BLAINE LEAVING THE CAPITOL.—“I GO—BUT I RETURN!”
PUCK, December 21st, 1881.
Mr. Blaine was the most highly honored of President Garfield’s cabinet officers. In the convention that nominated Mr. Garfield he had been, next to General Grant, Garfield’s most dangerous rival—or, perhaps it would be more correct to say that he might have been, had the time been ripe for him to exert his full strength. So, when President Garfield died, and Mr. Arthur, who had been an unpopular candidate for the Vice-Presidency, succeeded to the Presidential chair, two apparent probabilities interested the populace. It was assumed, of course, that a President must be a candidate for re-election and under such circumstances it was thought that in all likelihood Mr. Blaine would be far more powerful in the next convention than a President who owed his elevation to mere accident. Thus, when Mr. Blaine made his bow and retired from the cabinet formed by President Garfield, his very leaving seemed to imply a threat that he would return to Washington only to assume a prouder position.
Puck of December 21st, 1881, says, discussing the possibility of Mr. Blaine’s election to the Presidency:
“There are two or three miracles which we would gladly see worked in this country. There is that great miracle which always seems near at hand, yet which never seems nearer—the miracle of a great popular awakening to a healthy political life.... Is it not a disgrace, indeed, that we should talk about electing to the highest office in the nation a man of whom an honest, unprejudiced and unbiased journal has to say that although he is clever and strong, he has not an absolutely unblemished record?! An absolutely unblemished record! Why, a statesman’s record should be as unblemished as a woman’s should be. And yet it is very possible that we shall find the man of whom this is said the very best man whom it is possible to put at the head of our Government in 1884. Is it not time for a miracle?”
It was pretty nearly time: the miracle was worked in 1884.