St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-10-26
This means selling and trading right and left
Who will come ont ahead in the scramble for
spoils no one can safely say.
The Wisconsin Independents Prepare For
the Piumed Knights Reception-They
Ask Him About the Spencer
Rifle and Other Jobs.


A Milwaukee special of October "a, says: n.
S. Murphy. secretary of the Independent cen
tral committee, has prepared an open letter to
James G. Blaine, who arrives in this city to-
morrow at 80 p m Thousands of copies of
it have been issued tonight. They will be dis
tributed among the crowd which will gather
here tomorrow. Mr.. Blaine will also be sup
piled with copy. The letter is ably written and
contains some very pertinent questions for Mr..
Blaine's consideration. The letter says:
For more than a month the nation has seen in
your person the unexpected sight of the presi-
Dental candidate of great party passing from
state TO state in an undisguised canvassing tour,
seeking votes for your own election. In this
starring trip you have visited Massachusetts,
Connecticut New York, New jersey Pennsyl-
vania, Ohio, West Virginia, Michigan, Indiana,
and Illinois. 1t is announced by authority that
you will also come TO Milwaukee to address the
people of this metropolis upon the political is
sues and in defense of your own candidacy for
The supreme Office in this Republic. Passing
over the propriety of this canvass, now that you
have taken the stump in yonr own behalf, speak
ing for great body of Republicans in Wisconsin
we desire to call your attention to certain ques-
tons which have become the feature of the cam
paign among US. They have caused the aliena-
ton from the party of large
body of influential and respectable
and shame seen that you have thus far declined
to explain or deny serious charges of infdelity
TO public trusts committed by you, and until
these accusations, based upon documentary evil
dence and your own nnimpeachable letters, can
be cleared away, thousands of men in Wisconsin
must conscientiously refuse to vote for you, the
first Republican presidential candidate whom
they have ever deserted. We fail to find in the
letters anything save proof that over and over
again you used the great office of speaker for
your own pecuniary advantage and went to the
unutterable depth of calling upon others to sign
for your certificates of character that you knew
to be utterly false.
The questions to which we desire to direct
your attention, and concerning which we are
anxious to hear from you in your speech to our
citizens, and which we regard as far more i'm
portant in this canvass than are your views upon
either the tariff or the bloody shirt, as fol-
lows:
l. That during the first year of your congress
sional life, namely, 1868, you became interested
by purchase, without paying for the same, in a
block of stock in the Spencer Arms company, d
corporation which grew rich out of government
patronage bestowed through your influence, you
concealing from the department your interest as
a stakeholder in that company, by means
whereof you accumulated large amount of
money.
2. That you were an active leader in the house
in the advocacy of bill reducing the govern
ment mortgage of S64, 900 900 on the Pacific rail
roads, to a second and worthless mortgage, all in
the interest of those corporations; and that you
afterwards opposed the Thurman bill, which was
intended to repair, as far as possible, the mis-
chief done by the passage of the act which you
supported.
3. That you acquired a large interest in the
stock of the Northern Pacific Railroad company,
to use your language: "By strange revolution
of circumst ances." which the uncharitable con
N without idpta fi0 hai
you afterward sold that stock at a very high
profit TO yourself, and at time when you were
a representative in congress and speaker of the
house. and while the said railroad company was
dependent for the value of its franchises upor
the action of congress.
The fourth question charges Blaine with hav
ing falsifed in various ways, and instances his
denial ofhaving owned coal lands in the Hook
ing valley or stock in any corporation in tina
valley when autograph letter of December 80
1880, 'shows that you transmitteds25, 900 in pay
ment of your subscription to stock in q corpora
tion possessed of these lands
1t charges that in 1880 Blaine authorized Mr.
Fisher to pay $4,000 to obtain possession OF the
Mullgan letters, and planned a European friT
for Mulligan and Fisher, all of which is now de
MED by Blaine,
The recent re Violations from the British blue
book disclosing Blaine's actions while secretary
of state on the rights of American citizens com
pose fifth question.
The letter closes as follows:
It's upon these points that the citizens oil
Milwaukee desire to hear from you. And in be
half Of large and intelligent body of Republican,
composing the membership of this club, we hav,
the honor TO ask that you give, if you can,
prompt and full denial and explanation of al
these charges.