Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
file which includes the original illustrations.
See 65707-h.htm or 65707-h.zip:
(https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/65707/pg65707-images.html)
or
(https://www.gutenberg.org/files/65707/65707-h.zip)
Images of the original pages are available through
Internet Archive. See
https://archive.org/details/crimeofcasteinou00dave
[Illustration: ABRAHAM LINCOLN.
A Man of the People, who Loved and Served the People.]
THE CRIME OF CASTE IN OUR COUNTRY
Americans Enforce Equality
No Sham Aristocracy of Wealth Permitted by the People
Lesson of 1892 Taught Imitators of
English Aristocracy
History of the Power of People Re-Told
Records for Three Thousand Years Searched for Examples
Bullets, 1861--Ballots, 1892
by
BENJAMIN R. DAVENPORT
Philadelphia:
Keystone Publishing Co.
1893
Copyright by
Joseph W. Morton, Jr.
1892
THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL AMERICAN CITIZENS,
WHO BELIEVE
THAT PATRIOTISM, HONESTY, VIRTUE, AND MERIT
ALONE CONSTITUTE INEQUALITY IN MANKIND;
WHO OBJECT TO AND RESENT ARROGANCE AND PRESUMPTION
UPON THE PART OF
THE POSSESSORS OF WEALTH
AND TO THOSE TO WHOM
“CASTE” AND FOREIGN MANNERISMS ARE OBNOXIOUS.
THE AUTHOR.
_DEFINITION OF “CASTE.”_
_The word “Caste,” we derive from a Portuguese word, which means “a
race;” the Portuguese being the early voyagers to the East Indies,
where they found the distinction of classes of society established
under the Brahminical regime of India. Thence it came to be applied as
a term of distinction of society in other countries. There were four
castes in India: 1, the Priests; 2, military; 3, merchants; 4, the
servile classes._
_Members of the lowest caste were forbidden to marry those of the
upper. Children of such unions were outcasts and irredeemably base;
they could not accumulate property, nor change or improve their
conditions. Along with many other senseless and inconvenient rules for
the conduct of the different castes, were such as those forbidding
members of different castes from using the same springs or running
streams, sitting at the same table, eating with the same utensils, or
preparing food in the same vessels. It was contamination for those
of the first class to even mingle in the public highway with those
who were of the lower castes. For convenience, and in the interest of
the commercial prosperity of India, the British, after much exertion,
have been able to eradicate many of these absurd distinctions, and the
habits that resulted therefrom._
_The attempt to create class distinctions in Free America, upon the
basis of wealth or assumed social superiority, is a crime, and as such
will be punished by the Common People._
INDEX.
PAGE.
INTRODUCTION 11
CHAPTER I.
Vox Populi, Vox Dei 33
CHAPTER II.
The Alleged General Discontent 65
CHAPTER III.
November 8, 1892 79
CHAPTER IV.
Society as the People Found It November 8, 1892 91
CHAPTER V.
Some Reasons for Wrath 111
CHAPTER VI.
The Aristocratic “Chappie” _vs._ Abraham Lincoln 145
CHAPTER VII.
Hon. John Brisben Walker, on Homestead 161
CHAPTER VIII.
Surrender at Homestead.--Organized Labor Defeated 183
CHAPTER IX.
Possible Fruits of Victory 204
CHAPTER X.
The Cause of Bullets, ’61; Ballots, ’92.--Abraham
Lincoln, the People’s Choice in ’60 225
CHAPTER XI.
Andrew Jackson, 1828 241
CHAPTER XII.
Thomas Jefferson, 1800 249
CHAPTER XIII.
The Revolution in 1776 257
CHAPTER XIV.
The French Revolution 278
CHAPTER XV.
England, 1645 295
CHAPTER XVI.
The German Empire, 1520-1525 307
CHAPTER XVII.
Switzerland, 1424 312
CHAPTER XVIII.
Russia 315
CHAPTER XIX.
Patricians and Plebeians in Rome 320
CHAPTER XX.
Greece.--Venice.--The Rule of “Caste” 324
CHAPTER XXI.
Egypt, 4235 B. C. 330
CHAPTER XXII.
Christianity 333
CHAPTER XXIII.
Not a Democratic Party Victory.--Democracy is Not
the Name of a Party, but of a Principle 346
CHAPTER XXIV.
Not a Defeat of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party 390
CHAPTER XXV.
The Populist: the “Allies.”--Elected by the People;
therefore, with the “Common People” 409
CHAPTER XXVI.
“Flabbyism” and the Income Tax 417
CHAPTER XXVII.
CONCLUSION 428
ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE.
Abraham Lincoln Frontispiece.
Grover Cleveland 32
James B. Weaver 64
John D. Rockefeller 105
Ward MacAllister 110
“The Public be D----d” 115
Mrs. Benjamin Harrison 127
Benjamin Harrison 131
American Queen 136
American Duchess 137
Jay Gould 143
Abe, “The Rail-Splitter” 154
“Chappie” on Fifth Avenue 155
Andrew Carnegie 160
Henry C. Frick 162
The Mistake at Homestead 182
William H. Vanderbilt 219
W. Seward Webb 223
Andrew Jackson 240
Thomas Jefferson 248
INTRODUCTION.
Had a Johnstown flood, a Charleston earthquake, a war with Chili, or a
Homestead strike occurred on November 8, 1892, instead of an election,
those Napoleons of journalism, James Gordon Bennett, of the New York
_Herald_, Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York _World_, and Whitelaw
Reid, of the _Tribune_, would have had a score of representatives on
the scene at once, without thought of expense; would have had every
detail in its most minute particular investigated, and reproduced
every statement, embellished by the pencils of a host of artists,
utterly regardless of expense, keeping, as these magnificent journals
ever have, good faith with the public and their readers, making
lasting monuments of their wonderful papers for coming generations of
journalists to gaze upon.
But a revolution occurred on November 8, 1892, a revolution of the
American people, so overwhelming, so decisive, and so pronounced
as to absolutely stupefy even the genius of the press. Instead of
corps of reporters, artists, special correspondents, speeding over
the land to ascertain the cause--not the result; the cause, the
origin,--of this stupendous surprise, all the great journals of the
country, having each nailed to its flag-staff some theory or text
utterly inconsistent with the result, utterly disproportioned to the
overwhelming revolution, that they have sought by vain endeavor to make
an overwhelming result compatible with and agreeable to some one part
or portion of the cause thereof.
To loudly proclaim, as did the New York _Sun_, that an exhibition of
the will of the people, so pronounced as that of November the 8th,
was occasioned by the Force Bill, is as utterly unreasonable as to
ascribe the magnificent volume within the banks of the Mississippi to
some little trickling rivulet flowing from the plains of Nebraska.
To say, with the _Tribune_, that the grand result pronounced in the
mighty voice of the people was produced by the misunderstanding of
the McKinley Bill, is as groundless as to ascribe the echoing thunder
tones of heaven to the swelling throat of a canary bird. To herald
over the land, “Pauper emigration did it,” with the New York _Herald_,
is about as pregnant with truth as would be the assumption that the
foundation and everlasting strength of Christianity has for its basis
the misguided vaporings of a negro preacher in Richmond, who proclaims,
“The sun do move.” To announce, as did the _World_, that “Tariff reform
and WE, the Democrats, achieved this victory,” is entitled to as much
respect as would be given the utterances of a drummer boy of the
Federal Army at Gettysburg.
It was not any one nor all of these causes that moved the people. Each
newspaper, Democratic or Republican, has selected some nail upon which
it hangs the laurel wreath of victory, inscribed with its own puny text
for which it has fought its little battle, and each newspaper of the
Republican press has covered, with the tattered garments of defeat, its
little text wherein it had proclaimed that the Republican party would
be victorious, and labeled its tattered garment of lack of judgment
with some phrase like, “Disloyalty of Platt,” “Incapacity of Carter,”
“Want of Organization,” “Lack of Popularity and Magnetism of our
Candidate,” “The Voters didn’t come out.” Had the press no part of its
own reputation at stake, they would have searched and delved into the
bosoms of men; yes, neither space nor distance, time nor expense, would
have been spared by the magnates of the newspaper world to ascertain
the true cause. But in ascertaining that true cause, it would have been
necessary, in announcing the same, to stultify themselves in what they
had been predicting, proclaiming, foretelling, and advising, for months
and years.
The truth is in the air; was in the air before the election. ’Twas
breathed; it was thought; yea, better, it was _felt_, by the
great throbbing, aching heart of the men and women of the Union.
From the hovel to the palace, the insidious, poisonous vapor of a
supposed affected, sham aristocracy, with the noxious slime of a
half-proclaimed doctrine of the inequality of man and woman, by reason
of non-possession of wealth, had crept. The air of freedom was polluted
by the emanations arising from the imported English decaying corpse
of aristocracy. It was everywhere. In blindness and self-delusion,
the press made its battle; in the very air of it, howling against
Protection and for Protection, against Force Bill and for Force Bill,
while the wretched, cankerous ulcer was eating into the pride of every
free-born man and woman in the land. The very silence of the people,
the general apathy, was evidence of but one of the symptoms of the
insidious disease with which the body politic was being consumed.
A scene that has been described in Washington just prior to the late
Civil War best illustrates the condition of the people. The city of
Washington was filled with silent, sullen, suspicious men. A sombre
air pervaded the Capital. South Carolina had seceded; the Union was
disintegrating. All that had been, was being forgotten. Old ties
were breaking; old friendships becoming strange. Each man viewed his
neighbor and his friend of yesterday, with a doubt in his mind as to
whether they would fight side by side, or beat each other’s throats
to-morrow. Men paced their rooms in the various hotels, anxious
and careworn, sleepless and fearful. Yet, the surface was still, a
dangerous state of general apathy obtained, if silence and murmuring,
without action, can be called apathy.
It was night, yet the streets were not deserted. Suddenly a window
of the Ebbitt House was raised, a man stepped on to the balcony out
of the window, and in clear, vigorous, and manly tones began to sing
“The Star-Spangled Banner.” Windows were raised; the crowd collected
around the Ebbitt House. It was the signal for the breaking of a dam.
A flood of patriotism burst from the hearts of the hearers; it was the
bugle note, calling upon Americans to save their country. Where there
had been silence, were now outspoken vows of fidelity and loyalty
to the Union. The battle was won that night; not at Gettysburg and
Vicksburg[1].
Just so with the people of America in 1892; for years they have
endured in silence, murmuring and thinking, heart to heart speaking by
responsive heart throbs; not by word. The rich, who had accumulated
their wealth by reason of monopolies which were the necessary
consequence of the Civil War, men who had laid the foundation of
their fortunes by speculating upon the necessities of the government
while contending for the very existence of the Union, had, year by
year, by a stealthy, yet ever-increasing presumption, begun to assume
the possibility of a class distinction, presuming that the possession
of wealth entitled them to privileges, and arrogating to themselves
mannerisms of the titled classes of Europe, adopting crests, coats of
arms, claiming descent from titled foreigners, an exclusiveness in
their social relations, disregarding the laws of morality. The women of
this would-be aristocratic class, flaunting their jewels and laces in
the faces of their poorer sisters, with elevated noses, and garments
drawn aside, feared to touch or gaze at the poor but honest mothers and
wives of America.
It was not much: it was rank presumption; it was nonsense, absurd.
“There’s no such thing possible in America as class distinction; in
fact, it does not exist, cannot exist; the ‘Four Hundred’ of New York
is a joke, a by-word, a stupendous folly.”
But, good people of the said “Four Hundred,” remember that while the
American is neither a Socialist nor an Anarchist, when you presume to
make a distinction, socially, between the poor man, his wife, children,
and mother, you touch him in the most sensitive part of his being. You
may have your villas at Newport, you may ape the English fashionable
season in London by a similar one in New York; you may have your steam
yachts; you may ride to hounds; your women may marry divorced dukes and
puppified sons of lords; but, mark you, claim no privilege, attempt no
distinction between yourselves and the poorest honest man and woman in
the land. Equality is the jewel that every true American holds most
dear. No free son of our Republic will sell this treasure for gold,
whether it be offered directly as a bribe or shrewdly tendered under
the guise of “protected” wages.
It did not do for the Republican press of the country to demonstrate
that Protection brought higher wages to the workingman. They might
have proved that by voting the Republican ticket the workingman’s pay
would have been a hundred dollars a day; they might have shown him
that in point of pocket he would be eternally blest by supporting the
party which he deemed identified with those who attempted to force
“caste” upon our country. It is not a question of money; the equality
of man is the American’s birthright. For it, our fathers sought these
shores, contending with privation, enduring untold labor, dangers,
and death. For it, our forefathers fought the most powerful nation on
earth, when they were but a scattered handful of colonists, scattered
from Massachusetts to Georgia. When the attempt was made--that it was
attempted, there can be no doubt--to buy the American’s birthright by
preaching to him “increased wages,” it failed.
Take every speech of every Republican orator, every bit of Republican
literature, every editorial in the Republican papers, all speak from
but one text, viz.: “Workmen, farmers, in fact, all ye good people
of America, you can make more money under Protection;” which plainly
means, “Let Protection and the Republican party (which you designate in
your hearts as The Rich Man’s party) continue in power, accumulating
wealth, creating class distinctions, and you can have better wages.”
In other words, “Sell us the right to create a Republic like that of
Venice, wherein the rich became the privileged class, and we will give
you better pay.”
The Democratic press, orators, and literary bureau were no better.
They no more understood the feeling of the people, for their continual
cry was, “Free Trade, and you will be better off in pocket.” They
excoriated trusts, monopolies; they talked of corruption and what would
be done to benefit, IN POCKET, the poor man, if the Democratic party
came in power; just as blind as their brothers of the Republican party,
they appealed to the American pocketbook.
While every Democratic orator knew that he felt the sting of the
venomous and growing reptile, “caste,” in no place in the literature of
the Democratic party, in no paper, can be found one single reference
to the pride of the American in his citizenship, in his equality. It
seemed as if each man thought that he alone endured a pang upon the
subject of “caste” and social distinction; for, bear in mind, the man
with one million will feel the slight and attempted distinction between
his family and the family with ten millions, just as keenly as the
cashier of a bank will feel the distinction that the president attempts
to make between their social positions; the farmer with ten acres feels
towards the farmer with a hundred acres, exactly the same as the farmer
with a hundred does towards the farmer possessed of a thousand acres.
This disease was not confined to the horny-handed sons of toil; the
heart in the hovel was not the only one that ached. It was not confined
to the follower of the plow; but its pestilential breath pervaded every
home in the land, leaving everyone below the multi-millionaire unhappy.
The clerk of the dry-goods store was hurt because the floor walker
assumed a superiority; the floor walker, because the proprietor assumed
it; the proprietor, because the importer from whom he purchased goods
assumed a distinction; and so it continued, from the longshoreman up,
until it reached our millionaire would-be princes, who ape and mimic
English life and manners, leaving, as it arose, a sting of increasing
bitterness; but each man felt too proud to give utterance to what he
thought it shamed him even to recognize as a sensation.
Hence the apathy on the surface, the sentiment confessed only to
themselves and in the closet of the voting booth. Because the people
had identified the Republican party with the class of men who were
striving to create this class distinction, and because of the very
charm of the word Democracy to their aching hearts, they voted the
Democratic ticket--not Democrats alone in a political sense, but men
who believe in democracy in the broad sense that St. Paul preached on
Mars Hill at Athens, in the broad sense that Christ’s life demonstrated.
It was useless, against this first overmastering, powerful emotion in
the American breast, to call upon the old veterans of the Civil War, to
whom the Republican party had given increased pensions. It was useless
to cry even to the negro, to whom the Republican party had given
freedom. He, too, had become imbued with the spirit of equality. The
wealthy could not purchase the birthright of the veteran by appealing
to his pocketbook, any more than they could that of the laborer.
He had shed his blood in the cause of equality, resisting then the
assumed superiority of blood and birth so often flaunted in his face by
gentlemen from the South.
In 1861, the “mudsills” of the North and West, the tillers of the soil,
had shouldered their muskets at the call of that great man of the
people, Abraham Lincoln, leaving home and loved ones to face unknown
dangers and diseases in the cause of EQUALITY. Down in their hearts
then was a sentiment which is revived in 1892. That thing which had
been the hardest to bear, for the laboring settler of the West and the
workman of the North, was the existence of “caste” in the South, and
the supposed superiority of the Southerners in the halls of Congress.
Love of the Union was the outspoken, pronounced cause of their coming
at Lincoln’s call; but there was something behind and beneath all of
that, that had been growing for years; it was resentment, because of
the South’s assumption of “caste” in our country.
The question was settled, by these very veterans, from 1861 to ’65 with
bullets, and it was utterly unavailing to call upon them for ballots in
1892 against the cause for which they fought in 1861.
The very negro said to himself: “You gave us freedom, the Republican
party, but the Republican party of Abraham Lincoln was purely a
Democratic party, in a broader sense.” To the negro’s mind, no three
Presidents of the past will more thoroughly represent a picture
pleasing to the eye of the enslaved or the lower classes, than
Jefferson, Jackson, and Lincoln. All were Democrats--men who believed
in the people and labored for the people, leading lives of pure
simplicity, affecting no superiority of rank or position. It was
useless to attempt to hold the negro vote.
The very name of the “People’s Party,” so strongly did it indicate and
describe this sentiment of the people; enabled that party, with all its
incongruous doctrines, to carry the electoral votes of some States of
the Union.
How frivolous seemed the claim of the Democratic papers and
politicians, that the popularity of Grover Cleveland, and the
confidence that people had in his rectitude and honesty, caused this
revolution. How it appears to be trifling with truth to ascribe the
victory of the people, the true Democracy, to the “masterly manner in
which Mr. Harrity managed the campaign.” Mr. Whitney’s diplomacy, Mr.
Dickinson’s energy and ability, Mr. Sheehan’s shrewdness, sink into
utter insignificance, and become as a grain of sand upon the seashore,
where they have happened to be tossed by the mighty wave of the ocean
of feeling, full of resentment, that filled the hearts of the people.
Their little all was but the piping of a penny whistle in a gale of
wind. W. H. Vanderbilt’s four words, “The public be damned,” uttered
from the pedestal of $150,000,000, made a greater impression, and
became more indelibly impressed upon the minds of the whole people,
ranging in wealth from $10,000,000 to less than a cent, than all the
management of Harrity, the diplomacy of Whitney, the skill of Sheehan,
or the energy of Dickinson. The reported expression of Mr. Russell
Harrison, when asked, while in London, what his position was in
America, as son of the President,--“Oh, about what the Prince of Wales
is here,”--was thought of and resented to greater purpose than was
produced by all the speeches of the eloquent Cockran.
The women of the land made more speeches, and effective speeches,
to the voters of the land when they thought of the much-advertised
American Duchess. They had felt most keenly--for woman’s life is social
much more than man’s--the attempted social distinction; and, strange as
it may appear to some of the skillful politicians that they had never
recognized it, the women of America had become largely Democratic, and
in them the Democratic party had its most powerful orators; for even
the most brutal, neglectful, and unloving husband resents in a vigorous
manner the least slight or insult offered to his wife. Upon every
occasion, gathering, entertainment, charitable undertaking, some wife
had been slighted. Because of the attempted creation of “caste,” she
became a powerful factor, at once, in the campaign of the people. It
mattered not whether her husband was a millionaire or not, no matter in
what portion of society,--the clerk in a dry-goods store, the farmer,
the banker, the millionaire,--the same result would follow. Some would
attempt to arrogate to themselves a better position, and claim certain
superiority over her. The banker’s wife feels as keenly the slight of
the wife of a railroad president, as the wife of a longshoreman does
any assumed difference in social position on the part of the wife of
the retail grocer.
This all-prevailing crime of “caste” does not, like most crimes are
supposed to do, originate in the gutter, but it permeates the mass of
the population, like the source of a great river, starting at the very
top of the mountain, and dripping constantly downward.
The example of the rich in imitating the immoralities of the privileged
classes of Europe, presents a spectacle of presumed immunity from the
consequences of their crimes which would be as detrimental to the
continuation of the purity of American homes, as the increase of the
feeling of “caste” would be to the happiness of the people. A most
beautiful illustration of corruption in high places was presented
in the disgusting and nauseating Drayton-Borrowe affair, wherein the
daughter of an Astor, a multi-millionaire, one of the members of the
supposed upper “caste,” is paraded before the public as imitating the
vices and immoralities of the Court of Charles II. Yet these same
Astors would claim, by reason of their assumed position, some exemption
from the result of the crime, which would not be accorded to the wife
of a farmer, clerk, or a bank cashier, to say nothing of the fact
that, had this beautiful sample of America’s sham aristocracy been
a laborer’s wife, she would, by the peculiar ethics adopted by the
corrupt English aristocracy, have been a fit subject for the police
court.
Another of the disgusting apings of foreign vices, along with the
foolish claim of “caste,” is exhibited in the delightful Deacon
assassination in France. Another representative of American
aristocracy, so-called, would play the part of a French Countess.
Fortunately for the world, the man Deacon had left remaining a few
drops of American blood in his veins, and rid the world of a brute,
as any honest American laboring man would have done. The class which
the shameless imitators pretend to represent in America assumed the
privilege abroad (in Europe) to indulge in drunkenness, debauchery,
gambling, and general immorality; leaving the virtues, sobriety,
honesty, and purity to the lower classes. In America, there being but
one class, those who assume to imitate the manners of the immoral, to
carouse and debauch, render themselves obnoxious to the mass of the
people, and that political party which becomes identified in the minds
of the people with any set, or “caste,” possessing such distorted
principles, becomes correspondingly objectionable. There can be but
one law of morals in America. Debauchery, drunkenness, and dishonesty,
though sheltered by a palace, are as odoriferous to the senses of the
people as the polluted air from a sewer.
There are many able and learned men of America who think seriously and
have thought intently for years upon this subject, but hesitated to
utter sentiments that falsely and absurdly are called socialistic and
anarchical. There is no desire upon the part of Americans to deprive
any citizen of his property and his freedom to enjoy the same as he
will, so long as he has due appreciation of and respect for the rights
of others. No man in the Republic can possess any right, by reason of
his wealth, greater than the poorest in the land. Each citizen of a
republic, in consideration of the liberty that he enjoys, surrenders
all claim to be anything except one of the people, and any assumed
immunity from the consequences of his acts is objectionable, and will
be visited upon his head. The roistering sons of millionaires, though
clad in evening dress and drunk with champagne, are no less disgusting
rowdies than the sons of the laborer, hilarious as the result of gin
drunk in a groggery. Unfortunately for the Republican party, in looking
over the row of America’s money princes (?), we find “Republican”
written behind almost every name. The villa at Newport, the castle in
Scotland, the Tally Ho coach, is generally owned by a Republican. In
fact, our would-be aristocrats began to assume that it was almost a
disgrace to be anything else than a Republican; one would lose “caste”
thereby.
The Republican party, of course, is not responsible for this. The
Republican candidate, Benjamin Harrison, than whom there is no better
example of a patriotic, earnest, honest American, Christian, father,
husband, son, gentleman, and soldier, is worthy to be an example to the
young men of our country. He was not responsible for the impression
made by this excrescence that has grown like some hideous and poisonous
fungus upon the stalwart oak planted by Abraham Lincoln. The decay
has arisen from this polluting attachment. The McKinley Bill and
Protection, while possessing many points of excellence it behooves the
country to examine with care before erasing from the statute-books, are
not responsible for the natural animosity of the people toward this
child, deformed, misshapen, Sham Aristocracy, clinging to the skirts of
the Republican party. The attack was upon this hideous tumor, and, by
its amputation by the people, the life-blood of the Republican party
has become exhausted; for the operation necessarily was made painful,
deep-felt, and severe. The Democratic party derived all the benefit
from the defeat of the Republican party, at the hands of the people,
without having contributed thereto to any amazing extent.
The result of the election of 1892 should be as the warning written on
the wall was to Belshazzar. The rich must understand, and learn now in
time, that they hold their lives, their liberty, and their property
in this Republic only by the will of the people; that the people,
Democratic always in the broad sense of democracy, are long-suffering;
but retribution, as surely as night doth follow day, may come, if
this warning be not heeded, in some more terrible shape than an
overwhelming defeat, at the polls, of that party to which the rich
attach themselves. It is not well to flaunt riches or claim privileges
or “caste” before the face of a free people.
It would be well for the rich to learn this lesson. It was taught by
the people under the name of the Republican party when they elected
Lincoln; under the name of the Democratic party when they elected
Andrew Jackson; under the name of the Democratic party when they
elected Thomas Jefferson. It was taught to rich and powerful England
when she lost a continent in 1776; it was taught to Anglo-Saxon England
when Charles I. lost his head; it was taught to France when the
long-suffering peasantry and poor broke down the barriers of “caste,”
and flooded her fair fields with the tide of blood.
It has been taught in every nation--Rome, Greece, Egypt. The people
will suffer long and much, but the resentment occasioned by “caste” and
social distinction far outweighs any advantages that money can buy them.
November 8, 1892, showed that the workmen couldn’t be bought, the
farmer couldn’t be bought, the veteran couldn’t be bought, the negro
couldn’t be bought, by all the fair promises held out by the party
of Protection, because this cup of nectar was poisoned by the deadly
essence of “caste,” which means extinction of all that the people
hold dear. Should the Democratic party create, cause, or have arise
under its administration, and become attached to that party, any set,
or “caste,” claiming any superiority over their fellow-citizens, the
Democratic party would be killed, though the eternal sun might never
shine again upon America should that party be defeated.
The purpose and object for which this book is written is not for the
instruction of the people as to how they _are_ to do, but it is, if
possible, to put notes to the music that has been singing in the hearts
of the Common People,--for we are all Common People. That song which
echoes our own sentiments, even though we cannot sing the song, is
always the sweetest. The man who tells the story we have thought and
felt, is the greatest writer to us. Dickens is dear to the hearts of
us all because he echoes and puts in words the sentiments of our own
souls. If this book tell, in words, that which has been throbbing in
the breasts of the people, it but articulates that which they have
spoken silently for themselves. The author is one of the people, but he
has felt what he believes others have felt. The book is not intended
to aid or to harm either the Democratic or the Republican party.
The writer is a supporter of ANY party, call it what you will, that
represents the BEST INTERESTS, THE HONOR, DIGNITY, VIRTUE, of AMERICANS
and American homes.
“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 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.”
[Illustration: GROVER CLEVELAND.
Selected by the “Common People,” November 8, 1892, to Represent the
Interests of the Masses against the Classes.]
FOOTNOTE:
[1] This story has frequently been related, verbally, but the Author
has never seen it in print. Its authenticity, however, is fully
established.
CHAPTER I.
VOX POPULI, VOX DEI.
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 York _Times_, of November 9, 1892, sounds the praises of
Cleveland and his popularity as the cause; which is pardonable, as the
_Times_ has 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.”
It is noticeable in this paragraph that Cleveland’s preëminence so
overshadowed, in the mind of the _Times_, 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 the _Times_ would 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.”
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 York _World_, 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 York _World_, 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 in the 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 the principles 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 York _Herald_, 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
rank and 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 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, but in 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 a
_representative_ Republican, of Republican defeat.
The New York _World_, 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 people to 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 in
the 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 this fast
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 Kentucky rabidly 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 have held 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 have set 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
Philadelphia _Evening Star_, quoted by the New York _Press_, of
November 19th, has his explanation for the defeat ready: “Communities
are 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 independent means,
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, I think 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 the Federal 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 Atlanta _Constitution_, 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 Atlanta _Constitution_, of November 17th, in a brisk editorial,
states that “Colonel J. B. McCullagh, the esteemed editor of the St.
Louis _Globe-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 a single 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 Buffalo _Commercial_, 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 Illinois _State Journal_ remarks: “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 of the people at the prevalence of the crime of “caste” in
our country was evident; yet, apparently, the most learned failed to
discern it.
The Toledo _Bee_ says: “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 Louisville _Courier-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
Philadelphia _Record_.
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 Atlanta _Constitution_, 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 absurdity
of 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 first settled 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 mists arising 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.
The _Mail and Express_, in an editorial of November 9th, says:
“If Benjamin Harrison is defeated, the people of this country, by
their ballots 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 place separated 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. Protection for 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.”
It _is_ most 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 York _World_, in an editorial of November 16th, says: “The
_Iron Trade Review_ is 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.”
[Illustration: General JAMES B. WEAVER.
Presidential Candidate of the People’s Party, 1892.]