Democratic Sentinel, Volume 8, Number 39, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 October 1884 — THE REAL BLAINE. [ARTICLE]

THE REAL BLAINE.

As Drawn by Himself In His Own Words and Acts. A Vivid Photograph of the Tattooed Demagogue. [From the New York Times, Ind. Rep.] Thereat Blaine is of another pattern. He spells nation with a big N, but Blaine with a bigger B. His principles are in his pocket. Ho appears first on the stage, when the nation is fighting for its life, as a lobbyist, filling his pockets. There is no speculation which he can resist; but, rich as he is, he has never earned money by any visible business or profession. His political and business methods are the same which have wrecked banks, robbed honest men of their savings, defrauded women and children, sent men to the jail or to their graves, and lured youth to ruin. This man is a coward; he writhes, and winces, and bewails the "agonies" and "bitter humiliation” of his financial crookedness; he received insult without a word, and still writes to his dear Fisher with kind regards. Forced bv threats of political ruin to make good the valueless stock he has loaded upon those who trusted him, he boasts his generous selfsacrifice for his friends. He tells lies; he contradicts himself; betakes “fortv-four millions of people into his confidence” with the usual effrontery of the confidence man. At last he has it explained to the American people that he is not smart, after all; he has been the easy victim of petty sharpers. His plume is the white feather.

As a statesman he has done nothing that makes leadership. He stabs honest finance in the back by proclaiming that gold resumption is impracticable; he does his best against civilservice reform by appointing a hostile committee. When public opinion shows its drift, he turns with the current—too late! He will keep the people burdened with a needless hundred millions of war taxes, and rid us of the surplus bv turning over to States which pay little, like Maine, the proceeds of States which pay much, to the utter destruction ot local responsibility for local government. When the people prick this sham he lets it go. He allies himself with repudiation in Virginia, and takes pains in his history to tell West Virginia and Virginia alike how they may evade their debt. Secretary of State, his policy is buncombe. He can not spare time to care for an Irish-American in an English jail, but he can protect the guano claims of a newly natui alized Frenchman bv bulldozing a broken power into recognizing a President who will favor his friends. He bullies Mexico only to pocket the insult when she quietly pockets his blustering letters without reply. He has not the respect even of Ills own ministers. This great American makes America a by-word among the nations.

As a candidate, he is all things to all men. At county fairs or railroad stations he has abundant and particular sweetness for every place and for all people; he advertises his affiliations with all religious sects which have votes, and every political question which he dares not lace he dodges as a “local issue.” He denies to nature the credit of her bounty and to labor the credit of its toil and skill that he may claim for a party and a policy the welfare of a country happily too prosperous to be ruined by all the mistakes of politicians. Around him flock the worst men of both parties. Fihally, to quote his own organ on Mrs, Mandelbaum, the noted fence, he adopts a “line of defense alwavs in great favor at the Tombs. That is, not to establish one’s own innocence, but to prove some one else's guilt.” This is the real Blaine—Blaine as drawn by himself, in his own words and .act s.- .He is all of a piece. His letters are only the typical confession of an unworthy career. He is the worst possible ideal for the rising generation of America, It is for this man that self-respecting Republicans are asked, for the sake of the party’s past, to vote. Can they do it? Men do not change in a dav. This 'is the Blaine who, if .elected, would be the head of this great nation. But he will not be elected. The tide is rising against him. There is a moral sense in the American people which, in its Holter second thought, sees through sham and pretense, and which will see “that no tricks are played upon justice."