St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-02-11
A wAsTE-BAsKET STATESMAN


Senator SHERMAN is determined to find
some sort of an issue for a presidential
canvass. The senator has been on a red
hot trail for the presidential nomination for
the last twelve or fifteen years, but like the
slow dog in the royal kennel be never
strikes the scent until the game has been
bagged. Now the senator proposes to
profit by past experience and shows a de-
termination to shy his castor into the ring
in advance of competitors. The first thing
candidate needs is a distinctive issue.
The Ohio senator thinks he has one that
will do TO stand on. 1t is a waste basket,
and Mr.. SHERMAN will henceforth be
known as the waste-basket candidate. The
controversy between the senate and
the president relating to removals
from Office has given Senator SHERMAN
splendid opportunity to give his issue a
public airing In the caustic criticism
which the presiding officer of the senate
passed upon the chief magistrate of the ma
ton for his obstinacy in refusing to allow
the senators to rummage among the private
papers of his Office, Mr.. SHERMAN lays
down the doctrine that statesman. who
not fit for public inspection, ought to pass
it into the waste basket. THAT is what /
always do,'' remarks the distinguished
Ohioan as he mOps the perspiratiOn from
his brow and falls back into the chair occu-
pied by the president of the senate with an
air of dignity that would have done credit to
Rome in its palmiest senatorial days, and
with the consciousness of one who has ut
tered great moral principle which 10
one will dare to controvert. The wisdom
of Senator SHERMAN's political maxim will
doubtless strike Mr. BLAINE with exceed
ing great force, as he recalls the incident of
the MUIIIGAN letters. and signs because he
did not have the foresight TO utilize the
waste basket as the Ohio senator has been
in the habit of doing. There are other PROM
inent political leaders who will also recOg-
nize the wisdom of the SHERMAN waste
basket theory. The lack of a waste basket
has been the ruin of more than one ambi-
tiOus statesman.
% But how curious it would be to ransack
through that SHERMAN waste basket, if
such thing was possible. What rare old
literature would he found slowed away
many volumes of political romance. The
story Of ELIZA PINKsToE's life and how
she secured the spells for defeated party,
would be an interesting chapter that
could be put together from the scraps which
have fallen into that waste basket. And
then there would be the secrets of the Chi
cago convention of 1880. and how secre-
tary of the treasury can utilize government
funds to buy colOred delegates without
being detected in the act, or how a candi-
date can inveigle his friends into paying the
hotel bills and incidental expenses of can
vass in the convention without loss to the
candidate. All these bits of unwritten his
tory would make entertaining "reminiscences
if the contents of the SHERMAN waste
basket could be examined. But the most
interesting chapter of all that could be
written from this hid-away material would
be how a public official with salary of
So, 600 year could manage TO live COM
fortably and support a family in handsome
style and from the surplus of his salary. with
in the short space of thirty years. salt away
the snug little sum of 1000, 600 or So. OOO.-
600. How man can manage to do this is
one of the problems OF finance which Mr.
SHERMAN seems to have mastered, bnt
which he has failed to make public. Taking
it altogether the contents of the SHERMAN
waste basket would make the most enter
tanning Literature that could be published,
and il put into book form. would outselI
BLAINE's Twenty Years in Congress ten to
one. 1t is barely possible that the senator
has such thing in contemplation and is
just beginning to advertise it,