Question. Would you again refuse to take the stump for Mr. Blaine if he should be renominated, and if so, why?
Answer. I do not expect to take the stump for anybody. Mr. Blaine is probably a candidate, and if he is nominated there will be plenty of people on the stump—or fence—or up a tree or somewhere in the woods.
Question. What are the most glaring mistakes of Cleveland's administration?
Answer. First, accepting the nomination. Second, taking the oath of office. Third, not resigning.
—Times Star, Cincinnati, September 30, 1886.
PROHIBITION.
Question. How much importance do you attach to the present prohibition movement?
Answer. No particular importance. I am opposed to prohibition and always have been, and hope always to be. I do not want the Legislature to interfere in these matters. I do not believe that the people can be made temperate by law. Men and women are not made great and good by the law. There is no good in the world that cannot be abused. Prohibition fills the world with spies and tattlers, and, besides that, where a majority of the people are not in favor of it the law will not be enforced; and where a majority of the people are in favor of it there is not much need of the law. Where a majority are against it, juries will violate their oath, and witnesses will get around the truth, and the result is demoralization. Take wine and malt liquors out of the world and we shall lose a vast deal of good fellowship; the world would lose more than it would gain. There is a certain sociability about wine that I should hate to have taken from the earth. Strong liquors the folks had better let alone. If prohibition succeeds, and wines and malt liquors go, the next thing will be to take tobacco away, and the next thing all other pleasures, until prayer meetings will be the only places of enjoyment.
Question. Do you care to say who your choice is for Republican nominee for President in 1888?
Answer. I now promise that I will answer this question either in May or June, 1888. At present my choice is not fixed, and is liable to change at any moment, and I need to leave it free, so that it can change from time to time as the circumstances change. I will, however, tell you privately that I think it will probably be a new man, somebody on whom the Republicans can unite. I have made a good many inquiries myself to find out who this man is to be, but in every instance the answer has been determined by the location in which the gentleman lived who gave the answer. Let us wait.