Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1893-02-03


BLAINE's BIRTHPLACE.
ter over night, and on the next morning
had come to a decision which determined
his career. He was nominated on the first
ballot and elected with but feeble opposi
ton.
Soon after Mr. Blaine was sworn in a
friend called on him at his boarding house
at Washington quite late in the evening
He found Blaine at his desk, his ruddy
tinted hair so near the gas burner that it
seemed rs though it must be singed, a copy
of the house rules before him, volume of
"Cushing's Manual and report of prec
edents which had been established by the
rulings of various speakers.
Rather dry reading, isn'tit, Mr.. Blaine"
said his friend.
Yes, if You read it offhand but the man
who masters this" throwing his hand down
upon the pages of the book of rules, mas
tiers the house of representatives
1t is one of the traditions of Blaine that
he mastered Cushing's parliamentary rules
in one night in his college days, and won a
youthful victory in school politics the next
day thereby. And in this chance remark
to a friend he revealed the purpose of polit-
ical mastery which had seized him He was
quiet in the house until he had mastered as
perfectly as the rule of three those meth
eds of procedure which govern it, And
when this was his possession he began to
assert himself. That was exactly what one
young Democratic member was doing, Mr.
Randall, and herein lay in no small degree
the secret OF the power which these two
men gained on their respective sides of the
aisle.
Blaine's Quick Perception.
He showed courage, however, once or
twice in that first term. He even dared to
confront Thad Stevens, who had ruled his
party in the house with autocratic and dog
matte assertion. The gaunt and grizzly Old
Commoner, amazed to find his authority
disputed by youngster, tried to brush
Blaine off as an annoying but trivial Incl
dent of Embarrassment, but no found his
master Stevens had introduced IA bill pro
viding for military governments in the
southern states.
Blaine, on the first reading of this bill,
with that intuitive perception which he
possessed in higher degree than any man
of his day in congress, saw one fatal error
in the bill. And Garfield used to say that
when he arose to make his protest and de-
lvered his speech his utterance was that
of a man who had authority and his speech
that of a mind which had reason. Blaine
proposed an amendment by which, in spite
of military government, the people of these
southern states could in time establish for
themselves republican form of govern
ment again. Stevens chafed and ragged, and
the frown upon his brow made the flesh
appear like corrugated ridges, as Cox once
said, but he could not frown that congress
into defeating the amendment
Blaine's Impetuosity.
In the next congress, to which Blaine was
elected by practically unanimous vote, he
felt fully equipped for those struggles
which had the speakership and, beyond
question, the presidency in view He had
the same impetuosity in the house, the
dashing, dramatic manner which charac-
terized Sheridan in the field qualities
which, combined with courage and mag
nanimity, are sure to command great popu.
larity
These very qualities made Blaine reck,
less in speech a. times. He never practiced
oratory as those who desire to win rhetor-
ical repute do. He wrote few and rehearsed
no speeches. lie was a master of good
English, a ready thinker upon his feet,
although he never spoke excepting upon a
subject with which he was familiar lie
possessed IA capacity for invective and sar-
casm, and he INDUCED in it, and thus
there came ebout the verbal encounter
with Roscoe Conkling which seems DIES.
tined to be associated by tradition with the
fame of both of them
Conkling had returned to congress, and
there is little doubt that both he and Blaine
as soon as they met measured each other