The Bossier banner. [volume] (Bellevue, Bossier Parish, La.) 1859-1952, 1912-08-15
LETTERS THAT KILL.

"Killed by Letter" was the significant
heading of a newspaper over an article
telling of a prominent officials fall. This
legend would be an appropriate epitaph
over the graves of many public men. 1t
was letter written by Alexander Hamilton
during the campaign of 1900, arraigning
Adams, which was one of the causes of
the rupture and overthrow of the Federalist
party and the triumph of Jefferson and the
Democracy.
"Never write letter." said the cele-
brated French diplomat, Prince Talleyrand,
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 presided 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 politics of the
"30s" would have lost one 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 his
institution to their doom, defeated Clay in
1882, and, as one of the consequences Of
the banks overthrow, brought on the panic
of 1887. The Rhea Letter" precipitated
the contest in 1880 between Jackson and
Calhoun which put Calhoun, the greatest
statesman of his day, out of the line of
succession to Jackson in the presidency
and made Van Buren, Jackson's political
heir.
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 a person something than to intrust
his thoughts to a letter, met his doom
through the medium of letter. It was a
letter, however, which he was absolutely
forced to write, and it was called out in the
spring OF 1914 by the necessity of declar-
ing himself on the burning issue of Texas
annexation. That letter, in which he op-
posed annexation, defeated him for the
nomination for the presidency few weeks
later, and gave the candidacy to the dark
horse, Polk, an outspoken annexationist.
Everybody remembers the wreck which
letter writing inflicted on Blaine's fortunes
by defeat in the conventions of 1875 and
1880 and at the polls in 1884. His fatal
readiness with his pen brought an Iliad OF
woes to Clay. 81 am the most unfortunate
manin American history" exclaimed Clay,
after one of his reverses, to Henry A.
Wise. 81 get the nomination in the years
when no Wing can be elected, and in the
years when any Wing can win the candi-
dacy goes to somebody else." In the year
however, in which his success seemed GER
tain, 1914, he was defeated by his cam
paign letters on the Texas question. owe
are beaten" exclaimed Joshua R. Giddings
to Cassus M. Clay, as somebody put into
his hand paper containing one of Clay's
letters just before both of them mounted
the stand at Clay mass meeting at which
they were to speak. He was right. The
letter sent enough Wings over to Birney
the Liberty party's candidate, in the de.
cisive State of New York to give that State
and the presidency to Polk. "The chie
qualification which l shall require of 9
Wing presidential candidate hereafter, >
said Meredith P. Gentry few days after
Clay's defeat, is that he shall be able tt
neither read nor write.''