Chapter the Nineteenth

Mr. Cleveland in the White House--Mr. Bayard in the Department of
State--Queer Appointments to Office--The One-Party Power--The End of
North and South Sectionalism



I


The futility of political as well as of other human reckoning was set
forth by the result of the presidential election of 1884. With a kind
of prescience, as I have related, Mr. Blaine had foreseen it. He was
a sagacious as well as a lovable and brilliant man. He looked back
affectionately upon the days he had passed in Kentucky, when a poor
school-teacher, and was especially cordial to the Kentuckians. In the House
he and Beck were sworn friends, and they continued their friendship when
both of them had reached the Senate.

I inherited Mr. Blaine's desk in the Ways and Means Committee room. In one
of the drawers of this he had left a parcel of forgotten papers, which
I returned to him. He made a joke of the secrets they covered and the
fortunate circumstance that they had fallen into the hands of a friend and
not of an enemy.

No man of his time could hold a candle to Mr. Blaine in what we call
magnetism--that is, in manly charm, supported by facility and brain power.