The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1886-03-03
Mr.. Blaine's Second Volume.

The mugwump papers are much
agitated over Mr.. Blaine's pen por-
traits of some of his prominent politi-
cal opponents in the second volume of
his "Twenty Years in Congress" He
is charged with treating them in very
abusive way. 1t is probably true that
something he has written of men and
events has been colored by personal
feeling or prejudice, but, after all, his
sketches of public men are mainly true
to life, and his narratives of political
contests are judicially fair. Mr.. Blaine
gets credit for keeping himself and his
services to his party and country in the
background. The mugwumps cannot
forgive his truthful sketch of Carl
Schurz. Mr.. Blaine says of that cratic
statesman
He has not become rooted and grounded
anywhere, has never established home, is
not identified with any community, is not
interviewer with the interests of any To-
cality or of any class has no fixed relation
to church or state, to professional, political
or social life, has acquired none of that
companionship and confidence which unite
old neghbors in the closest ties and give to
friendship its fullest development, its most
gracious attributes. The same unsteadi-
ness has entered as striking feature in the
public career of Mr. Schurz. The party he
upheld yesterday met with his bitterest de-
nunciatons the day before, and tomorrow
he will support the political organization of
those measures he is the most merciless
censor of to-day. He boasts himself ncap-
able of attachment to party, and in that re-
spect radically differs from the great body
of his American fellow-citizens. He can
not even comprehend that exalted senti-
ment of honorable association in public life
which holds together successive generations
of men-a sentiment which in the United
States causes the democrat to reverence the
memory of Jefferson and Jackson and
Douglas, which causes his opponent to
glory in the achievements of Hamilton and
Clay and Lincoln a sentiment which in
England has bound the wings in common
faith and common glory, from Walpole &c
Gladstone, and their more conservative ri.
walls in a creed of loyalty whose disciples
from Bolingbroke to Beaconsfield, include
many of the noblest of British PATRIOTS
1t cannot be denied that what Mr..
Blaine has said of Mr.. Schurz is true
enough; nor does it detract anything
from the valuable services rendered by
Mr.. Schurz to the republican party anG
the country before he took his fina
plunge into the abyss of mugwumpery
OF General Buffers characteristics, Mr..
Blaine speaks as truthfully when he
says:
He was distinguished by habits of in
dustry had the patience and the power re
quired for thorough investigation, anG
seemed to possess a keen insight into tn,
personal defects, the motives and the weak
ness of his rivals. He was audacious in as
sault, apparently reckless in his modes O
Defense and in all respects a debater O
strong and noble characteristics. Usuall
merciless in his treatment of an aggressiy
adversary, he not infrequently dispaye
generous and even magnanimous traits. III
had the faculty of attaching to himself, a
most as a personal following, those men
hers of the house who never came in cor
tact with bin, while he regarded his in
tellectual peers of both political parties a
natural foes whom he was destined at som
time to meet in combat, and for whose owe
throw he seemed to be in constant prepi
ration"