Rensselaer Republican, Volume 17, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 September 1884 — JAMES G. BLAINE. [ARTICLE]

JAMES G. BLAINE.

What Another College President Thinks of Him—Dr. Magoun, of lowa College, Grinnell, lowa. [From the London Nonconformist and Independent,] I know Mr. Blaine as the most eminent citizen of my native State. For his personal moral worth and unquestionably superior integrity, as well as his marvelous ability and versatility, I admire him. No more trustworthy statesman is to be found in American public life. I would say the same of him as of Gen. Garfield, who knew him and trusted him so thoroughly. .Of the Old South Congregational Chdrch of Augusta, Me., he is an honored member as Garfield was of the “Camphellite” Baptist Church at Washington. Why should not English gentlemen and Christians be as just to the one as to the other? It they are really anxious that the great Republican leader should be defeated, to which we can make no objection, or to the expression of it in proper ways, why do they strive to dash with bitterness the zeal of his supporters? If there is anything in the “Monroe doctrine” they do well to oppose or tear, the English journals referred to are only making it more to be dreaded by the course they take, so far'as it has any influence this side the water. Once before, during the Slaveholders’ Rebellion, I had occasion to notice an abnormal sensitiveness on your side as to the political faith here referred to. At that time Lord Brougham was about to make a speech in the House of Lords, in which he must needs discuss the Monroe doctrine. He was, unfortunately, not better acquainted with it than some living English journalists seem to be. Asking a friend if there was any one in London who knew al 1 about "the Monroe doctrine," the American Consul, Hon. Freeman H. Morse (formerly M. C. from Maine and a friend of Mr. Blaine’s) was named. "Bring him to me." said the veteran peer. ” It was done, and the information obtained was so satisfactory that the Consul was in the House by Lord Brougham’s special invitation when the speech was made. May I advise gentlemen who are now attempting a scare, or a new international prejudice on this subject, to look up the speech in the debates? As to even the slightest peril of misunderstanding between you and us, if the man we vote for is chosen Ptesident, let me remind you that Mr. Blaine’s foreign policy was that of Garfield, no more, no less: and the “peril” of the next four years is just what it would have been if the dead President had lived. Garfield and Blaine are inseparable names! Do not let this, from any current misinformation, lessen the good feeling I was so happy to find in London and _Manchester_in 1881. To put an emphasis on what I here most sincerely and kindly urge, let me add the testimony of the new Secretary of the American Peace Society, Rev. R. B. Howard, brother of our Christian hero, Gen. O. 0. Howard (now in the Soudan), and formerly an editor of the .-ld»a»ice (both of whom I hope you will soon see). Secretary Howard visited Mr. Blaine the Saturday before the late session of the General Congregational Association of Massachusetts, and said to tnat body that Mr. Blaine “expressed himself strongly against any course by our Government that might tend to provoke a needless foreign war." lam old enough’ to remember how "tne Monroe doctrine,” which Mr. Blaine holds as other statesmen and Presidents have held it, has kept us from hurtful foreign complications. Tuere is no need of any new panic about it. It will not be a bit weakened on this side the sea by such a panic, or by any personal abuse of Mr. Blaine, or injustice to him in these coming months by English writers. I pray you, good English friends, listen to one who has’ never misled you in twenty years’ varied correspondence in these columns as to American public opinion, and quietly discountenance such an evil. Testimony, for which there is no place in this letter, has been given by two oLMr. Blaine’s Augusta pastors as to his great worth as a church member and a friend. One of them is Rev. Dr. Webb, now of Boston, and the oldest orthodox pastor, I think, in that city. If Dr. Vilon and Mr. Simon had given similar testimony as to some English statesman, a parishioner of theirs, or Dr. Dale and Mr. Clarkson had done so in respect to Mr. Chamberlain, we should be slow, very slow, to apply to him such epithets as a "Jingo, who has dabbled in dirty water,” “a politician without character." I assure you that all Dr. Webb and Mr. Ecob say, in honor of this grand man, who is up for the Chief Magistracy of 57,000,000 people, is true. Years ago in the lower house of Congress, in refuting an atrocious slander most triumphantly, Mr. Blaine said: "I am now, Mr. Speaker, in the fourteenth year of a not inactive service in this hall; I have taken and I have given blows; I have no doubt said many things in the heat of debate which I would now gladly recall; I have no doubt given votes which in fuller light I would gladly change; but I have never done anything in my public career for which I could be put to the faintest blush in any presence, or for which I cannot answer to my constituents, my conscience, and the Great Searcher of Hearts."