Blaine Talks In Michigan

The "magnetic man from Maine,'' the '-most distinguished American," the "greatest statesman of the age," the "uncrowned Icing" - his name it is Blaine - made a supposed triumphant march through Michigan, raising the drooping spirits of his political friends, and confounding, if he and his friends are not mistaken, his enemies. And what has iJlaine had to say ? Blaine made his first speech in Detroit. It was a brief speech; it was a surprising speech, not because of what he said, hut because of the omissions. Not a single word did he utter about the great, burning issue of the campaign - the tariff; not a warning note against the Mills bill, the Cobden club, or the pauper laborers of Europe, vvho stand ready, like Pharaoh's lean kine, to svvallow up the pampered and fattened mechanics and laborers of Michigan. Instead, he talked ubout the pension vetoes, condemning the president; and about the treasury surplus and ts management. The secretary of the treasury and the president we re denounced because the surplus had not been expended in purchasing government bonds at ar exorbitant speculative premium, such a premium as no business man would pay as au investment; and for depositing a jortion of the surplus in national sanks in order to relieve a financial stringency. Blaine had never heard that such deposits had been made by rormer secretarles; they were made without warrant of law, and if made by a republican official a democratie house would have moved his impeachment. It is only necessary to say that the statutes, enacted by a republican congress, provide for and authorize deposits in banks, that former secretarles have made them freely, that Secretary, now Senator, John Sherman exceeded Secretary Fairchild in the amounts deposited, placing over $270,000,000 in national banks at one time, and some $30,000,000 in one family bank, or a bank officered by relat i ves. It is unfortunate for Blaine that hecan't put postscripts to his speeches as to his letters. If the injunction to "buin this speech" could be obeyed, and the memories of his hearers blotted out, he could sleep without fear of ghosts. Was there a doublé meaning in Alger's question, "What's the matter of Blaine?" The second speech of Blaine was made at Adrián. This was given to the tariff - somebody having reminded him of his lapse at Detroit. He pullei off his coat, rolled up his sleeves, took a big chew of tobáceo (tiguratively speaking), which he had pronounced in his Paris message one of the "necessaries of life," and proceeded to expectórate all over the Chicago platform, in imitation of a similar feat once performed by Horace Greeley. The platform, after declaring in favor of "repealing the taxes on tobáceo, which are an annoy anee and a buiden to agriculture," and "the tax upon spirits used in the arts," added : "If there shall still remam a larger revenue than is requisite for the wants of the government, we favor the entire repeal of internal taxes rather than the surrender of any part of our protective system ;" that is, we will take off the two dollars a gallon tax from whisky and ruin the trade in milk in preference to cheapening clothing, farm implements, machinery, etc. Blaine, ignoring this declaration, gave his indorsement to the tariff bill reported by the senate committee, which concedes a microscopic cut on iron and steel rails and other articles in the metal schedule, and in some of the other schedules, aggregating, on the estimatcd volume of imports, $8,000,000. And so overboard goes "a part of our protective system," and a damaged platform now carries the g. o. p. in the closing and stormy season of the campaign. In his third speech, made at Grane Rapids, Blaine neglected Don M. Dickinson long enough to say that dunng his recent junketing tour Scotland, as the guest of the much protected Carnegie - $1,500,000 in a single year - nothing interested him more than the sleeping in a room all the furniture in which carne from Grand Rapids; f rom which he concluded that a ciry which had made such progress under the protective system could be relied upon to vote for Harrison and to retire Representative Ford. Somebody should have advised Mr. Blaine that ;he furniture manufacturers of Grand Rapids had prospered in spite of the "protective system" and not because of it, and that they had already spoken in favor of revenue reform in a memorial to congress asking a reduction of the tariff duties - taxes - on lumber, glas, etc. - the raw material which the Mills bill seeks to cheapen to the manufacturar. The great manufacturing inerests of the valley city are hampered ann oppressed by taxation, laid not for the support of the government, but for the illegitimate purpose of enriching other manufacturers, - timber cutters, lumber makers, glass-plate rollers, makers of hardware and trimmingsjand they are not likely to vote to perpetúate a system which robs them with no compensating benefit. They do not lie awake o' nights for fear ot an influx of foreign-made furniture in the event of the Mills bill becoming a law, but anticip ite increased foreign orders under the relief that bill will give them - cheaper furnishing lumber, cheaper plate-gla.,s, and cheaper hardware. And their employés have no dread of reduced wages, knowing that cheaper material will increase the output of furniture and the mand for labor.