Though the President was his personal friend, Blaine regarded him
as his inferior in practical statecraft and planned to make his
own foreign policy the notable feature of the Administration. His
hopes were dashed, however, by the assassination of Garfield and
by the accession of President Arthur. The new Secretary of State,
F T. Frelinghuysen, reversed nearly all of his predecessor's
policies. When Blaine returned to the Department of State in
1889, he found a less sympathetic chief in President Harrison and
a less brilliant role to play. Whether his final retirement
before the close of the Harrison Administration was due directly
to the conflict of views which certainly existed or was a play on
his part for the presidency and for complete control is a
question that has never been completely settled.

Narrow as was Blaine's view of world affairs, impossible as was
his conception of an America divided from Europe economically and
spiritually as well as politically and of an America united in
itself by a provoked and constantly irritated hostility to
Europe, he had an American program which, taken by itself, was
definite, well conceived, and in a sense prophetic. It is
interesting to note that in referring to much the same
relationship, Blaine characteristically spoke of the United
States as "Elder Sister" of the South American republics, while
Theodore Roosevelt, at a later period, conceived the role to be
that of a policeman wielding the "Big Stick."

Blaine's first aim was to establish peace in the Western
Hemisphere by offering American mediation in the disputes of
sister countries. When he first took office in 1881, the
prolonged and bitter war existing between Chili, Bolivia, and