now "the contenders," our 14-week series on key political figures who ran for president and lost but nevertheless changed political history. we feature former speaker of the house of james g. blaine of maine who served as secretary of state for three american presidents and was the republican candidate for president in 1884. this 90-minute program was recorded at the blaine house in augusta, maine, and each sunday at this time through labor day weekend you can watch "the contenders" here on mesh history tv on c-span 3. ♪ ♪9u+

>> you're looking at some of the images from the 1884 presidential election and listening to a campaign song in support of that year's republican nominee, james g. blaine of maine and his running mate, john logan. tonight our contenders series continues. we're live from the blaine house in augusta, maine, home of james g. blaine and since 1920, the official residence of maine's governor. we're inside the blaine house with maine's sitting governor, paul lepage. governor, this house is filled with blaine memorabilia. do you have a sense of the man while you're here? >> yes. absolutely. first of all, welcome to maine and welcome to the people's house. >> thank you. >> mr. blaine is here every day, and we see his spirit every evening because we always say good night to him. >> what is your sense -- i mean, the house was built many years ago and many people have lived in the house over the years, but he is present in a lot of ways. what have you come to learn about the man by living in his

midst? >> he not only was a very strong supporter and founder of the republican party in maine, but a national leader and started maine on its course to where we are now, and very, very influential, both in the press, in state government, federal government. the man was a very powerhouse, big-time powerhouse on a national scale and very proud to be honored, to be allowed to stay here and be a steward of the house for the next four years. >> as governors go, you probably have the best commute in america, it's right across the street from the capitol building. >> it's great. but if he was here today, i'd ask him to put a tunnel under the road. >> and maybe better air conditioning as well.

well, we're really pleased to be here tonight to learn more about james g. blaine. i know for many people, he's really faded into the pages of history, but tonight we're going to learn more about the man who brought the republican party to the state and about your state and that time period. thanks for hosting us. >> well, thank you so much. again, welcome to the state of maine and to the people's house. >> thank you. we're going to be live for the next hour and a half learning more about james g. blaine's america. and about the republican party that he was so influential in bringing to the state. we're going to be moving into the reception room here at the governor's mansion. two guests are waiting for me,

and they'll be my guests throughout the program. while we're getting set up in there, we'll show you a clip from a roundtable discussion that c-span hosted. presidential historian richard norton smith spokes about james g. blaine and his time. we'll see you in just a minute or so. >> 1884 against cleveland. >> yes. >> and before that he had run for the republican nomination, and ironically, in 1876, it was blaine who prevented ulysses grant from coming back or rather 1880. it was blaine who prevented ulysses grant from winning a comeback and winning a second time. >> besides being secretary of state for james garfield. >> and benjamin harrison. >> he was secretary of state under three presidents. >> what else did he do? >> he was in congress, speaker of the house, a very effective iron-willed speaker. >> he changed some of the rules in the house. i'm not sure exactly which rules they are. seemed to me that speakers of the house are always changing rules to their advantage, a very capable guy but corrupt probably. >> this is the period after the civil war when congress was much more central, much more potent than it had been. the reaction against the strong executive set in, so to be speaker of the house, to be a power in congress in the 1870s, 1880s, meant a lot more than it would today. >> do you have anything to say mr. blaine?

>> i was curious about richard. what do you think would have happened had he won? >> i think he would turn out to be -- put it this way. i think he would be regarded the best president between lincoln and t.r. >> very interesting. why? >> because he was assertive, because he had intellectual heft, because he -- he had a lot of talent, and i think once he had actually -- people are consumed by -- they lust after the presidency. it's a distorting, warping, malignancy that they suffer from, and if they survive it and they win the office, you know, i think blaine is someone like clay -- clay and blaine have a great deal in common. they are both very charismatic, polarizing figures who i think

in office would have distinguished themselves. >> and as promised, we are in the reception room at the blaine house, let me introduce me to our two special guests with us for this program. earl shuttleworth is maine's state historian and also the director of the maine's historic preservation commission. thanks for being here. and elizabeth blair is an expert on the civil war region era and president of colby college. an export -- expert on the civil war region, for . let me have you set the stage for us about mid-1880s america. we're 20 years past the civil war. what was the country like at that time as we're going into this election where he was a contender?ñi >> i would start by saying we're a long ways past the civil war in many ways. and i think that's indicated by the fact that there is going to be a democratic president that is elect that had year, and that would have been unthinkable just a short time before that, so that's one thing to say.

>> why would it have been unthinkable? >> because the republicans were the winners of the war, and they had controlled the government for a long time and they had controlled reconstruction, and it feels to many people like a handoff to the south to let the democrats come into the white house. >> i'll stay with you for a second maine is your expertise. talk to you about north and south america, country, northern and southern states, excuse me, and the difference in the economies? >> the civil war had crushed the economy in the south. so one of the key goals of reconstruction was to get the economy up and running again, and that was largely on the way to success, certainly by the middle of the 1880s, but it is on i would say very much northern terms how the south is being rebuilt. >> james g. blaine was a powerhouse by 1884, known internationally as well as nationally, but maine really hadn't been in the union all that long. i mean, how -- >> maine had originally been part of massachusetts, since the colonial times, became a state in 1820. we went into the union as 239rd

state. we were part of the missouri compromise. missouri was slave. maine was free, and by the post-civil war period maine had initially suffered a bit of a setback during the civil war. we had sent about 70,000 men to the war.]f> he contended against the democrat, grover cleveland who

won first and non-sequentially later on. the republican party that nominated him, this was his third try for the white house, unsuccessful to getting the nomination two times earlier, what was the key to his success in securing the nomination in 1884? >> well, persistence always is part of the story, i suppose, and continue to try as he did. and he was certainly recognized as a leading, leading figure in the republican party. no question. one of his many nicknames was mr. republican, and he was certainly a leading figure. so that would be part of the story. >> he also had some great enemies at the time who were

trying to deny him the not nation, so explain the split in the republican party, if you will, please. >> yes. well, there were a group of moderates. they were called in 1884 the mug lumps, and they were in many cases the intelligentsia from boston, from new york, from philadelphia. these were folks who believed blaine was a very corrupt individual. you think, for example, of henry adams who wrote "democracy" and the senator and democracy who was a dark figure was james g. blaine, modelled upon him. so he did have very strong enemies, even within his own party. >> ultimately, this was a very close election. tell me about the results. >> well, i think he only loses by 30 or 40 electoral votes, is that correct? >> yes, and the actual vote itself, 10 million people vote, and he loses the election by 25,000 votes nationally, and the key to the loss is the loss of new york state, about 1,000 votes. >> and new york state was also a place where a rising star, a young star, theodore roosevelt was beginning to make his presence known. was he an influence in the outcome of the election? >> what's interesting about this election, it was highly

personal. >> highly personal in a way we often don't think 19th century politics were. but they were highly personal. especially starting with andrew jackson, i say things get very personal, and it's really in many ways a fight about blaine as a corrupt politician but then perhaps cleveland had a child out of wedlock somewhere in the country and so on, and they are slinging nasty mud at each other. >> there's two phrases that most even high school students study in their history books that is from this campaign. first of all is the phrase, rum, romanism, and rebellion. who said it, where did it come from, why it was so important in the campaign? >> a minister named bershard and a week before the election, he gave a talk that blaine was party to, in which he denounced the democratic party as the party of rum, romanism and rebellionism. rum, prohibition, romanism, the roman catholic church and rebellionism, the south. and that phrase that was carried by "the telegraph" and all over the country and it's the one

phrase that apparently contributed to blaine's loss. >> and isn't the problem that blaine didn't denounce it. so people believed that was -- many people thought he said it is what i understood. and it's that he really didn't denounce it. >> it affected the new york catholic vote in the end? ó >> absolutely. ó >> right. >> was there a -- an anti-catholic move in the country in some sectors? >> certainly, even still. there has been since the 1840s, since the irish were first immigrating in such large numbers and some would say the anti-ish sentiment continued further back. and the prohibitionist. and the temperance movement rubbing up against that as well. >> second phrase, you alluded to this, and grove cleveland saw this. ma, ma, where is my pa? he has gone to the white house, ha, ha, ha. what was that about? >> that was about this accusation that cleveland had a child out of wedlock somewhere, and that in fact he was not the

moral, upstanding man that could be set up to challenge the corrupt and devious blaine. >> now, he chose a tactic, as i read, which was not to deny. >> right. >> and apparently to pay child support, find the child and pay for its orphan, pay for the child in orphanage. >> a lesson perhaps for modern politicians. i also have a book here, the media, newspapers, were partisan at the time. but this was a book that james g. blaine wrote. "20 years of congress" which helped set the stage for his campaign, i understand, and this was very well received. the first volume, he began to write it in 1881, i think shortly after he was secretary of the state for the first time. the first volume was published in 1884, maybe just in time for the campaign. the second volume didn't appear until 1886. however, it was a highly popular two-volume best seller, apparently sold tens of thousands of copies, and it was his personal account of his

experiences in washington from the time of the civil war to the early 1880s. >> and he made a lot of money from this? >> he did indeed. >> was it one of the reasons he was able to buy this house, do you know? >> i think it contributed to that -- well, not this house, though. the house that we're now in actually goes back much earlier. in 1862, which is a critical year for him, he's speaker of the maine house, and at the same time he's also running for congress for the first time, and it's in 1862 that he buys this house for $5,000, and he and his wife harriet move in with their family. this house had been built a few years before, in the 1830s, by a retired sea captain, and this becomes his great political center for the rest of his life. >> in other words, he hosted many dignitaries here, had lots of meetings here. >> well, what you have to bear

in mind is that in 1859, blaine becomes the chair of the republican party in maine, and it's a post he holds until he becomes secretary of state in 1881. in the 20 or so year period, this house is election central for the republican party in maine, as well as the springboard for his national campaigns. >> and if people could see the state capital is right outside our windows here. >> yes. >> the parking lot is across the street. >> a very strategic decision to acquire this house and the location. >> and ulysses s. grant stayed here a couple of days. >> yes. >> to the viewers, we'll invite you in in a little bit into the conversation here. in the contender series we'r looking at 14 men, and all men given the presidential election process in this country, who were candidates for president in their time but did not succeed in the quest for the white house, but still had an outsized influence on american history. james g. blaine, someone who

was -- as i mentioned in the outset, someone known intently, but fallen behind in the history books. we're going to spend some time digging into what made him so well known and what made him fail in his bid to the white house. our phone lines open, and we take calls at 20 minutes past the hour, and we welcome your questions and comments about the gilded age in america and the burgeoning republican party and its influence in american life. i mention that had we are going to be talking about some of his other campaigns, and i wanted too start with -- go back to 1876 which is the first time he ran for the white house. he was nominated at that time at the convention by someone who coined a term, the plume knight, a gentleman by the name of robert ingersoll. do you know anything more about ingersol and the speech and why the phrase stuck? >> my understanding of that speech is that it was a defense of blaine against accusations of

corruption in connection with the railroad industry, and that that was how ingersoll wanted to introduce him to demonstrate that not everyone believed he was as corrupt as some people had come to think that he was. >> why did the phrase stick? did it speak to something about james g. blaine? >> he seems to have been the kind of person who really had great admirers and tremendous enemies and detractors, and i think his admirers thought he was a great hero. >> and i think also it was kind of a label that stuck because in the cartoons of the day, both pro and con, the plume knight was a wonderful image to create. i mean, there was a lot of interest still in romantic literature in, old english literature, and he was often shown in either elizabethan costume or in a knight in shining armor. it was a perfect kind of image for him. >> here we are looking at one of the political cartoons you've

brought along. how important were political cartoons in affecting the electorate in that age? >> they were tremendously important. this is when pictorial publications abounded in america for the first time. very widespread, very easily produced and in the case of the political journals you had the judge, when was pro republican and the other that was pro democratic, and in the pages of that magazine, this one that we're seeing now, comes from the judge. a pro-blaine cartoon, which shows blaine as the sort of learned elder statesman in his plume knight costume, his elizabethan costume, and all around had are letters from states all over the country begging him to become president of the united states. so it's definitely a pro campaign cartoon. >> you told us about the mug bumps in 1884.

colorful names for factions back in 1876 include half breeds and the stalwarts. >> right. >> yes. >> the half breeds referring to those republicans who did not support ulysses grant and the stalwarts referring to those who did, if i'm not mistaken. >> exactly. >> and which fax was james g. blaine a part of? >> the half breeds. >> essentially, a short time before the mullican letters were revealed, and that created a big scandal for him. the mullican letters involved a very questionable stock deals involving one of the railroads, and that clouded the picture for him in 1876. >> the nomination went to? >> james a. garfield. blaine recognized this was happening at the convention. actually. i'm sorry, '76 it went to hayes. >> rutherford b. hayes. >> that's right. >> '80 was garfield. >> he ran again in 1880.

were the half breeds and stalwarts still active in the party by then? >> i'm not so sure they had those terms anymore, that they were thinking along the same lines. there were still, of course, divisions within the party. >> that year james garfield did get the nomination thanks to blaine in many ways. >> yes. >> and can you explain why. >> well, blaine, although he was very much wanted the nomination himself came after many, many ballots if i do understand that that was what was going to happen. >> what happened after that? >> became secretary of state in 1881. i read that james g. blaine was with him in the train station. >> yes, he was. >> do you know the story?

very handsome man, very well very handsome man, very well dressed. extremely well spoken. beginning in the late 1850s, started out as a newspaper editor. got bit by the political bug. by the late 1850s, was very much immersed in the emerging republican party, and lots of experience in the late 1850s and late 1860s, and stump speaking

here in maine and that really gave him a lot of practice toward being able to articulate his ideas as he emerged as a national figure. charismatic. magnetism. >> he was the kind of politician that could make you feel he knew who you were, what your particular concerns were and so on and that made him a very powerful figure. >> the story told, for example, in the 1884 campaign, he's on a train, and he recognizes a man who he had met as a wounded soldier in the military hospital in washington 20 years before. so that was the kind of memory he for faces. >> what a gift for a politician,

to remember names and recall them. he was able to capitalize that. >> he was a great politician. >> yes, a master. >> not just in that, but mastery of political tactics. >> mastery of political tactics, controlling his party and leading his party i would say. these years he wrote about, he had an ability to smooth over the sections. >> he was constantly complaining of ill health, all through his life, and, of course, ultimately died at -- at 62 in 1893 and the last few months of his life, he was truly ill. >> had braves disease. >> he was also relentlessly ambitious, and i read somewhere that there was no one who yearned or hungered for the presidency more than james blaine. was truly ill. >> had braves disease. >> he was also relentlessly ambitious, and i read somewhere that there was no one who

yearned or hungered for the presidency more than james blaine. >> throughout his career, charges of corruption from days promoting the railroad lobbied in congress stuck with him. another political cartoons, the tattooed james g. blaine, which refers to on the tattooed man, many of the charges against him. will you tell us more about that episode, why it was so significant? >> this comes from puck, the election in 1884. actually a tremendously powerful image in that election, in that -- it -- it is recognized as maybe one of the factors that helped defeat blaine. essentially, blaine is shown -- in the midst of that crowd are his running mate -- >> does history really record whether or not, in fact, he was corrupt? >> well, think i actually the

mulligan letters, the accusation, as opposed to being his defense, and he tried very hard to make them seem as if they had no value. i read something about him slamming them down on the desk and daring people to read the letters. once he had stolen them from whoever had them in the first place. he went to the hotel and said let me see the letters, and he took the letters and disappeared with them, never returned with them. i don't think there is any clarity that he was not guilty. it's pretty clear he was -- somebody called him jay gould's handyman or jay gould's busboy or something to that effect. that he was so tight with the

railroad industry. that it was unlikely he was innocent. >> and they continued to dog him. in the 1884 campaign, someone published what was believed to be a version of the mullican letters and a pamphlet, and he never quite resolved that. >> we'll involve some of our viewers. first call from roger, watching us in atlanta. you are on air. >> caller: hi, how are you tonight? >> great. thank you. >> caller: i finished reading the recent biography of speaker reid. from two people powerful in the republican party, they seemed very distant.

is that true or just a feature of the biography? >> no, i think are you correct. you are mentioning thomas bracket reed, born in portland in 1839. so just a little younger than blaine. went to boden college and spent 9d his entire public life as a congressman. he rose to be speaker, like blaine was also speaker from 1869 to '75. reed served in the 1890s. i think corruption was never a question in relation to reed. reed was a very -- totally honest, forthright individual, person of great integrity, and i think in addition to that, reed is as scribed as a towering figure in the history of the development of the congress, considered by many to be one of the three or four most influential speakers of the

house in the history of the house. primarily because of reed's rules, reform of the house. the recognition that the majority rule had to be counted and had to be taken into account. >> next caller is jim, watching us in san francisco. hi, jim. >> caller: hi. i think you're right on the major issues here. i mean, it seems to me the country was going through a major transition from the old money having formalized their ethical values and then they would transition the country with the railroads into big industry corporations, and raising money for corporations and very different sets of values, and so the question is, you know, how could someone who is busy making all of the deals and representing wall street maintain any kind of public reputation in this situation? >> certainly i think one answer

to that would be that there was a great recognition of his sheer power. and so he -- because he was so powerful, and could do so much for the party and for its other goals, people could set aside -- some people at least could set aside his apparent -- very close relationship with the railroads and the industry. >> next is the call from sharon, watching us in portland, new york. hi, sharon. >> caller: hi. i want to thank c-span for bringing this wonderful series. my question is this. did mr. blaine make any money before he went into politics, or did he come from a family this had money to begin with? thank you. >> good question.