articles of import has been agitated and quarrelled over, and has
divided communities, for nearly a hundred years. It is not now,
and never will be, settled, unless by the abolition of indirect
taxation. It is a convenient issue, always raised when the people are
excited over abuses in their midst. While we favor a wise revision
of the tariff laws, with a view to raising a revenue from luxuries
rather than necessities, we insist that, as an economic question,
its importance is insignificant as compared with financial issues;
for whereas we have suffered our worst panics under low and also
under high tariffs, we have never suffered from a panic, nor seen
our factories and workshops closed, while the volume of money in
circulation was adequate to the needs of commerce. Give our farmers
and manufacturers money as cheap as you now give it to our bankers,
and they can pay high wages to labor, and compete with all the world.
11. For the purpose of testing the sense of the people upon the
subject, we are in favor of submitting to a vote of the people an
amendment to the Constitution in favor of suffrage regardless of sex,
and also on the subject of the liquor traffic.
12. All disabled soldiers of the late war should be equitably
pensioned, and we denounce the policy of keeping a small army of
office-holders, whose only business is to prevent, on technical
grounds, deserving soldiers from obtaining justice from the
Government they helped to save.
13. As our name indicates, we are a national party, knowing no East,
no West, no North, no South. Having no sectional prejudices, we
can properly place in nomination for the high offices of state, as
candidates, men from any section of the Union.
14. We appeal to all people who believe in our principles to aid us by
voice, pen, and votes.
The Prohibitionists divided in the contest of 1884. Their first was
a mass convention, held at Chicago on the 19th of June, under the
title of the American Prohibition National Convention, with J. L.
Barlow, of Connecticut, as president. The fact that it was not largely
a representative body is evidenced from the fact that on the ballot
for President, Samuel C. Pomeroy, of Kansas, received 72 votes to 12
for all others, and was declared the nominee, and John A. Conant, of
Connecticut, was nominated for Vice-President without a ballot. This
organization did not have any electoral tickets as far as I can learn.
It adopted the following platform:
We hold: 1. That ours is a Christian, and not a heathen, nation,
and that the God of the Christian Scriptures is the author of civil
government.
2. That the Bible should be associated with books of science and
literature in all our educational institutions.
3. That God requires and man needs a Sabbath.
4. That we demand the prohibition of the importation, manufacture, and
sale of intoxicating drinks.
5. That the charters of all secret lodges granted by our Federal and
State Legislatures should be withdrawn and their oaths prohibited by
law.
6. We are opposed to putting prison labor or depreciated contract
labor from foreign countries in competition with free labor to benefit
manufacturers, corporations, and speculators.
7. We are in favor of a thorough revision and enforcement of the law
concerning patents and inventions, for the prevention and punishment
of frauds either upon inventors or the general public.
8. We hold to and will vote for woman suffrage.
9. We hold that civil equality secured to all American citizens by
Articles Thirteen, Fourteen, and Fifteen of our amended national
Constitution should be preserved inviolate, and the same equality
should be extended to Indians and Chinamen.
10. That international differences should be settled by arbitration.
11. That land and other monopolies should be discouraged.
12. That the General Government should furnish the people with an
ample and sound currency.
13. That it should be the settled policy of the Government to reduce
the tariffs and taxes as rapidly as the necessities of revenue and
vested business interests will allow.
14. That polygamy should be immediately suppressed by law, and that
the Republican party is censurable for its long neglect of its duty in
respect to this evil.
15. And, finally, we demand for the American people the abolition of
electoral colleges, and a direct vote for President and Vice-President
of the United States.
The regular national Prohibition party held its convention in Pittsburg
on the 23d of July with Samuel Dickie, of Michigan, as permanent
president. The sentiment of the party was very strongly in favor of
Governor John P. St. John, of Kansas, who was unanimously nominated
as President, and William Daniel, of Maryland, was chosen for
Vice-President by a like unanimous vote. The following platform was
adopted:
The Prohibition-Home-Protection party, in national convention
assembled, acknowledge Almighty God as the rightful sovereign of all
men, from whom the just powers of government are derived, and to whose
laws human enactments should conform. Peace, prosperity, and happiness
only can come to the people when the laws of their national and State
governments are in accord with the divine will.
That the importation, manufacture, supply, and sale of alcoholic
beverages, created and maintained by the laws of the national and
State governments, during the entire history of such laws, is
everywhere shown to be the promoting cause of intemperance, with
resulting crime and pauperism; making large demands upon public
and private charity; imposing large and unjust taxation and public
burdens for penal and sheltering institutions upon thrift, industry,
manufactures, and commerce; endangering the public peace; causing
desecration of the Sabbath; corrupting our politics, legislation, and
administration of the laws; shortening lives; impairing health, and
diminishing productive industry; causing education to be neglected and
despised; nullifying the teachings of the Bible, the Church, and the
school, the standards and guides of our fathers and their children in
the founding and growth under God of our widely extended country; and,
while imperilling the perpetuity of our civil and religious liberties,
are baleful fruits by which we know that these laws are alike contrary
to God’s laws and contravene our happiness; and we call upon our
fellow-citizens to aid in the repeal of these laws and in the legal
suppression of this baneful liquor traffic.
The fact that, during the twenty-four years in which the Republican
party has controlled the General Government and that of many of
the States, no effort has been made to change this policy; that
Territories have been created from the national domain and governments
from them established, and States admitted into the Union, in no
instance in either of which has this traffic been forbidden, or the
people of these Territories or States been permitted to prohibit it;
that there are now over two hundred thousand distilleries, breweries,
wholesale and retail dealers in these drinks, holding certificates
and claiming the authority of Government for the continuation of a
business which is so destructive to the moral and material welfare of
the people, together with the fact that they have turned a deaf ear
to remonstrance and petition for the correction of this abuse of civil
government, is conclusive that the Republican party is insensible to
or impotent for the redress of those wrongs, and should no longer be
intrusted with the powers and responsibilities of government; that
although this party, in its late national convention, was silent on
the liquor question, not so were its candidates, Messrs. Blaine and
Logan. Within the year past Mr. Blaine has publicly recommended that
the revenues derived from the liquor traffic shall be distributed
among the States, and Senator Logan has by bill proposed to devote
these revenues to the support of schools. Thus both virtually
recommend the perpetuation of the traffic, and that the State and its
citizens shall become partners in the liquor crime.
The fact that the Democratic party has, in its national deliverances
of party policy, arrayed itself on the side of the drink makers
and sellers by declaring against the policy of prohibition of such
traffic under the false name of “sumptuary laws,” and, when in power
in some of the States, in refusing remedial legislation, and, in
Congress, of refusing to permit the creation of a board of inquiry to
investigate and report upon the effects of this traffic, proves that
the Democratic party should not be intrusted with power or place.
There can be no greater peril to the nation than the existing
competition of the Republican and Democratic parties for the liquor
vote. Experience shows that any party not openly opposed to the
traffic will engage in this competition, will court the favor of the
criminal classes, will barter away the public morals, purity of the
ballot, and every trust and object of good government, for party
success; and patriots and good citizens should find in this practice
sufficient cause for immediate withdrawal from all connection with
their party.
That we favor reforms in the administration of the Government, in
the abolition of all sinecures, useless offices and officers, in
the election by the people of officers of the Government instead of
appointment by the President. That competency, honesty, and sobriety
are essential qualifications for holding civil office, and we oppose
the removal of such persons from mere administrative offices, except
so far as it may be absolutely necessary to secure effectiveness to
the vital issues on which the general administration of the Government
has been intrusted to a party.
That the collection of revenue from alcohol, liquors, and tobacco
should be abolished, as the vices of men are not a proper subject for
taxation; that revenue for customs duties should be levied for the
support of the Government, economically administered; and when so
levied, the fostering of American labor, manufactures, and industries
should constantly be held in view.
That the public land should be held for homes for the people and
not for gifts to corporations, or to be held in large bodies for
speculation upon the needs of actual settlers.
That all money, coin and paper, shall be made, issued, and regulated
by the General Government, and shall be a legal tender for all debts,
public and private.
That grateful care and support should be given to our soldiers and
sailors, their dependent widows and orphans, disabled in the service
of the country.
That we repudiate as un-American, contrary to and subversive of
the principle of the Declaration of Independence, from which our
Government has grown to be the government of fifty-five millions of
people, and a recognized power among nations, that any person or
people shall or may be excluded from residence or citizenship with all
others who may desire the benefits which our institutions confer upon
the oppressed of all nations.
That while there are important reforms that are demanded for purity
of administration and the welfare of the people, their importance
sinks into insignificance when compared with the reform of the drink
traffic, which annually wastes eight hundred million dollars of
the wealth created by toil and thrift, and drags down thousands of
families from comfort to poverty; which fills jails, penitentiaries,
insane asylums, hospitals, and institutions for dependency; which
destroys the health, saps industry, and causes loss of life and
property to thousands in the land, lowers intellectual and physical
vigor, dulls the cunning hand of the artisan, is the chief cause of
bankruptcy, insolvency, and loss in trade, and by its corrupting power
endangers the perpetuity of free institutions.
That Congress should exercise its undoubted power, and prohibit the
manufacture and sale of intoxicating beverages in the District of
Columbia, in the Territories of the United States, and in all places
over which the Government has exclusive jurisdiction; that hereafter
no State shall be admitted into the Union until its Constitution
shall expressly prohibit polygamy and the manufacture and sale of
intoxicating beverages.
We earnestly call the attention of the laborer and mechanic, the miner
and manufacturer, and ask investigation of the baneful effects upon
labor and industry caused by the needless liquor business, which will
be found the robber who lessens wages and profits, the destroyer of
happiness and the family welfare of the laboring man, and that labor
and all legitimate industry demand deliverance from the taxation
and loss which this traffic imposes, and that no tariff or other
legislation can so healthily stimulate production or increase a demand
for capital and labor, or produce so much of comfort and content as
the suppressing of this traffic would bring to the laboring man,
mechanic, or employer of labor throughout our land.
That the activity and co-operation of the women of America for the
promotion of temperance has in all the history of the past been a
strength and encouragement which we gratefully acknowledge and record.
In the later and present phase of the movement for the prohibition
of the licensed traffic by the abolition of the drinking-saloon, the
purity of purpose and method, the earnestness, zeal, intelligence,
and devotion of the mothers and daughters of the Women’s Christian
Temperance Union has been eminently blessed by God. Kansas and Iowa
have been given her as “sheaves of rejoicing;” and the education
and arousing of the public mind, and the demand for constitutional
amendment now prevailing, are largely the fruit of her prayers and
labors, and we rejoice to have our Christian women unite with us in
sharing the labors that shall bring the abolition of this traffic to
the polls, she shall join in the grand “Praise God, from whom all
blessings flow,” when by law our boys and friends shall be free from
legal drink temptation.
That we believe in the civil and political equality of the sexes, and
that the ballot in the hand of woman is a right for her protection,
and would prove a powerful ally for the abolition of the drink-saloon,
the execution of law, the promotion of reform in civil affairs, and
the removal of corruption in public life; and thus believing, we
relegate the practical outworking of this reform to the discretion
of the Prohibition party in the several States, according to the
condition of public sentiment in those States; that gratefully we
acknowledge and praise God for the presence of His Spirit, guiding
our counsels and granting the success which has been vouchsafed in
the progress of temperance reform, and looking to Him from whom all
wisdom and help come, we ask the voters of the United States to make
the principles of the above declaration a ruling principle in the
government of the nation and of the States.
_Resolved_, That henceforth the Prohibition-Home-Protection party
shall be called by the name of the Prohibition party.
The following table exhibits the popular and electoral vote for 1884:
══════════════╤═════════════════════════════════════════════╦═════════════════
│ POPULAR VOTE. ║ ELECTORAL
│ ║ VOTE.
├──────────┬─────────┬──────────────┬─────────╫──────────┬──────
STATES. │ Grover │James G. │ Benjamin F. │John P. ║Cleveland │Blaine
│Cleveland,│ Blaine, │ Butler, │St. John,║ and │ and
│New York. │ Maine. │Massachusetts.│Kansas. ║Hendricks.│Logan.
──────────────┼──────────┼─────────┼──────────────┼─────────╫──────────┼──────
Maine │ 52,140 │ 72,209│ 3,953 │ 2,160 ║ ―― │ 6
New Hampshire │ 39,183 │ 43,249│ 552 │ 1,571 ║ ―― │ 4
Vermont │ 17,331 │ 39,514│ 785 │ 1,752 ║ ―― │ 4
Massachusetts │ 122,481 │ 146,724│ 24,433 │ 10,026 ║ ―― │ 14
Rhode Island │ 12,391 │ 19,030│ 422 │ 928 ║ ―― │ 4
Connecticut │ 67,199 │ 65,923│ 1,688 │ 2,305 ║ 6 │ ――
New York │ 563,154 │ 562,005│ 16,994 │ 25,016 ║ 36 │ ――
New Jersey │ 127,798 │ 123,440│ 3,496 │ 6,159 ║ 9 │ ――
Pennsylvania │ 392,785 │ 473,804│ 16,992 │ 15,283 ║ ―― │ 30
Delaware │ 16,964 │ 12,951│ 6 │ 55 ║ 3 │ ――
Maryland │ 96,932 │ 85,699│ 531 │ 2,794 ║ 8 │ ――
Virginia │ 185,497 │ 139,356│ ―――――― │ 138 ║ 12 │ ――
West Virginia │ 67,317 │ 63,096│ 810 │ 939 ║ 6 │ ――
North Carolina│ 142,952 │ 125,068│ ―――――― │ 454 ║ 11 │ ――
South Carolina│ 69,890 │ 21,733│ ―――――― │ ―――――― ║ 9 │ ――
Georgia │ 94,667 │ 48,603│ 145 │ 195 ║ 12 │ ――
Florida │ 31,766 │ 28,031│ ―――――― │ 72 ║ 4 │ ――
Alabama │ 93,951 │ 59,591│ 873 │ 612 ║ 10 │ ――
Mississippi │ 76,510 │ 43,509│ ―――――― │ ―――――― ║ 9 │ ――
Louisiana │ 62,540 │ 46,347│ ―――――― │ ―――――― ║ 8 │ ――
Texas │ 225,309 │ 93,141│ 3,321 │ 3,534 ║ 13 │ ――
Arkansas │ 72,927 │ 50,895│ 1,847 │ ―――――― ║ 7 │ ――
Missouri │ 235,988 │ 202,929│ ―――――― │ 2,153 ║ 16 │ ――
Tennessee │ 133,258 │ 124,078│ 957 │ 1,131 ║ 12 │ ――
Kentucky │ 152,961 │ 118,122│ 1,691 │ 3,139 ║ 13 │ ――
Ohio │ 368,280 │ 400,082│ 5,179 │ 11,069 ║ ―― │ 23
Michigan │ 149,835 │ 192,669│ 42,243 │ 18,403 ║ ―― │ 13
Indiana │ 244,990 │ 238,463│ 8,293 │ 3,028 ║ 15 │ ――
Illinois │ 312,355 │ 337,474│ 10,910 │ 12,074 ║ ―― │ 22
Wisconsin │ 146,459 │ 161,157│ 4,598 │ 7,656 ║ ―― │ 11
Minnesota │ 70,144 │ 111,923│ 3,583 │ 4,684 ║ ―― │ 7
Iowa │ 177,316 │ 197,089│ ―――――― │ 1,472 ║ ―― │ 13
Nebraska │ 54,391 │ 79,912│ ―――――― │ 2,899 ║ ―― │ 5
Kansas │ 90,132 │ 154,406│ 16,341 │ 4,495 ║ ―― │ 9
Colorado │ 27,723 │ 36,290│ 1,953 │ 761 ║ ―― │ 3
Nevada │ 5,578 │ 7,193│ 26 │ ―――――― ║ ―― │ 3
California │ 89,288 │ 102,416│ 2,017 │ 2,920 ║ ―― │ 8
Oregon │ 24,604 │ 26,860│ 726 │ 492 ║ ―― │ 3
├──────────┼─────────┼──────────────┼─────────╫──────────┼──────
│4,874,986 │4,851,981│ 175,370 │ 150,369 ║ 219 │ 182
══════════════╧══════════╧═════════╧══════════════╧═════════╩══════════╧══════
No man was ever big enough to conduct a Presidential contest for
himself. The intense interest a candidate must have in the struggle,
and the constant strain upon him, would unbalance the most forceful
intellect the world has ever produced. Blaine would have been matchless
in the skilful management of a Presidential campaign for another, but
he was dwarfed by the overwhelming responsibilities of conducting
the campaign for himself, and yet he assumed the supreme control of
the struggle and directed it absolutely from start to finish. He was
of heroic mould, and he wisely planned his own campaign tours to
accomplish the best results. In point of fact, he had won his fight
after stumping the country, and lost it by his stay in New York on his
way home. He knew how to sway multitudes, and none could approach him
in that important feature of a conflict; but he was not trained to
consider the thousand intricacies which fall upon the management of
every Presidential contest.
Three causes combined to lose New York by 1100 majority when the
electoral vote of that State would have made him President. One was
his implacable quarrel with Conkling, that lost him 1000 votes, cast
directly for his opponent in Conkling’s county of Oneida. They had
quarrelled when both were comparatively young and rivals for the
leadership of the House. In a heated controversy between them Blaine
unhorsed Conkling, and inflicted wounds which never healed, and they
never spoke from that time during their lives. When both were members
of the Senate, if either had occasion to refer to the remarks made by
the other, instead of referring to the “Senator from Maine” or the
“Senator from New York,” they would say: “It has been stated on this
floor.” Many efforts were made to bring them together, but Conkling was
an intense hater, and Blaine was willing to be broken rather than bend.
He dined with Jay Gould during his brief stay in New York City, and
that brought him no votes and lost him many.
The Burchard episode, that Blaine was blunderingly brought into in New
York just on the eve of the election, was very generally accepted as
costing him more than enough votes to have given him the State of New
York, and thereby his election to the Presidency. It was miserably bad
politics in its conception and could not have been more bunglingly
executed. Blaine had suffered much from the attacks upon his public
integrity, and some of his friends in New York assumed that it would
be a great card to have him called upon by forty or fifty ministers
of different denominations and congratulated as the candidate for
President.
As originally planned it might have accomplished some good, and
certainly would not have done any harm. It was intended that Rev.
Dr. Tiffany should deliver the address to Blaine. He was one of the
most eloquent divines of the country, was well up in politics, had
been in active political movements in Pennsylvania as a leader in the
American party when he was connected with Dickinson’s College, and was
a candidate for United States Senator before the Legislature of 1855.
Had he delivered the address to Blaine, it would have been an elegant
and faultless congratulation, but when the ministers met some of them
strenuously objected to Dr. Tiffany as the oracle of the party, and
there were indications of considerable ill-feeling. There was little
time for conference, and the dispute was suddenly ended by some one
proposing that the oldest minister present should deliver the address
to Blaine, and that was adopted to settle the dispute.
Dr. Burchard, unfortunately, happened to be the oldest minister in
attendance, and he was rampant against “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,”
but none supposed for a moment that he would make such a fearful break
as to publicly denounce Romanism in an address of congratulation to a
Presidential candidate, whose mother and sisters were devout Catholics.
On his way home from the West he had visited his sister at a convent
in Indiana, where she was Mother Superior. Burchard, of course, had no
opportunity for preparation, and when the ministerial crowd came into
the presence of Blaine he fired off his address in a manner not highly
creditable, and proclaimed the fatal sentence against “Rum, Romanism,
and Rebellion.”
Blaine in his reply made no reference to that feature of Dr. Burchard’s
address, and he seems not to have appreciated its fearful import until
the next day, when he gave out an interview, disclaiming sympathy
with it; but it was accepted as an afterthought, and that deliverance
of Dr. Burchard certainly drove away from Blaine more than the six
hundred votes necessary to give him the State of New York and the
Presidency. I saw Blaine soon after the election, and asked him why
it was that he overlooked the expression at the time. He was a man
of such keen perception and so ready in every emergency that I was
amazed at his failure to turn the blunder to his advantage, as he could
have done by a generous expression on the religious issue involved.
He told me that he heard the expression distinctly, but that his
mind was just then concentrated on his reply, as he generally spoke
spontaneously, and that he thereby failed to become impressed with its
importance. He said that when the proceedings were over, and he gave
it a moment’s reflection, he saw what a fearful mistake had been made;
but the emergency was extreme and called for immediate action, and he
unfortunately hesitated until another day had passed. It was then too
late, and Dr. Burchard certainly cost Blaine many more votes than would
have given him his election. Had Blaine been under the command of a
competent chairman of his national committee, he would never have been
permitted to stop in New York after his great battle had been fought
before the people, and had he gone directly from the West to his home
in Maine, he would have been President instead of Cleveland.
Blaine and Tilden are the only men I can recall who undertook to manage
a Presidential contest for themselves, and both suffered defeats, for
which they were wholly responsible.