The Montgomery advertiser., 1908-09-15

monEerlng ana muu-ohnbt~es
 because of the intense partisansnip displayed, breathless because so ciose-- the campaign of 1884 stands as one or the most interesting of our history. 1t resulted in the elevation of Grover Cleveland to the Presidential offfce. the erst Democrat to be elected after the Civil War. whose two terms of once mark the only interruptions in forty eight years of Republican ascenoancy.
 Long before the campaign was over it was realized that the candidate wno carried New York would be eiecteo. Cleveland carried the State by oniy 1.14s plurality over Blains. -chapge of 600 voters in New fork Wouio have made Blaine President. The nar- row margin resulted in thousana s.ifs," and 1t is by some of these ITS that the campaign will be remembered longest.
 The aggressive action on the part of the Democrats began with the eiection of 1882. Garfield had alienated Conk I,ng bv making Blaine Secretary of state. Then followed the appoint ment of Robertson to be Collector or the mort of New York. Conkling was so furious that he resigned his seat in the Senate, being initiated by Thomas c. Platt,' his junior colleague. wno thereby gained for himself the sobri- ouet of Me Too" Conkling and Platt were were sorely disappointed in that they were not triumphantly reelected.
 The assassination of Garfield did not end the factional disputes In the party. President Arthur was Conk- ling's friend but he soon broke with the imperious New Yorker. Blaine was the popular leader and the idol of the masses of the Republican voters. Yet nd nnWerfuI. both within and without his party. The Democrats looked upon him as the next nominee for President and trim med their sails accordingly. In 1882 the Democrats swept the country and elected a majority of the House of Representatives.
 More than that, they carried the piv- otal State of New York by>a majority of 100000 with Grover Cleveland as the nominee for Governor. Cleveland's career as Mayor of Buffalo and his veto of extrayagant appropriations had brought him into notice in New York. His victory, contributed to by Repub- liean factionism, caused the whole country to look to hIm. When the Democratic National Convention met in 1884 he was easily nominatd on the second ballot, receiving the nec- essary two-thirds vote despite the vto- lent and even disorderly protests of Tammany Hall, then led by John Kelly.
 The administration opposed Blaine with all It's force, and attempted to win the nomination for President Ar thur. But Blaine was the leader from the beginning and received the nomin- ation on the fourth ballot. The pow erful influences which had defeated him in the convention of 1876 and 1880 were still at work but their force was expended and Blaine was nominated for slaughter.
 Again there was q third party factor in the problem. The Greenbackers re- appeared as the anti-monooly party and nominated for President no less 8 parsonage than Gen, Benjamin F. Butler of Massachusetts. the premier acrobafic clown of the political cir GUS. Six weeks after taking the anti monopoly nomination, Butler appeared as a delegate in the Democratic con- vention, actually trying to get the Democratic nomination and bidding for Southern support by offering 8 plank favoring Federal pensions for Confed- crate soldiersi
 Scandals affecting B1aine's integrity had been afloat for years, and had been used against him in two National Conventions. The Democratic press hailed his nomination with the Credit Mobilier scandal and the Mulligan let ters. The charge was reiterated that Blaine ,as Speaker of the House of Representatives. had been influenced in his rulings by financial considera- lions.
 When the campaign was fairly started. a scandal about MT. Clsve- lands earlier life was unearthed-the Halpin affair. The Blaine forces made a fatal mistake in lending official countenance to the spread of the scan- dal. When the Democratic committee considered publishing the Blaine scan. the proposition. That did not affect, of course, the individual Democrats from taking up and repeating th,y old charges against Blaine whic'f had been current for eight years. The re- suit was a bitter, nasty, mud-sIinging campaign.
 Everybody looked upon New York as the pivotal State. There Mir. Cleveland and MT. Blaine both labored under great difficulties. Mir. Blaine had the implacable hatred of Roscoe Conkling. That alone cost him the Presidency. for tn ere were a thousand Conkling men in Oneida County who voted for Cleveland. On the other hand. Cleveland had the enmitv of Tammany Hall and the intense hatred of Charles A. Dana, editor of The New York Sun, and the ablest journal ist in the land. The Sun was then a straightout Tammany organ. Mr Dana had a personal grievance against Mir. Cleveland. He inspired the Tam many opposition to Cleveland. and af. ter the nomination he bolted the ticket.
 Dana ard The Sun supported C=enAral Butler the third party candidate. ana always had a good word for the Pro hibitionist candidate. Governor Jobn P. St. John of Kansas. Buffers can didacy was a miserable hasco, and The Suns following voted straight for Blaine when election day came around. The Suns support of Butler was the only instance since the war of a New York newspaper supporting a third party candidate" until the present cam paign, when Mir. Hearst is supporting his Independence Party candidate, Mir. Hisgen.
 Blaine was a brilliant speaker, man of great magnetism. and a most persuading orator. He made a stump ing tour of the Middle West and was welcomed as few men have ever been. There was no doubt in the minds of either Republicans or Democrats that he had made many votes for himself, and that he had swung the tide in his favor. On his way back East he stop ped in Indiana to visit his sister, who was Mother Superior 1 na Roman Cath. olic Convent. This called attention to the fact that his mother and sisters were devout Catholics, and was liable to inject religious issue into the cam paisn.
 Instead of going directly to his home in Maine. Mfr. Blaine stopped over in