BLAINE'S MAGNETISM

nothing of practical reform that you are not a thousand times pledged to! They are noisy, but not numerous; pharisaical, but not practical; ambitious, but not wise; pretentious, but not powerful!" Over Blaine men went insane in pairs, for his " magnetism" either strongly attracted or strongly repelled whatever came within his field. Hatred of him was rancorous, and it usually told, since his long public career, like an extended sea-coast, was at a disadvantage on the defensive. Love for the man was equally uncompromising, most so at the West, while the defection from him was most pronounced in the East. People not the reverse of sensible likened him to Clay, some of them to Washington. In West Virginia a man risked his life by holding to the rear platform of Blaine's private car as it left the station, begging for some memento of the hero to hang in his house and show his children. Mr. Blaine himself thus described another illustrative incident: "I had the felicity of N's company, who dwelt at length the greatness and grandeur of my character. He intimated. that compared with me Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were 'small potatoes'—all of which in a car and in a loud voice, with many people listening, may be called pleasant entertainment."

on

Well had it been for James G. Blaine had he always remembered the sage words of Salmon P. Chase, uttered when he was Secretary of the Treasury, as a reason for refusing to accept $4,200, which represented an increase in value on stocks that he had ordered but not paid for: "To be able to render the most efficient service to our country it is essential for me to be right as well as to seem right, and to seem right as well as to be right." It was recited that in 1869, when a bill to renew a land grant for the Little Rock & Fort Smith Railroad was to be saddled with a fatal amendment, Speaker Blaine, at the request of Arkansas members, had Logan make, while he sustained, a point of order removing the incubus; that he subsequently called the promoters' attention to his agency in the matter, endeavoring to be let

into the enterprise “on the ground floor,” in which he failed, though appointed selling agent of the bonds with a large commission. Blaine's friends replied that the ruling was proper, being made to frustrate a vicious lobby job and save a desirable piece of legislation which had passed the Senate unanimously. Judge Black, a Democrat, deemed the refutation of the charge wholly satisfactory. Unfortunately, Mr. Blaine's assertion that the Little Rock road derived all its benefits from Arkansas and not from Congress was inaccurate, since the bill so narrowly saved was one renewing the land grant to the State for the railroad. Blaine's assailants considered this statement clearly a falsehood. Hard to justify was Mr. Blaine's denial of "any transaction of any kind with Thomas A. Scott" concerning Little Rock bonds or railway business. That, through Scott and Caldwell, he did put off upon the Union Pacific some Little Rock bonds at a high price seems certain from a letter which he received from Fisher, with his reply.

Blaine unquestionably offered to get Caldwell an allotment in a new distribution of national bank circulation, writing: "It will be to some extent a matter of favoritism who gets the banks in the several localities, and it will be in my power to cast an anchor to the windward' in your behalf if you desire it." Indelicate, if you please, one does not see how this offer necessarily involved corruption. It would seem that Blaine permitted himself to be paid twice over for a loan of $25,000, once by sale of the collateral, realizing $30,000, and once, by judgment of the court, from the reorganized Little Rock Company. The utmost was made of a letter and a telegram from Blaine to Fisher, both dated April 16, 1876, coaching Fisher as to the form of vindication for himself. "I want you to send me such a letter as the enclosed draft," he wrote, and, at the bottom," Burn this letter." At the time of the famous Caldwell cablegram, too, it was discovered that an anonymous despatch had been sent Caldwell similar

"THE PARTY OF RUM, ROMANISM AND REBELLION

"

J. M. King S. D. Burchard

J. G. Blaine

The Reception given by Ministers to Mr. Blaine at the Fifth Avenue Hotel, October 20, 1884, at which the " Burchard Incident" took place Drawn by T. de Thulstrup, from photographs and descriptions by eyewitnesses

"RUM, ROMANISM AND REBELLION"

in tenor to the one returned. Suspicion was thus aroused that all vindicatory statements used on behalf of Blaine had been prepared by him.

A Tammany orator said that no Irishman or Catholic would vote for Cleveland. Mr. Blaine was hostile to the political solidarity of any race or religion, and in this respect his influence-attracting Romanists to his party and repelling anti-Catholic zealots-was wholly good. His religion, he said, was Christianity tinctured with the Presbyterianism of the Blaines and the Catholicism of the Gillespies. "I would not for a thousand presidencies," he declared, "speak a disrespectful word of my mother's religion." Had he lived and continued dominant in Republican councils neither "A. P. A.-ism" nor any Romish counterpart thereof could have arisen.

Whether or not any influence for Blaine emanated from the Catholic clergy, many Irishmen and Catholics sedulously wrought to elect him. This drove some Protestant voters to Cleveland. Nevertheless the vast majority of the Protestant clergy throughout the North strongly favored Blaine. As the campaign drew to its close a goodly party of them waited on their candidate at the Fifth Avenue Hotel to assure him of their unwavering devotion. One Dr. Burchard made the address-in-chief. Apparently holding the Democracy responsible for all the evils of intemperance, religious bigotry and the war, he ascribed to it the three damning "R's," "Rum, Romanism and Rebellion." A story not wholly dissimilar was told of Blaine's father, to the effect that when running for protonotary he seemed likely to suffer from a charge that he was a Catholic because his wife was. Mr. Blaine went to the family priest for a certificate of non-membership, which was duly furnished, as follows: "This is to certify that Ephraim L. Blaine is not now and never was a member of the Catholic Church. Furthermore, in my opinion, he is not fit to be a member of any church." The certificate was effectual, and Mr. Blaine triumphantly elected. Not so happy the dénouement