Lexington weekly intelligencer. (Lexington, Mo.) 1871-1887, 1886-03-27
THE DIFFERENCE.

Our contemporary, the Post, seems
to us to be doing rather violent partisan
service when it says:
"Mr. Blaine may have been i'm mum.
erous rings 1t will be observed how
ever that he is not in the PAN Electric, ,
ring. That ring is composed exclusive
~ OF 'reformers;' and Blaine never as
pired TO be a 'reiormer.'"
We have read the evidence i'm the
Pan- Electric business carefully, and we
fail to see in it anything of the nature
of the Credit Mobilier, DeGolyer or
Mulligan matters. These were all
schemes dependent upon the govern
ment for support, the first two of which
Mr.. Garfield was in, and the last Mr..
Blaine.
When the Pan Electric company was
started the democratic members of con-
gress who took shares in it were not
aware that the government would have
anything to do with it. 1t is in evil
dence that none of them have by vote
or act used their official position in its
behalf or offered to do so. The very re-
verse was overwhelmingly proven in the
credit Mobilier. De eGolyer and Mulligan
cases, and yet the republicans held that
Messrs. Garfield and Blaine were hon
orable men.
We regret that any democratic con-
gresham holds speculative stock, but
Mr.. Pulitzer, who first divulged and
made sensation of this matter, which
helped to sell his newspaper, the World,
said in his testimony. that he did not
see that there had been any corrupt act
done by the holders of this stock, only
that it placed them in an indelicate and
equivocal position. A congressman
has right to own property, stocks as
well as realty ;but he has no right to
accept $4,000 fee from firm seeking
contract for paving, as Mr.. Garfield
did while he was the chairman of the
committee in congress which had to
pass on the appropriation to pay his
client; nor has he right to do as Mr..
Blaine did when speaker, 1S69-75, use
his influence as speaker to further a
railroad or other speculative project;
nor has he right to vote upon a stock
in which he is interested, though num-
bers OF republican congressman do so
every time national bank question is
up.
Mr.. Garland so far from making an
offer to do this, Gas Blaine did repeated
ly to Fisher and Mulligan when the
telephone case came to the department
over which he presides, declined to
have anything whatever to do with it,
as an honest judge would on the bench
when case came before him in which
he was interested. He would not re.
sign his judgeship, but he would de-
cline to act in that particular matter.
Our republican friends swallowed Gar
field, Credit Mobilier, DeGolyer and
all; they did not gag even at Blaine
" ieh hiS iSOhihS ItCOIti, Dtlt INeN nave
sudden spasm of virtue at the mere
appearance of evil in a democrat. We
would rather democratic senators and
cabinet ministers should hold no specu-
lative stocks of any kind, but whenever
one of them does as Garfield did, or
as Blaine's own hand wrote him down
as doing, we shall lie for ousting him
from office quicker than creased light
ming, not to say pan electricity.
However all that may be, our repub-
lican friends will do we'll to remember
that the democracy has never vet gone
so far as to nominate for the presidency
any man who was even accused of
using his position in congress for gain.
This we especially commend to the
consideration of Blaine shriekers for
1888, who are now engaged in erecting
a standard for their man which he can
not chin even from the top of a STEP
ladder.