St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1884-10-27
The Wisconsin Independents Prepare For
the Plumed Knights Reception-They
Ask Him About the Spencer


Rife and Other Jobs
Milwaukee special of October "a, saws: N
S. Murphy, secretary of the independent CEN
trail committee, has prepared an open letter to
James q. Blaine, who arrives in this city to-
morrow at 80 p. IN, Thousands of copies of
1t 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 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 your own behalf, speak
Ing Tor 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 aiena-
ton from the party of large
body of influential and respectable
Republicans who have with sorrow
and shame seen that you have thus far declined
to explain or deny serious charges of inidelity
to public trusts committed by you, and until
these accusations based upon documentary evil
dence and your own niHlpeachable 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 rs far more i'm
portant in this canvass than are your views upon
either the tariff or the bloody shirt, as fol-
lows:
/. That during the first year of your congress
sional life, namely, 1863, you became interested
by purchase, without paying for the same, i'll a
block of stock in the Spencer Arms company, a
corporation which grew rich ont of government
patronage bestowed through your influence, you
concealing from the departu ent your interest as
stakeholder in that company, by means
whereof you accumulated a large amount of
money.
2. That you we're an active leader in the house
in the advocacy of bill reducing the govern
OF on the racine rail-
roads, to 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 possible, the mis-
chief done by the passage of the act which you
supported.
3. That you acquired large interest in the
stock of the Northern Pacific Railroad company,
to use your language: '.By strange revolution
of circumstances which the uncharitable con-
strue to mean without consideration and that
you afterward sold that stock at a very high
profit TO yourself, aiBi at time when you were
representative III congress and speaker Of the
house, and while the said railroad company was
dependent for the value of its franchises upon
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 that
| valley when an Autograph letter of December 30.
1880, "shows that you transmittedS25, 900 in pay
ment of your subscription 10 stock in a corpora
| ton possessed of these lands"
1t charges that in 1880 Blaine authorized Mr.
Fisher to pay $4,000 to obtain possession of the
Mulligan letters, and planned European trip
for Mulligan and Fisher, all of which is now de-
MED by Blaine,
The recent revelations from the British blue
book disclosing Blaine's actions while secretary
of state on the rights of American citizens com.
pose a fifth question.
The letter closes as follows:
tits upon these points that the citizens OF
Milwaukee desire TO hear from you. And in be-
half OF large and intelligent body of Republicans
/ composing the membership of this club, we have
! the honor TO ask that you give, il you can.
prompt and full denial and explanation of ali
| these charges.