Democratic Sentinel, Volume 9, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 1 January 1886 — JEROME B. CHAFFEE. [ARTICLE]

JEROME B. CHAFFEE.

The ex-Senator of Colorado Speaks Entertainingly Upon Current Topics. A New York correspondent, writing to The Cincinnati Enquirer, says: Ex-senator Jerome B. Chaffee, of Colorado, chairman of the republican national executive committee, arived here Thursday, de astonished the natives py his talk on current politics, To begin with, he is dead against Blain for 1888. “Because I made a fool of myself once is no sign I will again,” he said to me to-night. “But it is pretty good evidence of what Blain would do. If he had let the writiing of letters alone and had taken up a stuffed club whenever that dude from New Jersey came around him he might have pulled through. But he wrote a new letter every day. and the statements in them were proved*to be false within fortyeight hours as a rule, and then to cap the whole tking he wrote his ‘Dear Phelps’ letter. No wonder he couldn’t pull throuh. Why, I went over into New Jersey a few days after the election and found that it had been generally understood in that state that if elected Blain would made William Walter Phelps his secretary of state. The worst of it was that it was true, I guess. Th country had a narrow escape. They may say what thy like about Cleveland, but he is doing better than that.

“What do you think of Cleveland’s message, senator?” ‘Well, on the whole it is’a pretty good message, I don’t agree with his civil-service nonsense; nither do I agree with his | silver views. They talk all the time about the coinage of silver driving out gold from the country; yet since we resumed its coinage there has been an annuaj flow lof seventy millions of gold into the country. That does not look as if silver was driving out gold. I want to see them retire the greenbacks and replace them with silver certificates. There is $346,000,000 of greenbacks outstanding. They were a forced loan on the people without interest. They are payable at any time in any coin. The howl of moneyed men is that they are fiat money. The silver certificates would be worth then at least eighty cents on the dollar more than these greenback dollars, and the country would be that much better off. There will be nothing done in congress this winter on the silver question. The silve. men are too strong.”

“What about the future of your party?” “It hasn’t got any the way things are running now. It has no position on which to stand. It is wrong on this civil service question, and yet the mon in position are afraid to declare so. The reformers are the most venal men in public life. They are all for sale or for office. They go stepping along as old Eaton does, like a bull in a corn-field. They are innocent-looking enough, but not any more to be trusted than that same bull. The party has got itself planted on this equal represent ition question, and fight it out on that line. But there comes in a difficulty. Every time any one gets up to '"omand that there shall be a full vote and a fair count in the south, or taat if the votes are not counted at the polls the representation shall be taken away, some long-haired reformer yells bloodyshirt,’ and our fellows -re afraid to say any more. We have got to get back our old courage of conviction and go to work as if we meant business, or else give the whole thing over to the democrats, aud let them run it to the dogs. “I told Teller and Bowen that they ought to say to these New England cranks in congress: — “When the silver and other questions come up, gentlemen, you must come into a caucus with the republicans, understanding that we shall abide the caucus decision, or we will turn this into a democ t atic senate at once. ’ That would bring things to a crisis. Those fellows want things their own way, without letting any one else have any consideration. I would fetch them to time in short order —Edmunds and all of them. I think that Teller has the backbone to make the fur fly if the eastern men refuse to go into caucus, but if three or four republicans stand together on that proposition we will soon have some kind of party head.”