23' 9
84

W

No. 1.

Issued by the National Committee or Republicans and Independents,
No. 35 Nassau Street, New York.
Geo. Walton Green, Secretary. Geo. Wm, Curtis, President. -
BLAINE vs. CLEVELAND :
A LETTER FROM EDWARD EGGLESTON,

Lake George, 1st September, 1884.
Dear Sir — Since an expression of opinion is asked from me I do not feel
that I ought to keep silence in a contest of such importance as the present
Presidential canvass, though it would be hard to add anything fresh to the
literature of the campaign at so late a date, and though a quiet man might
well shrink from making himself a target for lightning by speaking at all
m a campaign so hot as this one.
Since 1854 there has not been so great a disturbance of the political
elements. Democrats dyed-in-the-grain can be found who show a friendly
interest in the success of the Republican nominees, while some of the original
founders and guides of Republicanism are promoting Cleveland's election
with all the ardor and courage of their youth. An unusually large number
of both parties are in doubt and I find some who propose to throw away
votes on St. John or Butler, or to withhold them entirely.
Perhaps, if we analyze these currents and counter-currents of men going
to and fro we may get some clue to the true and inward nature of the pre
vailing cyclone. The first thing that impresses the observer from a quiet
and out-of-the-field point of view like mine, is that the voters who are driven
from their places in the Republican ranks by Mr. Blaine's candidacy are, for
the most part, men of a very high order. I do not find one of the pot-hunters
of the party among them. They are leading business men, young men of
high aims and aspirations, prominent lawyers, clergymen, college professors,
journalists of first-rate ability, distinguished writers, and careful students of
history and the science of government. Some of these deserters from the
Republican party are the very ornament and crown of the intellectual life
of the nation. So strongly are they repelled by Blaine and Logan that they
find themselves compelled to break the party fealty of a life time to vote
against them. Any thoughtful voter might feel a prejudice in favor of a
cause embraced by men of such discrimination and disinterestedness; I cer
tainly should not like to be classed with those demagogues who pelt some of
the first men of our time with such epithets as "dude" aad "pharisee"

because they cannot vote for a man whose hands they believe to be stained
with unclean bribes.
It cannot be denied that there are many Democrats who will support
Mr. Blaine, or, what amounts to half as much, will vote for his double, Gen
eral Butler. If these bolting Democrats were men of public spirit, lovers
of order and decency, and competent judges of the fitness of a candidate,
one might offset the one bolt against the other. But the Democrats who are
disposed to help Mr. Blaine, directly or indirectly, are from the underground
basement of the party. The whole group of New York ring plunderers,
Benjamin F. Butler, the New York Sun, and the makers of dynamite to
blow up women and children in London, are some of the Democrats that
desert Mr. Cleveland. Any attempt to characterize forces so well known
would be a wanton waste of epithets. Not one Democrat of high character,
so far as I know, has been won by Mr. Blaine. His is a magnetism that
draws the filth and rubbish of the opposite party. Respectable Democrats
might afford even to suffer a party defeat to secure such a riddance of evil
and mischief -making elements.
Now, since my words are sure to be misrepresented, let me disclaim any
thought of saying that Mr. Blaine does not number among his supporters
thousands of excellent people. The strength of party attachment and super
stition, the force of political habits and associations, are so great that Mr.
Blaine will get the votes of many thousands whose lives and principles are
as superior to his as uprightness is to venality. But the proselytes whom
Mr. Blaine draws from without his party and whom Governor Cleveland re
pels, are almost to a man either interested and unsavory monopolists, for
eigners seeking to embroil the country, or political riff-raff. I do not say
that this fact is quite conclusive. It might chance that the ignorant
herd who willingly follow low demagogues, should choose the right man,
while a large body of the most upright and highly-cultivated men were
making a mistake. This might happen, I suppose, though I cannot recall
any instance of the kind in human history. The character of the men who
have lent support to the nominees opposed to their parties, is a pretty safe
surface indication.
I will not discuss the specific charges against Mr. Blaine. The evidence of
sthe Mulligan letters is so conclusive that there is danger of their being too
much dwelt upon. The main mountain of objection to Mr. Blaine is not that
in this one instance he corruptly offered to sell himself, but that his whole
career is off the same piece ; that his general reputation for trickiness and self-
seeking renders him unfit for the highest office. I am told, however, that he
has had great experience and is exceedingly clever. "With both of these qualifi
cations lam willing to give him credit. Few men have had such large oppor
tunities to serve their country in high position during a critical period, and
fewer with such chances have failed so completely to render their country
any conspicuous service. I cannot recall that as Congressman, Speaker,
Senator or Secretary of State, Mr. Blaine has lent signal assistance in

settling any grave question. One of the most expert debaters that ever
stood on the floor of either house, he has made no statesmanlike speech.
His audacious fluency and ready repartee have never been used, I believe,
for anything higher than personal and partisan ends. Mr. Blaine, by this
time, knows all the ins and outs of official life, and his career shows that he
knows better than any American living how to turn these to his own
account. To put him in charge of a reformed civil service is like entrusting
a poultry-yard to a fox. It doesn't seem to make the poultry-yard any safer
that the fox is a fox of large experience and unusual " smartness." ' They
have a practice in China, I am told, of putting the cleverest and most dis
tinguished rogues on the police force. But even the heathen Chinese would
hardly carry the theory so far as to raise a venal politician to the highest office
in the land because of his expertness.
Pettifoggers in the old West of my boyhood had a method of securing
the escape of their clients in scandalous eases by what they called " black
guarding the case out of court." It consisted in filling the air with so
much undisguised indecency in counter charges, proven or unproven, that
judge and jury were stifled and blinded by disgust. This has been tried by
the advocates of Mr. Blaine, and not without some result. I have met a
good many excellent men who declare their purpose either not to vote at all
or to throw away their vote on Mr. St. John, because stories have been told
to the discredit of the private life of both the leading candidates. I could
wish as heartily as any one that the candidates and all our public men
possessed all those private aud domestic virtues that go to make the model
family man, or the saint. But a combination of all the public and all
the private virtues is one of nature's difficult feats not frequently
attained. The arch of the rainbow, as Emerson puts it, is never
complete. Since then, we cannot have all the good qualities
it becomes us, as men of moderation and common sense, to choose the most
important. Now to a woman selecting a husband, the domestic virtues ought
to seem beyond comparison the essential ones, but to an army in need of a
chieftain the military qualities only would be indispensable. To a country
electing a chief magistrate, though exemplary private morals are desirable,
the mam question is that of fitness for public service. It is of first import
ance that a man should have those virtues that belong to his function ; that
a soldier should be brave, that a preacher should be truthful, that a railway
engineer should be vigilant. Charles I. had all the " family decencies," as
Macaulay calls them, but he was a bad king, and had to be abolished with
an axe. I shall vote for Governor Cleveland, because his public service,
though by comparison brief, shows that he possesses in an eminent degree
the virtues necessary to a man in high executive office. He has integrity,
truthfulness, disinterestedness, tenacity of will and practical wisdom. Mr.
Blaine has plenty of will, but his integrity is more than suspected: His
whole career shows him to be lacking in sincerity, and his conduct of the
State Department proved, that with all his shrewdness, he wanted that com-

bination of sagacity and moderation that goes to make the indispensable
quality of practical wisdom. Mr. Blaine, in a word, has precisely those vices
of mind and character that prevent the most brilliant demagogism from ever
rising to the plane of wise statesmanship.
If Mr. Blaine should succeed in this confused and quadrilateral canvass
in snatching the presidency, it will be by the aid of good men who have a
superstitious veneration for their party, and by the aid of men who have
openly declared his unfitness until he was nominated. I know how painful
it is to break the ties that bind one to an organization possessing so great a
past as that of the Republican party. But parties change swiftly. If Mr.
Blaine should be elected, a new chapter will be opened. The magnetism
of repulsion would doubtless, in four years, drive forth what is best in the
Republican ranks ; the process of attraction would bring into its inner circle
the Mahones and the ringmasters of the great cities, and would confirm the
grip of the Star-route and whiskey-ring men on its machinery. It will no
longer be a question of reforming the party. The men who in their youth
rejoiced in its victories over slavery and disunion will then have to join with
the young men of this time in tearing down the plague-infested structure
that their own hands helped to build.
Respectfully yours,
EDWARD EGGLESTOK
To George Walton Green, Esq.,
Secretary of the National Committee of Independent Republicans.

YALE UNIVERSITY LIBRARY