Democratic Sentinel, Volume 7, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 January 1884 — PAYING BLAINE. [ARTICLE]

PAYING BLAINE.

Globe Democrat: Mr. Cessna, of Pennsylvania, implored Mr. Blaine, while the latter was Speaker, to make him Chairman of the Judiciary Committee. Mr. Blaine declined and gave the place to another man. A year or two later the Cincinnati Convention came along. Mr. Cessna was a delegate. “I want to be Chairman of the Committee on Rules,” said Mr. Cessna to the antiBlaine men in Cincinnati, ‘and if I don’t beat Blaine you may take my head for a foot ball. ’ Cessna was made Chairman of the Committee on Rules,and in that capacity made a report to the effect that after any State had cast its vote for President that vote could not be changed until after the result of the whole ballot had been announced. Very few in the Convention saw the import of. this rule when it was reported and adopted—but it, and it alone, beat James G Blaine as a Presidential nominee. The original plan of the Blaine men was to force a nomination on the first ballot —to get enough changes from complimentaries to Blaine to make the latters nomination certain before the result was announced. The Cessna rule stopped all that. The stampede to Blaine could not be started, and Blaine was beaten. “I guess.” said Mr. Cessna, as he watched the operation of his own scheme, “J im Blaine is not much ahead of me now.”