The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-08-29
SENATOR HoAE.
HERcoLITE.


A Letter Effectively Meeting Mr.. schurz's
Charges Against Blaine.
Letter in Worcester (Mass) Spy.
Mr.. Schurz says that the election of Mr..
Blame will be declaration by the American
people that honesty will be no longer one of the
requirements Of government / think Mr..
Schurz is entirely mistaken here, also 1t will
be declaration on the part of the American
people that they do not agree with him in his es-
innate of Mr.. Blaine. 1t will be declaration
that they do not find in Mr.. Blaine's conduct and
letters what Mr. Schurz thinks he finds there.
1t win be a declaration that they agree with DR..
Clark when he paid Mr.. Blaine his glowing
tribute of admiration and honor, when all
these facts were fresh and familiar 1t
will be declaration that they agree with Mr..
Curtis, who declared that Mr.. Blaine's vindica-
ton of the principal charge against him was tri-
umphant. 1t will be declaration that they
agree with Mr.. Blaine's neighbors Of his own
district and of his own State with the repre-
sentatives of a vast majority of the Republicans
of the country who have three times, since all
these charges were made, declared for him as
their candidate for the presidency. It will be
declaration that they agree with the Governor
and the Legislature of Maine when they twice
in succession made him senator 1t will be
declaration that they agree with Garfield when
he made him Secretary of State, and with the
almost half Democratic Senate when they, with
out an instant's hesitation, confirmed him for
that high Office.
Mr.. Schurz says "The friends of Mr. Blaine
say his oifense has been condoned." They say
no such thing They say he has been tri-
umphantly acquitted They find him not guilty
of these foul and injurious charges. They say
that in this complicated matter these repeated
tokens Of public confidence and affection ought
to outweigh million times the breath of rumor
and of slander, or even the possibility OF an ad
verse Interpretation of the meaning of single
phrase. He says that our answer is only the
cry of party. l think him mistaken in this also
Your party is but the instrument by which free
men execute their will. But it differs from
other instruments in this 1t is an indispensa-
BILE instrument. It is an instrument made up Of
men, and, practically, of all the men who wish
to accomplish the things You wish to accomplish
and deem vital to the prosperity, honor and
glory of your country. 1t is an instrument
itself possessing intelligence, Judgment, con-
science, purpose, will.
A majority of that party must necessarily de-
termine its plan of battle, and the commander
under whom it will fight. And when you sepa-
rate yourself from the party whose principles
and purposes are yours, you effectually abandon
those principles and purposes. You might
well say, when thearmy of the Union was about
to engage the enemy of Gettysburg or Lookout
mountain or Five Forks, that you didn't approve
the plan of battle or didn't like the general, and
that for that day only, you would go over to the
enemy or fight at another place. You cannot do
it without being deserter. No matter whether
you dislike Grant or Meade or Sheridan. The
battle on which the hope of Union and humanity
hangs is to be fought there on the lines they
form, No man knows this better than Grover
Cleveland. Il am chosen, he says Ito repre-
sent the plans purposes and policy of the Demo
cratic party" If elected he will do IT James
G. Blaine is selected to execute the plans, pur-
poses and policy of the Republican party. And
he will do it You may not like the general the
commissioned authority Of the Republican party
has selected. But you fight on the, Democratic
side, with the Democratic party, against the Re-
publican on every thing on which those two parties
differ, if you vote for Grover Cleveland. If you
elect Cleveland You abandon further hope of
civil-service reform for this generation. You
take the side of free trade against protection.
You bid farewell for a lifetime to honest cleo
tions in the South. You suffer the great Nor
mon cancer to spread over the breast Of the Re
public. There is but one thing on which Grover
Cleveland has Enthusiastically planted himself.
That is, that if elected, he will
be a party instrument What he
echoes in his letter In that feeble document,
which, as compared with Mr.. Blaine's, is as q
mole-hill to the Allegheny mountains, he de-
clares that when ''the party has outlined its
policy and declared its principles, nothing more
is required of the candidate than the suggestion
of certain weil-known truths Is he for protec
ton? Nobody knows Does he wish to put
down Mormonism2 Nobody knows. Is he in
favor Of repeating the tenure Of Office lawl
Nobody knows There is not a single question
at issue before the people in regard to which you
have any warrant of his action, except in his
avowed purpose to carry out the will of his
party.
Mr. Sehurz further says that if anybody here
after charges that the opposition to Mr.. Blaine
is freetrade movement it will be lie. Hither-
to it may have been mistake. But since he
has reminded you that they were ready TO sup
port Mr.. Edmunds, you viii lie if you repeat
the statement Well, it is true, they favored
the nomination of Mr.. Edmunds, who is q pro-
tectionist. But is it not true that every news
paper and every prominent man who has come
out against Blaine, leaving the Republican party
this year, has strong leaning to free tradei
Do you think of an exceptions The men who
love, honor and support Mr.. Blaine have quite
as lofty an ideal of purity and integrity in pub
lie station as those who oppose him. They make
no distinction between public and private virtue.
II man be not controlled by the law of right
and duty in private life, he lie not to be trusted
amid the temptation of public Office, We will
vote for no corrupt or unclean man for Presi-
dent At the same time we do not mean to help
any party to gain the presidency by crime.
said in 1876, just after the Belknap trial
that there had been not only less corruption
relatively to the size of the country inn twelve
years that followed the rebellion, bun slsss sis-
solutely than In the twelve years of administfa
ton Of Washington and John Adams. That Is
equally true III we compare the last twenty
years with the first twenty under the Constitu-
tion The independent address enumerates some
recent cases of dishonesty in high places In
some Of them retribution has been tardy In
some there has been natural but indefensible
reluctance to accept evidence of guilt against
political associates. But in the main these are
cases where dishonesty has been detected and
remanded to private life by Republicans them
selves. The party has been growing better and
better twas better in 6S than in a. better in 76
than in '6S, better in 84 than III go Attention
is called to the fact that there are unworthy
men still conspicuous think it likely. Whers
ever victorious army is on the march you will
see these vultures flying in the air The
company Of men who have formed hasty
and unjust Judgment of Mr. Blaine contains
many persons whom love and honor, many Of