THE POPULIST: THE “ALLIES.”--ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE; THEREFORE, WITH THE
“COMMON PEOPLE.”
It does not seem to afford any great amount of pleasure for the
hide-bound members of the Democratic party, the thought that possibly
the Democratic party may become but a fifth wheel to the coach, and
they view with evident dislike the growing power of the Populist party.
Quoting from the New York _Sun_, of December 11th, that able
representative, in a journalistic way, of the Protection Democrats, we
print the following statements:--
WEAVER AND HIS MILLION VOTES.
“The Populists are naturally excited and encouraged by their
demonstration of numerical strength at the election of 1892. The
Populist view of the achievement, and the Populist interpretation
of its significance, are set forth in detail in the very
interesting summary of results printed in another part of this
paper. In brief, the claim is this:--
“One million votes in the South and West for the Weaver electors;
“Twenty-three electoral votes obtained by fusion or otherwise;
“Five Populist Senators and ten Populist Representatives in the
next Congress;
“Populist State Governments in Kansas, Colorado, and North Dakota,
and greatly increased Populist representation in the legislatures
of these and several other States;”
Which evidently furnishes no great amount of satisfaction to that
organ, which is essentially Democratic in a party sense.
Weaver, and his 1,000,000 votes, present the startling possibility
to the organ of the Democratic party, that perhaps the people, who
are members of that broader democracy, may be breaking away from the
traces of the party harness. It is a little harder to prognosticate
concerning future political events and manage the people, when they
escape from party traces. The million votes for Weaver represent that
part of the people who have become thoroughly exasperated by the manner
of that excrescence, “sham aristocracy,” on the Republican party, and
who, at the same time, were still unwilling to become harnessed in the
party-wagon controlled by the Democratic party. Thousands would have
been glad to vote with the Populists had that party not been filled
with all kinds of incongruities and “isms.” There was a curse on the
houses of both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and the
people, exclaiming with Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet: “I am hurt;
a plague o’ both your houses! I am sped,” voted for Weaver and the
Populists; because the plain “Common People,” who were Republicans of
the Abraham Lincoln school, had no confidence in the Democratic party
as a party. They were plain “Common People,” who wanted a party in
which they would feel at home. They did not find it in the Democratic
party, and, being absolutely disgusted with the degeneracy and social
shams of the Republican party, they flocked to the party of the
Populists to the extent of 1,000,000 voters, as presenting a haven--no
matter how insufficient--in the storm created by the wrath of the
people, caused by the idiocy and assumption upon the part of believers
in “caste” in our country.
“The prestige of gains and achievements, indicating that the
Populist party is destined to become one of the two great
political organizations of the country.
“This last item is the deduction of optimism from the foregoing.
The heavy popular vote for the Populist electors in some of
the Southern States serves principally to show that under the
conditions existing in 1892, the solid South would have been
broken and its solid electoral vote lost to the democracy had
not the Force Bill issue been put at the front. The twenty-three
electoral votes credited to Weaver in the West and Northwest
separate themselves, on analysis, into elements in which the
Omaha platform and the specially characteristic features of the
Alliance movement sustain a subordinate part. Colorado and Nevada
went for Weaver because they were for silver, not because they
were for Weaver. Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota, and the one vote in
Oregon were gained by the acquiescence of the Democratic managers
in a scheme of fusion obviously to the advantage of the Democratic
national ticket. Weaver’s proportion of the vote, either popular
or electoral, cannot be accepted as a trustworthy measure of the
growth of public sentiment in the West in favor of the general
programme drawn up at Omaha.
“The first solid and effective achievement in the list is the
direct gain of the Populists in their representation in the
Congress of the United States. This means something. They must
have Senators and Representatives if they are ever going to shape
the legislation of the country; and until they can legislate, or
muster sufficient strength at the Capitol to force legislation
agreeable to their ideas of public policy, they have accomplished
nothing. Now they turn up with five Senators, as they believe,
and with at least ten Representatives, as they have reason to be
certain. It is a respectable showing for a new party, even if we
do not count the silver Senators as Populists out and out. But,
as an indication of the probable strength of the Populists in the
Fifty-fourth Congress, or in the Fifty-fifth, as a reasonable
assurance of future progressive development, it is worthless.
We need only remind the Populists that their predecessor, the
so-called National party, representing the greenback craze, and,
in a measure, the dissatisfaction with political conditions that
marked the period after the counting in of Hayes, went into the
Forty-sixth House with fourteen Congressmen. The Greenbackers
and Readjusters went into the Forty-seventh House with eleven
Congressmen. In the Forty-eighth, their strength dropped to two.
The Greenback wave had swept off and away; the two old parties
confronted each other as before, and the phenomenon of a third
party in Congress, mustering more than a dozen lawgivers, had
disappeared as utterly as if it had never been.
“The same thing is true respecting the capture, with the aid of
fusion, of some of the Western States. Nobody has forgotten the
astonishingly sudden appearance and subsidence of the Greenback
wave in the old and conservative New England State of Maine. In
1878, the Greenbackers cast about fifty per cent. more votes than
the Democrats. In 1879, the Greenback vote was more than double
the Democratic, and the election was thrown into the Legislature,
which chose a Democratic Governor. In 1880, the Greenbackers
fused with the remaining fragments of the Democracy, and carried
the State and controlled its government. Where are the Maine
Greenbackers to-day?
“The two great political organizations in this country have always
been and must always be the party of centralization, paternalism,
and meddlesome interference with affairs not belonging to the
Federal Government, and the party resisting those destructive
tendencies on the lines of Jeffersonian Democracy and home rule.
The issue is permanent and the same, no matter what the parties
may call themselves. There is no chance for the Populists on the
ground now occupied by the victorious Democracy. If they can crowd
the Republican organization out of the special function which it
has filled with distinguished ability for a quarter of a century,
that is their business, not ours. The achievement would be much
like Jonah swallowing the whale.”
The Abolition party, which absorbed the old Whig party and made the
present Republican party, had not nearly so respectable a beginning as
the Populist party. With all the predictions of failure recited above,
the Populist party has a name--and there is much in a name--which has
already endeared it to the hearts of the masses to the extent of a
million votes.
It was the suffering masses, the plain “Common People,” who, under the
name of Populist, voted for Weaver. There can be no doubt about the
affiliation between the Democratic party and the Populist party in the
next Congress of the United States. Every Representative elected by the
Populist, every Senator selected as the result of their votes cast for
the State legislators, will recognize that the Populist party contains
the same elements, to the plain “Common People,” as the Democratic
party, and, therefore, faith will best be kept with the constituents
by whom the Populist Representatives and Senators were elected, by
acting with the Democratic party, so long as it continues to wage war
upon “caste” and class distinctions and the accumulation of wealth in a
dangerous degree in our country.
The Populists have a mission in furnishing to the weary wayfarer
a resting place. Many political wayfarers who formerly journeyed
under the guidance of the Republican party, hesitate before seeking
the protection of the Democratic party. To such the Populist party
furnishes a haven of rest.
Should the Democratic party and Grover Cleveland, as representative
of the party by whom he was nominated, fail to secure to the “Common
People” those rights of which they deem themselves deprived by the
Republican party; and should there be a hesitancy or neglect in
righting those wrongs of which the “Common People” complain, then the
Populists, if some of the “isms” be weeded out of its fair garden,
would furnish the Eden for the “Common People.” Should Grover Cleveland
and the Democratic party neglect quickly and unhesitatingly to pass
such laws, and execute the same, as will relieve the “Common People”
of the burden that is cast upon them by ungraded taxation, then the
“Common People,” by the might that abides with them, may select the
Populist party, freed from some of its idiosyncrasies, as the party of
the people.
It is merely a question of whether the Democratic party and Grover
Cleveland will perform the will of the people. If not, the people, by
a reorganization of this, the Populist party, will secure a political
organization which will perform the mandates of the “Common People.”
The “Common People” will thrust aside both the old parties and utilize
that party which by the magic of simply a popular name was enabled to
gain a million votes taken from both of the old parties.