Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 June 1884 — THEN AND NOW. [ARTICLE]

THEN AND NOW.

WHAT THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE HAD TO SAY OF BLAINE IN 1876. In 1876 no newspaper in the Republican party more earnestly opposed the nomination of Mr. Blaine than the Chicago Tribune, which is now his most blatant supporter. In its issue of June 6, 1876, it quoted Tetters the most damaging in their character, signea by Blaine, and connecting him with improper legislation in behalf of the Northern Pacific Railroad. From its editorial comments on this and other like transactions the following extract is taken: “The most favorable construction that can be put upon the matter leaves Mr. Blaine in the unfortunate position of a bro Ker offering certain railroad stocks for sale whose value had just been previously enhanced by National legislation which he had favored while Speaker of the House of Representatives. This construction is also effected to Blaine’s disadvantage by his failure to specify who was to receive the benefit of the proposed sale and how he came to be selected as agent; and his injunction to keep his name secret as having been connected with the transaction seems to indicate an apprehension on his part that he was not acting as he ought to act in his public position.— This transaction, along with somewhat similar transactions in Little Rock and Fort Smith Railway bonds, though he has not yet been connected with the Tom Scott $64,000 Little Rock bond transaction, undoubtedly gives the enemies the Republican party good electioneering ground for holding him up to the country in the attitude of a Congressional stock-broker, dabbling in the securities of railways which had come, and were still to come, before Congress for favorable legislation. It requires little argument to show that the people do not want to indorse these congressional practices by electing a man suspected of them to the highest office in the Nation. Mr. Blaine’s nomination under the circumstances would be a virtual confession on the part of the Republican party either (1) that it has no available candidate who has not (been engaged in similar transactions, or (2) that it approves of such conduct on the part of the men it sends to congress. We do not believe that the Republican party can afford to acknowledge either one or the other, and we know both to be untrue-”