Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1884-09-09
Blaine Repudiated.

Blaine Repudiated.
| A letter has been published from the
Hon. Thad. G. Pound, of Wisconsin, in
which he announces his purpose to oppose
Mr.. Blaine and support Gov. Cleveland for
the presidency. Mr.. Pound is perhaps the
most distinguished republican in Wiscon-
sin, and his opposition to Mr.. Blaine will
cause profound sensation throughout the
Northwest. He has for years been an un-
wavering leader in the republican party al
ways supporting the entire ticket, and has
been very prominent in its councils for
twenty years. He served three terms in
Congress, taking prominent part. At the
end of his third term he voluntarily retired
from public life to devote himself to pri-
vate enterprise. His reputation of Mr..
Blaine proceeds from no personal grievance
or disappointment, but from a firm convic-
ton that the republican nominee is not
the man for the place. The following are
extracts from Mr.. Pounds letter.
"Mr. Blaine, in my opinion, embodies
most in American politics that is menacing
to public morals and integrity in govern
ment. With long public career, mainly
di stinguished for sort of declamatory and
pugilistic statecraft, he is not the inspira-
| ton of single valuable policy or the au-
thor of an important statute, but, on the
contrary, has often suggested and support
ed unwise and bad and opposed good legis-
lation. With a record clouded by suspicion
and accusation # .jobbery and corruption,
undefended, he brings to us personal antag-
onisms which have torn and weakened our
party in the past, invading the administra-
tion of the lamented Garfield with demands
of ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS so virulent as to in
flame the spirit of assassination and culmi-
mating in the defeat of Judge FOlger and
consequent election of Grover Cleveland,
Governor of the Empire State Mr.. Blaine's
friends justified their detection, which de-
feated most excellent man, by the plea
of fraud in one proxy at the State conven-
| tiOn.
"But returning to the candidate. Him.
self a speculator, enjoying a fortune too
great to have been acquired by honest in
dustry, legitimate business enterprise, or
his country's service at $1,000 year, he
sympathizes with and profits by speculative
stock ijobbing and gambling methods of ac-
quiring wealth-methods which have
wrought ruin, disgrace and business disas-
ter beyond computation, schooled youth
and persuaded middle age to avoid honest
and useful industry, made suicide and in
sanity commonplace, unsettled values,
placed the fruits of the honest toiler in the
power of the Goulds and Armours to bear
down or bull up the markets as whim or
interest may dictate methods which re-
Gently gave us but an exaggerated illustra-
tion of their iniquitious consequences in the
Grant Il Ward million-dollar failure
and robbery.
reference to Blaine's Congressional rec
ord relating to subsidies, class legislation,
corporate exactions, &c., will readily satis-
fy the honest inquirer of his uniform sup
port of mOnopoles and indifference to the
common veal.
"The disingenuOusnesS OF his letter of ac-
ceptance is further betrayed by its signifi-
can't silence touching the events of the past
three years. Bringing down his historic
figures to the present would have revealed
the fiction involved in his statements
would have shown a marvellous shrinkage
in nominal values; would have noted the
downfall of business prosperity and business
morals, and would have pictured as few can
do, so graphically as he, the furnace fires
dying out, the wheels of factories standing
still, wages reduced, beggary usurping the
place of labor, bank and business failures,
creditors and depositors wantonly defraud-
ed, homes lost, and crookedness in public
affairs. Mr.. Blaine is Objectionable furth-
ermore for the company he keeps, for the
| friends he has made.
fWith no pronounced issues between the
two great parties, we can safely afford to
uioId topo M fhic
time to an honest man, though he be
democrat. And if grave questions of pub
lie policy were at issue they cannot be de-
termined by the Executive. This is the
prerogative of Congress, the law-making
branch, heretofore for a time and now un-
der democratic control. 1t is vastly more
| important to good government that the re-
publican party be restored to supremacy in
Congress than that the administration of
law be entrusted to an unworthy partisan
surrounded by bad counsel. While Mr..
Blaine is known to be unworthy, Governor
Cleveland has demonstrated his fitness and
worthiness for the position by his fidelity,
ability, and integrity in the discharge of his
executive duties as Mayor of Buffalo and
Governor of the great State of New York,
and in my opinion very large majority of
intelligent and unprejudiced voters believe
he should be elected. If one-half of the re-
publican voters who agree in this opinion
have the courage of their convictions and
vote conscientiously he will be triumphant
ly elected. The scandals affecting the do
mestic lives of all candidates should be
committed to the political ghouls and hye-
mas. While it is my fixed purpoS to sup
port Cleveland and Hendricks, it is no less
my determination to support all fit and
worthy nominees of the republican party"