Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1892-06-06
rFRoM A STAFF CORRESPONDENT. ]

rPRoM A STAFF CORRESPONDENCE
MINNEAPoLIs, June 5.-Blaine's resig
nation is the only item of news to mark this
convention. The Presidents determination
to get his terms is responsible for this and
all the other complications at Minneapolis.
Following the bad precedents of most Of
our chief magistrates the formation of his
Cabinet was with reference to assent made,
and Indiana, where politics is the house
hold interest as much as if the State was
military camp instead of city of homes,
adjured Harrison not to take man of
genius like Blaine into his Cabinet who
would be sure to do something splendid and
to draw away the popular applause. But
all the American people, and especially the
Democrats, watched Mr.. Harrison to see if
he could be capable of this gross dis
courtesy and ingratitude. He felt that he
must make a concession, but he never made
it with the full markedness of man who
had resolved to let one term e1emplify
his life. That second term was still pulling
at the Presidents brain and heart
The Blaine Side on Top.
For brief time there was the appear
ance of friendship for Mr.. Blaine, but it
was soon felt to be unnatural on both Sides
Blaine would not fail In anything, and the
State Department continued to rise like a
balloon at which all the people looked,
while the administration band of music on
the grounds only got the attention of the
band masters and a few cock-eved men.
Blaine had a way OF taking the initiative,
and before the Cabinet could get a reproof
ready for him it was always found that the
people sided with Blaine. The tariff was
the principal subject of debate in the Har-
rison campaign, and the country, not ready
at tina. time to make sacrifice in its ware
house and purchasing credit and manu-
featuring conditions, let Harrison come in
His name sounded like William Henry
Harrison, Tippecanoe and hard cider, and
many men who had led the Republican
party, remembering their early votes for
Clay and Seward and Webster, went back
and voted for Benjamin Harrison.
Mckinley the High Tariff Pool Secretary.
Forthwith, a higher tariff than ever was
clapped on the American people by Porter,
Wells and Mckinley. This tariff was made
In very small pool, Mckinley being rather
the secretary of the pool than its prime
mover. Mr.. Harrison allowed this tariff to
be made, and at that time he and Speaker
Reed and Mckinley were all conjoined.
They did not see how such an excessive
tariff would lose Congress to the admins
tration and revive Cleveland and make his
issue the main issue in three years, but
Blaine, with an old editorial eve, trained in
the Legislature of as cute State as Maine,
and conversant with the feeling all over the
land, came out with reciprocity, and in
vented South and Central America as a new
world, thereby attracting more attention in
England than any public man we have ever
had on questions of trade and revenue
Up to this time Blaine had not appeared
to be statistician, publicist and financier
He incurred the immediate resentment of
Reed, Mckinley and Harrison. Mckinley
represents this feeling now at this conven-
tion.
Reed Also Dealt Blow.
Reed at the time was training for the
the Presidency and he, like Harrison,
looked upon Blaine's interference with the
billion tariff as an impediment to his hopes.
But before the joint powers could plan
any campaign it became apparent that the
whole land welcomed the reciprocity move
ment. Even Mr.. Cleveland had to take
notice of it, and claimed that it was part of
his platform which Blaine was trying to
swim ashore.
The inturiated British and other foreign
ers hastened to pour their money into the
A rnaptipa Confadaroar ,rb - L.
and the British nation nearly wrecked, and
the sequel showed that France and the
United States were better ready for a fnan-
cial panic than any other nation. The panic
struck our shores and rebounded. We had
a large amount OF additional money in cir
culatlon through our silver certificates, ETC.,
and had learned the currency notes of
credit, and had continental elasticity, so
that if New York recoiled the shock trans
mitted from city to city was soon lost in
the infinite distance of American inter-
State free trade and transportation.
Blaine an Uncivil Genius.
Blaine assumed the appearance in the
Cabinet of mysterious and uncivil genius.
The Indiana mind became alarmed lest the
hat of the grandfather should turn out to
be a parachute by which Harrison would be
let down from Blaine's balloon.
Then came the New Orleans riot. pre-
senting an entirely new question, and
Blaine cut the difference by stigmat;zing
the barbarity of the act at home and noti-
fving the Italian Government that our
confederacy was still in provincial and
soft condition, the State rights not vet as
simulated in the system.
Senator Spooner told me during this
convention, though he is for Harrison, that
Blaine's attitude was much sounder than
the Presidents. The Secretary of State,
besides, had such a personality that the
foreign Ministers, if they went away with
their portfolios in dudgeon, confounded
Blaine with the United States and thought
that after all we were an alnicable set.
Other Fish in Blaine's Net.
The Bering Sea and the Newfoundland
fisheries questions came along, and though
we seemed to be always on the eve of going
10 war for string of fish with our cousin
in civilization. we never did strike a blow
because the soft answer which turned away
wrath was in the State Department That
man of marvellous tactics. of original tenn
perament, of the diplomatic and the Amer
lean natures combined, was able, by his in
tercourse with the British Ministers and