Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1884-08-02
BLAINE's LETTER.

Country editors are hardly expected
to read carefully and comment learn
edly upon such long, dry production.
10 avoid an attempt at either, we ap-
propriate the editorial remarks of the
New York Herald. We consider the
Herald amply able to do the subject JUS
tice. 1t says: ave print as histori:
cal curiosity-but cannot conscientious
ly reccomend anybody except MIR.
Hewett and other sufferers from insom-
mia to attempt to read the whole of it at
a single sitting-a monstrousIy long
winded letter dated at Augusta, Me-,
last Tuesday, and signed, with great
respect, your obedient servant, James u
Blaine"
Presumably this is the document in
the composition of which, accor,iing to
the press reports from Augusta, Mr..
Blaine has been assisted for the last ten
daysby an intellectual bureau consist.
ing OF Mr.. William Walter Phelps, Mr..
Stephen b. Elkins, Mr.. Charles f.
Smith and Mr.. Whitelaw Reid, and it
looks, in length and in tenor, as if he
had adopted all their suggestions, SO
that it may be deemed product
of the combined intelligence COM
position of the Erckmann- Chatrian Or
der, or perhaps symposium which
we believe is the classical noun one of
the magazines attaches to its publica-
tions OF that sort. The subscriber, Mr..
Blaine, mentions in the first paragraph
that it is q letter of acceptance OF a
nomination for the presidency, and in
the last paragraph he calls it "survey
of our condition" from China to Peru.
If he had not thus identified it as one or
the other, and there had been no handy
means of authenticating its origin, we
should have guessed most of it to be
spiritual message from the much mud
died ghost Of the late Mr.. Henry C. Ca
rey, of Philadelphia, who, when in the
flesh, used to torment mankind with es-
says or episilcs ofsimiar substance and
dimensions.
A very large part ofthis Blaine-Dhelps
Elkins-Smith-Ried tonc-or, to speak
more elegantly and c0ncisely, of this
Augusta symposium" is applied to
discussion of the subject of f"protection"
and "free trade" which is debated in a
manner that surpasses the finest passa-
ges of Colonel Sellers OH the same sub
iect. The assessed value of all the
wealth of the country, according to
the census report of 1860, is assumed to
be the entire product of the labor of it's
whole population since John Smith
came to Jam estown, and inasmuch as
the census of 1880 more than doubled
the figures, that result is ascribcd to the
tariff, and the public are assured that if
they only will elect Mr.. Blaine president
he will contrive by means Of tariff,
that the increase shall continue in arith-
metical proportion, SO that before the
close OF his third term the hnmblest COL
ored Inhabitants each shall possess not
merely forty acres and mule," but a
brown stone house OH corner lot.
The notion that purity of administra-
tiom-purity of the record of the candi-
dates-iI the main issue in this presi-
dental canvass is entirely ignored by
| the contributors to the symposium. In
deed, bow could Messrs. Blaine and
Elkins be expected to acknowledge it1
Or how could Messrs. Phelps, Smith
and Reid be expected to do otherwise
than ignore it, ont of delicacy TO
Messrs. Blaine and Elkins, their part
ners in authorship? There is glim-
mering of appreciation that civil service
reform is a subject on which the popular
mind is somewhat exercised, and Mr..
Blaine does abandon his old preiudices
against "all that sort of stuff so far as TO |
declare that cOnsuls aud secretaries of
legation should speak and write the
languages of the countries to which |
they are appointed, making no excep-
ton in any case, not even in the Feciee
Islands. There is also glimmering
sense that the enormous surplus revenue
is matter which troubles some people,
and Mr.. Blaine suggests that they are
foolish to let that bother them, for if
need be 1t all can be used up at any mo-
L.,