Iowa County democrat. [volume] (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1877-1938, 1884-06-13
REASONS For oPPoslNe BLAINE.

| James ". Dlalne as Inc IepuDllcdI
candidate for president. The article
is well worthy of perusal. While il
gives in concise form and unequiv.
ocal language the case against Mr.
Blaine it cannot be termed a railing
accusation. The very high standing
and conservative tendencies of The
Post ought to give the article con-
siderable weight with independent
voters. 1t says:
correspondent, whose letter we print in
another column. desires some explanation OF
what he considers the sighting or hostile refer
ence to Mr. james G. Blaine which so frequent
ly appear in the Evening Post, and which he
suspects must be, in some degree at least, the
product of private malice. We think he is
entitled, as are our readers generally, to some
such explanation, and we shall proceed to make
1t cheerfuly starting however, with the assertion
that no editor or any other person connected
with the Evening Post in any capacity has, TO
our knowledge, had any difference. quarrel or
controversy with Mr.. Blaine, or has ever received
any injury from him whatever or bears him
any personal grudge. Whenever he is discussed
in these columns he is discussed either as the
holder of an office, or a candidate for public
Office, Nor Go we make any reference to his
private affairs except when those affairs have
or appear to have a direct and important re-
lation to his character and claims as a public
man. In fact all our comments on him and
his doings are due to the fact that we consider
his temperance a candidate for the highest
Office in the Government, or any other, as an
audacious proceeding, which can only be
accounted for by supposing him to have an
and unwarrantable confidence in
the popular forgetfulneses.
1t Is the duty Of all those who do not wish TO
see the Republican party burdened during the
next summer with the hopeless task of
white washing Mr.. Blaine, to set forth briefly now
that his boom has become SO lively, the charges
which he will have to answer before he can be
elected to the Presidency 1t would be lamentable
indeed, and certainly disastrous. if the task
prescribed for Republican journalists by the
should be not the discussion of
great questions of public policy, like the tariff,
or the civil service, the railroads, or the cur
rency, but laborious examination of Mr.. James
6. Blaine's railroad transactions. We mean, as
far as we are concerned. to avoid this if we can,
by taking up his railroad transactions now
before the hustle and excitement of the canvass
begins.
The first of these charges is that in the spring
session of Congress in 1869 bill was before the
.rbi al, ht
a land grant to the Little Rock and Fort Smith
railroad of Arkansas, in which some of Mr..
Blaine's friends were interested; that an attempt
10 defeat ii by an amendment was made, and
was on the point of being successful and its
were in despair; at this juncture;
Mr.. Blaine. being then Speaker of the House,
sent a message to General Logan to make the
point of order Il at the amendment was not
germane to the purposes of the bill; that this
point of order was accordingly raised and
sustained by Mr.. Blaine as speaker,
and the bill was in this manner saved; that Mr..
Blaine wrote at once - the promoters calling
to the service he had rendered them,
and finally after some negotiations secured from
them, as his reward for it, his appointment as
agent of the bonds of the road, on commission
in Maine, and received a number of such bonds
as shis percentage; that the leading features OF
this transaction appeared in two letters of MS
made public, dated respectively June
20 and October 4, 1859.
second, that he asserted at first on the floor of
the house with a view to covering up this affair,
that the Little Rock and Fort Smith Road ode
rived its life, and franchise, and value wholly
the evidence subsequently taken by the Con-
gresslonal committee disclosed the fact that the
road derived the value on which these bonds
were based from the act of congress of which
Mr.. Blaine secured the passage, in the manner
above described in 1869; that he asserted on the
floor of the house that the bonds he received
. were bought by him at precisely the same
rate as others paid" whereas the evidence
showed that the bonds came to him as COM
missions ON sales which he secured the oppor
tunity of making through his aid given to the
work in congress, and that he solicited this
agency, baslng his request on the aid so given,
and that he paid nothing whatever for the
bonds, the consideration being his ruling as
Speaker and his subsequent efforts to sell them.
What he did with these bonds-seventy-t five in
uncertain; but strong, though not
evidence was produced to show that
they were taken off his hands at good price
by the Union Pacific Railroad Through the
OF one Caldwell,) which then
also in trouble. The investigation on this
point was never pushed home owing to the
sudden illness. which overlook Mr.. Blaine in
1876.
Third That Mr.. Blaine in 1870 made an offer,
as appeared by his own letters, to one of his
railroad friends, Mr.. Warner Fisher, of Boston,
to sell him a half of one twenty-fourth in the
Northern Pacific railroad, Immediately after
Jay Cookies contract had been perfected,
and the national legislation had been OBJ
tanned" he having, he said, come into control
Of this interest by strange revolution of
that the amount of stock which
This would represent, he said, would be $4,000,
and the number of acres of land NEARLY
l75,0G0." 1.-The chance" he said "was very
rare one; he couldn't touch it," but he offered
1t to Mr.. Fisher for S25,OO0 and Mr.. Fisher
accepted ii, and paid the money, but for some
reason the stock was never de-
Iivered, and Mr.. Blaine subsequently, returned
The amount. This transaction was very pc
GUITAR one LOT the following TedSOus.
1t appears from acts of congress relating to
The road, none of which are of older date than
July , 1861, that the authorized stock was
slOO, OO0 900; with land grant estimated by
The commissioners of public lands at 100000
acres, or "A, 423 square miles. The line of the
road wac 1000 miles long; and at the time of
Blaine's letter TO Fisher, it was, he says, being
built on bonds at $4,000 mile, which have
made a bonded debt OF S50O0O,O0o. Mr. Blaine
as member of congress and speaker of the house
must be taken to have known about the cir
cumStances of The road, and there therefore
seems no escape from the conclusion that his
offer was based on the expectation that he
would receive almost as gift share i'll an
enterprise dependent for It's value on legisla-
ton in which he had taken part. Mr. Blaine's
defence in the case of this transaction consisted
At first of denial that he had any transaction
with the road at ALL but he afterwards rested
on the fact that he had 10 pecuniary interest
in the transfer. and that it never actually
made; but through this might be defence to
suit against him for a conspiracy to defraud
purchasers of stock, 1t does not effect in any way
the nature of the offer. His relations with
Warren Fisher were in 1870. as appeared from
the evidence such that any favor done the latter
or gift presented him. had a direct pecuniary
value.
Fourth. Because he obtained certain letters,