Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-07-11
/ BOLT AGAINST THE BOLT.

Edwin u. Mead, of Boston, an indie
pendent, q man highly esteemed in lit
erary, philosophical and critical circles, and
a fayorite writer and lecturer, has come
out in monograph against the boilers who
s.ssail Mr. Blaine It has astonshcd all
Boston and is all The talk" in New Eng
land 1t Is, indeed. a bolt against the bolt
and. a the T-arelicr puts it, "one that is as
formidable as the instinct of fair play and
the impulse to deal justly with distin-
guishcd American, maiciouSly assaulted in
the house Of his friends, can make it. 1t
is doubtful if ever in the history of polit-
ical controversy a newspaper of iirst-class
prctensions was more completely con
denucd out Of its own mouth or more
clearly convicted Of 4 RASH inconsiderate
and inconsistent political course than is
the -fdJsr,isr by this calm but incisiFe re
view Of It's treatment of Mr. Blaine
Mead goes back TO 1876, when the Null
hgan letters came out, and shows that
the Adgert'ser, now opposing Blaine, then
said. after Mr. Blaines' investigation, that
&" nothing has been developed which makes
Mr., Blaine an unworthy person to receive
the nomination Again, after the Cincin-
natl Convention, the Adeertiscr declared
" Mr.. Blaine has lost nothing by the events
of the past months, and characterized the
accusations against him as maliciously
invented and maliciously circulated And
it added, of Blainc's assailants: Pouring
out upon him their slandcrous tales, they
had the assurance TO say that man about
whom there was so much scandal should
be out Of the question as 4 candidate pre-
sUmins that people will forget that they
were the authors of ninc-tcnths of all the
scandal themselves, and the only believers
in the other tenth. Taking pins point as
unimportant truth, they enveloped it with
a nebulous haze of falsehood and when
Mr.. Blaine, with a puff, blew away the
cloud and left the facts bare and admitted,
they have uttered in obstreperouS chorus
that he has confessed that there was some
thing in it. We submit that this is truth
full and unexaggerated statement of the sti-
made upon him" But while Mead brushes
tho AGv,rtSer beneath its own trip-hammer.
be does more in vigorous, telling protest
against tho increasing evil of personal
abuse of public men. He declares that it
has come to be almost enough to fix
the result of actual guilt on a man
to accuse him. and he adds
"This principle has been accepted and
acted upon in America to an extent that
has done more then anything else to
degrade our politics and make political life
distasteful and dreadful to so many of the
finer and better minds of the community
If its operation is not checked, our politics
is irredeemably given over to mediocrity
and the demagogue. Men Of Talents, to
whom reputation and the esteem of their
fellow-men are justly dear. will not devote
their talents, through a lifetime, to the
public service, if their good name is to be
abandoned to the mercy Of committee of
political assassinS, or lightly used to
point parable by some spasmodic virtue
There are some young voters and Indie
pendents - the writer believes that he
speaks for many such-who do not believe
that that sinister proyerb about smoke
counts for so much as a life of great sery-
ice, and who are unwilling to see il made
TO count for so much at this time; who be-
Keve, moreover, that this point Of just and
generous dealing with our public men, and
Of putting Islander TO its trumps, is of Ear
more moment TO our political life than any
thing touched upon in the dining-room of
Youpg's Hotel or the parlors of the Fifth
Averue When. therefore. new indie