Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/71

 *western phrase, they displayed that bucolic indifference which can daunt the most exuberant speaker. It was in no way worthy of the man, and Mr. Blaine spoke with evident difficulty, and so wholly lacked spirit and enthusiasm that it was impossible for him to warm up to his subject. The speech was of that perfunctory sort which such an atmosphere compels, one of those speeches the speaker drags out, a word at a time, and is glad to be done with, and Mr. Blaine bore with his fates a little while, and then almost abruptly closed. He spoke on the tariff issue, and in defense of the McKinley Bill, and in marshaling the evidences of our glory and prosperity, all of which he attributed to the direct influence of the protective tariff system, he mentioned the number of miles of railroad that had been built, and even the increase in the nation's population! The speech and the occasion afforded an opportunity to a newspaper of the opposition, which in those days of silly partizanship, was not to be overlooked. I went back to the little hotel and wrote my story, and since I had all the while in my mind not only partizan advantage, but the smiles that would break out on the countenances of Charlie Seymour and Peter Dunne and the other boys gathered in the Whitechapel Club I did not minimise the effect of all those babies who had come to life as a result of the protective tariff, nor all those ironical difficulties the day had heaped upon the great man. It was not, perhaps, quite fair, nor quite nice, but it was as fair and as nice as newspaper ethics and political etiquette—if there are such things*