Show BLAINE IS DUMB Ho Refuses to Answer tbe Conkling LetterWhat He Says AUGUSTA Me September 25The Kennebec Journal under the heading of I Mr Conkling and Mr Blaine will tomorrow publish such response as Blaine desires to make to the recently published letter of Conkling to his friend in New York State Blaine was asked by a Kenntbec Journal Jour-nal reporter if he had any reply to make and this was the response Nothing could induce me to enter into a controversy over Conklinqs grave During our joint service in Congress some sixteen years in all we had tome exasperating controversies but I never snnke or wrote a word con cerning him except publicly and now that he is dead my lips are sealed against every form of criticism or unkind un-kind expression no matter what maybe I may-be the injustice of any one of his surviving sur-viving friends Blaine said it was a great surprise to him that such a letter should have been written by Conkling The date shows that the letter was written just six days after the close of an exasperating personal per-sonal debate with Conkling and if Conkling had intended to say anything of the kind he would have been apt to say it then and not immediately afterward after-ward in a private letter which was not given to the public for twentytwo I years The whole affair was not In accordance i ac-cordance with Conkiings habitual I course in debate Blaine was asked if he had anything to say about the charge that he I had made money out of recruiting recruit-ing funds in the war and he replied that it might with equal truth be charged that he had made money by robbing the mails or by piracy on the high seas The recruiting scandal of Maine in the last year of the war had been investigated by two committees and one public commission whose efforts ef-forts Blame said he aided and there was he says not a word of evidence or even a suggestion or hint in any one of the three reports that he had anymore any-more connection with the matter than had Conkling or his unwise friend who published this letter and attributes it to the dead statesman |