The times., 1898-11-20
DANGER IN LETTERS.
Some That HIVE Brought Disaster
to Public Men.
CFrnm Tho Fnrnm.N


Killed by Letter" was the significant
heading of a Havana newspaper over an
article telling of eX-Minister de Lome's
fall. This legend would be an appropriate
epitaph over the political graves of many
public men. says the St. Louis Globe
Democrat. The rivalry between Hamil-
ton, the leader de facto of the Federal
party, and Adams. the leader de jure, in
cited Hamilton's letter during the cam
paign of 1Se0, arraigning Adams. which
was one of the causes of the rupture and
overthrow Of that party and the triumph
OF Jefferson and the Democracy. Hamil
toms letter attacking Burr were the cause
Of the duel in which Hamilton lost his
life.
Jefferson's letter to his old neighbor.
Mazzel. in 1896, in which. by pretty plain
Implication. he tr;iiuced Washington and
other men whom the American people
honored, kept jefferson denying and ex-
claiming for many years. his historic let
ter of Van Buren, on this subject having
been written shortly before his death
md twenty-eight years after the MazZel
pistle was penned. The preservation and
publication of Jeirerson's .Anas,' or di-
ary. which is really a sort of letter to
posterity, with its spiteful assaults on
the memory of Hamilton and other emf
nent men, showed an amazing lack of
discernment on Jeferson's part, and has
called out from all his editors and biog-
raphers excuses which accuse.
Never write Il letter." said Taileyrand
land never burn one that you receive"
If Nicholas Biddle had observed the first
part of this injunction the fate of the
United States bank. over which he pre-
sided. would probably have been different.
Jackson would not have been able to
perform that second labor of Hercules
in Staying the bank hydra and the poll
itics of the 30s would have lost one of its
most picturesque episodes.
An interesting and usually level-headed
parsonage, Biddle had what Juvenal called
an "incurable itch for writing" and this
led him and mis- institution to their doom.
defeated Clay and the national Republican
party in 1892, and. one of the conse-
quences of the banks overthrow. brought
on the panic of 1887. The "Rhea letter"
precipitated the contest in 1880 between
Jackson and Calhoun, which put Cal
houn out of the line of succession to
jackson in the Presidency; made Van
Buren Jackson's political heir; dwarfed
Calhoun from a national to a local fig
ure. and turned him to the partisan met
aphysics. out of which were evolved null
liiication and that morbid and wire-drawn
political philosophy in defense of slavery
slavery.
There is a fine touch of poetic irony in
the circumstance that Van Buren,, the
man who said he would rather walk forty
miles to tell person something than to
intrust his thoughts to letter met his
doom through the medium of a letter 1t
was letter. however which he was alb
solutely forced to write, and it was called
out in the spring of 1874 by the necessity
of declaring himself on the burning issue
of Texas annexation. The letter in which
he mildly and tentatively opposed annex
alton. defeated him for the nomination for
the Presidency a few weeks later and gave
the candidacy TO the dark horse, Polk. an
outspoken anneXa Xationist.
Everybody remembers the wreck which
letter-writing inflicted on Blaine's for
tunes by defeat in the conventions of 1876
and 1850 and at the polls in 1884
Bis fatal readiness with his pen
brought an Had of woes to Clay. II
am the most unfortunate man in
American history" exclaimed Clay after
one OF his reverses to Henry A Wise.
II get the nomination in the years when
no Nhig can be elected. and in the years
when any Whig can win, the candidacy
goes TO somebody else" In the year.
however, in which his success seemed
certain. 1871 he was defeated by his cam
paign letters on the Texas question. I'VE
are beaten exclaimed Joshua r Gid
dings to Cassus NJ. Clay. as somebody
put into his hand a paper containing one
of Clay's letters. just before both of them
mounted the stand at Clay mass meet
ing at which they were to speak He was
right The letter. which made a surren-
der on the slavery question, sent enough
anti-slavery Wings over to Birney the
liberty party's candidate. in the decisive
State of New York to give that State and
the Presidency to Polk
''The chief qualification which I shall
require of a Whig Presidential candidate
hereafter" said Meredith p Gentry
few days after Ciay's defeat, "is that he
shall be able to neither read nor write.''