Question. Who do you think ought to be nominated at Chicago?
Answer. Personally, I am for General Gresham. I am saying nothing against the other prominent candidates. They have their friends, and many of them are men of character and capacity, and would make good Presidents. But I know of no man who has a better record than Gresham, and of no man who, in my judgment, would receive a larger number of votes. I know of no Republican who would not support Judge Gresham. I have never heard one say that he had anything against him or know of any reason why he should not be voted for. He is a man of great natural capacity. He is candid and unselfish. He has for many years been engaged in the examination and decision of important questions, of good principles, and consequently he has a trained mind. He knows how to take hold of a question, to get at a fact, to discover in a multitude of complications the real principle—the heart of the case. He has always been a man of affairs. He is not simply a judge—that is to say, a legal pair of scales—he knows the effect of his decision on the welfare of communities—he is not governed entirely by precedents—he has opinions of his own. In the next place, he is a man of integrity in all the relations of life. He is not a seeker after place, and, so far as I know, he has done nothing for the purpose of inducing any human being to favor his nomination. I have never spoken to him on the subject.
In the West he has developed great strength, in fact, his popularity has astonished even his best friends. The great mass of people want a perfectly reliable man—one who will be governed by his best judgment and by a desire to do the fair and honorable thing. It has been stated that the great corporations might not support him with much warmth for the reason that he has failed to decide certain cases in their favor. I believe that he has decided the law as he believed it to be, and that he has never been influenced in the slightest degree, by the character, position, or the wealth of the parties before him. It may be that some of the great financiers, the manipulators, the creators of bonds and stocks, the blowers of financial bubbles, will not support him and will not contribute any money for the payment of election expenses, because they are perfectly satisfied that they could not make any arrangements with him to get the money back, together with interest thereon, but the people of this country are intelligent enough to know what that means, and they will be patriotic enough to see to it that no man needs to bow or bend or cringe to the rich to attain the highest place.
The possibility is that Mr. Blaine could have been nominated had he not withdrawn, but having withdrawn, of course the party is released. Others were induced to become candidates, and under these circumstances Mr. Blaine has hardly the right to change his mind, and certainly other persons ought not to change it for him.
Question. Do you think that the friends of Gresham would support Blaine if he should be nominated?
Answer. Undoubtedly they would. If they go into convention they must abide the decision. It would be dishonorable to do that which you would denounce in others. Whoever is nominated ought to receive the support of all good Republicans. No party can exist that will not be bound by its own decision. When the platform is made, then is the time to approve or reject. The conscience of the individual cannot be bound by the action of party, church or state. But when you ask a convention to nominate your candidate, you really agree to stand by the choice of the convention. Principles are of more importance than candidates. As a rule, men who refuse to support the nominee, while pretending to believe in the platform, are giving an excuse for going over to the enemy. It is a pretence to cover desertion. I hope that whoever may be nominated at Chicago will receive the cordial support of the entire party, of every man who believes in Republican principles, who believes in good wages for good work, and has confidence in the old firms of "Mind and Muscle," of "Head and Hand."
—New York Press, May 27, 1888.
LABOR, AND TARIFF REFORM.
Question. What, in your opinion, is the condition of labor in this country as compared with that abroad?
Answer. In the first place, it is self-evident that if labor received more in other lands than in this the tide of emigration would be changed. The workingmen would leave our shores. People who believe in free trade are always telling us that the laboring man is paid much better in Germany than in the United States, and yet nearly every ship that comes from Germany is crammed with Germans, who, for some unaccountable reason, prefer to leave a place where they are doing well and come to one where they must do worse.