Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1White, Andrew Dickson
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Autobiography of Andrew Dickson White — Volume 1
White, Andrew Dickson
Cornell University; Diplomats -- United States -- Biography; White, Andrew Dickson, 1832-1918
made.'' Had it been a question simply between men, great
numbers of us who voted for Mr. Blaine would have voted
for Mr. Cleveland; but whatever temptation I might be
subjected to in the matter was overcome by one fact: Mr.
Cleveland was too much like the Trojan horse, for he bore
with him a number of men who, when once brought into
power, were sure to labor hard to undo everything that
he would endeavor to accomplish, and his predestined
successor in the governorship of the State of New York was
one of those whom I looked upon as especially dangerous.
Therefore it was, that, after looking over the ground, I
wrote an open letter to Mr. Theodore Roosevelt and other
Independents, giving the reasons why those of us who had
supported Mr. Edmunds should now support Mr. Blaine,
and in this view Mr. Roosevelt, with a large number of our
Independent friends, agreed.
I had, however, small hopes. It was clear to me that Mr.
Blaine had little chance of being elected; that, in fact, he
was too heavily weighted with the transactions which Mr.
Pullman had revealed to me some months before the
beginning of the convention.
But I made an effort to commit him to the only policy
which could save him. For, having returned to the university,
I wrote William Walter Phelps, an old friend, who
had been his chief representative at Chicago, an earnest
letter stating that there seemed to me but one chance of
rallying to Mr. Blaine's support the very considerable
body of disaffected Republicans in the State of New York;
that, almost without exception, they were ardent believers
in a reform of the civil service; and that an out-and-out
earnest declaration in favor of it by our presidential
candidate might do much to propitiate them. I reminded
Mr. Phelps of the unquestioned evils of the ``spoils
system,'' and said that Mr. Blaine must surely have often
observed them, suffered under pressure from them, and
felt that something should be done to remedy them; and
that if he would now express his conviction to this effect,
taking strong ground in favor of the reform and basing
his utterances on his experiences as a statesman, it would,
in my mind, do much to save the State of New York for
the Republicans.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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