Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1876-06-09


time being Blaine stock was at low ebb.
But on Monday Mr.. Blaine came TO the
front with a brilliant and effective speech
exonorating himself from all charges of
fraudulent or dishonorabe practices in his
specuations In railroad securities, and In
the course of which he produced and read
the package of letters referred to. Mr..
Blaine charged, with fine dramatic effect,
that the bitter and partisan spirit in which
the Investigations of his business transact
tons had been conducted was owing to the
fact that he had incurred the hatr ed of the
Southern element by his denuncation of
Ben Hill in the early days OF the session,
and the climax Of his speech was reached
when he walked down in front Of the
Speakers desk and detantly charged Mr..
Knott, the chairman of the investigating
committee, with having suppressed tele-
graphic dispatch generating him from
some of the charges under consideration.
Mr.. Blaine's friends were in great state
of excitement and highly jubilant over
what they termed his complete "vindica-
tion," and it is undeniably true that he has
relieved himself of many of the damaging
differences which the public had begun to
entertain.
AS regards the effect which this sensa-
tional episode has produced upon Mr..
Blaine's chances as presidential clndi-
date II seems TO us that the manner in
which the New York Times sums up the
situation is both candid and impartial
The main question of his availability as
presidential candidate remains pretty much
where 1t was. The letters as now publish
ed fail to connect Mr.. Blaine with the sale
to the Union Pacific Company of the sew
euty-tive bonds of the Little Rock and Fort
Smith railroad, but they leave untouched
the fact of his dealings in these bonds, aud
they cast some new light upon his connec-
ton with the Northern Pacific speculation.
They show, further, that before entering
Congress he received fee for securing
recognition for the Spencer rifle from the
War Department, and that while in Con-
gress he was the holder of $4,000 worth of
the stock of the company which owned
that rifle patent. Mr.. Blaine may have
taken large or small "nyers" in risky rail-
road securities, and may have been inter-
ested in small arms which depended for
profitable disposal on official recommended
tion, as on the rifle sales to the French
Government, and yet he may have done
nothing which can be strictly termed dis
honorable. But it is hardly possible that
during a very active and influential pub
lie career, in which he dabbled with con-
siderable frequency in speculations where
the gambling element largely predomlna-
ted, Mr.. Blaine should not have been con-
nected with many transactions which
would form very plausible basis for in
cessant attacks upon his character aud rec
ord. Mr.. Blaine was certainly not partic,
ularly sensitive TO the danger of having
his judgment as legislator warped by his
interests as a Spectator, and in this re-
spect he was probably neither better nor
worse than the majority of tho men of both
parties who have sat in Congress at any
time during the last ten years. But the
people do not want as President and the
Republican party certainly cannot afford
to take up as candidate, a man who in
the nicer questions of legislative morality
simply went with the crowd. Let Mr..
Blaine's transactions in RAILROAD stocks be
ever so free from jobbery. they have been
confessedly of kind which needs consid-
cradle explanation and demands continu-
Gus defense. A Presidential campaign in
which the Republican party would be in
cessantly called on to act on the defensive
in regard to the character Of its candidate
is a contingency which will commend it,
self as little to The ordinary politician as to
those members of the party who simply
act from a disinterested attachment to It's
principles.