“Is there, for honest povertyThat hangs his head, and a’ that;The coward-slave, we pass him by.We dare be poor, for a’ that;For a’ that, and a’ that,Our toil’s obscure, and a’ that,The rank is but the guinea’s stamp;The man’s the gowd for a’ that.“What though on homely fare we dine,A prince can make a belted knight,A marquis, duke, and a’ that;But an honest man’s aboon his mightGuid faith he manna fa’ that,For a’ that, and a’ that,The pith o’ sense and pride o’ worthAre higher ranks than a’ that.“Then let us pray that come it may,As come it will for a’ that,That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,May hear the gree, and a’ that,That man to man, the world o’er,Shall brothers be for a’ that.”
“Is there, for honest povertyThat hangs his head, and a’ that;The coward-slave, we pass him by.We dare be poor, for a’ that;For a’ that, and a’ that,Our toil’s obscure, and a’ that,The rank is but the guinea’s stamp;The man’s the gowd for a’ that.“What though on homely fare we dine,A prince can make a belted knight,A marquis, duke, and a’ that;But an honest man’s aboon his mightGuid faith he manna fa’ that,For a’ that, and a’ that,The pith o’ sense and pride o’ worthAre higher ranks than a’ that.“Then let us pray that come it may,As come it will for a’ that,That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,May hear the gree, and a’ that,That man to man, the world o’er,Shall brothers be for a’ that.”
“Is there, for honest povertyThat hangs his head, and a’ that;The coward-slave, we pass him by.We dare be poor, for a’ that;For a’ that, and a’ that,Our toil’s obscure, and a’ that,The rank is but the guinea’s stamp;The man’s the gowd for a’ that.
“Is there, for honest poverty
That hangs his head, and a’ that;
The coward-slave, we pass him by.
We dare be poor, for a’ that;
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Our toil’s obscure, and a’ that,
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp;
The man’s the gowd for a’ that.
“What though on homely fare we dine,A prince can make a belted knight,A marquis, duke, and a’ that;But an honest man’s aboon his mightGuid faith he manna fa’ that,For a’ that, and a’ that,The pith o’ sense and pride o’ worthAre higher ranks than a’ that.
“What though on homely fare we dine,
A prince can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a’ that;
But an honest man’s aboon his might
Guid faith he manna fa’ that,
For a’ that, and a’ that,
The pith o’ sense and pride o’ worth
Are higher ranks than a’ that.
“Then let us pray that come it may,As come it will for a’ that,That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,May hear the gree, and a’ that,That man to man, the world o’er,Shall brothers be for a’ that.”
“Then let us pray that come it may,
As come it will for a’ that,
That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,
May hear the gree, and a’ that,
That man to man, the world o’er,
Shall brothers be for a’ that.”
[1]This story has frequently been related, verbally, but the Author has never seen it in print. Its authenticity, however, is fully established.
GROVER CLEVELAND
GROVER CLEVELAND.
Selected by the “Common People,” November 8, 1892,to Represent the Interests of the Massesagainst the Classes.
The voice of the people, is indeed, the voice of God, and in grand and tremendous tones has that voice resounded through the land. The 8th of November, 1892, will long be remembered in the history of our country as one which stands in the annals of time as a monument to the might of the people, upon which might be carved in letters of everlasting durability, “Do not tread on me.” The tidal wave, so often referred to by the newspapers, has come with unexpected momentum, washing aside the puny politicians as thistledown on the mighty stream of the Mississippi.
That mirror of public opinion, so generally correct, so apt to be accurate, is absolutely stupefied by the tremendous character of the uprising of the people. Even those who fondly hoped for victory, among the Democratic journalists, stand in reverential awe before the stupendous results so noiselessly and irresistibly effected by the masses. They vainly seek, like one bereft of sight, for the delusive cause of this great outpouring of Democratic sentiment.
That most preëminent and respectable organ of mugwump principles, the New YorkTimes, of November 9, 1892, sounds the praises of Cleveland and his popularity as the cause; which is pardonable, as theTimeshas consistently closed its eyes before the blinding light of Cleveland’s preëminence and brilliancy, and refused to see anything else or any other issue in the campaign, arguing that by the magic of the one word, “Cleveland,” victory could be attained. Its leader on the result of the people’s resentment to the crime of “caste” in our country, is a sounding eulogy upon Cleveland, with here and there a glimmer of light breaking upon the vision.
“Meanwhile the victory of Mr. Cleveland is the most signal since the re-election of Lincoln in the last year of the war for the Union.”
“Meanwhile the victory of Mr. Cleveland is the most signal since the re-election of Lincoln in the last year of the war for the Union.”
It is noticeable in this paragraph that Cleveland’s preëminence so overshadowed, in the mind of theTimes, Lincoln, that the prefix of “Mr.” is used before Cleveland’s name, while just plain “Lincoln” is good enough for the man who preserved the Union. One would hardly expect, therefore, that theTimeswould do more than shout the praises of Cleveland, and give no credit to the sense of the people for their victory. Quoting from their article:—
“The nomination of Mr. Cleveland was dictated by the general sentiment of the party,inspired wholly by confidence in his integrity, purity, firmness, and sound sense. It was unaided by any organization, promoted by no machine, advocated by no literary bureau, appealed to no base passion. * * * * * * His election is due to the recognition by hundreds of thousands of sound-hearted American citizens, who had not before acted with the Democratic party, that under his guidance, with its avowed policy, that party was a fit depository of the powers of the Government. It is, moreover, preëminently a victory of courage and fidelity to principle. The Chicago Convention, in taking Mr. Cleveland as its candidate, planted itself firmly on the ground of principle.”
“The nomination of Mr. Cleveland was dictated by the general sentiment of the party,inspired wholly by confidence in his integrity, purity, firmness, and sound sense. It was unaided by any organization, promoted by no machine, advocated by no literary bureau, appealed to no base passion. * * * * * * His election is due to the recognition by hundreds of thousands of sound-hearted American citizens, who had not before acted with the Democratic party, that under his guidance, with its avowed policy, that party was a fit depository of the powers of the Government. It is, moreover, preëminently a victory of courage and fidelity to principle. The Chicago Convention, in taking Mr. Cleveland as its candidate, planted itself firmly on the ground of principle.”
It is perfectly plain to be seen that, from a source where the wreath of victory dangles, inscribed with but one word, and that “Cleveland,” one could hardly expect to find information as to the cause that brought about this revolution in the minds of the people. Not that there is any objection to the praises of Cleveland, because all that they say of him is believed by thousands throughout the country, and the same thing is believed to be true of thousands of other men whom the Democratic party might have nominated. Horace Greeley, could he have been taken from his tomb and reanimated, would just as surely have been elected upon the Democratic ticket, had the people believed, as they did, that that ticket represented that “caste,” moneyed aristocracy, to which they were bitterly in their heart of hearts opposed.
The New YorkWorld, controlled by one of the brightest, keenest, and shrewdest of men in the journalistic field, in an excellent editorial of November 10, 1892, proceeds to tell what the victory means. And one sentence particularly would be significant, if followed by a little definition of “plutocracy.” Were this word significant enough to cover the objectionable features of the peculiar kind of “caste” which had become identified with the Republican party, it would be sufficient, but such is not the understanding of the word.
New YorkWorld, November 10th: “The President elect is the very embodiment of conscientious caution. He is preëminently conservative. His administration will mean economy, reform, retrenchment in every branch of the Government. The victory does mean putting a stop to riot, extravagance, profligacy, and corruption.”
Few, very few, men who voted the Democratic ticket believe that there had been corruption, profligacy, under the Republican administration. The people were not directly affected by the aforesaid charges. The victory did not mean that.
The people are no longer political drones; they are thinking men, moved by sentiments and forces which have not as yet been explained by the most laborious newspaper articles written inthe heat of the campaign, actuated in many cases by partisan interests, party journalists, aristocratic tendencies, and political affiliations. Each would see only his side of the party shield, and that was sure to be golden.
Mr. Cleveland, in his speech at the Manhattan Club, New York, commenting on this fact, states: “The American people have become political, and more thoughtful, and more watchful than they were ten years ago. They are considering now, vastly more than they were then, political principles and party policies, in distinction from party manipulation and distribution of rewards for political services and activities.”
The reason for this is obvious. The country has been flooded of late years with newspapers, brought down to a nominal price; the people have read them thoughtfully; have written to them for explanations of difficulties and doubts arising in their minds, and have profited by these explanations. They have seen paraded in the newspapers the exhibitions of the pride of “caste”; they have seen chronicled the doings of the American Duchess with her divorced duke; they have learned to hate that which the Republican party would have preached to them as the source of all their happiness and prosperity. The Republican party, viewing it only as a means whereby fortunes were accumulated, espoused theprinciples which created a desire in the minds of divorced dukes, puppified lords, and degenerate descendants of English nobility, from cupidity, to marry America’s fair daughters. The cheapness of the newspapers placed within the reach of the poorest the information upon which he based his faith. The penny paper is the great leveler of the land.
The New YorkHerald, of November 13th, commenting on the recent election, takes a biblical text as its theme: “Then were the people of Israel divided into two parts. Half of the people followed Tibni and half followed Omri; but the people that followed Omri prevailed against the people that followed Tibni: so Tibni died and Omri reigned,” and says:—
“In those days, questions in dispute were settled by pitched battles. In these modern times, the arbitrament of war has become wellnigh obsolete, and national policies are decided by ballots instead of bayonets. We doubt if the history of the world records a spectacle as inspiring or instructive as that presented by the American people on Tuesday last, when by an orderly revolution they sent one class of political ideas to the rear, and another class to the front. The party leaders on both sides may have gone into the conflict for personal emolument, or some advantage for their followers, which is scarcely concealed under the words, ‘Patronage and Purposes,’ but the body of the people were the rankand file—the merchant, mechanic, artisan, and farmer; they cast their votes for the greatest good to the greatest number, because the prosperity of the whole means the prosperity of each.”
“In those days, questions in dispute were settled by pitched battles. In these modern times, the arbitrament of war has become wellnigh obsolete, and national policies are decided by ballots instead of bayonets. We doubt if the history of the world records a spectacle as inspiring or instructive as that presented by the American people on Tuesday last, when by an orderly revolution they sent one class of political ideas to the rear, and another class to the front. The party leaders on both sides may have gone into the conflict for personal emolument, or some advantage for their followers, which is scarcely concealed under the words, ‘Patronage and Purposes,’ but the body of the people were the rankand file—the merchant, mechanic, artisan, and farmer; they cast their votes for the greatest good to the greatest number, because the prosperity of the whole means the prosperity of each.”
In other words, 65,000,000 people have made themselves acquainted with the principles which underlie their government; have learned, through innumerable newspapers, which fall on hill and prairie as thick as snowflakes in December, the value and effect of the differing national policies, and on election day, expressed an intelligent and honest opinion.
In his work on “The American Commonwealth,” James Bryce put the matter in terse and brilliant language, as follows:—
“The parties are not the ultimate force in the conduct of affairs. Public opinion—that is, the mind and conduct of the whole nation—is the opinion of the persons who are included in the parties, for the parties taken together are the nation, and the parties, each claiming to be its true exponent, seek to use it for their purposes. Yet, it stands above the parties, being cooler and larger-minded than they are. It awes party leaders, and holds in check party organization. No one openly ventures to resist it. It is the product of a greater number of minds than in any other country, and it is more indisputably sovereign. It is the central point in the whole American policy.”
“The parties are not the ultimate force in the conduct of affairs. Public opinion—that is, the mind and conduct of the whole nation—is the opinion of the persons who are included in the parties, for the parties taken together are the nation, and the parties, each claiming to be its true exponent, seek to use it for their purposes. Yet, it stands above the parties, being cooler and larger-minded than they are. It awes party leaders, and holds in check party organization. No one openly ventures to resist it. It is the product of a greater number of minds than in any other country, and it is more indisputably sovereign. It is the central point in the whole American policy.”
The people have spoken. Democracy is triumphant. Democratic principles have prevailed.They are rooted in the hearts of the common people. The voice of God has spoken. To you, Mr. Cleveland, is entrusted a great task. You took the enemy in flank, you invaded his own territory; you put him upon the defensive, and the defence was unsuccessful, while his offensive operations against the Democratic stronghold crippled and embarrassed. You have the love of the American people. Nourish it; cherish it as the apple of your eye, and your name will go down into history, linked with the name of Jackson, Jefferson, and Abraham Lincoln.
Mr. Thomas Dolan, a well-known manufacturer, of Philadelphia, told some plain truths in an impromptu speech at the Clover Club banquet in that city, shortly after the election. Some parts of it have become public. Mr. Dolan was asked, jokingly, why “it snowed the next day.” His answer had the pungent, incisive, trenchant quality characteristic of the man. “You ask me,” he said, “why it snowed the next day. If you want an answer, I will give it to you; but I must give it in plain terms, for I can speak in no other way. It ‘snowed the next day’ because there was the most stupendous lying in this campaign of any that I have ever known. It has been said here this evening, that this was a campaign without personality and without mud-flinging. That may have been so in the treatment of candidates, butin reference to others, it was a campaign of shameless lying, vituperation, and calumny. The manufacturers of the country, some of those here to-night, were held up as thieves and robbers who are stealing what belongs to labor. The very men who are giving labor its employment, and are seeking to assure it good wages, were assailed and denounced as its worst enemies. The Democratic press was full of abuse of those who have done their best to build up the prosperity of the country. There never was more unscrupulous lying than there has been in the dishonest and demagogic attempt to array class against class, and it is because of this persistent lying, imposed upon the people for the time being, that ‘it snowed the next day.’” This is, of course, an explanation by arepresentativeRepublican, of Republican defeat.
The New YorkWorld, of November 20th, gives a better explanation, though not a true one:—
Republican politicians are searching in all manner of out-of-the-way corners for the causes of their party’s defeat. They are carefully overlooking the actual cause which lies open to less prejudiced view. The Republican party was defeated because its politicians have strayed away from honest and patriotic courses. They have worshiped strange gods; they have allied themselves and their party with the plutocratic interests of the country; they have betrayed the peopleto the monopolists; they have sought to substitute money for manhood as the controlling power; they have tried to buy elections; they have squandered the substance of the country, in order that there might be no reduction in oppressive taxes, which indirectly, but enormously, benefit a favored class. The party is punished for its sins. It has forfeited popular confidence by its misconduct. It has ceased to deserve power, and the people have taken power from it.
Republican politicians are searching in all manner of out-of-the-way corners for the causes of their party’s defeat. They are carefully overlooking the actual cause which lies open to less prejudiced view. The Republican party was defeated because its politicians have strayed away from honest and patriotic courses. They have worshiped strange gods; they have allied themselves and their party with the plutocratic interests of the country; they have betrayed the peopleto the monopolists; they have sought to substitute money for manhood as the controlling power; they have tried to buy elections; they have squandered the substance of the country, in order that there might be no reduction in oppressive taxes, which indirectly, but enormously, benefit a favored class. The party is punished for its sins. It has forfeited popular confidence by its misconduct. It has ceased to deserve power, and the people have taken power from it.
Murat Halstead, a deep thinker, wielding a forceful pen, writing about the recent mistakes of the Republican party, says:—
“There was too much ‘Tariff Reform’ and too little attention to practical politics in the conduct of the recent Republican campaign. The mistakes of the Republican party were many. They attempted too much tariff reform and too much ballot reform and too much civil service reform, and strangely mingled too little and too great attention to practical politics. The high character of the Harrison administration was not of the ‘fetching’ sort. There were strong and distinguished Republicans sharply opposed to another Harrison administration, in California, Nevada, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, and several of the Southern States. In some States, there was grief because he did too much for Senators and too little for Representatives, and in others, the Senators suffered because the Representatives were especially recognized; and there were scores of personal irritations that were nothing in themselves, but inthe aggregate, became an element of mischief that was magnified into disaster. The ranks seemed solid toward the close of the campaign, but there were weaknesses, here and there, known to those whose information was from the interior. There were three things that seemed to give assurances of Republican success: First, the country was prosperous, and the economic value of protection seemed to be demonstrated, and nowhere more clearly than in the Homestead strike. Second, it was the testimony of home statistics and foreign news that the McKinley tariff was helping our workingmen, and had a powerful tendency to the transfer of industries to our shores, while the reciprocity treaties were aiding our manufacturers and food producers alike to new markets. Two of the grandest steamships on the Atlantic, one the swiftest ever built, were to hoist the stars and stripes and be transferred from the British navy to our own, and this was understood to be the dawn of an era of restoration of our lost strength on the seas. Third, President Harrison was revealed to the nation in his administration as a man of the highest order of ability, of industry that never wavered, and will that was unflinching and executive, while he was the readiest, most varied, and striking public speaker of his time. We have had no President with more influence with his own administration than he wielded. The Republicans have so long been accustomed to holding at least a veto on the Democratic party, that they could not be aroused to the full appreciation of the danger of giving that party the whole power of Government. The masses of men declined, in thisfast age and rapidly-developing country, to be warned by the events of more than thirty years ago. The first surprise was public apathy. There were few displays. It was not a great summer and autumn for brass bands and torches. It was not a great year for newspapers. Those that largely increased their circulation did it outside of presidential excitements and political attractions. The second surprise was the immense registration. Then it was seen that comparative public quietude did not mean lack of interest. Everybody knew something was going to happen. Republicans were cheered, and said: ‘This means the quiet vote. The secret ballot is with us. Times are good. There’ll be a big vote, on the quiet, to let well enough alone. Harrison is a great President, and it is the will of the people that he shall continue his good works.’ The Democrats said: ‘The secret ballot is with us this time. The workingman is dissatisfied. He gets more wages than he does abroad, but he holds that he is robbed of his share of the riches of the land, and the quiet vote is with us. The workshops are for a change.’ There was much in what they said. The workingmen gave the Democrats New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and the election; but was there ever such a combination of antagonisms gathered into an opposition force, to carry the Government by storm, as that which the Democracy was enabled to make? Contrast the Democratic platforms of Connecticut and Kentucky. They are more flagrantly opposed to each other than the Minneapolis and Chicago papers. Connecticut is rankly Protection, and Kentuckyrabidly Free Trade. Both are for freedom. The Democrats joined with the Populists in several States to give Weaver votes, and in other States terrorized, threatened, assaulted, and cheated his opponents.“Take the money matters; we find the Democracy are red dog, wild cat, rag baby, silver pig, or gold bug, according to the local demands. They are all for Cleveland, however. The very ferocity of the personal factions of the Democratic party in New York was converted into steam power to drive the Cleveland machine. There was emulation in his service, between his old friends and enemies; and the enemies of other days exceeded the friends in the competitive struggle. The Democrats who hoped he would be defeated, and there were many thousands of them, were the most particular of men to vote for him because they felt their future in the party depended upon their ‘record.’ What they wanted was to be beaten in the ‘give-a-way game,’ and they trusted to the last to be able to say: ‘There, you see how it is; we told you he was impossible. We’ve done all we could, and it is just as we said.’“When the shriekers of calamity are able to harness the prosperity of the country and turn it against the Government; when the beneficiaries of a great policy turn against it and vote it down; when those who lick the cream of good times, hunger and thirst for experimental changes; when opposing interests and factions, principles and purposes, personalities and all the potencies of all the fads, can be united for a common purpose, there are surprises for citizens who haveheld in a commonplace way, but the unreasonable and inconsistent, the unwarrantable and the illogical, must also be the impracticable.“It has been remarked of St. Petersburg, that in case of the occurrence of, first, a great flood in the Neva; second, extraordinary high tide; third, a long, strong blow from the gulf, the city must be overwhelmed. The years, the decades, and the centuries come and go without the disaster. It was long understood in the Ohio valley that there would be a flood beating all in history, and competing with Indian tradition, if there happened, in the order set down, these events: (1) during a wintry night, a sudden general rain, followed quickly by a freeze, covering Western New York and Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, West North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana with a sheet of ice; (2) if, upon this vast glassy surface, there should fall a series of heavy snows; (3) if, upon the snow, there should come rain, beginning near the Mississippi, which should be full and filling all the streams, locking them from the mouths against speedy discharge; (4) and if there followed rain-storms for a week, so distributed as to boom all the rivers in order from west to east; (5) culminating with three tremendous downpours over all the mountain regions, sweeping from the glazed earth the whole accumulation of snows, and so timed as to tumble all the floods at once into the Ohio, whose channel has been obstructed by the piers of many bridges, and a habit of encroaching upon it, then the river would make a demonstration memorable and marvelous. All this took place, just as we haveset it down, five winters ago, and the high-water-mark at Cincinnati is seventy feet above low-water-mark. Up to this, the boast of the old folks in the valley was, that they had seen ‘the flood of ’32,’ and there could never be anything like it. The world did not now-a-days afford such spectacles as they had beheld in ’32! A few dingy old houses had incredible high-water ’32 marks upon it. If the river looked angry, and rushed through a few low streets, the veterans would say: ‘You should have seen the flood of ’32. ’Twas the biggest thing we ever had, or ever will have. But they do say the Indians said, they once hitched canoes to walnut trees away above the ’32 mark; but them Indians was such liars.’ The flood of 1885 beat that of 1832 two feet, and the flood of 1887 was nearly seven feet above the old high-water-mark. Averaging the chances, it will not happen again for one hundred years. The river Rhine has a way of rising at the same time with the Ohio, and was higher in 1885 than it had been in two hundred years. There was favoring the Democratic party this year, such a combination of circumstances as that which made an Ohio flood seem a prodigy. The high-water-mark is astounding. The country is still here. There is something to eat, and even to drink. Such a Democratic disaster will not be due again for a generation.”
“There was too much ‘Tariff Reform’ and too little attention to practical politics in the conduct of the recent Republican campaign. The mistakes of the Republican party were many. They attempted too much tariff reform and too much ballot reform and too much civil service reform, and strangely mingled too little and too great attention to practical politics. The high character of the Harrison administration was not of the ‘fetching’ sort. There were strong and distinguished Republicans sharply opposed to another Harrison administration, in California, Nevada, Colorado, Kansas, Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York, Maine, and several of the Southern States. In some States, there was grief because he did too much for Senators and too little for Representatives, and in others, the Senators suffered because the Representatives were especially recognized; and there were scores of personal irritations that were nothing in themselves, but inthe aggregate, became an element of mischief that was magnified into disaster. The ranks seemed solid toward the close of the campaign, but there were weaknesses, here and there, known to those whose information was from the interior. There were three things that seemed to give assurances of Republican success: First, the country was prosperous, and the economic value of protection seemed to be demonstrated, and nowhere more clearly than in the Homestead strike. Second, it was the testimony of home statistics and foreign news that the McKinley tariff was helping our workingmen, and had a powerful tendency to the transfer of industries to our shores, while the reciprocity treaties were aiding our manufacturers and food producers alike to new markets. Two of the grandest steamships on the Atlantic, one the swiftest ever built, were to hoist the stars and stripes and be transferred from the British navy to our own, and this was understood to be the dawn of an era of restoration of our lost strength on the seas. Third, President Harrison was revealed to the nation in his administration as a man of the highest order of ability, of industry that never wavered, and will that was unflinching and executive, while he was the readiest, most varied, and striking public speaker of his time. We have had no President with more influence with his own administration than he wielded. The Republicans have so long been accustomed to holding at least a veto on the Democratic party, that they could not be aroused to the full appreciation of the danger of giving that party the whole power of Government. The masses of men declined, in thisfast age and rapidly-developing country, to be warned by the events of more than thirty years ago. The first surprise was public apathy. There were few displays. It was not a great summer and autumn for brass bands and torches. It was not a great year for newspapers. Those that largely increased their circulation did it outside of presidential excitements and political attractions. The second surprise was the immense registration. Then it was seen that comparative public quietude did not mean lack of interest. Everybody knew something was going to happen. Republicans were cheered, and said: ‘This means the quiet vote. The secret ballot is with us. Times are good. There’ll be a big vote, on the quiet, to let well enough alone. Harrison is a great President, and it is the will of the people that he shall continue his good works.’ The Democrats said: ‘The secret ballot is with us this time. The workingman is dissatisfied. He gets more wages than he does abroad, but he holds that he is robbed of his share of the riches of the land, and the quiet vote is with us. The workshops are for a change.’ There was much in what they said. The workingmen gave the Democrats New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Indiana, Illinois, and the election; but was there ever such a combination of antagonisms gathered into an opposition force, to carry the Government by storm, as that which the Democracy was enabled to make? Contrast the Democratic platforms of Connecticut and Kentucky. They are more flagrantly opposed to each other than the Minneapolis and Chicago papers. Connecticut is rankly Protection, and Kentuckyrabidly Free Trade. Both are for freedom. The Democrats joined with the Populists in several States to give Weaver votes, and in other States terrorized, threatened, assaulted, and cheated his opponents.
“Take the money matters; we find the Democracy are red dog, wild cat, rag baby, silver pig, or gold bug, according to the local demands. They are all for Cleveland, however. The very ferocity of the personal factions of the Democratic party in New York was converted into steam power to drive the Cleveland machine. There was emulation in his service, between his old friends and enemies; and the enemies of other days exceeded the friends in the competitive struggle. The Democrats who hoped he would be defeated, and there were many thousands of them, were the most particular of men to vote for him because they felt their future in the party depended upon their ‘record.’ What they wanted was to be beaten in the ‘give-a-way game,’ and they trusted to the last to be able to say: ‘There, you see how it is; we told you he was impossible. We’ve done all we could, and it is just as we said.’
“When the shriekers of calamity are able to harness the prosperity of the country and turn it against the Government; when the beneficiaries of a great policy turn against it and vote it down; when those who lick the cream of good times, hunger and thirst for experimental changes; when opposing interests and factions, principles and purposes, personalities and all the potencies of all the fads, can be united for a common purpose, there are surprises for citizens who haveheld in a commonplace way, but the unreasonable and inconsistent, the unwarrantable and the illogical, must also be the impracticable.
“It has been remarked of St. Petersburg, that in case of the occurrence of, first, a great flood in the Neva; second, extraordinary high tide; third, a long, strong blow from the gulf, the city must be overwhelmed. The years, the decades, and the centuries come and go without the disaster. It was long understood in the Ohio valley that there would be a flood beating all in history, and competing with Indian tradition, if there happened, in the order set down, these events: (1) during a wintry night, a sudden general rain, followed quickly by a freeze, covering Western New York and Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Kentucky, West North Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio, and Indiana with a sheet of ice; (2) if, upon this vast glassy surface, there should fall a series of heavy snows; (3) if, upon the snow, there should come rain, beginning near the Mississippi, which should be full and filling all the streams, locking them from the mouths against speedy discharge; (4) and if there followed rain-storms for a week, so distributed as to boom all the rivers in order from west to east; (5) culminating with three tremendous downpours over all the mountain regions, sweeping from the glazed earth the whole accumulation of snows, and so timed as to tumble all the floods at once into the Ohio, whose channel has been obstructed by the piers of many bridges, and a habit of encroaching upon it, then the river would make a demonstration memorable and marvelous. All this took place, just as we haveset it down, five winters ago, and the high-water-mark at Cincinnati is seventy feet above low-water-mark. Up to this, the boast of the old folks in the valley was, that they had seen ‘the flood of ’32,’ and there could never be anything like it. The world did not now-a-days afford such spectacles as they had beheld in ’32! A few dingy old houses had incredible high-water ’32 marks upon it. If the river looked angry, and rushed through a few low streets, the veterans would say: ‘You should have seen the flood of ’32. ’Twas the biggest thing we ever had, or ever will have. But they do say the Indians said, they once hitched canoes to walnut trees away above the ’32 mark; but them Indians was such liars.’ The flood of 1885 beat that of 1832 two feet, and the flood of 1887 was nearly seven feet above the old high-water-mark. Averaging the chances, it will not happen again for one hundred years. The river Rhine has a way of rising at the same time with the Ohio, and was higher in 1885 than it had been in two hundred years. There was favoring the Democratic party this year, such a combination of circumstances as that which made an Ohio flood seem a prodigy. The high-water-mark is astounding. The country is still here. There is something to eat, and even to drink. Such a Democratic disaster will not be due again for a generation.”
John Russell Young, the brilliant journalist, writing in the PhiladelphiaEvening Star, quoted by the New YorkPress, of November 19th, has his explanation for the defeat ready: “Communitiesare like men, like women, like children, like dogs. Why do they do it? Why does a man buy wildcat stocks? Why does a woman rave over a bonnet, or marry a student of divinity? Why? Because we are more or less fools, even as the good Lord made us fools, and if we were not fools, it would be a teasing, tiresome world. Why does a boy go to bed as cross as the roaring forties after his Christmas dinner? He has had too much mince pie. The country has had too much mince pie. It kicks. It kicked after Quincy Adams, the best of all Presidents. It kicked after Van Buren, who was as downy as an Angora cat. It kicked after Arthur, whose administration was sunshine. It kicks after Harrison, the radiant, prosperous Government. Too much mince pie! Cleveland comes in because of his medicinal properties. We must take to our herbs now and then.”
The practical politicians of the Republican party feel it incumbent upon them to give their version of the great defeat. James S. Clarkson, who, for many years, has been a guiding spirit among Republican leaders, of the late verdict says: “It is an order from the American people for a change in the industrial economic policy of the Government.” He charges that the Republican party has lost strength and votes among the rich and among the people of independentmeans, who now want cheap labor; also among the workingmen, who have come to believe that free trade will cheapen the expense of living, while the Trades-Unions will still keep up their wages. He says: “The result is not a personal defeat of President Harrison, nor really a defeat of the party. It was a Protection defeat, a repudiation of high tariff, a Republican reverse in a field where it put aside all the nobler issues, and staked everything on economic and mercenary issues.”
The surprising overturn of affairs in the distinctly Republican State of Illinois is accounted for by Senator Cullom by distinctive issues other than the McKinley and Force Bills: “Our losses in this State are mainly due to the school question, but in the nation at large they are due, in my judgment, to the passage of the McKinley law, and the impression in the minds of the masses in regard to it. When it was passed, the people expected us to revise the tariff, and revise it in the direction of reducing duties, and, while we did make reductions, they were dissatisfied because so many increases were made. When the bill came to the Senate from the House, we cut many of these in pieces, but, when it went back to the House and got into the Conference Committee, enough of them were restored to put us on the defensive and at a great disadvantage. Yes, Ithink our defeat can fairly be attributed to the McKinley Bill,” and Senator Cullom represents the State of Abraham Lincoln. The prairies that gave breath to the typical champion of the people, produced this statesman, who, representing the State of a man who stands first in the minds of the people as their representative, sees only the indications of the mercenary spirit of the people. How Abraham Lincoln would have gauged correctly, instinctively, the heart-throbs of the people whom he assumed to represent in the councils of the nation!
Senator Cullom, in his opinion, mirrors only the reflection, cast upon the surface of his mind, by the aristocratic and multi-millionaired Senate of the Union, in which he occupies a seat. He sees only the cold, hard dollars and cents at issue.
He does not appreciate, as Abraham Lincoln would have done, the feeling of the people whom he pretends to represent. In every prairie home of Illinois there was an insulted wife or mother by the assumed distinctions made by the would-be aristocrats of the Republican party. Stevenson’s speeches awakened no echo in their hearts, except that it gave an opportunity for the exhibition of the old, old story, written by the swords of the Anglo-Saxon people, “Caste is a crime.” That the State of all States, Illinois, which gave to theFederal Union Abraham Lincoln, should be presented in the sedate Senate of the Union, by a man whose views are so narrowed by the horizon of his own thoughts as to express a sentiment like the foregoing; namely, that the people were governed in their selection of their representative, the Chief Magistrate, by the power of the pocketbook; to be so unresponsive to the throbbing hearts of his constituency, is most disappointing.
Editors can be at times epigrammatic, and this election has brought forth some keen and trenchant opinions on the causes of defeat. Here are a few of them. All of them seek, as a child playing blind-man’s-buff, in darkness, for that which, had the bandage which blinds them been removed from their eyes, would have been made plain, and which was occasioned by their own presumption in assuming to measure the depths and power of the people’s feelings and impulses:—
Clark Howell, in the AtlantaConstitution, says: “Now, after thirty-one years, since Buchanan’s Democratic administration, another political revolution has taken place, and, as a result, the election of 1852, which destroyed the Whig party, is repeated in the Waterloo defeat of the Republican party, and the question is, will this defeat finish the career of that party? The probability is that it will.”
The AtlantaConstitution, of November 17th, in a brisk editorial, states that “Colonel J. B. McCullagh, the esteemed editor of the St. LouisGlobe-Democrat, is not very happy. Naturally, he has his regrets and his hours of gloom, but he is not so miserable that he is unable to appreciate a mystery that crosses and recrosses his path in broad daylight. He cannot, for instance, understand the post-mortem talk of his party leaders. ‘Curiously enough,’ he says, ‘they are now claiming that Harrison was defeated by the very things which they then said must insure his success.’ Of course, these statements have a humorous twang, but it seems to us that a Republican as prominent as Colonel McCullagh would be willing to drop a veil over these gibbering evidences of human frailty. After all is said, there is but one trouble with the Republicans. They have but one regret. Editor Grubb, of Darien, outlined the situation very aptly when he said that the only thing that the Republicans desired, was the opportunity to steal a State. They are perfectly willing to see Harrison defeated; they are perfectly willing to retire from the control of the government; the only bitterness they feel is the realization of the fact that they failed to steal a State. They stole three Southern States in 1876. They stole two Northern States in 1890, and they stole a Western State last year, but they have failed to steal asingle one in 1892. It is no wonder they are going about talking wildly and rolling their eyes. These are the symptoms of paresis, and, under the circumstances, Senator McCullagh ought to forgive them. The grief and disappointment of the Republican leaders are natural; a general election, and not a State stolen! Surely, their hands have lost their cunning. They made a tremendous effort to keep up their record. They tried to steal Delaware and West Virginia and Connecticut, but everywhere the Democrats met them and exposed their plans. The result was, that they failed to steal even one State. Under the circumstances, we think editor McCullagh should treat his brethren gently; he should not make satellite allusions to their troubles. Let them gibber.”
Thank God, with our Australian Ballot system, each free-born American citizen carries with him into the voter’s booth, if he be at all sensitive, and clothed with an enlightened conscience, the same awful sense of responsibility with which the enlightened and tender-conscienced Catholic enters the sacred realm of the confessional-box. Tremendous issues are at stake. He feels their force, and arises to the occasion, as he ever has done when the exercise of worth, virtue, or virility has been required upon his part, and of the great mass of the common people, Daniel Webster,Henry Clay, Abraham Lincoln, furnish fair samples of the people’s worth, virtue, and virility.
The BuffaloCommercial, than which there is no paper in the State of New York in possession of more perspicacity and political common-sense, in speaking of Senator Allison, a Republican leader of the Senate, states that just before leaving for Europe he intimated that the McKinley Bill was too strong a specific for the Republican party. “You remember,” he said, “that epitaph on the tombstone of the young man who died before his time: ‘I was well; medicine made me ill, and here I lie.’”
The IllinoisState Journalremarks: “Until the post-mortem is held, it is, perhaps, just as well not to be certain what it was that hit the G. O. P. last Tuesday. It may have been the McKinley Bill, or the Homestead matter, or the Lutheran business, or the naturalized vote, or several other things, and then it may have been a complication of all these diseases.” Thou wise physician, who would lose sight of the most important evidence of the disease, the discontent of the people, the artificial class distinction created by the sham aristocracy of America, the diagnosis of the disease, called discontent, as made by the press generally, is as faulty and erroneous as would be the opinion of the quack who would call measles, smallpox. Every symptom of the displeasure ofthe people at the prevalence of the crime of “caste” in our country was evident; yet, apparently, the most learned failed to discern it.
The ToledoBeesays: “The Republican party is dead. The step backward has been taken, and it was a step back that led the party over the precipice of power into the depths of oblivion. The Democratic party has relegated the boodlers, the spoilsmen, and the factional leaders to the rear. What is there left for us to live for?”
Says the LouisvilleCourier-Journal: “The people will have none of its high tariffs, and none of its Force Bills; but without its high tariffs and its Force Bills, it is only an organized hunt for official plunder. The people will not support it in its old course, and will not believe its brittle promises of reform.”
“‘High tariff did it,’ said Mr. Harrison; but in taking satisfaction for his defeat out of the Napoleonic McKinley, the President is less than just to the magnetic Blaine; for, if high tariff caused the explosion, despite the ‘reciprocity attachment,’ what might it not have done without that little Pan-American vent-hole?” This from the PhiladelphiaRecord.
The President, had he combined the magnetism of Blaine, the Napoleonic ability of McKinley,—yea, had he, in fact, borne the magical name of Lincoln,—could not possibly have been re-elected,for the people were opposed to the ideas of “caste,” fostered with such care by the members of the Republican party, in whom, in some mystical manner, have become concentrated the wealth and objectionable characteristics which tended to make the Southern cavalier so unpopular in 1860. The people, in their wrath, would have risen against any party so besmeared with the slime of that noxious crime.
The AtlantaConstitution, of November 17th, claims that “the leaders of the two great parties have had a good deal to say during the past few months about ‘the campaign of education.’ In the main, this phrase very correctly describes the work of both parties. Republican speakers and journalists work night and day to convince the people of the benefits of high Protection. On the other hand, the Democrats are equally active in exposing the true inwardness of McKinleyism and class legislation. This educational literature covered the country, and the average voter got a clearer insight of the questions at issue than he ever had before. One effort of this campaign of education was to eliminate personalities; principles and measures were discussed, and the candidates escaped the usual mudslinging. Another result is seen in the sweeping and decisive nature of the vote. The revolution was so complete that the defeated side realized the utter absurdityof indulging in any bitter complaints, with the great mass of American people arrayed against them. Our victory was so crushing, that it absolutely restored something like good feeling; and we find Whitelaw Reid and Chauncey Depew saying pleasant things to Mr. Cleveland at a banquet, and speaking of their defeat in a humorous fashion. This would not have been the case, had the election been close and only a bare majority of electoral votes for the successful ticket. Altogether, the country has good reason to be satisfied with its campaign of education. It has purified our politics, wiped out sectional lines, and made our people more thoroughly American than ever.”
And for the erasure of sectionalism, God be thanked! but that a man of Mr. Clark Howell’s preëminent ability should have wandered around so near to the object of his search, the cause of the Republican party’s defeat, and not found it, is astonishing. In his own home, the State of Georgia, the Empire State of the South, and as editor of the leading paper in the State, that he should be so oblivious to the fact that the election, by the votes of the people, was a protest upon the part of the people against the assumption by the rich, that such a thing as “caste” could be possible in America.
Georgia, of all the Southern States, is preëminently industrial. Oglethorpe, when he firstsettled on the banks of the Savannah river, was himself surrounded by the poor debtors of England. The Salzburgers, who sought the shores of the uninhabited, uncivilized, new colony, were poor, uncultured people. Georgia never possessed, as a colony or as a State, the aristocratic tendencies of its neighbor, South Carolina. The foremost men have ever been essentially of the people; her settlers largely of the Democratic masses; the names preëminent in her history are the names of industrial New England. So Democratic is and was the State of Georgia, that her most eminent son, Alexander H. Stevens, had to be weaned away reluctantly from the doctrine of which Abraham Lincoln was the personification. Since the war, the State of Georgia more readily adapted herself to the new condition created by the result of the struggle. It was never a State of tremendous landed proprietors. The influx of emigration from the crowded Northern States found readier assimilation in the State of Georgia than in any other Southern State. In that State, the negro sooner realized his responsibilities as a citizen of the South, sooner became convinced that his best and wisest course was to merge himself into the large class of toilers and laborers in the commonwealth. That a man with the opportunity, ability, and brilliancy of Clark Howell, should become so utterly befogged by the mistsarising from the marsh of old party cries and principles, should fail to recognize that the tremendous majority accorded the Democratic candidate, was but an exhibition of that spirit which has pervaded the State of Georgia from its embryonic existence on the Savannah river; that Mr. Howell should have forgotten the lesson taught by the forefathers of the Georgians of to-day, that Democracy was one of the essential elements to the happiness of the citizens, settlement, colony, commonwealth, and State, is passing strange. The very negro, upon becoming a Georgian and a citizen, became a Democrat, almost as a matter resulting from the atmosphere he breathed. Georgia’s vast majority for the Democratic nominee was not rolled up except by the aid of the negro, who, in his heart of hearts, is a Democrat, and the appeals of the Republican party to his gratitude, claiming that they were the emancipators of his race, were as futile as was the waving of the bloody shirt in the face of the veterans of the North. The negroes of the State of Georgia joined with their fellow-laborers of the Anglo-Saxon race, to give added weight to the opposition of the masses against “caste” in our country.
TheMail and Express, in an editorial of November 9th, says: “If Benjamin Harrison is defeated, the people of this country, by theirballots yesterday, decided again to try the experiment of the Democratic administration. It is most extraordinary and unusual for the American people to seek a change in administration at a time of unwonted prosperity; to render a verdict in favor of a change, while the working masses are everywhere busily employed, while farmers are reaping their richest harvests, factories running day and night, and building extensions and our foreign trade growing with rapid strides, all under the beneficent influences of Republican policy, wisely and faithfully administered by a President whose conduct of affairs has been conspicuously conservative, successful, acceptable, and clean. If Grover Cleveland has been elected, a change in administration has been ordered. What shall we get in return? We shall see! The triumph of Democracy would mean a radical change in our economical policy. It would mean the selection for Vice-President of a man whose political record has stamped him as unsafe, untrustworthy, and conspicuously unfit for the high office to which he has been called. An ardent advocate of the unlimited issue of greenbacks and fraudulent silver; a bitter opponent of National Banks, and the advocate of State Banks issue; outspoken in his demand for the imposition of the abandoned and inquisitorial income tax, Mr. Stevenson would, after the 4th of March, occupy a placeseparated from the Executive head of this Government by the frail tenure of a single life. In the Senate, the highest legislative body in the land, over which Mr. Stevenson, as Vice-President, would preside, a Senate which may possibly have a Democratic majority, his influence in favor of economic and financial heresies would be potential. Let the people bear in mind the peace, the happiness, and the prosperity they now enjoy. When anxiety and unrest come, as they speedily would, with the renewed agitation in the next Congress, of an attack upon our protective tariff; when the spindles of our mills are silent, the forges black with ashes, our looms yellow with rust, and unemployed men clamor here as they are clamoring to-day in the streets of London and Lancashire against the reduction of wages, let them listen to the plausible excuses and fine-spun prevarications of the Free Trade tariff reformers, who will be responsible. And if, as Vice-President, he should do the evil he can do by aiding the meddlers with our financial and taxation systems, the honest money men of New York and New England, of Illinois and Indiana, who voted for him because he was associated with their idolized free trade candidate, would have only themselves to thank for the prospect of disaster and panic they might face. They would then pay the penalty of their reckless inconsideration. Protectionfor American homes, for American workingmen and American farmers, an honest dollar for honest men, and a policy of free trade extension by the beneficent influences of reciprocity, may all suffer assaults in the four years to come, but we can trust the sober, second judgment of the American people, in the light of another but recent experience with the free trade and fraudulent silver Democracy, to do again in 1896 what it did with that party at the close of the first Cleveland experiment, and turn the incompetents out.”
Itismost extraordinary and unusual for the American people to seek a change in the administration at a time of unwonted prosperity, but the inward agitation of soul at the thought of great wrongs committed by a pretended beneficent party led to the revolution of ’92, in very much the same manner as inward agitation on another subject brought about that which placed Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential Chair. The American workman is above the American dollar!
The New YorkWorld, in an editorial of November 16th, says: “TheIron Trade Reviewis putting the manufacturers up to a dodge in order to make the people sorry that they voted for Mr. Cleveland. Its advice is that the manufacturers reduce the wages of their workingmen ‘to fortify themselves in advance in view of the increasing probabilities of destructive foreign competition.’Is this an indication of the kindly feeling entertained by the Protectionists for their workingmen? They have professed that their tax policy was maintained for the purpose of increasing wages. They have been charged with misrepresentation; and they are now advised by one of their organs to prove that the charge is true, by making the wage-earners suffer in order that revenue reform may become unpopular. Nothing could better show the dishonesty of the Protection claim that the tariff exists for the workingman. If that claim were true, the manufacturers would resist every tendency toward downward wages, instead of pushing them down in order to gain an advantage for themselves in a political controversy. The wages of labor are regulated by the supply and demand of the labor market, and the people who would cut down wages, not because they must, but because they want to revenge themselves for a Democratic victory by making the workingman suffer, are the people who have been insisting that the McKinley law repealed the law of supply and demand, and that they are the true and unselfish benefactors of the workingmen. Happily, the next President is a Democrat.”