The Ottawa free trader. [volume] (Ottawa, Ill.) 1843-1916, 1888-06-16
lions on trade has ruined England, and
shows exactly how the same thing would
ruin the United States.
THE CHICAGO CONVENTION.

The Chicago convention will be thu
most notable convention Of the republican
party since 1860. Then the new borr
party gathered It's strength for the battl,
with slavery, and II won. That contes
concluded, II began Its decline, which he's
been continuous since 1872, since when I.
has, at no time, had the confidence or sup
port of the people rs represented IN con
gress. Having failed In It's treatment OF
all the great questions that have come uI
for settlement since the war, II has twice
been defeated and to-day represents moth
Ing save the vicious dogma that American:
can Ee saved from ruin only by the impo-
sition of high taxes. There is nothing
else for the party to exist for. IL Ii
merely the party of the opposition,
lnlthis dilemma II goes 10 Chicago, there
TO place in nomination man who, In all
probability, will be the last candidate OF
the great republican party of the sixties
10 be the leader In campaign on plat
form of high taxes and sectional luminosity
The party is far from harmonious, and
that the convention will develop first
class "ruction" is not improbable Al
ready the city is full Of bad blood, which
bubbles forth on occasion, and which the
delegates do not attempt TO conceal. The
first and leading cause of wrath is the
conduct Of the Chicago republican press
which, when the national committee met
to select the convention city, promised fair
treatment of all the candidates; instead Of
which they have and do Systematically
"boom" Gresham, ignoring entirely or
damning all other presuming aspirants
TO the honor. The intensity of the feeling
for Gresham Of Chicago republicans and
the extent to which they will go in his
interest, was we'll illustrated on Thursday,
when mine host Drake of the Grand
Pacific refused to allow Blaine's picture to
be hung in the rotunda of his hotel by Col
Babcock, but which the latter did place
there NJ et drmis. The incident, In the
minds of many, has punctured the Gresham
boom; the cry Is any one but he now,
Gresham's Is however, but one of a multi
tude of "booms.' That his has been sub
stantially wrecked, as many of his friends
fear, does not lessen the ire of the other
candidates, who on Thursday scored a
"knock. down" by cutting down Chicagos,
and, therefore, Gresham's, quota, of ad-
mission tickets from 700 to G35 Ut had
once before been reduced from 1000. thus
reducing the "claque" for Gresham to ig-
nominious proportions.
Surprising Gresham eliminated from the
contest, still the chances for uniting on any
other of the candidates named do not
seem to be favorable. Sherman leads, no
doubt, but the Harrison, Alger snd Allison
men with the nOn-Committals, control the
convention against him; and that the ex-
IRENE protectionists will be able to unite
the convention for the ''Hyperboryean
lcicle" is very doubtful; and whichever
way one turns the other blooms" are but
"boomlets;" vigorous but impotent
minorities, with the field" In all cases
against them. What can be tie outcome :?
The truth is, in spite Of destinations, it
begins to look "Blaineish" in Chicago, The
Grand Pacific incident has put Blaine
again into the field. 1t may have been
premature, but 1t is undeniable that the
only way out of the middle poin.s toward
Blaine, and ii is not impossible that even
now Blaine may be forced to the front as
was Garfield in 1880, because there is no
other man to unite upon.
The Chicago spectacle is called an
embarrassment of riches" 1t looks like
the last tluunderings of a party bewildered
by the certainty of defeat but still fighting
against the inevitable, intensified by the
knowledge that defeat now means the
disntegration of the party itself