The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1888-05-24
j Mr.. BLAINE.

It is again reported that Mr.. Blaine
has peremptorily declined the presiden-
tial nomination but this time the declin-
alton. does not carry great weight owing
to the fact that it,is In the form of an in
terview with areporterfor the New York
Press. The following, dated at Paris,
is what the correspondent cabled to his
paper in New York: .,
The stories that have been in circula-
ton on the other side of the Atlantic that
the intimate friends of James G. Blaine,
while discrediting any announcement
that he would accept the republican NOM
nation if it were offered him, have never
theless been quietly working in almost
all the states to secure delegates for him,
after the first ballot, were all cabled over
here. The publication here of the actual
figures of the supposed Blaine managers
in New York city, however, gives a new
impetus to the Blaine talk.
The minute this news arrived, took
the most strenuous means to find out
what Mr.. Blaine's attitude on the mo-
ment is, and l am happy to say that
my efforts have been successful. He said
without equivocation that his Florence
letter and his later interview, which Mr..
Crawford secured for the World, repre-
sented his attitude with complete truth.
He had felt sure, he said, that after his
letter stating that his name would not
60 before the Chicago convention had
been published the many acknowledged
leaders of the republican party east and
west, would be actively pushed for the
nd 1,o Id 10 ~
they had been put forward so honestly,
and he could not see why so many should
assume, even i'll the matters of the great
personal interests, as we'll as to those of
his party, that it was impossible for him
to be honest He did not want to be a
candidate, and he had reasons for not
wanting to be candidate which were
personal to himself and which as could
so readily be imagined, he was under no
obligation to make known. The fact
was he had been through one terribly
hard fight. 1t had been cruel strain upon
his family also; and while he could never
be accused of Willingly Sinking any of
the duties of leadership which the repub-
ican party had honered him with, he yet
felt that he had right to draw out and
leave the fight to other hands, and es-
pecially since they were plentiful and
quite capable of winning the victory for
protection and other good republican
ideas.
When called Mr.. Blaine's attention to
the reported fact that his friends in New
York city, ex-senator Platt, Stephen B.
Elkins, Editor Reid and others, were
quietly working for him, or at least were
taking no pains to discourage those in
New York state and elsewhere, who
were disposed to favor him from first to
last at the convention, the Maine states
man said that he knew nothing about it.
Mr.. Blaine has grown very gray since
last saw him, five months ago. AS he
old after he is fifty-five. But if he is a
sick man l am unable to discover it.
Aside from touch of the govt now and
then, which very naturally has a tenden-
cy to make him unhappy and irritable
for the moment, he is the same. whole
hearted, charming man. He is certainly
enjoying himself intensely.