The Portland daily press., 1893-01-02
Especial Correspondence

4 TO WTAthAS <ASSu1 AAAAAAs
Especial Correspondence
| WASHINGTON, Dec. 29.-For nearly
| thirty years James Ct. Blaine has been a
sort of ignis fatuus to the newspaper
men of the national capital. No greater
| tribute to his genius and to the COM
manding position which he has so long
occupied in our public affairs could be
| paid than was contained in the remark
| Of veteran Washington correspondent.
"For quarter of century," said he,
"James G. Blaine has not for single
day been out of the mind of any news
paper man in the capital. Blaine has
made more trouble for the newspaper
writers of America than any other man
in our history. As / look back over my
newspaper career-a career filled with
hard work, day and night, ceaseless
quest for information, never ending hunt
for facts and winnowing Of the grain
from the chaff-it seems to me that at
least one-half my time and more than
one-half my energies have been devoted
to Mr.. Blaine"
The veteran correspondent went on to
explain that this was not alone from the
fact that Blaine has occupied such a
prominent place in the political and
governmental world, but because he has
been man of mystery as well as of ac-
tivity; a man who was always doing
something, but who was not always
willing the world should know what it
was. There has always been a Blaine
mystery of one sort or another in this
country, a mystery which it was the
duty of the newspaper correspondent to
endeaver to solve. From the mystery
of the congressional investigation of GER
tain charges made against Mr.. Blaine at
the outset Of his career in Washington
to the deethwatch placed upon him as
he lay fatally stricken in his historic
Washington residence his name has
been to newspaper writers synonym
for work, for midnight riding in cabs
and for ceaseless anxiety and worry.
The correspondent who started out
thirty years ago to keep an eye on Mr..
Blaine, to note what the rising young
statesman was about, to interview him
and gossip about him with his intimates,
is now an old man, worn and weary in
the service Of the. reading public. Mr..
Blaine has led him lively dance, indeed
such dance as no other public man we
have had since the newspaper art was
perfected has led his friends of the
press.
Mr.. Blaine has been man of mys-
teries seemingly without effort to be
L. II. -
any one could see, been any conscious
ness on his part Of the peculiar position
which he was occupying with reference
to the purveyors of public information
But If Mr. Blaine had started out delib-
erately to make himself talked about, to
win that sort of advertising which keen
old Zach Chandler said every successful
public man must have, whether it con-
sist of praise or abuse does not matter,
he could not have chosen bettS method
than that which he unwittingly, per-
haps, adopted.
There are men who think that Mr.
Blaines prominence in the politics OF
this country has been out of all proper
ton to his public service or his abilities;
men who say that but for his peculiar
knack of mystifying the public, and
thus setting the sleuths Of the press
barking at his heels, and thus making
his name known wherever a newspaper
was read. he would never have assumed
the conspicuous position which he has
SO long occupied. However this may be,
it is certain that Mr.. Blaine has ever
kept the press guessing and watching
and hunting, with the inevitable result
that he was the best advertised man in
America.
1 am quite ready to sympathize with
the view taken by the veteran CORE
spondent whom have already quoted. 81
have written so much of Blaine said
he, 'stalked so much of him, walked and
rode so many thousand miles in quest of
information about him, have taxed my
wits and my imagination so much with
him as the central figure, that indeed it
has seemed to me at times that my
dreams were of Blaine, and that a storm
had swept over the country and twisted
all the Geographic wires into fantastic
shapes, which spelled his name in fifty
places along every one of the hundreds
of thousands Of miles of Geographic
lines in the country.
81 have reused from sleep in a cold
sweat caused by a dream that some one
had scooped me on Blaine. have re-
posed sleeplessly upon my pillow hun
bred nights thinking about the latest
Blaine puzzle and trying to solve it,
much like, perpetual motion crank
endeavoring to evolve an accomplish
ment Of the impossible. For twenty
years Mr. Blaine has been to me verl-
table nightmare, and as he started out
SO has he ended, mysterious to the last"
The first Blaine mystery was the case
of the Mulligan letters. Was Mr.. Blaine
guilty or was he innocent? This cues
ton set the country by the ears, and it
has never yet been satisfactorily an
swered. For year or more the news
papers were in an uproar about it, and
woe to the luckless scribe whose manag-