Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 17 February 1882 — Bombastes Blaine. [ARTICLE]

Bombastes Blaine.

Mr. Blaine has plenty of leisure, and plenty of money, and an inexhaustible stock of assurance. Just now he is engaged in the active business of keeping himself before the public as a supposed candidate for the Presidency in 1884. The rings, the jobbers, the lobbyists and the schemers who cluster about Washington, and who call themselves Republicans and Democrats for convenience, are ardent advocates of the plumed knight, who, being on the retired list, has nothing to do but to set up windmills and attack them furiously. No former Secretary of State ever wasted as much dispatch paper, in the same space of time, as this enterprising aspirant for the White House did in the eight months that he blustered and fumed about that department, to the terror of all Europe, Asia and Africa, and the Chilian part of the American continent. And he appears to have kept the clerks under him employed night and day, for he was so satisfied with his performances that he had copies of all the dynamite dispatches made, and carried them off, claiming, as he did in the case of the Mulligan letters, they were his private property. This Bombastes Furioso of diplomacy got up a project for a congress of “all the American nations to assemble in the city of Washington” next November. Not satisfied with a general circular, to make sure of the proposed guests he instructed Mr. Trescott, on his return to the United States, to call on some of them, and to repeat the invitation in person. Mr. Frelinghuysen thought his predecessor too hospitable by far. and revoked the instruction to Trescott. Whereupon the belligerent Blaine, with a blast of his war trumpet, calls the ringster clans to muster and to save this country from a surrender to the despots of the Old World. In the midst of the terrible commotion caused by the alarming letter of the formidable ex-Secretary * * To the President of the United States”—no longer “My dear Mr. President”—comes the news from Panama that the Congress of South American nations, which was to have met there on the Ist of December, had"failed, and tbe few delegates who did meet had “returned to their homes much disgusted at the apathy displayed by their neighbors among the various republics along the coast.” These South American states of Latin origin evidently do not appreciate projects for a general congress. The splurging Secretary who invited them to come to Washington, to discuss terrapin and canvas-backs between the sherry and the champagne, must have known of this disinclination when he ordered Mr. Trescott to persuade them to accept his hospitality, for which Congress would be expected to foot the big bill. Mr. Blaine is a very smart man as the world goes. The trouble with him is that he is much too smart for the common run of mankind. He is never content with being smart enough. This is a great misfortune for a patriot, a statesman, a hero in time of war, and a trading politician at all times. Amid ail’the noise and confusion of this South American business, gotten up to divert public attention, the Jobbery at the bottom of it may be said to stick out palpably to sharp eyes. Mr. Blaine made his Roman virtue manifest to all the world when he instructed his faithful minister, Hurlbut “not to extend the good offices of this Government in behalf of the Cochet claim” for a trifle of a thousand millions, more or less. That demand shocked him. He investigated it carefully, as be promised Shipherd’s Peruvian Company to do. With the best intentions, he could not stand a thousand millions.

But when the same enterprising firm came in with the Landreau claim, modestly asking a few hundred millions, Mr. Blaine’s “ policy” was vigorously developed. He would allow no intrusion on this continent. The Monroe doctrine meant Landreau in full, and woe betide any European power, potentate or Prince that would deny it. Disinterested “Democratic” organs that had magnanimously defended Brady rushed to the support of the Secretary. First of all they were Americans, and politics must be discarded for great principles, and for Kemble’s noble trinity of addition, division and silence. Mr. Blaine therefore directed the in genuous Huribut “to use his good offices with the Peruvian Government, to the end that it would designate one of its own courts or tribunals before which Landreau could appear and have the justice of his claim tested.” Calderon was Provisional President, and he had been “seen.” He was ready to do what the Commissioner of Venezuela did in making the ring awards. He would sign away all the territory the Landreau patriots wanted on afixedday, and then retire, rich andcontented to Paris.

Chili got word of the intended job and carried oft the Provisional President just before he could sell the remains of his unfortunate country. Then it was that the wrath of Huribut became absolutely heroic. And when the news of this “treachery” reached Washington the great pi’< of granite which the profane Mullett had dedicated to the hating architecture gods shook as if convulsed by a South American earthquake. Chili had dared to interfere with the “ Ameri an policy ” of the Secretary, who stands alone. Chili had carried off Calderon. Chili wqjdd appropriate the guano and the nitrates that were intended for the Landreau party to indemnify her war expenses. Chili had committed a great “ offense ” against the United States and against Mr. Blaine in particular. We are free to admit that Mr. Blaine has a grievance, and he is not to be blamed for ventilating it every day in the week. Any man’s feelings would be hurt at a Probate Judge who threw him out of a big share in a will of several hundred millions for want of a good codicil. Mr. Blaine’s indignation was natural, and from his standpoint he h id no other recourse than to threaten Chili with war for seizing Calderon before he executed the deeds to Landreau and'Company. If Chili had politely waited for a single day to paw away, and thus have

put Mr. Blaine’s self-sacrificing friends in possession of the nitratofceds and the guano deposits, his son would never have escorted Mr. Trescott on a special mission, there would have been no eructations from the war stomach of the belligerent Minister, and the remainder of poor Peru would have been transferred to the pockets that are now gaping in emptiness.— Washington letter.