Rensselaer Republican, Volume 22, Number 21, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1890 — WALKER BLAINE DEAD. [ARTICLE]

WALKER BLAINE DEAD.

H* Dlm ga<d»riy sMTMmm n.ia». JjppfrtaJ bj m »W»<* •HnSoinU. Mr. Walker Blaine, examiner of of tbe State Department, and eldest son es the Hon. James G. Blaine, Secretary es State, died at the family residence, in the old Seward mansion, facing Lafayette' Park, at 8:20 o’clock Wednesday evening, of acute pneumonia, superinduced by an attack of the grippe. He had been ill sniy a few days, and his death is a sudden and severe shock to an unusually large afeaia of friends, who were not aware that be was dangerously ill until Wednesday morning, while his family, who were all greatly devotod to him, are prostrated with grief. The news of Mr. Blaine’s death quickly became known, and many friends called during the evening to express their sympathy. The President and Mrs. Harrison called very soon after Mr. Blaine’s death, and Vice-President and Mrs. Merten came soon afterward. Justices Harlan aad Gray, of the Supreme Court, most of the members of the Maine delegation, Representative Hitt and many others well known in official and social life, also called. Walker Blaine graduated from Yale In 1876, and, studying law, received bis dipleg ma from Columbia College, New York, in 1878. In 1881, while Garfield was on hie . death bed, he sent for Walker Blaine and appointed him Third Assistant Secretary of State, saying that he appreciated his ability and desired to show it After serving in this capacity very acceptably for nearly a year, he was appointed on the Alabama Claims Commission, where he served with great credit from 1882 to 1888. On the advent of the present administration he was appointed Solicitor of tbe State Department, a position which he also filled with great credit and ability. Mr. Blaine was of a frank and genial die position, of great magnetism, and was personally popular with all with whom he came in contact, both socially and in a business capacity. Walker Blaine’s sodden death is a terrible blow to his distinguished father. Noth ing more bewilderisgly sad could have befallen the Secretary of Stato. Mr. Blaine and his son Walker have been more like two loving brothers during tbe past ten or twelve years, than father and son. They were very much alike in their tastes and were constantly together for many years. Mr. Blaine has seldom traveled any considerable distance without his son Walker. There were three of the Blaine boys. All of them had many facial resemblances of their father, and each had many of his traits of character, but neither of the other two had so many of the father’s characteristics as Walker. Emm*ns, the second son, is a railroad man, and lives at Baltimore. He thinks of business and attends to it, and is notofteu in his father’s society. James G., jr., is learning thetrade of a railroad machinist, and although he looks like his father, he has as little of literary and political taste and trend as Emmons. The death of Walker Blaine is something more than a family loss. It is a loss to the country. His father’s hope was to make him his worthy successor. He hoped that when he laid down his cares of public life Walker could take them up and carry his work forward. Now the hope of his llie seems to be at an end. There are those of Mr. Blaine’s friends who believe that he will feel like retiring from public life; but that can not be, for the country needs his services as long as he has physical strength to serve.