The comet. (Johnson City, Tenn.) 1884-1916, 1892-06-16
Goodnight TO MIR. Blaine.

OOOuHlknt 10 MFs Blame,
Mr.. James G. Blaine is no longer
in politics. The decisive defeat he
sustained at Minneapolis forever re-
moves him from the list of Presiden-
tial possibilities. His name will 10
more be used to stir the masses of his
party to enthusiasm and subserve the
selfish purposes of himself and others.
In the course Of nature he has but a
little while to live. Politically he is
already dead and buried. The last
spadeful OF earth was thrown into the
grave Of his hopes when Wolcott arose
to present his claims to the oonven-
ton. The mound was rounded up
and the grave diggers rested from
their toll when the great States of New
York and Pennsylvania divided their
votes with such fatal equality between
him and the little man whose admin.
~istration he had saved from so many
failures.
There is in the supreme failure OF
this mar a significant lesson which
even his political enemies must re-
greet and his friends reluctantly adj
nit. He is by common consent the
most accomplished American in pub
lie life, OF manly and generous impul-
ses, and gifted with a personal charm
which draws men to HIM whether they
will or no. But in an evil hour he
ventured beyond the limits of right
principal in the pursuit of gain. The
strain Of that false step chung to his
garments, and not all the brillianay OF
his personal qualities and political
achievements could blind men to its
ugliness. By this, in a great measure,
he has fallen short Of his ambition
and to that extent he serves to point a
moral.
But there is another aspect Of his
case which entities him to sympathy.
He was deserted in hours Of need by
men whose political fortunes he had
advanced anddenied his proper reward
by a party that he had rescued from
the consequences of its own blind fol,
ly. Butfor him Harrison's administra
ton would 60 down in history simply
in the record of its reckless extrava
gauce and sectional bigotry. But for
the incorporation OF his reciprocity
idea in the tariff law enacted by the
last Congress the Republicans could
not hope to escape in this presidential
campaign the overwhelming defeat
which befell them two years ago.
Yet the head of that Administration
and the place men who have grated
and hope to preft again by the saving
OF it, have exhausted every means that
their ingenuity could conceive toward
shutting him off from the goal of hi
hopes. And the very man whose ca
reer was preserved to him by the idef
that rescued the tariff system which
bears his name, proved strong enough
in the convention to divide with his sa
vior the support that belonged by right
to the latter alone, and thus leave hin
naked to his enemies.
$50 the struck eagle, stretched upon the plain
No more through rolling clouds to roar again
View'd his own feather on the fatal dart
And wing'd the shaft that quiver'd in hi
heart.
Keen were his pangs. but keener far to feel
He nurs'd the pinion which impel ed tn
STEEL"
In bidding good night to Blaine hi
fellow.citizens of the South will not
forget that they ever found in him ar
open and generous political foe, anC
that he was largely instrumental il
defeating measures attempted by hi
own party for their undoing.
In his time of humiliation they viii
remember only his better part, anC
repeat for him the noble lament o
Juvenal over the fallen Hannibal
Memphis Scmetar.