_Question_. What do you think of the result in Ohio?
_Answer_. In Ohio prohibition did more harm to the Republican
chances than anything else. The Germans hold the Republicans
responsible. The German people believe in personal liberty. They
came to America to get it, and they regard any interference in the
manner or quantity of their food and drink as an invasion of personal
rights. They claim they are not questions to be regulated by law,
and I agree with them. I believe that people will finally learn
to use spirits temperately and without abuse, but teetotalism is
intemperance in itself, which breeds resistance, and without
destroying the rivulet of the appetite only dams it and makes it
liable to break out at any moment. You can prevent a man from
stealing by tying his hands behind him, but you cannot make him
honest. Prohibition breeds too many spies and informers, and makes
neighbors afraid of each other. It kills hospitality. Again, the
Republican party in Ohio is endeavoring to have Sunday sanctified
by the Legislature. The working people want freedom on Sunday.
They wish to enjoy themselves, and all laws now making to prevent
innocent amusement, beget a spirit of resentment among the common
people. I feel like resenting all such laws, and unless the
Republican party reforms in that particular, it ought to be defeated.
I regard those two things as the principal causes of the Republican
party's defeat in Ohio.
_Question_. Do you believe that the Democratic success was due to
the possession of reverse principles?
_Answer_. I do not think that the Democratic party is in favor of
liberty of thought and action in these two regards, from principle,
but rather from policy. Finding the course pursued by the Republicans
unpopular, they adopted the opposite mode, and their success is a
proof of the truth of what I contend. One great trouble in the
Republican party is bigotry. The pulpit is always trying to take
charge. The same thing exists in the Democratic party to a less
degree. The great trouble here is that its worst element--Catholicism
--is endeavoring to get control.
_Question_. What causes operated for the Republican success in
Iowa?
_Answer_. Iowa is a prohibition State and almost any law on earth
as against anything to drink, can be carried there. There are no
large cities in the State and it is much easier to govern, but even
there the prohibition law is bound to be a failure. It will breed
deceit and hypocrisy, and in the long run the influence will be bad.
_Question_. Will these two considerations cut any figure in the
presidential campaign of 1884?
_Answer_. The party, as a party, will have nothing to do with
these questions. These matters are local. Whether the Republicans
are successful will depend more upon the country's prosperity. If
things should be generally in pretty good shape in 1884, the people
will allow the party to remain in power. Changes of administration
depend a great deal on the feeling of the country. If crops are
bad and money is tight, the people blame the administration, whether
it is responsible or not. If a ship going down the river strikes
a snag, or encounters a storm, a cry goes up against the captain.
It may not have been his fault, but he is blamed, all the same,
and the passengers at once clamor for another captain. So it is
in politics.
If nothing interferes between this and 1884, the Republican party
will continue. Otherwise it will be otherwise. But the principle
of prosperity as applied to administrative change is strong. If
the panic of 1873 had occurred in 1876 there would have been no
occasion for a commission to sit on Tilden. If it had struck us
in 1880, Hancock would have been elected. Neither result would
have its occasion in the superiority of the Democratic party, but
in the belief that the Republican party was in some vague way
blamable for the condition of things, and there should be a change.
The Republican party is not as strong as it used to be. The old
leaders have dropped out and no persons have yet taken their places.
Blaine has dropped out, and is now writing a book. Conkling dropped
out and is now practicing law, and so I might go on enumerating
leaders who have severed their connection with the party and are
no longer identified with it.
_Question_. What is your opinion regarding the Republican nomination
for President?
_Answer_. My belief is that the Republicans will have to nominate
some man who has not been conspicuous in any faction, and upon whom
all can unite. As a consequence he must be a new man. The Democrats
must do the same. They must nominate a new man. The old ones have
been defeated so often that they start handicapped with their own
histories, and failure in the past is very poor raw material out
of which to manufacture faith for the future. My own judgment is
that for the Democrats, McDonald is as strong a man as they can
get. He is a man of most excellent sense and would be regarded as
a safe man. Tilden? He is dead, and he occupies no stronger place
in the general heart than a graven image. With no magnetism, he
has nothing save his smartness to recommend him.
_Question_. What are your views, generally expressed, on the
tariff?
_Answer_. There are a great many Democrats for protection and a
great many for so-called free trade. I think the large majority
of American people favor a reasonable tariff for raising our revenue
and protecting our manufactures. I do not believe in tariff for
revenue only, but for revenue and protection. The Democrats would
have carried the country had they combined revenue and incidental
protection.
_Question_. Are they rectifying the error now?
_Answer_. I believe they are, already. They will do it next fall.
If they do not put it in their platform they will embody it in
their speeches. I do not regard the tariff as a local, but a
national issue, notwithstanding Hancock inclined to the belief that
it was the former.
--_The Times_, Chicago, Illinois, October 13, 1883.