confidence, and explained to them that he was able to let
them into a raUroad enterprise on the same terms as those on
which he was going to invest on his own account, they of course
jumped at the opportunity, and thought themselves very lucky
feUows to enjoy such special intimacy with the speculative

74 Chapters for the Times.
Speaker. A very earnest canvass for subscribers ensued. Prob
ably no man in the country, except perhaps Ward — formerly
of Wall and now of Ludlow street — possessed the same faculty
as Mr. Blaine of puffing and blowing a " rare chance " of this
description, and a considerable number of individuals feU into
the trap — ten in a single lot. Their case has been thoroughly
discussed in another connection, so I will here take up the
transaction with Mr. James M. Hagar, of Eichmond, Maine ;
the more wUlingly because it has been the subject of a recent
explanation by Mr. Hagar himself. The following table from
Mr. Blaine's memorandum book gives the figures of the trans
action : \_Sioeth page of memorandum hook.^
2. With James M. Hagar, of Richmond, Mr. Fisher agrees to
dehver $6,000 common stock.
6,000 preferred stock.
6,000 land-bonds, 7s.
7,600 first mortgage bonds, 6s.
All for $9,500, payable —
*1>200 \ $3,000, November 25, 1869.

1>400 y 2,000, December 5, 1869.
900 ) 1,500, January 5, 1870.
600, February 5, 1870.
600, March 5, 1870.
600, April 5, 1870.
'600, May 5, 1870.
600, June 5, 1870.

$1,200,

$9,500
The amounts enclosed on left-hand margm above, viz:
$1,400, $900, are payable by Mr. Fisher to Mr. Blaine.
Let us consider this transaction as between Blaine and Fisher
and then as between Blaine and Mr. Hagar.
It appears, then, that for netting Mr. Fisher $6 000 Mr
Blaine was fo receive $3,500. That is to say, for every dollar
that Mr. Fisher got out of this Maine gentleman, Mr Blaine
pocketed 60 cents. What did Mr. Blaine have to sell Mr
Fisher at such a fiendishly exorbitant rate? Was it what
Governor Long styles "push"? Was it because Blaine wafa
pushing man, with the cheek of a book-agent, and the Gascon's

Row Blaine took his Maine Neighbors into his Confidence. 75
persistency, that would enable him after being kicked out of
the door to come in again at the window, that for every doUar
Fisher realized from Blaine's friends Blaine was to receive 60
cents ? But what else did Fisher give for this $6,000 ? He
gave Mr. Hagar $7,500 6 per cent, mortgage bonds ; $6,000
7 per cent, land-grant bonds, and a quantity of stock, common
and preferred, that constituted no pressing obligation on the
company. The payment of the $9,500 ran through several
months, so that there was a considerable interest account to di
minish Mr. Fisher's $6,000 — but this we wiU leave out of con
sideration. For this $6,000 Fisher, besides the $8,500 cash
paid to Blaine, assumed for the road liabilities to the amount of
$18,500, carrying an annual Interest of $870.
Once more I ask what was it besides cheek and brass that
Mr. Blaine had to seU Fisher at this enormous price ? WeU,
there was something to be paid for magnetism — something
handsome on this account. But deduct the magnetism money
and how much of the residue of this extraordinary " commis
sion " is to be set down to Mr. Blaine's marketing of his official
position, the confidence it Inspired in his ability to command
wonderful opportunities, rare chances, and splendid things?
Was it not his oificisl prestige that Fisher bought and paid for?
Was it not the Speaker of the House that he used as the decoy
duck in this business ? Did he think that James G. Blaine per
sonally, with his Spencer rifle, would bring down this game In
a still hunt ? Look at it with what charity we may, was it not
the speakership of the House of Eepresentatives of the United
States that enabled Mr. Blaine to extort such obviously ruinous
terms from this desperately needy enterprise ? What wonder
that Fisher was ruined, and that the enterprise shortly came to
grief. What else could Blaine have expected ?
Leaving this view of the case for the present, and assuming
that it was a proof of Mr. Blaine's smartness that he was able
to drive such an extraordinary bargain with Fisber as to receive
60 cents for every doUar that he paid into Fisher's exchequer,
how was it with his Maine friends ? How was it with Mr.
Hagar ? If Mr. Blaine knew anything, he must have known
that the attempt to build a railroad by paying $3,500 cash and
Issuing interest-bearing bonds for $13,500 to raise $6,000, out
of which Fisher was to take toU before it got into the enterprise,

76 Chapters for the Times.
— he knew that such an attempt could only end In early disas
ter and bankruptcy. Indeed, the raising of money on such
terms was an admission and a demonstration of insolvency if
not of dishonesty. Whatever faith he may have had in Fisher's
railroad, he 'knew that it could not but be an extra-hazardous
risk for any man to put his money in it. Test it in this way.
Suppose he had told Mr. Hagar that of the $9,500 paid by him
for his batch of securities he (Blaine) was to receive $3,500 for
roping him (Hagar) into the operation. Would Hagar have
parted with his money ? When he told Hagar that this was a
" great chance," the knowledge of which he had acquired in the
Speaker's chair, and the " control " of which he had acquired
by his familiarity with Boston capitalists who recognized his
abUity to be " useful to them in various channels," and there
fore gave him preferences in the acquisition of their securities
which he was anxious to share with his constituents, — when
Blaine told Hagar this, admit it was all true except so far as it
led Hagar to believe that Blaine was putting his own money
into this " splendid thing " on the same terms. When Blaine
took Hagar's money he knew that the Little Eock Eailroad
would default on its very first coupons unless it could raise
money to pay its interest by the issue of new bonds negotiated
on the same cut-throat conditions as those on which he was ne
gotiating these very bonds. Suppose he had " told the truth "
to Hagar at that time. But you say he was trying to make
money out of Hagar and could not be expected to teU the
truth. I insist that the relation in which Blaine stood to Ha^ar at
that time was one which called on Blaine's part for what law
yers for the defense would style rightly enough uberrima fides
that is to say, the fairest and most conscientious dealing  en
tire good faith. Hagar was his neighbor. Hagar was his con
stituent. Hagar was his political friend. Hagar confided in
Blaine's familiarity with the Boston capitalists, and his ability
to get " splendid things " and great bargains out of them. He
understood why and wherefore Blaine was an important man
for them, and the consideration for which he was to command
such opportunities. Those were the circumstances under which
Blaine approached Hagar, and magnetized $9,500 out of him
$8,500 of which he put into his own pocket. Hagar was a man

How Blaine took his Maine Neighbors into his Confidence. 77
of business. He understood the value of money. Would he
not know that a man who was paying Blaine $3,500 cash and
$13,500 in his own bonds, beside $12,000 in the stock of the
road, to raise $6,000, was only looking forward to inevitable and
scandalous bankruptcy?
Hagar came to the conclusion very naturally, when the road
failed on its first coupons, that it was a fraud. He told Blaine
so when he met him In Washington a year or two after the
collapse of the road. Mr. Hagar wrote recently to a friend
in New York : " My opinion was firmly expressed to Blaine
that the securities had no value and the road was a fraud."
Mr. Blaine replied that the securities had a value and, with
time and patience, all would end well. Mr. Hagar was not to
be bluffed off in this way. Mr. Hagar recalled " the circum
stances under which they were taken," — the material circum
stance of Mr. Blaine's 60 cents for a dollar commission not
being at that time known to Mr. Hagar. Blaine admitted the
" circumstances," and promised to refund on his return to Au
gusta. Mr. Hagar on his return home made a statement of the
transaction in writing and sent it to Mr. Blaine in Washinoton.
On his return to Augusta Mr. Blaine paid the money and re
ceived back the securities.
Does this restitution change the character of the original
transaction ? Was it not on account of the " circumstances "
of the original transaction that Mr. Hagar based" his appeal to
Mr. Blaine when he met him in Washington ? Was the enor
mous commission paid to Blaine any the less the price of Mr.
Blaine's official position and its prestige because Blaine, when
the explosion took place and exposure was imminent, thought it
best to repay the money, under the Idea, as Mr. Phelps puts it,
that the victim had a " moral claim " upon him to be made
whole ? And Mr. Blaine suffered no detriment. Of the $9,500
to be made good with interest he already had $3,500 in his own
pocket as commissions. He was able to place all his bonds at
good prices with the several subsidized railroads that had busi
ness before Congress, and was thus amply put in funds to re
imburse, without a dollar's loss to himself, the loss which Mr.
Hagar had sustained by his over-confidence in his magnetic and
magnificent friend.
Now what can " our best men " say to aU this ? What can

78 Chapters for the Times.
the eight or ten lawyers for the defense, from Dawes to Morse,
say of this sale of official prestige in this single transaction ? —
for It was the Speakership and nothing else that Blaine was
trailing in the " mud and miasma " of this sordid and disgrace
ful brokerage.
Come, Mr. Wellington Smith, you have volunteered to give
your respectable name as a voucher for this corrupt politician,
and you have appealed to your feUow-citizens In print to offset
the declamations of what you call our " best men " against the
facts that I am submitting to their careful consideration. WiU
you tell the farmers of Becket and Tyringham, of Otis and
Washington, of Monterey and Great Barrington, that a man
who has sold the prestige of the Speaker's chair at a price only
limited by the utmost farthing that " insatiate greediness " could
venture to extort from a " liberal " and " generous friend " is a
fit man to . receive their vote for the first office In the gift of a
great nation ?
Imagine yourself in Mr. Hagar's place, or Mr. Fisher's place
for the time, and answer that question.
October 3.

XV.
THE HISTORIC JUDGMENTS OF MASSACHUSETTS.
Shall Massachusetts basely reverse them ?
Before touching the subject of this chapter, bear with me a
moment for one word of personal explanation. I am told that
a lawyer in good repute — the defenders of Blaine are all law
yers—paid his respects, the other evening at a public meeting
in Lee, to the Berkshire Farmer.
He made three charges against me. The first was that week
after week I am fiUing the "Gleaner" with Ues against Us
candidate. The chapters are all in print. If Judge Branning
will point out anything In them that Is untrue or intended to
deceive or mislead anybody, then the "Gleaner" may pub
Ush his exposure at my expense. This is a grave charge and I
demand the proofs or a retraction. Produce the proofs Judffe
The second allegation was that I am a pretty sort of a f arnfer

The Historic Judgments of Massachusetts. 79
because I don't farm In winter. On my farm we get in all the
crops in the summer and fall. There is no ploughing or har
vesting done there with three feet of snow on the ground. If
the Judge wants to know whether I am a farmer or not, and
knows where to find me, let him apologize for his charges and
drop in some day and I'll show him around. He shall see
fields that a few years ago were covered with hardbacks as
high as his head, that have borne this year good crops of clo
ver and timothy or of potatoes and corn. He shall. see a herd
of as good-looking and well-bred cows as are to be found in
Berkshire, all raised on the farm, and most of them born there.
He shall see a good lot of horses, born and raised there ; and
my foreman wUl explain to him why it is that we don't raise
our crops in winter.
There are some farmers who raise their crops all the year
round, but they are farmers of the revenue and not of the soil.
Their mills are going night and day. They sow and reap sum
mer and winter ; with them it is always seed-time and always
harvest. These are the office-holders, the custom-house squads,
the Star Eoute thieves, the monopolists, the governing class
generally, who are so anxious to protect themselves in the dis
bursement of the $350,000,000 that are annually levied on the
American people, and to the enormous excess of one hundred
millions over and above the most lavish and corrupt expendi
tures. No — I don't farm in winter.
The third charge is that I am a free-trader. The Judge can
not sustain that charge by anything he finds in the chapters. I
am just such a free-trader as Hamilton was, and Clay and Web
ster, and the Careys. I am just such a free-trader as Judge
Hoar Is, but I believe there is no warrant in the Constitution
for raising from the people by any manner or form of taxation
a surplus for distribution among the States. History teaches
us that in aU ages the governing class have exhausted their in
genuity in extracting from the people the last farthing that was
to be got from them ; and never in any kingdom or empire did
the most rapacious office-holding robbers of the people extort
from them more than was necessary to support the office-holders
In luxury, and find their friends in rich jobs and profitable con
tracts. The Surplus is an enormity reserved for a Democratic
republic in the nineteenth century.

80 Chapters for the Times.
Once or twice in the course of these chapters I have alluded
to Blaine's attack on Massachusetts, on the floor of the Senate
of the United States, and have remarked upon the course pur
sued by the honorable Senators from the Bay State on that oc
casion. In these remarks I have unwittingly done injustice to
Senator Hoar. He said more than I thought he did, but it is
not strange that I should fail to remember what he has himself
so strangely forgotten. When he told us what his original
opinion was on the Mulligan letters had he not forgotten what
he said on the floor of the Senate ?
The subject deserves more elaborate treament than I have yet
given it, and I propose to devote this chapter to its considera
tion. I respectfully ask the attention, not only of the farmers of
the Commonwealth, but of aU its citizens, be they Prohibition
ists, Eepublicans, Democrats, Butlerites, or Independents, to the
extraordinary circumstances of that attack, and to the humUia
tion to which Massachusetts must submit if she aids In the ele
vation of Blaine to the presidency.
On this subject I feel deeply. I love the State of my nativ- ,
Ity. Born in what was then a fishing hamlet on one of her
capes, within a hundred yards of the salt water, and inhaling
In my childhood Its invigorating breezes, I have a lively recol
lection of the days when the gaUant population of that exposed
hamlet rallied to the drum-beat that told of a British cruiser in
the offing, and there was not a traitor or coward in the whole
crowd. I remember the shouting, the beU-ringing and the illu
mination that followed the proclamation of peace. In my old
age I find among the liiUs of Berkshire a home that is as dear
to me as the sea-coast home of my childhood ; and I protest with
aU sincerity and earnestness that I beUeve our people are now
going through a struggle by far more important to them than
our war with England was, and the results of which, for good
or for evU, wiU have a far more lasting and important influence
on our character and our destiny as a nation. Time heals
the wounds of war. The fields devastated, the harvests de
stroyed, the smoking ruins and the multitudinous graves, In
a few years peace and nature cover with their charitable
mantle. But let it once be established by the votes of tie Nation that
proofs of shameless and persistent jobbery, and proofs piled

The Historic Judgments of Massachusetts. 81
mountain high of shameless and persistent lying about it, are
no bar to the advancement of a public man; that partisans
and office-holders may laugh and jest about these proofs as
" spent rockets " — mere warts and wrinkles on a countenance
that they only beautify — mere evidences of energy and push —
absolute " decorations ; " that our nominations are to be made
by money; tbat our elections are to be carried by bribery;
that our offices are to be sold in open market to men who will
raise the largest sum in Wall Street to pay for them, as the
French mission was sold under Garfield, — let it be understood
that the historic judgments of great states on these facts will
be set aside in favor of the culprit, if he can secure by any
means a nomination to the presidency, and the whole system of
Eepublican government becomes a failure and a fraud.
On the 22d of January, 1878, Senator Hamlin, of Maine, sub
mitted a resolution in the Senate of the United States present
ing the thanks of Congress to the people of Maine for the gift
of the statue of William King, the first governor of that state,
to be placed in one of the halls of the Capitol. Mr. Hamlin
prefaced the offer of his resolution with appropriate remarks,
and was followed by his colleague, Mr. Blaine. The latter gen
tleman had given the Senators from Massachusetts twenty-four
hours' notice of his intention to offer such observations in re
gard to the State they represented as would make it desirable
for them to be in their seats. His speech was not made on a
sudden impulse, excited by the collisions and ardors of debate.
It was carefuUy premeditated, conned over, and no doubt written
out beforehand. His intention was to insult the Senators from
Massachusetts, and, as far as he was capable of doing it, to insult
Massachusetts herself. He went into the Senate Chamber with
his Spencer rifle loaded and primed, and had warned Mr. Hoar
and Mr. Dawes that they must look for hot shot.
It was for his conduct on this occasion, I presume, that Mr.
Hoar bestowed upon Mr. Blaine the title of a " courageous and
high-spirited gentleman." He began by a eulogy on Mr. King
that was made the excuse for the attack on Massachusetts.
Maine was originally a part of Massachusetts, and known as the
district of Maine. The people of the district found the journey
to the seat of government inconvenient, and the geographical
position of the district made an independent condition desirable.

82 Chapters for the Times.
There were some differences of Apolitical opinion between the
people of Maine and the people of Massachusetts, just as there
were between the county of Suffolk and the county of Berkshire
— no more, no less. But Mr. Blaine starts off with the allega
tion that the connection with Massachusetts had become exceed
ingly " distasteful," indeed quite " Intolerable " to a majority
of the people of Maine. " This dislike," he adds, " was strongly
inflamed by the war of 1812, and the resulting political differ
ences." A majority of the people of Massachusetts were op
posed to the war, and a majority in the district of Maine sup
ported the administration of Mr. Madison. The people of tho
two sections came from the same stock, but in the course of four
or five generations of descent their relative characters, according
to Mr. Blaine, had entirely changed. The circumstances of
frontier life had developed in Maine " a bluff, hearty, brave and
generous people," v/ho, in respect to bravery and generosity,
were of course entirely different from the people of Massachu
setts, and were " never understood or appreciated in Boston,
then as now the governing power in Massachusetts." It is to
these intrinsic differences of character as well as of political
opinion that Mr. Blaine attributes the disposition of Maine
to establish a separate Commonwealth, which was advocated
warmly by Mr. King and opposed, we are given to understand,
by the people of Massachusetts. The separation took place.
Here Mr. Blaine comes in with a venomous attack, not on tho
leaders of the Federal party, not on the Federal party Itself,
which was then in the majority and shaped the policy of the
Commonwealth, but on the people of Massachusetts. He says
that the people of Maine were Indebted for their success in ac
complishing this result, " not to the justice of their cause and
the righteousness of their prayer, nor even to a liberal sense of
fair dealing on the part of the people of Massachusetts, but
solely to the fear in the minds of the governing political party
that their ascendency would be endangered if Maine should
continue to be an Integral portion of the State." That is to say,
the people of Massachusetts were insensible to the demands of
justice, they were insensible to the demands of rio-hteousness
they were Insensible to the demands of fair dealing. They were
actuated only by a blind obedience to political leaders to pursue
a systematic course of conduct toward Maine that was unfair

The Historic Judgments of Massachusetts. 83
unjust, and unrighteous. This is a foul slander on the dead,
and the motive that inspired it was a bitter hatred of the living,
— but for that part of the story we shaU be indebted to Senator
Hoar. Mr. Dawes first rose to reply, expressing regret that the vir
tues of Mr. King could not have been spread upon the records
of the Senate without attempting to rake open the embers of
an already expired and buried political animosity. Not to mar
the proprieties of the occasion, by resenting with becoming in
dignation the charge against the State he represented, Mr.
Dawes contented himself with protesting in the name of Massa
chusetts against the impression that Mr. Blaine's history of her
connection with Maine was a true history. While every man
In the galleries and on the floor of the Senate was looking for
an excoriation of the Senator from Maine Mr. Dawes subsided
to the level of a protest, not in his own name, but in the name
of Massachusetts. The Commonwealth is obliged to him for
doing even so little as that.
I will do Mr. Hoar the justice to say that he manifested to
some extent a decided but well-restrained anger. He hesitated
from apprehension that it might not have been in good taste to
deliver himself of his sentiments on such an occasion. He said
In substance that the old Puritan spirit of intolerance had never
resulted in such an exhibition of envy, malice, and all unchari
tableness as had been that day witnessed on the floor of the
Senate. I now quote from the " Congressional Eecord " : "I
regret that the Senator from Maine should have been so dis
turbed by some recent historic judgments of the people of Mas
sachusetts, that he should require their ancestors to bear the
burden not only of their own sins, but of their descendants'."
Mr. Blaine replied to the effect that everything he had said
was true ; but he said nothing as to the alleged cause of his dis
turbance. Then Mr. Dawes interjected an inquiry as to when
and where Massachusetts, as a state, had ever made an unpa
triotic record.
" I wiU tell you," rejoined Mr. Blaine, " now and here ; Mas
sachusetts refused to pass a resolution thanking one of her own
naval officers for a victory. I can give more and graver in-
?tances till the sun sets, and for a senator from Massachusetts
to rise here and pretend that His State did not bristle all

84 Chapters for the Times.
OVER WITH unpatriotic RECORDS, going clear up to the verge
of treason, and, in the opinion of patriots of that day, stepping
one point beyond it, is a degree of bravery which it would have
been weU to show In the war and not reserved to this day."
Here are two charges brought by this false braggart against
your fathers, men of Massachusetts. The first is treason ; the
second is cowardice ; and one is just as true as the other. I
ask the Brothers Hoar, who have appealed in their electioneer
ing fervor to the memory of their father, was Samuel Hoar a
traitor and a coward ? But it was at Samuel Hoar and men of
the same way of thinking seventy years ago, that this shaft was
aimed. If ever man II /ed who was brave and patriotic, — an
exemplar of what Eoman virtue and Eoman valor were in the
best days of Eome, — that man was Josiah Quincy, the very
head and front of Massachusetts offending in the excited times
to which Mr. Blaine referred. Will you desecrate his memory
by indorsing the slanders of his deliberate defamer ? Were the
Otises, the Kirklands, the Perkinses, the Lymans, the Shaws,
the Sturgises, the Parsonses, the Lees, the Parkers, the Higgin-
sons, the Pickerings, the Cabots, cowards and traitors? I
pause on that word Cabot. Strike it out from your name, Mr.
Lodge, if you have not the manhood to feel and resent this in
famous attack on the memories of the men who honored it.
" Massachusetts," Mr. Blaine continued, " refused to let her
soldiers march beyond the boundaries of their own State.
There is another record for you." So far was that from being
true, it is the fact that for the invasion of Canada in the second
campaign of 1814, Massachusetts furnished more men than any
other State in the Union. Thus is another lie naUed to the
counter. Dawdling with the impertinent upstart, Mr. Dawes made al
lusion to the generosity of Massachusetts towards Maine In as
signing to her the claim against the United States for expenses
incurred in the war of 1812.
Mr. Blaine refused to recognize this generosity, but made It
the subject of a new assault on the character of the people of
Massachusetts. He said that she only assigned away a claim
that she did not believe she could get; but as soon as she found
that Maine had got the money she turned around very wiselv
and said, " If we had known this we never should have passed

The Historic Judgments of Massachusetts. 85
the vote." When did she turn round and say this ? and what
warrant had Mr. Blaine for casting this slur on the people of
this State ?
But not to go through with aU that is offensive and irritat
ing in this invective, I will cite but a single passage further.
Mr. Blaine had charged Mr. Hoar with being prepared to do
anything to bring about a reconcUiation between the two sec
tions of the country. If Mr. Hoar was so prepared in 1878 it
is a great pity that thJa disposition had not survived to 1884.
One sees very Uttle tendency towards such preparation in Mr.
Hoar's speeches during the present canvass. He has been go
ing backwards since the earlier period. But even on that occa
sion Mr. Hoar emphatically declared that there were several
things he could not do even to accomplish a result so desirable
as that of reconciliation. Mr. Hoar charged that the Ku-Klux
legislation of Congress had passed the House of Eepresenta
tives, against " the plottings from the Sjoeaker's chair ; " and
averred that he never would have made such a speech as Mr.
Blaine had made that day to accomplish any political result
whatever. He declared that the smiles and the applause Blaine
expected to get from certain quarters in consequence of his at
tack on Massachusetts would come from men who entertained
no feeling against her on account of the war of 1812, but who
hated her for her loyalty to freedom, and for her earnest desire
to secure the "honest and pure administration of this
GOVERNMENT." Here I can pause, for it is hardly necessary even to allude to
Mr. Blaine's apprehension that the debate "might drivel off
into the ludicrous and funny," — if "Mr. Dawes should have an
opportunity to state some other facts." What is this, Mr.
Dawes? Is It "bird-seed," oris It "decorations?" What a
forgiving Christian Mr. Dawes must be to go in so strongly for
a gentleman who has spoken in this fashion of a senator from
Massachusetts ! Drivelling, forsooth ! In what terms could Mr.
Blaine have formulated his contempt If after this he had heard
Senator Dawes's ratification speech, and read his " spotless "
telegrams? The Senator might have turned his other cheek to
be smitten on his own account, — but for Massachusetts ! Good
heavens — that was piling on the agony.
Here we have the whole case before us; Blaine charging

86 Chapters for the Times.
the people of Massachusetts with treason and cowardice — Mr.
Dawes protesting in a " bird-seed " and " decorative " fashion
— and Senator Hoar hurling in the teeth of the slanderer that
it was on account of the historic judgments of Massachusetts,
and her desire for " an honest and pure administration of the
government," that Blaine had made her the subject of his viru
lent invectives.
And what were the Historic Judgments referred to ? Clearly
no other judgments than those which had been passed by the
people of Massachusetts on the transactions, little and large,
revealed in the MuUIgan letters, and on Mr. Blaine's robust
lying about them on the floor of the House. These are the very
judgments, are they not, Mr. Hoar? Are these Judgments
" spent rockets," Governor Eobinson ? Their opinions on these
matters the people had put into judgments, and those judgments
had become historic in 1878. We have Senator Hoar's word
for it. The world knows what those judgments were. If the
world had any reason to doubt as to the Historic Judgments
referred to by Mr. Hoar at that time, all doubt would be re
moved by the perusal of a paragraph we copied from the home
organ of Eepresentative Eice and Senator Hoar, no longer ago
than the 17th of April, 1884 : —
[From the Worcester Spy."]
They forget the lamentable disclosures of the early days of June,
187G, when Mr. Blaine was brought to bay and made a splendid, au
dacious, but sadly unsatisfactory defense. Or, if they remember, it is
but vaguely, forgetting how specific and terribly conclusive the evi
dence was, in the lack of any satisfactory explanation or denial. They
forget that it then appeared from his own letters, whose authenticity
was not questioned, that Mr. Blaine, while Speaker of the House,
wrote to managers of a railroad company, dependent for its value
upon the legislation of Congress, asking to be admitted on favorable
terms to a share in their enterprise, and assuring them that he would
not be a " dead-head " ; that some time after he wrote again, on the
same subject, renewing his request, and assigning substantiaUy the
same reasons why he ought to receive the favor, and adding an ac
count of a service he had done to their road by ruling, as Speaker,
while a bill affecting its value was pending; thus distinctly inviting a
reward for an official act which benefited a private corporation con-
duct not morally distinguishable from bribery. They forget that this

The Historic Judgments of Massachusetts. 87
is only one of several equally unpleasant disclosures made by the let
ters and other evidence produced before the committee investigating
Mr. Blaine's conduct, none of which he ever explained. He is. ingen
ious and plausible, and could doubtless make an explanation that would
satisfy those who wished to be satisfied — if such an explanation were.
possible to anybody.
Does not the above paragraph betray all the ear-marks of
Senator Hoar ? Can any man doubt that it was written, dic
tated, or inspired by him ? And is not this just what George
Frisbie Hoar intended when he repUed on that memorable occa
sion to James Gillespie Blaine ?
And if all this is so, and these Historic Judgments have been
three times pronounced and three times entered up by the people
of Massachusetts, do the people of Massachusetts intend now to
be beaten on the execution?
Having three times rejected Mr. Blaine in convention, for
the reason that they could not look to him for a pure and honest
administration of the government, — and that reason truly and
distinctly assigned by one of their own Senators in the Capitol
of the United States, — how base and contemptible it would be
In the people of Massachusetts to go back upon a record which
they can neither recall nor deny, and which must stand forever
as a monument to their honor or their shame ! How base in
them to kiss the rod that scourged them ; to cringe and fawn as
their Senators have cringed and fawned at the feet of this cor
rupt jobber, this chronic and unremitting liar, this slanderer of
their illustrious and patriotic fathers ! From the abject humilia
tion which such a reversal of their Historic Judgments and the
historic reason for those judgments would fasten upon her —
may God save the Commonwealth of Massachusetts I
October 11.

FROM HARPER'S WEEKLY.

THE PRACTICAL AGE.
Old Lady. " He wants ter know ef he ken sell us the Life of J. G. Elaine."
Old Farmer. " By lightnin', no ! he can't sell us with any sech thing. I looked it over
yesterday, down to Neighbor Jones's, an' there wa'n't no 'count of tliat rock business, no 'count
of how them Mulligans was lost, nothin' 'bout them Percific bombs, nor any o' them things
wots made his veputashun."
Book Agent. " Reckon this is the Berkshire farmer."

[Published at the Valley Gleaner Office, Lee, Berkphire Co., Mass. 8 cents single copies, including postage,
$5.00 an hundred copies ; $40.00 a thousand. Orders executed immediately.]

DEAD-HEADS
FINANCIAL AND MORAL
THE LOGIC OF IT.

A LETTER TO
CARL SCHURZ
BY A STALWART REPUBLICAN.

Nee deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit. , . Ars Poetica.
Look at it, the party of moral ideas, presenting as its great
leader and representative a man whose uncIeai) record it cannot
deny and dare not face ! Listen to its spokesmen, how they
dodge and squirm around that record as something too hot to
touch, — unfortunate attorneys, wretchedly troubled by the feel
ing that, if they respect themselves, they must take care not to
become identified with the public [or private] morals of their
client. * * * What a burning shame and disgrace is this !
Carl Schurz, Speech at Brooklyn, Aug. 5, 1884.

PRIVATELY PRINTED.
Price 5 Cents.
Frederic Badger : Cambridge.
1884.

Cambridge: Sept. 1, 1884.
Hon. Carl Schurz, Sir: A student of Harvard College
today bids me read your published letter of last week.
He wishes me to share his enjoyment of it. He knows
that I was professor of logic, twenty-five years ago, tho'
not here in New England. But now age so invades my
eyes that they have small power to see, and none to see
the logic of your brilliant letter
Happy this letter is, almost jolly; convincing, to a
young man. " Pardon me, my lords," said old Chat
ham, '' confldence is a plant of slow growth in aged bos
oms." Yet, sir, confidence in you and trust, love and
honor for you are good growths long rooted in my heart.
Why is it that j'our own words now come to tear them out
by the roots ? Is logic all that is lacking ? Rhetoric is
here, and admirable ; like pure light, invisible, and all the
better for that. A perfect medium, unfelt it floats your
teaching into the mind of mj' young friend : its pollution
comes as silentl}'^ as the touch of any contagion. To him
and to those like him it may bring moral death. And
why? Let us see.
I am but to look into the logic of it, not mine to ques
tion your truth, or honor, or high purpose. Take your
own statement, " The question is, what Speaker Blaine
meant when he said that he would not be a dead-head in the
enterprise, and that he saw various channels in which lie
knew lie could make himself useful ; and also what the object
was of the letters of Oct. 4."
Good : that is the whole question. What was the man's
meaning? Of what was he thinking? And, as you ask
of our honored Senator, " On which side do we find the
evidence, the only evidence there is? "

That is the question, as you say, and the whole ques
tion. And yet even that innocent-looking cup we must
not take too trustingly from your hand,— so easilj^ might
it be drugged with a few dexterous drops. You do in
deed go on to ask a wholly difierent question : or rather
you go on to answer it. You charge Mr. Blaine with
deliberate public falsehood. Your charge is specific —
straight as the jab of a Roman sword. You do not leave
this as a question of probabilities : this is a matter of
fact. Your own word is here true or false.
Yon make the amazing statement that Mr. Blaine's pub
lic declaration in Congress "was not true: he knew it to be
untrue when he said it; and he said it with the obvious intent
to deceive the House of Representatives, &c."
Certainly the tide of excitement runs high when the
gentleman who sits in Bryant's chair can make such a
statement as that. But today I am asking only for your
proof. Examine now the grounds of this grave charge,
and we must uncover the whole foundation of your case.
What are the facts? Assuredly, we shall not find j-our
word untrue, shall we? We may find your logic false.
This is what you afiirm, — " Mr. Blaine had the hardihood
to say that the ' Little Rock Company never parted with a
bond to aii^^one except at the regular price fixed for their
sale, &c.,' and that in the face of the fact that large quan
tities of Little Rock bonds went to Mr. Blaine, according to
• the memorandum, without any payment on his part, as a
gratuity or commission for Little Rock securities passing
to A. & P. Coburn and other parties from Mr. Fisher."
This is your recent and amazing statement. You seem
not to see that your own word here is self-destructive, and
looking terribly like a deliberate untruth. When you say
" commission " you deny your own denial of payment.
And if a commission, it certainly could not have been
a gratuity. Which was it? Sir, we can easily give
up our faith in your logic — we never had much of that
— we must not give up our faith in your honor and

truth, — if we can help it. Truly, it is now hard to
hang on to it. Good was that Scotch oath,— " The truth
to tell, and no truth to conceal." Have you taken it?
God alone knows your conscious purpose : not mine to
see your intent, as you discern that of Mr. Blaine. But
any man may see that your statement here distorts the
facts, suppresses the truth, and deceives any innocent
reader. It so deceives and imposes on the young gentle
man who here calls my attention to it. Let me examine
it. Bonds went to Mr. Blaine, you say, " without any
payment on his part " : your proof is this contract with
Mr. Fisher of Sept. 5, 1869. It is printed in all the p.i-
pers, or I would insert it liere. Ycu print that contract :
you seem careful not to print the memorandum that went
with it. By so doing you show what Mr. Fisher was to
receive anel what Mr Blaine was to receive ; but not
what A. & P. Coburn were to receive, — ¦ still less what
they did receive. Mr. Fisher was to receive $130,000.
Mr. Blaine was to receive of land bonds $130,000 and of
flrst-mortgage bonds $32,500. Did you mean to let us
believe that, besides all else, Mr. Blaine received more
than Mr. Fisher received, and that "without any paj'ment
on his part"? Did you mean to hint that "other valuable
considerations " acknowledged by Mr. Fisher were things
improper, perhaps services in Washington ? Do you infer
that? If so, I laugh at your logic. Maybe this is only
the glitter of what you so happilj- describe, " tlie insidious
weapons of hint, insinuation and inuendo." Your logic
seems to be be largelj- just that.
For I ask my j'oung friend here what he understands
3'ou to mean. Does Mr. Schurz mean to hint that Blaine
and Fisher are conspiring to defraud people in Maine ? —
or bargaining for corrupt influence in Washington? — or
that Mr. Blaine receives these bonds ' ' without any pay
ment on his part" ? Naturally he finds that he cannot tell.
No unprejudiced reader can. Brilliaut and lucid as they
seem, your words are blind. They lead only to mislead.

6
They give only your hint that something was wrong, that
somebodj' was a rascal ; and that, therefore, a public
statement, six j-ears afterward, was a lie. How easy it
would have been for you to tell the whole truth, and no
truth to conceal ! Fourteen subscribers paid $130,000 ;-
they received stocks and bonds, not for $130,000, but for
$390,000. They thought they were doing well (though
they were not) to buj' them at 33J per cent. Mr. Fisher,
" the assignee of the contract for building the Little Rock
and Fort Smith Railroad," took no labor save to hand
over the securities and to take in the cash. He incurred
no responsibility to those buj'ers, unless to guarantee that
these stocks and bonds were not counterfeits. He did not
pledge himself to them to see that they should be worth
even ten cents on a dollar, or one.
How was it with Mr. Blaine ? He had been the selling
agent. He had made agreements which, as the contract
saj's, were "witnessed * * * * and delivered to said
parties bj' said Blaine." Had he undertaken no labor?
Had he incurred no responsibility, legal or moral, to guard
these subscribers against loss ? Did he, or did he not, in
receiving his commission — not in cash, but in ihe same
bonds with the rest — share their loss ? And is it, or is it
not a fact that, while he endured his own loss in manful
silence, he yet more manfully handed over some $20,000
in cash to those who bought these bouds through him ?
But this, Mr. Schurz, is what y'ou call " withT)ut any
payment on his part " ! Because he did* this you are
thereby to prove him a rascal, and to show his public
word to be untrue ! Such is your logic !
I see that you may say, " Oh, we don't deny his loss in
the transaction. But that was accidental ; that was not
what he meant, or expected. He was no doubt too con
fiding or hopeful, as Gen. Grant and other men of gen
erous feelings have been. We must look only at his
intentions !" Very good : that is precisely what I desire.
And here several points demand our attention. There is

another word of Mr. Blaine's which you pronounce false.
Why ? Again, let us see ! The logic of yonr statements,
so far as there is any, is peculiarly agile, not to say slip
pery. I Icnow not whether Senator Hoar will condescend
to let his grand utterances re-echo in any rejoinder
to your recent flippant word. It is a spectacle somewhat
comical when Mr. Herbert Spencer attempts tlie extin
guishing of Mr. Harrison, — ¦ an elephant treading ponder
ously about in the vain effort to adjust his foot upon a
chipmouk ! But one statement of yours is deflnite enough.
You emphasize the words of Mr. Blaine, " / bought some
of these bonds * * * * paying for them at precisely the
same rate that others paid," &C: And of these words, you
say, the contract with Mr. Fisher shows the untruth.
That is, j-ou say they were not "bought" because they
were paid for in service with incurred responsibility, and
not in cash. Or tlie rate was different, because Mr.
-Fisher might have sold the whole $552,500 of stocks and
bonds for $130,000, as indeed he did, if you are allowed to
count Mr. Blaine's service, risk and loss as not " any pay-,
ment on his part." That is, you tell me I do not buy as
others do when they pay greenbacks and I pay gold ; or,
I do not pay what others pay when I buy by the cargo,
but they by the pound ; or again, you may say that any
broker in Boston could have sold Mr. Fisher's stocks to
people in Maine at a trifling commission, even less than
one per cent.. So he might,— allowing people to exercise
their own judgment and take their own risks : he might, if
he could, — only those stocks would then have remained
unsold from that day to this.
Still you may afflrm and re-afflrm that this was not
buying as others bought, not paying as others paid. You
may yet declare that this was a gratuity. Mr. Mulligan
contradicts you. (See evidence pp. 94-95.) He shows
that Mr. Fisher made his own bargains and kept his own
counsel. He swears that different buyers had different
I'ates. Of course conditions varied with varying amounts

8
, and times of purchase. He swears that Mr. Fisher "net
ted " on these bonds sold to Mr. Blaine about 45 per
cent.; and that all his sales "averaged about that."
That is, he swears that Mr. Blaine's public word on that
point is exactly true, — he bought as others bought. If
anybody's word is here untrue, it is not Mr. Blaine's, it is
not Mulligan's : it is your own.
Of course you did not mean that. But the present cam
paign compels us to aver that there is such a thing as
innocent lying. It is lying which is "objective " but not
" subjective." (I am writing to a German.) It is not
so deadly to the liar, but just as injurious to everybodj-
else. Note this recent echo of your word from Von Hoist
at Berlin ! The more shame to 3'ou !
Now there never was a truer witness than Mulligan, —
that was his own testimonj', — only the desire so exceeded
the capacity ! He said (p. 102), " I consider my word as
good as that of any man that ever lived." But his truth
was subjective, not objective ! A man must have not only
the desire to tell the truth, but the power to tell it ; more
than that, the power to recognize or identify the truth he
desires to tell. He must kuow the thing when he sees it.
But Mulligan gives short shrift to your flrst charge.
That whoUj' breaks down. Ample other evidence goes
against it. No evidence sustains it. We not only deny
it, we disprove it. Any man who will fairly go over the
evidence will say so. You are mistaken ; there is nothing
in what you say. Your statement has not the slightest
foundation : Mr. Blaine's word was exactly and strictly
true. He bought as others bought.
But you make a yet graver charge. What about that
dead-head? What did that dreadful man mean?
We need not halt at his naughty word. We know what
he meant by that. He should pay his fare, pull his own
weight, — work his way with the rest. But how? Dead
heads as a class have sub-divisions : financial deads-heads

9
ride free, or let others pay their toll ; logical dead-heads,
instead of clearing up the difficulties of earnest spirits,
reason so bunglingly or basely as to fumble and muddle
things more and more ; moral dead-heads contribute noth
ing to the life of society or of men. Prominent men they
may be, — governors of states perhaps ; but the more con
spicuous the worse, when we find them morally dead and
sources of death.
In no form was Mr. Blaine to be a dead-head. He
would pull his own weight.
But how? You think it natural that he should say how,
or suggest how. So do I. And I ask you what did his
words then suggest to him who received them, to Mr-
Fisher? He was not writing to a stranger. They had
held transactions for many years. Did not Mr. Fisher
understand that his future service would be like his past
service? What had that been? I know j'ou declare,
(while 3'ou in no way show) that he now thought of doing
something unlike what he had done : intuitively, j'ou seem
to know his intent. Indeed, you Independents are like
the old maid wlio accused a rude fellow of kissing her
against her will ; but at length she testified that he did n't
do it, onlj' he looked as though he was going to ! To
you, Mr. Blaine's wickedness is that, he looked as though
he wanted to. But where is any proof or probability that
he thought of doing anything unlike what he and Mr.
Fisher had been doing. And what was that?
Mr. Fisher knew what he meant? Certainly. Has he
hinted that this meant corruption ? Never. Was he ex
amined under oath?' He was. (See Doc. 176) Has
Mr. Caldwell hinted at anything wrong in this? Never.
Was Mr. Blaine then iu Washington? No; in Maine.
What was he doing? Placing those $390,000 of bonds
and stocks. What was his state of mind? Joyful, most
hopeful. Did those hopes come to fruition ? Contrast the
tone of the earlier aud the later letters : the four Mulligan
letters of 1869 are radiant with hope. The one of 1870

10
thinks he had better not buy any more ! The two of 1871
and the seven of 1872 show that he then knew he had
made a grave error in buying at all. And those are all
the proof,— fourteen letters, the contract of 1869, with
the memorandum and the slips I and J. The latter and
the letter of 1864 had no bearing on the case. None had
any relation with Union Paciflc. Of the New York Times's
story, the most charitable word is that it is some ignorant
fellow's blundering. The Sun corrects it.
But did Mr. Blaine biiy the bed-rock, the share in the
contract to build? Most fortunately he did not. How
fared Caldwell in that? He was ruined by it ! How did
Mr. Fisher come out ? Almost as badly : he was to have
$250,000 in bonds or stocks — he got none. He was to
have $250,000 in cash : he received $25,000, and that was
all. (See his testimony pp. 87-90)
As to corruption, do his words cast any reflection on
Mr. Blaine? Not a shadow. Would Mulligan? He
would resent the suggestion, unless somebody had made
him too "mad.'' Who, then, that knows anything about
that business imputes corrupt purposes ? Nobody at all.
That is wholly a politician's devise and a foul calumny.
Base was the effort, ten years ago and eight years ago,
when Democrats conspired to crush the one Republican of
whom they were afraid. Far more base is this effort
to-day to delude by falsehoods and by vile insinuations
the young men now flrst casting a ballot. They desire to
be true ; they deserve to be trusted. Not many of them
will be misled. Not theirs to fling away the good sword
of their fathers, hacked and stained though it be, to arm
their young vigor with this bruising cudgel of calumny.
True, very few of them can possibly see the evidence.
How can they see that Vol. 9, containing Document
176? How many counties in America have one copy of
it? And who has time, patience or discernment rightly
to read it? But intelligent Americans, young or old, are
no fools ; they have heard ghost-stories before, and they
know the creative power of the German imagination !

11
But students, for a study in evidence, or to see a cal
umny's birth and growth, may well read the Record of
Congress for March 16, 1871, for Jan. 31, 1876, and, of
the same year, for the last week in May and the flrst in
June. Yet with that no man knows aught of this story
who has not read that marvellous Doc. 176, found only
in House Miscellaneous Documents, Session of 1875-76,
Vol. 9. See especially the clear, decisive and vigorous
word of President Thos. A. Scott, pp. 47-57, which so
carries consternation to plotters, and breaks the weasel's
teeth. " He sweareth to bis own hurt, but changeth not."
Yet this corruption story is a later growth. It illus
trates the Development Theory. It is not Mulligan's.
You have adopted the clean thing as your own, Carl
Schurz ! You are now speaking in the West ; are you re
tailing this calumny? Is it true that you get and take
$200 a night for that ? That is a miserly fee for telling
what you told to Brooklyn's young men. Y^t Von Hoist
believes j-ou : he tells the story in Berlin, and half Ger
many believes him. And so you smite the mother that
adopts 3'ou, and stab Free Government in the heart !
But you try to do it in logical form. Four columns of
that Brooklyn speech I deem solid sophistry, — if such a
thing ever is solid. These are fallacy-specimens : j'our
brush paints Lincoln, even Washington, as committing
official crime that you may make your false analogy. Mr.
Blaine's official decision was, as all agree, (and you do)
exactly and only his duty. Paint them as doing a duty,
not a crime, and you may make your analogy. Again,
you misquote, very innocently, — " You can tell him that
without knowing him, I did him a great favor." You
insinuate that, had he known him, he would have done it
more gladly,— and perhaps whether right or wrong. But
Mr. Blaine wrote " without knowing it," which means
just the opposite of what you think. "If I had known
it, I should not now mention it ; but I am glad, now that
I know Mr. Caldwell, to stumble upon this fact, that my

12
ready decision then saved his out-put as a contractor from
being lost, or his ventures from being delayed for a year,
or wholly swamped."
The letters of Oct. 4 you carp at,— first, because they
are two on one day, (and show the occasion, since one
encloses "contracts" and refers to the letter of yesterday)
secondly, because they are too full of the gladness of that
hopeful summer of '69, when his new enterprises in Maine
were looking so rosy.
Sir, a man of a generous spirit interprets those two
letters generously, and knows that he should have felt
just so. Not so a man narrow-minded, cold-blooded,
cautious, timid : he would never have said that, — he puts
a padlock on his lips and says as little as he can. Mr.
Blaine is no Boston man : that is his gravest fault.
But how skilfully you mix up letters of October with
those of May and June! "Dead-head" was written in
June. Neither Fisher nor Caldwell had heard of that
decision, — ftiat "favor" then. Indeed, Mr. Blaine was
not then himself aware of it. . Later reading recalled it ;
and plainly Senatot Hoar knows what he felt and what he
thought better than does Carl Schurz. "
But fallacies abound. Begging the question stands
foremost ; as when, on asking w7iai he meant, you break
out and exclain, "He meant this, he said this," when the
very question is what he meant and what he said. What
did Mr. Fisher understand him as saying? We judge a
letter by its receiver. Point to a deed or word or hint of
his that shows "corruption" ever to have been in his mind.
Is not Mr. Fisher still alive? Call upon him to-day !
And that reminds me that this was some time ago. I
chance to re-read this proof on Sept. 5. Fifteen j^ears ago
to-day this momentous paper was signed. I have heard
other men excused for things done fifteen years ago, when
they were younger men than they are now ! Was there
anything here to excuse? If Mr. Blaine had better have
kept out of the whole matter, nobody now knows that so

13
well as he, or has said it more frankly. But what was his
intent? What was then his thought? Did he himself
take his commission in those bonds without supposing
their value sure to rise, and all his co-purchasers sure to
do well? He was mistaken; he was too hopeful: he
knew less of railroad building then than afterwards ; he
was still somewhat young, as Mr. Higginson would say,—
the future was rosy : he had not been the nation's candi.
date yet. But does it occur to you, Mr. Shurz, that it
was just then, in those rosy days, in that state of mind,
that he wrote, on June 29, he thought he should not be
a dead-head? Again I repeat j-our bed-rock question, of what was he
thinking? What did Mr. Fisher understand him to mean ?
And what is it now our duty to think ? Sir, that was a
good rule of the Roman poet.
Nee deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit :
The gods strike when but gods can hit ;
Come, when the task for gods is fit !
Equally good is the rule in logic and in all sciences, — to
accept the simplest solution, any adequate hj'pothesis,
before turning to anything more remote.
We know Mr. Blaine to have been, in the summer of
1869, hopefully busy in placing bonds in Maine; thus
writing to Mr. Fisher, and so making himself no dead
head : why should we turn our thought to something far
away, wholly different, and the most improbable thing in
the world? The hypothesis of corrupt power for sale is
as far-fetched and illogical as it is unmanly and base. It
is illogical because there is not a shadow of evidence that
such a thought was ever in anybody's mind for years
afterwards, not even in Mulligan's. It is illogical because
the united judgment and testimony of all the Mulligans
that ever were in Massachusetts could not make such a
theory probable. It is not probable because it implies not

14

so much that Mr. Blaine was a knave as that he was an
idiot, aud that he supposed the gentlemen of Boston to be
such. For what do you make him imagine, that business
men here should give him valuable franchises or countless
bonds because he had done his duty at Washington?
Business men here do uot thus retrospectively pay for
what is already theirs and in hand free of cost. Or were
they thus to paj' beforehand for services which he might
render years afterwards, the need of which nobody fore
saw? That he should suggest such a thing is a conjecture
morallj' ludicrous, logically contemptible. Few men in
Boston needlessly paj' for such service when the need
comes : none thus provide beforehand for a need likelj'
never to come. Do they in New York? I have heard of
a man in Missouri who kept himself safely saturated with
whiskey, not because he had been bitten bj- a reptile, but
because he might be ! Was Mr. Caldwell innocently- asked'
thus to saturate himself with a worse solvent? I do warn
ray young friend here in Cambridge agaiust the virus of
this Democratic logic : it is as sophistical and fallacious
as it is venomously uncharitable ; but his safeguard he
will find much in a man's mature and prudent judgment,
more in that manly spirit that thinketh no evil and that
scorns foul suspicions !
Why must I make the baser interpretation ? Why say'
with 3'oa that "Caldwell was a little hard of hearing"?
Why not see that he already in October began to feel that
he had got more than he could carry, — that ruin stared
him in the face ; and that it was only kindess or justice
that moved him to keep Speaker Blaine from putting his
foot into that trap ? Why must we assign to men only
motives selfish and mean? Such interpretations or habit.
ual judgments only wrong and insult the classes of whom
they are made. The moneyed men of Boston are cautious,
reserved, silent ; but any man that knows them knows
their lives to be generous as well as gentle, and their na
tures to be pure and fine.

15
But this now is your case as to corruption :
1st. An hypothesis so improbable can be accepted,
by honorable men, only upon some all-mastering proof.
2nd. Proof has been sought, by personal hate and par
tizan zeal, with all opportunity, with the power of Con
gress ; with the breaking up of friendships and the betrayal
of Confidences, and for more than ten years.
3rd. But the more men have sought the less they have
found. Honorable men favor this theor}"^ only when igno
rant of these facts : in all Records and Reports of Con
gress, or anywhere else, of evidence supporting this theory
we have not one atom.
4th. Every recorded word and offered fact falls int<; its
place under the theory which Senator Hoar presents. And
against your theory, counter-probabilities converge on so
many lines that the Republican cause exceeds any need
or demand, and all expectation. Our cause attains, as
nearly as it ever was done, that impossible thing, — the
proving a negative. But our case was won when 3-our
proof failed.
But if your theory is not proved, it is terrible unwisdom
to proclaim it. It is cruel to trustful hearts. Too many
have come to feel that something of this must be true ;
and so to them The pillared firmament is rottenness,
And earth's base built on stubble.
Sir, to abuse the Republican party is to abuse the Amer
ican people. Of that people, that part3', bad as it may
be, is the better part. Shall we better our parties or our
people by calumniating oiir eminent men ? But that is all
I can make of your proof.
But why do I say your proof, or your theory ? This
bantling is none of yours. Buffalo accoucheurs and Brook-
13m dry nurses have smuggled it to your compassionate
doorstep. And others stand with you. Distrust, not
conscience, now makes cowards of us all. Col. Higgin-
son's bright sword this rust is now gnawing. Lucy Stone

16

untwists and crumples with vigorous fingers the straw
rope Higgiuson winds around the Woman's Journal. In
time of ship-wreck, he says, Margaret Fuller entrusts her
baby to a lusty sailor ; so do we to-day. He forgets that
bo3- and sailor came ashore indeed, but both were dead!
Not the whole British navy contains lust3' sailors enough
to save this baby of today !
All these vigorous words of Dr. Abbot and Dr. Everett
foster the hope that such Arctic wanderers may yet live
through this winter of their discontent and not come^to
desperate expedients, nor be charged with eating one an
other. They are no calumniators.
Dr. Clarke clings with a scholar's hope to the possibility
of future Revelations : he has a new interest in questions
of Authorship. He utters no base word.
And that noblest Roman of them all Eeeps the large
hope and true method Curtis has always shown. - Not his
to pretend that those he describes as so hungry and so
thirsty are hungering and thirsting after righteousness !
Great as ma3- be our need, he will lift at no reforms
with the lever of Untruth !
Would that Carl Schurz stood beside him. Woe be to us
when the man who holds Bryant's pen says to the young*
men in our colleges and in our homes that unchastit3- is
not unmanly, not unclean !
The last week's letter of 3'ours is but the postscript of
your last month's and this month's speech. Therefore I
say your word comes to 3'onng men, if it comes at all, like
a contagion. Bad is its logic, b,ut its ethics, far worse !
Who ever did believe that grafting to-day's calumny into
Democracy's constitutional corruption could bring forth
righteousness ? See what it has brought ! Express the
hope of the new-born, and of Democracy for twenty years
past, in th3,t classic word :
^ fSuper Tarpeio quae sedet culmine comix
Non dicere potuit bene — dixit erit !

O you that discern the thoughts and intents of the heart,
of what was that old crow thinking ?
I know the pretexts now current, and the false modesty
now shamelessly blushing. But, sir, that is not a modest
statue whose conscious hands scantly cover its marble
nudity. So Independency stands to-day. Its modesty is
the most untruthful thing about it ! Would — for every
body's sake — that some of these excuses and pretexts
had a truth beneath them !
In your speech a month ago you told of inquiries made
at Buffalo by "a clerical gentleman on the editorial staff
of the Independent." Good : again why not go on to-da3'
and tell all the truth ? The answer is easy :
The gun, when aimed at duck or plover,
Recoils, and kicks the owner over.
What says the Independent now ? Honor be to Amer
ica's journalism, when a paper of great power shows
itself one of yet greater truth ! That journal shows the
life of Christ within it. It is a triumph of Righteous
ness — it somewhat abates our shame — when the Inde
pendent is so true and brave as to say (Aug. 21) :
"We repudiate with contempt the doctrine that a pub
lic man's private character is not to be inquired into.
We desire to have all our readers plainly understand,
once for all, that whatever has been said in the editorial
columns of the Independent favorable to the election of
Governor  , was said prior to the recent sickening
disclosures in regard to private character which have
justly shocked the moral sense of all pure and right-
minded people. * * * To stand still now, or to attempt
to go blindly forward with the present ticket, would, in
our judgment, be an insult to the Ruler of Nations * * *
and an everlasting disgrace to the Republic."
Ou Sept. 4, the Independent says: "No man with
such a private character as is shown in respect to him is
fit to fill any ofllce in the gift of the people." On Aug.
28, its trumpet had no uncertain sound : — " The simple

18
and plain truth is, that the admitted offence of Mr. — ; 
touches upon a domain of family and public morals so
vitally and so dangerously to the public good as utterly
to disqualify him for the office of President. * * * » A
debauchee known to be, or to have been such, is not- the
man to be elevated to the office of President of these
United States. This one fact should be fatal to him.
The people should not, and, as we believe, will not so
disgrace themselves in the sight of God and man, and
defy the imperative mandate of sound morals as to bestow
this honor on such a base profligate. * * * What a
strange spectacle such a law-breaker, if elected, would
present in the parlors of the White House ! * * * Who
ever else may be elected or defeated, let Gov.  ,
with the knowledge the public now have of his private
character, have the mark of Cain put upon him as the
fltting end of his public career ! "
Such is now the word of the one paper you summon to
speak on this topic. Why may not the Post and the
Nation thus speak out ? Is it Truth that stills them ? Or
is it their fealt3- to this new Unholy Alliance ? In 3-6ur
letter and in your speech, it seems like moral untruth
which so distorts the truth on one side and conceals it on
the other. It assails a man of large faults but no vices —
a man large in all aspects, full of affection and wisdom.
It offers us in his stead a man only gross, low and con
temptible. His record you tiy to hide ! Apart from all
else, take the one fact (your own witness gives it) a boy
born S^pt. 14, 1874, and not now knowing his own true
name, or believing either mother or father to be alive !
You would send the father to the White House and the
wronged mother to infamy, while their unrecognized son,
motherless aud fatherless, is growing up in a public insti-
'tution ! Sir, for the public service, a man may neglect
private gains or pleasures, but not private duties ! You
mention the reverend gentleman who went for the Inde
pendent to Buffalo. He speaks of the mother's attempt

19
to ' ' steal " her child. To steal it from what ? From a
true home and an honored life ? From its father's loving
care ? From fit education and sweet surroundings ?
Apparently, she tried to steal it from hopeless orphan
age, from abandonment, from a state where ever3- fact
offered to its childhood is a lie.
It was asked in Daniel Deronda, " whether anybod3'
regarded illegitimate children as more rightfully to be
looked shy on and deprived of social advantages than
illegitimate fathers?" Sir, I thought "illegitimate fath
ers" had peculiar obligations, — duties which the3' might
honorably fulfil, or from which they might try to sneak
out. I thought a father owed something to his sou, —
not merely garments and bread. I thought it was his
duty to teach his bo3- how to be a mau, — to be known to
him, to give him his name and his companionship, to
labor for him and with him, — to be a father to him, and
to put round him something of the love God puts round us.
You seem not to think so. But could this father be a
man of any force, and his son inherit no power, no worth,
no longing? Has that boy's soul no needs, — needs such
as only a mother's fostering and a father's love ma3' meet ?
Is that boy robbed of nothing to-day, and not wronged in
all these coming years ? And do you mean to say to this
land's 3'oung men, " You may do such deeds, — 3-ou may
leave your sons thus abandoned, beggared, soul-starved,
cast out, — and yet you be honored and promoted "?
Sir, do not say that to the young gentlemen of Cam
bridge. You will not make them believe it. Never else
where in America did man look on such a group of young
men. Their pure and chaste faces speak of the homes
and the mothers that have fostered them. There is no
fault in their logic : their ideals are high, and their moral
instincts fine and true. You may hide from them the facts,
and so distort the data on which their judgments must
rest ; but let them know these facts, and they will spurn
your word. They will hear instead the grand, surviving

20

words of President James Walker Upon the Sin of Being
Led Astray.
The 3'Oung men of our colleges live a life of their own.
The3'' meet this slow-d3-ing monkish custom that separates
men and women . They are more alone than when teach
ers remained unmarried and dwelt with pupils in college
halls. But they will rightl5'' interpret the moral struggle
through which our parties are now passing. Nor do they
need to be told that the mightiest passion of man's heart
is that whose power keeps the race alive ; or that its play
must be kept from brutality. God has set its guardians
. hard by. A holy Love must watch over it. The hope of
Paternity, with readiness to take up that high dut3', must
sanctify it. These abate its possible baseness. But,
where these are wanting, low pleasure degrades any man's
body or his soul, and becomes the deadly foe of our
land's life.
Carl Schurz, Heaven save our young men from your
word, while you stand where you stand to-day ! And, as
James Walker said here, thirty years ago, — " Would to"
God that what I have said might have the effect to put a
single unwary soul on its guard against this peril ! "
Yours in truth and for the Truth, A Repdblican.

DEAD-HEADS
FINANCIAL AND MORAL
THE LOGIC OF IT.

A LETTER TO
CARL SCHURZ
BY A STALWART REPQBLICAN.

Nee deus intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit. Aes Poetica.
Look at it, the party of moral ideas, presenting as its great
leader and representative a man whose unclean record it cannot
deny and dare not face ! Listen to its spokesmen, how they
dodge and squirm around that record as something too hot to
touch, — unfortunate attorneys, wretchedly troubled by the feel
ing that, if they respect themselves, they must take care not to
become identified with the public [or private] morals of their
client. * * * What a burning shame and disgrace is this !
Carl Schurz, Speech at Brooklyn, Aug. 5, 1884.

Second Edition.
PRIVATELY PRINTED.
Price 25 for $1.00
Frederic Badger : Cambridge.

Cambridge: Sept. 1, 1884.
Hon. Cael Shurz, Sir: A student of Harvard College
today bids me read your published letter of last week.
He wishes me to share his enjoyment of it. He knows
that I was professor of logic, twenty-five 3rears ago, tho'
not here in New England. But now age so invades my
eyes that they have small power to see, and none to see
the logic of your brilliant letter
Happy this letter is, almost jolly ; convincing, to a
young man. " Pardon me, my lords," said old Chat
ham, " confidence is a plant of slow growth in aged bos
oms.'' Yet, sir, confldence in you and trust, love and
honor for you are good growths long rooted in my heart.
Why is it that your own words now come to tear them out
by the roots ? Is logic all that is lacking ? Rhetoric is
here, and admirable ; like pure light, invisible, and all the
better for that. A perfect medium, unfelt it floats your
teaching into the mind of my young friend : its pollution
comes as silently as the touch of any contagion. To him
and to those like him it may bring moral, death. And
why ? Let us see.
I am but to look into the logic of it, not mine to ques
tion your truth, or honor, or high purpose. Take your
own statement, " The question is, what Speaker Blaine
meant when he said that he tvoidd not be a dead-head in the
enterprise, and that he saw various channels in which he
knew he could make himself useful ; and also what the object
was of the letters of Oct. 4."
Good : that is the whole question. What was the man's
meaning? Of what was he thinking? And, as you ask
of our honored Senator, " On which side do we flnd the
evidence, the only evidence there is?"

That is the question, as you say, and the whole ques
tion. And yet even that innocent-looking cup we must
not take too trustingly from your hand, — so easily might
it be drugged with a few dexterous drops. You do in
deed go on to ask a wholly different question : or rather
you go on to answer it. You charge Mr. Blaine with
deliberate public falsehood. Your charge is specific —
straight as the jab of a Roman sword. You do not leave
this as a question of probabilities : this is a matter of
fact. Your own word is here true or false.
You make the amazing statement that Mr. Blaine's pub
lic declaration in Congress ' 'was not true : he knew it to be
untrue when he said it; and he said it with the obvious intent -
to deceive the House of Representatives, &c."
Certainly the tide of excitement runs high when the
gentleman who sits in Bryant's chair can make such a
statement as that. But toda3' I am' asking only for 3'our
proof. Examine now the grounds of this grave charge,
and we must uncover the whole foundation of 3-our case.
What are the facts? Assuredly, we shall not find 3-our
word untrue, shall we? We may find 3-our logic false.
This is what you affirm, — " Mr. Blaine had the hardihood
to say- that the ' Little Rock Company never parted with a
bond to an3-one except at the regular price fixed for their
sale, &e.,' and that in the face of the fact that large quan
tities of Little Rock bonds went to Mr. Blaine, according to
the memorandum, without any payment on his part, as a
gratuity or commission for Little Rock securities passing
to A. & P. Coburn and other parties from Mr. Fisher."
This is your recent and amazing statement. You seem
not to see that your own word here is self -destructive, and
looking terribly like a deliberate untruth. When you say
" commission " 3-0U deny 3-our own denial of pa3'ment.
And if a commission, it certainly could not have been
a gratuity. Which was it? Sir, we can easily give
up our faith in your logic — we never had much of that
— we must not give up our faith in your honor and

truth, — if we can help it. Truly, it is now harP^to
hang on to it. Good was that Scotch oath,— " The "d,;?!^
to tell, and no truth to conceal." Have you taken it?
God alone knows your conscious purpose : not mine u.
see your intent, as you discern that of Mr. Blaine. But
any man may see that your statement here distorts the
facts, suppresses the truth, and deceives any innocent
reader. It so deceives and imposes on the young gentle
man who here calls m3- attention to it. Let me examine
it. Bonds went to Mr. Blaine, you say, " without any
pay-ment on his part " : your proof is this contract with
Mr. Fisher of Sept. 5, 1869. It is printed in all the pa
pers, or I would insert it here. You print that contract :
3-ou seem careful not to print the memorandum that went
with it. B3' so doing you show what Mr. Fisher was to
receive and what Mr Blaine was to receive ; but not
what A. & P. Coburn were to receive, — still less what
they did receive. Mr. Fisher was to receive $130,000.
Mr. Blaine was to receive of land bonds $130,000 and of
first-mortgage bonds $32,500. Did 3'ou mean to let us
believe that, besides all else, Mr. Blaine received more
than Mr. Fisher reeeived, and that "without any payipent
on his part"? Did 3'ou mean to hint that "other valuable
considerations " acknowledged by Mr. Fisher were things
improper, perhaps services in Washington ? Do you infer
that? If so, I laugh at your logic. Maybe this is only
the glitter of what you so happily describe, "the insidious
weapons of hint, insinuation and inuendo." Your logic
seems to be be largel3' just that.
For I ask my young friend here what he understands
you to mean. Does Mr. Schurz mean to hint that Blaine
and Fisher are conspiring to defraud people in Maine ? —
or bargaining for corrupt influence in Washington ? — or
that Mr. Blaine receives these bonds "without any pay
ment on his part" ? Naturally he finds that he cannot tell.
No unprejudiced reader can. Brilliant and lucid as they
seem, your words are blind. They lead only to mislead.

6
/ ' '
j(3'-aiv-e only your hint that something was wrong, that
w '' ^ h\ ^^s a rascal ; and that, therefore, a public
not JOS ^ \ six years afterward, was a lie. How easj- it
ifo'uk \ been for you to tell the whole truth, and no
truth Y®^^ ' Fourteen subscribers paid $130,000 ;
they rcL V^tocks and bonds, not for $130,000, but for
$390,000. key thought they were doing well (though
they were nd\^ to I)uy them at 33J per cent. Mr. Fisher,
" the assignee of the contract for building the Little Rock
and Fort Smith Railroad," took no labor save to hand
over the securities and to take in the cash. He incurred
no responsibility to those buyers, unless to guarantee that
these stocks and bonds were not counterfeits. He did not
pledge himself to them to see that they should be worth
even ten cents on a dollar, or one.
How was it with Mr. Blaine? He had been the selling
agent. He had made agreements which, as the contract
says, were "witnessed * * * * and delivered to said
parties by said Blaine." Had he undertaken no labor?
Had he incurred no responsibility, legal or moral, to guard
these subscribers against loss? Did he, or did he not, in
receiving his commission — not in cash, but in the same
bonds with the rest — share their loss ? And is it, or is it
not a fact that, while he endured his own loss in manful
silence, he yet more manfully handed over some $20,000
in cash to those who bought these bonds through him ?
But this, Mr. Schurz, is what you call "without an3'
payment on his part " 1 Because he did this you are
thereby to prove him a rascal, and to show his public
word to be untrue ! Such is your logic !
I see that you may say, "Oh, we don't deny his toss in
the transaction. But that was accidental ; that was not
what he meant, or expected. He was no doubt too con
fiding or hopeful, as Gen. Grant and other men of gen
erous feelings have been. We must look only at his
intentions !" Very good : that is precisely what I desire.
And here several points demand our attention. There is

another word qf Mr. Blaine's which you pronounce false.
Why ? Again, let us see ! The logic of your statements,
so far as there is any, is peculiarly agile, not to say slip
pery. I know not whether Senator Hoar wUl condescend
to let his grand utterances re-echo in any rejoinder
to your recent flippant word. It is a spectacle somewhat
comical when Mr. Herbert Spencer attempts the extin
guishing of Mr. Harrison, — an elephant treading ponder
ously about in the vain effort to adjust his foot upon a
chipmonk ! But one statement of yours is deflnite enough.
You emphasize the words of Mr. Blaine, " / bought some
of these bonds * * * * paying for them at precisely the
same rate that others paid," &c. And of these words, you
sa3-, the contract with Mr. Fisher shows the untruth.
That is, 3-0U say they were not "bought" because they
were paid for in service with incurred responsibility, and
not in cash. Or the rate was different, because Mr.
Fisher might have sold the whole $552,500 of stocks and
bonds for $130,000, as indeed he did, if 3-ou are allowed to
count Mr. Blaine's service, risk and loss as not " any pay
ment on his part.'' That is, 3'Ou tell me I do not buy as
others do when they pa3' greenbacks and I pay gold ; or,
I do not pay what others pa3' when I buy by the cargo,
but they by the pound ; or again, you may say that any
broker in Boston could have sold Mr. Fisher's stocks to
people in Maine at a trifling commission, even less than
one per cent. So he might, — allowing people to exercise
their own judgment and take their own risks : he might, if
he could, — only those stocks would then have remained
unsold from that daj- to this.
Still you may affirm and re-affirm that this was not
buying as others bought, not paying as others paid. You
may yet declare that this was a gratuity. Mr. Mulligan
contradicts you. (See evidence pp. 94-95.) He shows
that Mr, Fisher made his own bargains and kept his own
counsel. He swears that different buyers had different
rates. Of course conditions vai-ied with varying amounts

8
and times of purchase. He swears that Mr. Fisher "net
ted" on these bonds sold to Mr. Blaine about 45 per
cent.; and that all his sales "averaged about that."
That is, he swears that Mr. Blaine's pubhc word on that
point is exactly true,— he bought as others bought. If
anybody's word is here untrue, it is not Mr. Blaine's, it is
not Mulligan's : it is your own.
Of course you did not mean that. But the present cam
paign compels us to aver that there is such a thing as
innocent lying. It is lying which is ' ' objective " but not
"subjective." (I am writing to a German.) It is not
so deadly to the liar, but just as injurious to everybody
else. Note this recent echo of your word from Von Hoist
at Berlin ! The more shame to 3-ou !
Now there never was a truer witness than Mulligan, —
that was his own testimon3-, — only the desire so exceeded
the capacity ! He said (p. 102), " I consider my word as
good as that of any man that ever lived." But his truth
was subjective, not objective ! A man must have not only
the desire to tell the truth, but the power to tell it ; more
than that, the power to recognize or identify the truth he
desires to tell. He must know the thing when he sees it.
But Mulligan gives short shrift to your first charge.
That wholly breaks down. Ample other evidence goes
against it. No evidence sustains it. We not only deny
it, we disprove it. Any man who will fairly go over the
evidence will say so. You are mistaken ; there is nothing
in what 3'ou say. Your statement has not the slightest
foundation : Mr. Blaine's word was exactly and strictly
true. He bought as others bought.
But you make a yet graver charge. What about that
dead-head ? What did that dreadful man mean ?
We need not halt at his naughty word. We know what
he meant by that. He should pay his fare, pull his own
weight, — work his way with the rest. But how ? Dead
heads as a class have sub-divisions : financial deads-heads

9
ride free, or let others pay their toll ; logical dead-heads,
instead of clearing up the difficulties of earnest spirits,
reason so bunglingly or basely as to fumble and muddle
things more and more ; moral dead-heads contribute noth
ing to the life of society or of men. Prominent men they
may be, — governors of states perhaps ; but the more con
spicuous the worse, when we find them morally dead and
sources of death.
In no form was Mr. Blaine to be a dead-head. He
would pull his own weight.
But how? You think it natural that he should say how,
or suggest how. So do I. And I ask 3-ou what did his
words then suggest to him who received them, to Mr.
Fisher? He was not writing to a stranger. They had
held transactions for many years. Did not Mr. Fisher
understand that his future service would be like his past
service? What had , that been? I know 3'ou declare,
¦(while you in no wa3- show) that he now thought of doing
something unlike what he had dofle : intuitively, you seem
to know his intent. Indeed, 3-ou Independents are like
the old maid who accused a rude fellow of kissing her
against her will ; but at length she testifled that he did n't
do it, only he looked as though he was going to ! To
you, Mr. Blaine's wickedness is that he looked as though
he wanted to. But where is an3' proof or probability that
he thought of doing anything unlike what he and Mr.
Fisher had been doing. And what was that?
Mr. Fisher knew what he meant? Certainl3-. Has he
hinted that this meant corruption ? Never. Was he ex
amined under oath? He was. (See Doc. 176) Has
Mr. Caldwell hinted at anything wrong in this? Never.
Was Mr. Blaine then in Washington? No; in Maine.
What was he doing? Placing those $390,000 of bonds
and stocks. What was his state of mind? Joyful, most
hopeful. Did those hopes come to fruition ? Contrast tho
tone of the earlier and the later letters : the four Mulligan
letters of 1869 are radiant with hope. The one of 1870

10

thinks he had better not buy any more ! The two of 1871
and the seven of 1872 show that he then knew he had
made a grave error in buying at all. And those are all
the proof, — fourteen letters, the contract of 1869, with
the memorandum and the slips I and J. The latter and
the letter of 1864 had no bearing on the case. None had
any relation with Union Pacific. Of the New York Times's
story, the most charitable word is that it is some ignorant
fellow's blundering. The Sun corrects it.
But did Mr. Blaine buy the bed-rock, the share in the
contract to build? Most fortunately' he did not. How
fared Caldwell in that ? He was ruined b3' it ! How did
Mr. Fisher come out? Almost as badly : he was to have
$250,000 in bonds or stocks — he got none. He was to
have $250,000 in cash : he received $25,000, and that was
all. (See his testimon3' pp. 87-90)
As to corruption, do his words cast an3^ reflection on
Mr. Blaine? Not a shadow. Would Mulligan? He
would resent the suggestion, unless somebod3' had made
him too "mad." Who, then, that knows anything about
that business imputes corrupt purposes? Nobody at all.
That is wholly a politician's devise and a foul calumny.
Base was the effort, ten years ago and eight 3-ears ago,
when Democrats conspired to crush the one Republican of
whom they were afraid. Far more base is this effort
to-day to delude by falsehoods and by vile insinuations
the young men now first casting a ballot. They desire to
be true ; they deserve to be trusted. Not man3r of them
will be misled. Not theirs to fling awa3- the good sword
of their fathers, hacked and stained though it be, to arm
their 3-oung vigor with this bruising cudgel of calumny.
True, very few of them can possibly see the evidence.
How can they see that Vol. 9, containing Document
176? How many counties in America have one copy of
it? And who has time, patience or discernment rightly
to read it? But intelligent Americans, 3-oung or old, are
no fools ; they have heard ghost-stories before, and they
know the creative power of the German imagination !

11
But students, for a study iu evidence, or to see a cal
umny's birth and growth, may well read the Record of
Congress for March 16, 1871, for Jan. 81, 1876, and, of
the same year, for the last week in May and the first in
June. Yet with that no man knows aught of this story
who has not read that marvellous Doc. 176, found only
in House Miscellaneous Documents, Session of 1875-76,
Vol. 9. See especially the clear, decisive and vigorous
word of President Thos. A. Scott, pp. 47-57, which so
carries consternation to plotters, and breaks the weasel's
teeth. " He sweareth to his own hurt, but changeth not."
Yet this corruption story is a later growth. It illus
trates the Development Theory. It is not Mulligan's.
You have adopted the clean thing as 3-our own, Carl
Shurz ! You are now speaking in the West ; are you re
tailing this calumny ? Is it true that you get and take
$200 a night for that ? That is a miserly fee for telling
what you told to Brooklyn's young men. Yet Von Hoist
believes you : he tells the story in Berlin, and half Ger
many believes him. And so you smite the mother that
adopts 3-0U, and stab Free Government in the heart !
But you try to do it in logical form. Four columns of
that Brooklyn speech I deem solid sophistry, — if such a
thing ever is solid. These are fallac3^-specimens : your
brush paints Lincoln, even Washington, as committing
official crime that 3'pu may make your false analogy. Mr.
Blaine's official decision was, as all agree, (and you do)
exactly and only his duty. Paint them as doing a dut3',
not a crime, and you may make your analogy. Again,
you misquote, very innocently, — " You can tell him that
without knowing him, I did him a great favor.-" You
insinuate that, had he known him, he would have done it
more gladly,— and perhaps whether right or wrong. But
Mr. Blaine wrote " without knowing it," which means
just the opposite of what you think. " If I had known
it, I should not now mention it ; but I am glad, now that
I know Mr. Caldwell, to stumble upon this fact, that my

12
ready decision then saved his out-put as a contractor from-
being lost, or his ventures from being delayed for a year,
or wholl3' swamped."
The letters of Oct. 4 you carp at, — first, because they
are two on one day, (and show the occasion, since one
encloses "contracts" and refers to the letter of yesterday)
secondly, because they are too full of the gladness of that
hopeful summer of '69, when his new enterprises in Maine
were looking so rosy.
Sir, a man of a generous spirit interprets those two
letters generously, and knows that he should have felt
just so. Not so a man narrow-minded, cold-blooded,
cautious, timid : he would never have said that, — he puts
a padlock on his lips and sa3-s as little as he can. Mr.
Blaine is no Boston man : that is his gravest fault.
But how skilfully 30U mix up letters of October with
those of Ma3' and June! "Dead-head" was written in
June. Neither Fisher nor Caldwell had heard of that
decision, — that "favor" then. Indeed, Mr. Blaine was
not then himself aware of it. Later reading recalled it ;
and plainly Senator Hoar knows what he felt and what he
thought better than does Carl Shurz.
But fallacies abound. Begging the question stands
foremost ; as when, on asking what he meant, 3-ou break
out and exclain, "He meant this, he said this," when the
very question is what he meant and what he said. What
did Mr. Fisher uuderstand him as saying? We judge a
letter by its receiver. Point to a deed or word or hint of
his that shows -'corruption" ever to have been in his mind.
Is not Mr. Fisher still alive ? Call upon him to-day !
And that reminds me that this was some time ago. I
chance to re-read this proof on Sept. 5. Fifteen 3^ears ago
to-day tills momentous paper was signed. I have heard
other men excused for things done flfteen years ago, when
they were younger men than they are now ! Was there
anything here to excuse ? If Mr. Blaine had better have
kept out of the whole matter, nobody now knows thai so

13
well as he, or has said it more frankly. But what was his
intent? What was then his thought? Did he himself
take his commission in those bonds without supposing
their value sure to rise, and all his co-purchasers sure to
do well ? He was mistaken ; he was too hopeful : he
knew less of railroad building then than afterwards ; he
was still somewhat young, as Mr. Higginson would say, —
the future was rosy : he had not been the nation's candi
date yet. But does it occur to you, Mr. Schurz, that it
was just then, in those ros3' da3-s, in that state of mind,
that he wrote, on June 29, he thought he should not be
a dead-head? Again I repeat your bed-rock question, of what was he
thinking ? What did Mr. Fisher understand him to mean ?
And what is it now our dut3' to think? Sir, that was a
good rule of the Roman poet,
Nee deus- intersit nisi dignus vindice nodus
Inciderit :
The gods strike when but gods can hit ;
Come, when the task for gods is fit !
Equally good is the rule in logic and in all sciences, — to
accept the simplest solution, any adequate hypothesis,
before turning to an3'thing more remote.
We know Mr. Blaine to have been, in the summer of
1869, hopefully busy in placing bonds in Maine ; thus
writing to Mr. Fisher, and so making himself no dead
head : why should we turn our though? to something far
away, wholly different, and the most improbable thing in
the world? The hypothesis of corrupt power for sale is
as far-fetched and illogical as it is unmanly and base. It
is illogical because there is not a shadow of evidence that
such a thought was ever in anybody's mind for years
afterwards, not even in Mulligan's. It is illogical because
the united judgment and testimony of aU the Mulligans
that ever were in Massachusetts could not make such a
theory probable. It is not probable because it imphes not

14

so much that Mr. Blaine was a knave as that he was an
idiot, and that he supposed the gentlemen of Boston to be
such. For what do you make him imagine, that business
men here should give him valuable franchises or countless
bonds because he had done his duty at Washington?
Business men here do not thus retrospeetively pay for
what is already theirs and in hand free of cost. Or were
they thus to pa3' beforehand for services which he might
render years afterwards, the need of which nobody fore
saw? That he should suggest such a thing is a conjecture
morally ludicrous, logically contemptible. Few men in
Boston needlessly pay for such service when the need
comes : none thus provide beforehand for a need likely
never to come. Do they in New York ? I have heard of
a man in Missouri who kept himself safely saturated with
whiskey, not because he had been bitten by a reptile, but
because he might be ! Was Mr. Caldwell iunocentl3' asked
thus to saturate himself with a worse solvent? I do warn
my young friend here in Cambridge against the virus of
this Democratic logic : it is as sophistical and fallacious
as it is venomousl3- uncharitable ; but his safeguard he
will find much in a man's mature and prudent judgment,
more in that manly spirit that thinketh no evil and that
scorns foul suspicions !
Why must I make the baser interpretation ? Why say
with you that "Caldwell was a little hard of hearing"?
Why not see that he already in October began to feel that
he had got more than he could earr3% — that ruin stared
him in the face ; and that it was only kindess or justiefe
that moved him to keep Speaker Blaine from putting his
foot into that trap ? Why must we assign to men only
motives selfish and mean ? Such interpretations or habit
ual judgments only wrong and insult the classes of whom
they are made. The moneyed men of Boston are cautious,
reserved, silent ; but any man that knows them knows
their lives to be generous as well as gentle, and their na
tures to be pure and fine.

15
But this uow is your ease as to corruption :
1st. An hypothesis so improbable can be accepted,
by honorable men, only upon some all-mastering proof.
2nd. Proof has been sought, by personal hate and par
tizan zeal, with all opportunity-, with the power of Con
gress ; with the breaking up of friendships and the betrayal
of confidences, and for more than ten 3-ears.
3rd. But the more men have sought the less the3- have
found. Honorable men favor this theor3' only when igno
rant of these facts : in all Records and Reports of Con
gress, or anywhere else, of evidence supporting this theory
we have not one atom.
4th. Every recorded word and offered fact falls int(; its
place under the theory which Senator Hoar presents. And
against your theory, counter-probabilities converge on so
many lines that the Republican cause exceeds any need
or demand, and all expectation. Our cause attains, as
nearl3' as it ever was done, that impossible thing, — the
proving a negative. But our case was won when 3'our
proof failed.
¦But if your theory is not proved, it is terrible unwisdom
to proclaim it. It is cruel to trustful hearts. Too man3-
have come to feel that something of this must be true ;
aud so to them The pillared firmament is rottenness.
And earth's base built on stubble.
Sir, to abuse the Republican party is to abuse the Amer
ican people. Of that people, that party, bad as it may
be, is'the better part. Shall we better our parties or our
people by calumniating our eminent men .'' But that is all
I can make of your proof.
But why do I say your proof, or your theory? This
bantling is none of yours. Buffalo accoucheurs and Brook
lyn dry nurses have smuggled it to your compassionate
doorstep. And others stand with you. Distrust, not
conscience, now makes cowards of us all. Col. Higgin-
son's bright sword this rust is now gnawing. Lucy Stone

16
untwists and crumples with vigorous fingers the straw
rope Higgiuson winds around the Woman's Journal. In
time of ship-wreck, he says, Margaret Fuller entrusts her
baby to a lust3- sailor ; so do we to-day. He forgets that
bo3- and sailor came ashore indeed, but both were dead !
Not the whole British navy contains lusty sailors enough
to save this baby of toda3' 1
All these vigorous words of Dr. Abbot and Dr. Everett
foster the hope that such Arctic wanderers may yet live
through this winter of their discontent and not come to
desperate expedients, nor be charged with eating one an
other. They are no calumniators.
Dr. Clarke clings with a scholar's hope to the possibilit3'
of future Revelations : he has a new interest in questions
of Authorship. He utters no base word.
And that noblest Roman of them all keeps the large
hope and true method Curtis has always shown. Not his
to pretend that those he describes as so hungry and so
thirsty are hungering and thirsting after righteousness !
Great as ma3' be our need, he will lift at no reforms
with the lever of Untruth !
Would that Carl Schurz stood beside him. Woe be to us
when the man who held Bryant's pen says to the young
men in our colleges and in our homes that unchastit3' is
not unmanly, not unclean ! '
The last week's letter of yours is but the postscript of
your last month's and this month's speech. Therefore I
say your word comes to young men, if it comes at all, like
a contagion. Bad is its logic, but its ethics, far worse I
Whp ever did believe that grafting to-day's calumny into
Democracy's constitutional corruption could bring forth
righteousness ? See what it has brought ! Express the
hope of the new-born, and of Democracy for twenty years
past, in that classic word :

S^/u,

uper Tarpeio quae sedet culmine comix
Non dicere potuit bene — dixit erit !

17.
O yqu that discern tlio thoughts and intents of the heart,.
of what was that old crow thinking ?
1 know the pretexts now current, and the false modesty
now shamelessly blushing. But, sir, that is not a modest
statue whose conscious hands .smintlj cover its mar' Tic
nudity. So Independency stands to-day. Its modesty is
the most untruthful thing about it ! Would — for every
body's sake — that some of these excuses and pretexts
had a truth beneath them !
In your speech a month ago you' told of inquiries made
at Buffalo b3- "a clerical gentleman on the editorial staff
of tLe Independent." Good : again why not go on to-day
ahd tell all the truth ? The answer is easy :
The gun, when aimed at duck or plover,
Recoils, and kicks the owner over.
What says the Independent uow? Honor be to Amer
ica's journalism, when a paper of great power shows
itself one of yet greato. truth! That journrJ shows the
life o' Christ within it#* It is a triumph of Righteous
ness — it somewhat abates our shi'.me — when the Inde-'
liendent is so true and brave as to sa3' (Aug. 21) :
"We repudiate with contempt the doctrine that a pub
lic man's private character is not to be inquired into.
We desire to have all our readers pliinly understand,
once for all, that whatever has been said in the editorial
columns of the Independent favorable to the election of
Governor  , was said prior to the recent sickening
disclosures iu regard to private character which have
justly shocked the moral sense of all pure and rig^*-
minded people. * » * To stand still now, or to atteifipt
to go blindly forward with vthe present ticket, would, iu
our judgment, be an insult to the Ruler of Nations * * *
and an everlasting disgrace to the Republic."
Ou Sept. 4, the Independent says: "No mon with
such a private character as is shown in respect to him is
fit to fill a-ny office in the gift of tfie people." On Aug.
28, its trumpet had no uncertain sound : — " The simple

18
and plain truth is, that the admitted offence of Mr. -= 
touches upon a domain of family and public morals so
vitally and so dangerously to the public good as utterly
to disqualify him for the office of Presideut. * * * * A
debauchee known to be, or to have been such, is not the
man to be elevated to the office of President of these
United States. This one fact should be fatal to him.
The people should not, and, as we believe, will not so
disgrace themselves in the sight of God and man, and
defy the imperative mandate of sound morals as to bestow
this honor on such a base profligate. * * * What a
strange spectacle such a law-breaker, if elected, would
present in the parlors of the White House ! * * * Who
ever else may be elected or defeated, let Gov.  ,
with the knowledge the public now have of his private
character, have the mark of Cain put upon him as the
fitting end of his public career ! "
Such is now the word of the one paper you summon to
speak on this topic. Why may not the Post and the
Nation thus speak out? Is it Truth that stills them ? Or
is it their fealt3' to this new Unholy Alhance ? In 3-our
letter and in your speech, it seems like moral untruth
which so distorts the truth on one side and conceals it on
the other. It assails a man of large faults but no vices —
a man large in all aspects, full of affection and wisdom.
It offers us in his stead a man only gross, low and con
temptible. His record 3'ou tr3- to hide ! Apart from all
else, take the one fact (your own witness gives it) a bOy
born Sept. 14, 1874, and not now knowing his own true
name, or believing either mother or father to be alive !
You would send the father to the White House and the
wronged mother .to infamy, while their unrecognized son,
motherless and fatherless, is growing up in a public insti
tution ! Sir, for the public service, a man may neglect
private gains or pleasures, but not private duties ! You
mention the reverend gentleman who went for the Inde
pendent to Buffalo. He speaks of the mother's attempt

19
to "steal" her child. To steal it from what? From a
true home and an honored life ? From its father's loving
care ? From fit education and sweet surroundings ?
Apparently, she tried to steal it from hopeless orphan
age, from abandonment, from a state where every fact
offered to its childhood is a lie.
It was asked in Daniel Deronda, " whether anybod3r
regarded illegitimate children as more rightfully to be
looked shy on and deprived of social advantages than
illegitimate fathers?" Sir, I thought " illegitimate fath
ers " had peculiar obligations, — duties which the3' might
honorably fulfil, or from which they might try to sneak
out. I thought a father owed something to his son, —
not merely garments and bread. I thought it was his
duty to teach his boy how to be a man, — to be known to
him, to give him his name and his companionship, to
labor for him and with him, — to be a father to him, and
to put round him something of the love God puts round us.
You seem not to think so. But could this father be a
man of any force, and his son inherit no power, no worth»
no longing? Has that boy's soul no needs, — needs such
as only a mother's fostering and a father's love may meet ?
Is that boy robbed of nothing to-day, and not wronged in
all these coming years ? And do you mean to say to this
land's 3'oung men, "You may do such deeds, — 3'ou may
leave your sons thus abandoned, beggared, soul-starved,
cast out, — and yet you be honored and promoted " ?
Sir, do not say that to the young gentlemen of Cam-
' bridge. You will not make them believe it. Never else
where in America did man look on such a group of young
men. Their pure and chaste faces speak of the homes
and the mothers that have fostered them. There is no
fault in their logic : their ideals are high, and their moral
instincts flne and true. You may hide from them the facts,
and so distort the data on which their judgments must
rest • but let them know these facts, and they will spurn
your' word. They will hear instead the grand, surviving

20

words of President James Walker Upon the Sin of Being
Led Astray.
The young men of our colleges live a life of their own.
The3' meet this slow-d3-ing monkish custom that separates
men and women. They are more alone than when teach
ers remained unmarried and dwelt with pupils in college
halls. But they will rightl3^ interpret the moral struggle
through which our parties are now passing. Nor do the3'
need to be told that the mightiest passion of man's heart
is that whose power keeps the race alive ; or that its play
must be kept from brutality. God has set its guardians
hard by. A holy Love must watch over it. The hope of
Paternity, with readiness to take up that high dut3', must
sanctify it.. These abate its possible baseness. But,
where these are wanting, low pleasure degrades any nian's
body or his soul, and becomes the deadly foe of our^
land's life.
Carl Schurz', Heaven save our young men from your
word, while you stand -where you stand to-day I And, as
James Walker said here, thirty years ago, — " Would to
God that what I have said might have the effect to put a
single unwary soul on its guard against this peril ! " ,
Yours- in truth and for the Truth, A Republican.

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