The Valley Virginian. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1865-1895, 1884-09-18
The Mulligan Letters.

The last batch of private letters which
passed between James G. Blaine and War
rem Fisher in 1869 and 1870, are being cir
culated in the Democratic papers at this
time. The original charge in 1876 was
that Mr.. Blaine had used his official posi-
ton as Speaker of the House Of Represen-
tatives to further his private interests in
Fort Smith Railroad stock securities
There were several sentences in the first
letters published in 1876, which were con-
torted to mean something of the kind
The late batch relieves the first instalment
of all such construction and proves conclu-
sively that all the transactions were purely
private and personal-having nothing in
them that can be even strained into such
Interpretation. There is not a word or SEN
tence in them that either Mr.. Blaine or
his friends need be ashamed of, but
throughout the entire correspondence,
there is candor, directness, scrupulous re-,
gard for his word and the most sensitive
jealousy of his honor as a man. The shame
rest with Fisher and Mulligan in exposing
a friendly private correspondence and the
Democratic party for greedily seizing upon
it to make political capital. AS Mr.. Blaine
says his ''only desire is that every voter in
the United States might read the letters
for himself, and not form his iudg-
ment from editorial Misrepresentation in
partizan journals. To do so, would
satisfy any one that there is nothing
in them that Mr.. Blaine should wish
to conceal, and nothing that would
prejudice him in the public mind. 1t is
the mendacious spirit and malignant in
tent of his political enemies that should
be reprobated.
This last attempt to defame his charac-
ter will result in his favor and make him
thousands of votes among honorable men
who would have voted against him, but for
the publication. Every movement and
every devisement of the Democratic party
gain advantage by personal assaults upon
Mr.. Blaine have proven boomerang. The
exposure of all the falsehoods and misrepre-
sensations have been so prompt and effect
i've that their preparation and preparation
have been apositive advantage. And inn
instance has this been the case so effective
ly as in this last conspiracy. The publ
cation of the letters have been real SER
vice to Mr.. Blame, for they furnish the
proof conclusive that the gravamen of the
original charge that he used his official po-
sition as speaker for private gain is COM
pletely refuted and exploded. With that
phase of the matter and no other the pub
lie felt concerned. In the light the ''Mul-
llgan affair is now revealed, Mf Blaine
is relieved of all suspicion and stands vim
dictated by the very agency it was hoped to
blacken his name.
The huge volume of mud and slime that
has been thrown upon him only brings him
out in holder relief as the filth is brushed
away, and he stands to-day higher in
public estimation and freer from faint
than when the canvass opened. SLAM
der and persecution were never so I'M
scrupulously and recklessly directed
against public man before in the his
tory of this country, and never have they
so effectually returned to plague the in
ventors. Ii there were no other evidence
this alone would be sufficient to con-
vince the American people that the Dem
ocratic party is unfit to rule this grand
nation, and that the libertine and de-
bauchee it has chosen as it's leader, is the
faithful representative of it's character
and the moral atmosphere in which 1t
breathes and moves.