Republican Persecution

To the Editor of The Nation:

SIR: In the letter signed "W." in your No. 1014 are some statements in regard to Ohio which are incorrect and misleading.

The "Preacher" who was attacked was a senior in the college, a St. John man; the "Republican mob," a party of students who, receiving telegraphic report of the election of Blaine, gave the benefit of it to their St. John classmate, with considerable tumult, no doubt, but with no worse intentions than those suggested by animal spirits and boyish enthusiasm. At least one person was wounded, though not seriously, by "the firing in the air," which surely justified an arrest. It will hardly do to claim Oberlin, where all factions are represented among the students and the Prohibition party in the faculty, for persecuting and vindictive Republicanism.

In No. 1013, would not your estimate of the popular strength of Cleveland and Blaine — clas-


(520) sing as it does the fusion votes of Butler men as Cleveland strength — deny popular strength to Butler which was distinctly given him by that vote?

The vote certainly helped Cleveland. It was intended for two purposes — to show Butler's popular strength, and perchance give him two or three electors, who could throw their vote for whom they pleased, probably for Blaine. It seems to me that this fusion vote, some 70,000, intended to help Blaine probably, and certainly to give a showing of Butler's popular strength in Michigan and Iowa, cannot consistently be classed as showing the strength of Cleveland in the Western States. — I remain sir, yours truly,

Geo. H. Mead
Minneapolis, Minn. December 8, 1884.

Notes

No notes

Valid HTML 4.01 Strict Valid CSS2