CHAPTER II. THE ALLEGED GENERAL DISCONTENT.

The workmen of our country, it is true, want better times, cheaper clothing, the doing away with trusts, and many other desirable changes; but far more than this, they feel the need of the absolute crushing out of the last vestige of “caste.” They at last realize that “caste” is a crime; and the common people have, at heart, no sympathy with criminals, and especially criminals of that class. The common people stay at home, work hard, and very seldom have need to “go to Canada,” or take a flying trip to Southern Europe. Their sins are mainly those of passion. At their best, they are kindly disposed to their fellows; but they are human. They feel a snub from their employer or employer’s son as keenly as their honest, hard-working wives and daughters feel the haughty stare and condescending patronage of Madame Crœsus and her bejewelled daughters. Here we offer our readers some explanations, given by the common, average American citizen, for the defeat of the Republican party at the polls on November 5th. The article is taken from the pages of the New York Tribune, November 21, 1892, the official organ of the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, and therefore entitled to more than ordinary consideration. The article is headed “The General Discontent.”

It consists of talks with the people about the recent election in New York State and Vermont. It is, largely, the observations of a correspondent who has walked through the State, asking farmers and workingmen why they voted for Cleveland. Let it not be forgotten that Whitelaw Reid is the editor of this paper.

“The politician who attempts to explain defeat is ‘crying over spilt milk.’ The newspaper which tells ‘how it was done’ is ‘whining.’ The writer of a political obituary has hardly an enviable task. A defeated party is supposed to accept with philosophical resignation the rejection of pet policies, and with the calmness of the fatalist, tell itself that it ‘was to have been.’ The reasons given for the result of the recent election are as numerous as there are differences in the minds of the two parties. Some say that the desire for free trade is the cause of the Republican overthrow. Others, that the thing that did it is the McKinley bill; others again, that the people want the ‘repeal of the Bank Tax law’; but to him that looks beneath the surface, there is ample evidence that the defeat of the Republican party is not mainly due to the ‘unpopularity’ of its candidates, nor to the love which the people are said to bear for Grover Cleveland; not to the McKinley bill, nor to any ‘desire on the part of the people for free trade;’ not because free silver is or is not wanted. Not through the ‘superb generalship’ of the Democratic National Committee was a victory gained, nor was the battle lost through the ‘lamentable incompetency’ of the Republican leaders. The chief cause of Republican defeat and Democratic victory is the modern tendency toward socialism.

“This statement by no means implies that the socialistic propaganda has taken a firm hold upon the citizen of the United States, or that its tenets have but to be sowed in American soil to bear an abundant harvest. The people have not subscribed to the mild doctrines of Henry George, nor to the more radical and incendiary plans of John Burns, nor do they place confidence in the ability or stability of the leaders of the ‘New Order of Things.’ They have not the slightest desire to overturn existing government; the ravings of the Anarchists they repudiate altogether.

“But since 1873, on Black Friday, political and social conditions in the United States have been those of unquiet and discontent among certain thousands. The Greenback party then had its origin. It is within the last decade, however, that social discontent has manifested itself more markedly in the formation of political parties, all of which, according to the leaders of them, were destined to glorious futures, when the Democratic and Republican parties should be wiped out of existence.

“This unsettled state of affairs showed itself in the formation of the Greenback party, the Labor party, the Socialistic party, the Farmers’ Alliance, and, finally in the People’s party.

THE RISE OF THE PEOPLE’S PARTY.

“The true reason for the formation of the Alliance, or People’s party, in the North, West, and South, is not difficult to find. When the tide of immigration and settlement turned toward the great wheat and corn fields of Iowa, Nebraska, North and South Dakota, every natural condition was favorable to the growing of abundant crops, which brought the farmer a golden return for his labor. But beginning with 1884 the crops in many sections of the Northwest were failures. This unfavorable condition lasted until 1890, when a great demand for cereals from Europe, and enormous crops harvested in America, turned the flood of prosperity back again to the farmer, who had for six years suffered because of poor crops. During these years of hard times the farmer had encumbered himself with numerous and necessary debts, so that the profits of the prosperous years of 1890 and 1891, as well as those of this year, have gone in payment of accrued interest and the liquidation, in part, of a vast mortgage indebtedness. After having been obliged to stint himself for several years, it is but natural that when a chance presented itself he should desire to surfeit upon the plenty, rather than be obliged because of his indebtedness to pay out the first money which had come to him from several years of toil to those whom he owed. It is but natural, too, under such conditions, that he should have embraced a project which, as he understood it, was to lift the burden from his shoulders and put it upon the back of the Government, to make money ‘easy,’ and to render indebtedness not a hardship, but rather something which might be wiped out as easily as it could be incurred.

THE DISCONTENT IN THE EAST.

“The result in Wisconsin shows clearly that the wounds received in the battle over the Bennet law had not yet healed, and the agitation over the repeal of the Edwards law is the cause of Republican disaster in Illinois; but no such issues as perverted the minds of Republicans in the Northwest, and in Wisconsin and Illinois, were matters of controversy in the old line Republican States of Ohio and New Hampshire.

“The political veteran who has battled in these States for many campaigns is puzzled where to seek the cause of such overwhelming disaster. To cry ‘boodle’ is to bring ridicule upon the party, but to give the McKinley bill as the only or main cause is to show only a superficial knowledge of the existing condition of affairs.

“To find out why the people voted as they did, one must ask them. It is they that have piled up these great majorities, and, seemingly, have repudiated Republican doctrines, and put the seal of disapproval upon what the Republican party believes has given this country unexampled prosperity. Let any man who believes that the ‘popularity’ of Grover Cleveland, the demand for free trade, or any policy which is shown in the Democratic platform, other than that which embodies the general statement that the Democrats will give the country better times, is the cause of Republican defeat, ask the people why they voted as they did, and he will find that it is this tendency, unconscious and entirely undeveloped, toward socialism which has given the Democrats victory. It is not permanent nor lasting, so far as it exists in seeming antagonism to Republican policies. In 1896 a cyclone of disapproving votes is just as likely to sweep over the Democratic camp as it has this year devastated the Republican stronghold.

“But it is one thing to make a statement, and another to prove it. In order to ascertain what it was that brought defeat to the Republican party, I took a trip through the States of New York and Vermont, and in five days interviewed several hundred laboring people and men who are in business in a small way in various mercantile pursuits, and who voice the opinion and sentiments of thousands in similar walks of life. Talk with many was profitless. They had nothing against President Harrison, nothing in particular that they knew of against Protection. They did not vote the Democratic ticket because they were impressed with the greatness of Mr. Cleveland, or with the soundness of his views, or with the policy of the party as presented in the Chicago platform. They said they wanted better times and more money. They wanted cheaper clothing, cheaper fuel, cheaper everything; but they wanted to sell what they had to sell, whether it be labor or goods, at the highest possible price. They did not, because they could not, deny that the country as a whole had grown vastly prosperous under Republican administrations.

“They were not sure that the McKinley bill or previous tariffs had had anything to do with the hard times which they declared exist. The laborer could not say but what the cost of store articles had decreased largely in the last quarter of a century. In fact, many of them could remember when articles of common consumption and use cost much more than they do to-day; while the products of the farmer and the stocks of the shopkeeper, so the farmer and the tradesman were obliged to affirm, were sold not many years ago at a lower price and with less profit than to-day.

“The farmers acknowledge that perhaps the elements may have had something to do with poor crops, that the opening of the vast farming territory of the Northwest, and the inexorable enforcement of the law of supply and demand, may have had something of a disastrous effect upon the farmers of the East. But these were not looking for reasons. They did not want reasons. They did not wish to consider causes. They did not think that they and their affairs have anything to do with causes, effects, policies, or platforms. All they know is that times are bad—with them. All they want is better times. ‘Figures don’t prove anything,’ they say. ‘We are hard up, and have been for years; we do not know what causes hard times, nor do we care, if the future only brings prosperity. The Republicans are in power, and have been since 1862, with the exception of four years; therefore, if they have not given and cannot give us better times, who can but the Democrats? We are going to try them.’

“This is what a part of that vote which gave the Democratic majority in New York thought. They would have voted just as readily for Populist, Prohibition, or Socialist candidates had they thought that any of these parties had the power to better their condition. But this element was not large enough alone to give Mr. Cleveland a majority in New York State. It was the smaller tradesman, the farmer, and the laborer. These are the ones, and such the element whose vote gave success to the Democratic party, and in voting thus they had no intention of rejecting any particular Republican, or of approving any particular Democratic policy.

AN EXAMPLE OF POPULAR REASONING.

“A tailor who lives in a little town not far from Albany, and whose entire stock in trade does not amount in value to the cost of one bolt of goods owned by his more fashionable brother who does business in Broadway, voted on November 8th his first Democratic ticket. I asked him why he did so, after having voted for four Republican candidates, and having all his life approved the Republican policy of Protection. He said: ‘I voted for Mr. Cleveland, not for anything Mr. Cleveland or the Democratic party have done, but rather for what he and his party have said they would do. Nor did I vote against Mr. Harrison because I do not like him, nor against the Republican party because it has always stood for Protection, but more with a view of making an experiment than anything else. I do not believe that times are good with a majority of people; I know they are not with me. This does not seem to be the day for the man who is in business in a small way. I don’t know anything about the condition of affairs in free-trade England, but I know that here we have Standard Oil trusts, a sugar trust, a rubber trust, and a trust in almost every line, and if a small dealer attempts to compete with a large dealer, the weaker man is crushed. The great clothing company, with its millions of capital, undersells me, and I am compelled to meet its prices or go out of business and get into something else.

“‘All the business of the country seems to be getting into the hands of a few people and a few big corporations. I don’t like such a state of affairs. I don’t want to be crushed out of existence for attempting to compete with the millionaire clothing dealer. In order to live and conduct my business I must make a profit on my goods. I do not say that the tariff or that any Republican legislation is responsible for this condition of affairs. It may be that no legislation can eradicate the evil, but legislation certainly can prohibit trusts.

“‘What I do know is that I, and such men as I am, cannot do business in competition with these combinations of capital. What I want is a living. In this I am not unreasonable; the world owes me a living, but I am willing to work and work hard to get it. All that I want is a fair chance. Maybe I made a mistake when I voted the Democratic ticket. Perhaps Protection is just what we have needed and yet need. Perhaps Free-Trade will make things better. I don’t know how this is, but when I voted I was willing to run my chances in order to find out. I am a Republican still, and if the Democrats cannot make things better I shall try to take life as it comes and do the best I can.’

“This is, in a measure, the reasoning of most of the smaller tradesmen. They want better times; they want centralization of capital done away with; they want trusts prohibited, and combinations of all kinds destroyed. They want more money, money more easily obtained, with a less rate of interest.

“The intelligent laborer is giving much thought to the condition of himself and his fellows. He is as yet not enough of a student to dive into theories, to analyze policies; nor is he able, at the present, to plan for himself any legislation which shall better his condition. A group of laborers, some of whom worked on the railroad and some in the quarries, in Washington County, acknowledged to me that they voted on the 8th of November, for the first time, the Democratic ticket. I was not able, after exhaustive questioning, to get from any one of them a reason why he had voted as he had done. The answer one gave me is the answer all gave: He wanted less hours of work, better pay, cheaper necessities. A boss of one of the gangs of quarrymen, a man who in his time had been a day laborer himself, a person of good, hard common sense, an out-and-out Republican, told me that, although the men under him had always before voted the Republican ticket, so far as he knew, yet at this election they had voted for Cleveland, more because they were dissatisfied with their condition, to a certain extent, and the Republicans were in power, and because the Democrats had repeatedly made the general statement that their policies would bring good times, when the laborer should work few hours for large pay, the necessities of life be much cheaper than they are to-day, and the luxuries of the rich taxed to support the general government.

“‘I tried to reason with them,’ said the boss; ‘but you might as well have tried to reason with a drove of mules, they are so stubborn. I told them they might better leave well enough alone; that the country had never been so prosperous as it was to-day; that wages were good, and that the cost of store articles had been steadily decreasing for years, and had never been so low as they were to-day. But no, they did not believe that; they did not want to believe it; they said they were overworked; that they were not getting good pay—although their wages have never been larger—and they want, well, I don’t believe any one of them can tell what he does want. They said the Republican party was in power and times were not good, and if the Democrats were able to make good times, why, they wanted them in power and would vote the Democratic ticket.’

OBSERVATIONS OF ONE WHO VOTED THE REPUBLICAN TICKET.

“A shoemaker in the town of Granville, Washington County, a good deal of a philosopher in his way, with plenty of good horse-sense showing in his rugged face, a man whose language was refined, and whose conversation showed him to be a reader as well as a reasoner, gave me the best exposition of the causes of the Republican defeat that I have yet heard anyone make. ‘I am a Republican,’ said he; ‘I always have been and I always shall be. I hoped the party would win, but yet when I talked with the people around this place, and in other towns which I sometimes visit, those people who do a great deal of thinking, and who vote as their reason, wrong or right, tells them to vote, I was mightily afraid the fight would go against us. I do not think very much of Anarchistic ideas, or of the theories of the Socialist, nor of the golden promises made by Weaver and the People’s party. No human being can ever make a paradise out of this world, and at no one time will everyone in it be satisfied and happy. This nation of ours has grown so rapidly, and there are so many foreigners here who have become citizens, and we print so many cheap and silly books, that I am not surprised that the Republican party was defeated. If a party of angels had made up the Government, the result would have been just the same. The same causes that led to Republican defeat in 1892 will overthrow the Democratic Government in 1896. Ever since the Greenback party was started, and ever since the Socialistic and the hundred other ’istic’ agitators have been telling the people how they are abused, how they are robbed, that the rich are growing richer and the poor poorer, everything has been in such an unsettled condition that I do not wonder at the result of the election. It could not have been otherwise.

“‘I believe the Administration has been everything it should be; that General Harrison has been a splendid President; that his policy has been for the good of the people; but I don’t believe that the best man that ever lived, if he had been a Republican and in power, could have been elected to the Presidency of the United States this year. Up in all this section of the country, and throughout the State, for that matter, the man who had always before voted the Republican ticket in an independent way cast a Democratic ballot, more because he wanted to make an experiment than anything else. It is funny how unreasonable people are. They don’t sit down and calmly figure for themselves, but they jump at conclusions, and because with some of us times are hard, they don’t stop to think who or what is responsible. I was talking with just such a man only the other day. He was hard up, so he claimed, but I know he has been doing business here ever since I can remember, and has always lived and looked and acted just about the same as he does now. He keeps a store. As near as I could get at it, he wanted to sell everything he had to sell at a good deal better price than it is fetching now, but he wanted everybody else to sell to him what stuff he wanted to buy a good deal cheaper than what he is paying for it now. He would not listen to me when I told him that that is what everybody else wants to do; to buy everything cheap and sell everything dear; but I told him that if people did not buy until they could get things at their own price, or sell until they could sell things at their own figure, it would take but a mighty little while for everybody to starve to death. He said he was going to vote the Democratic ticket just to see what would happen in the next four years.

“‘Many of the quarrymen bring their boots here to be mended. They tell me they want more money and fewer work hours. They have not much of an idea how they are going to get them, other than that the Democrats have told them that if Cleveland was elected they would get what they wanted and everybody would be happy.

“‘Therefore, they voted the Democratic ticket. But, I believe,’ continued the shoemaker, ‘that after all this election will turn out mighty well for the Republican party. In the end, the new way of voting is going to help us. Before this the boss or the politician could take his men or his gang and vote them as he wished. Now this is, to a certain extent, changed. The half-way independent man who before was led to the polls and voted, goes to the polls and votes for himself. Before this he was part of the machine, gave election matters but little thought, and was enthusiastic only because others were so. Now, he must either vote blindly or he must think for himself, and in the end he is going to think it out and is going to do the right thing. He will then see that the Republican policy has been and is for his benefit; that it has contributed more than any other one thing to make this country great and prosperous, and the people happy and contented.’

“One of the head workmen in a Troy factory possesses similar ideas. He is a man of more than ordinary intelligence, and says that many of his acquaintances voted the Democratic ticket more because they were uneasy and wanted something, they did not know what, than because they had any particular liking for Cleveland and the Democracy, or dislike for Harrison and the Republican party. This opinion is held by many of the skilled workmen of the factories in both Albany and Troy, and in the smaller towns between New York and Plattsburg.

A FARMER’S REASONS FOR HIS VOTE.

“It was a more difficult matter to get any Republican farmer to acknowledge that he voted the Democratic ticket. One was finally found who admitted that he had.

“‘What were your reasons?’ I asked.

“‘Well, I don’t know as I can exactly tell you,’ he answered; ‘we have not had a very easy time of it, we farmers, for the last eight or ten years.’

“‘But don’t you think,’ said I, ‘that the opening of the farming lands in the West has a great deal to do with the decrease of farm values in the East?’

“‘Well, perhaps so,’ he replied. ‘It is hard for a man who is not a political economist and who doesn’t make a business of keeping track of such things to give any reason for the hard times, or to choose between the reasons given by Democrats and Republicans. So far as I know, the Republican party has always kept its promises made to the farmers. Since the McKinley tariff we have been getting better prices for our potatoes and other produce in Northern New York, for before, we had not been able to compete with Canada. Yet, we don’t make much of a living, even at this. You say that statistics prove that this country, as a Nation, is vastly more prosperous than any other, and that we are a good deal richer than we were ten years ago; yet I am not any better off, and most of the farmers around here are not any better off, and I made up my mind that if, as the Democrats promise, a change of Administration would make good times, why, I wanted a change; if Free Trade will make things better, I want Free Trade; if State banks will give us money, and more of it, I want State banks put on equal terms with National banks. If these changes are brought about, it may make things a good deal worse than they are now. At any rate, I am willing to try it. If I find that the Democrats have deceived me, in 1896 I shall vote the Republican ticket again.’

“These interviews show the state of mind among people who are enough in number to turn overwhelmingly a majority for either the Republican or the Democratic party. In them is ample evidence that the people whose votes defeated the Republican party are not dissatisfied with Republican administration of affairs. They do not charge that the McKinley bill, or that the financial or any other Republican policy is responsible for hard times, nor is there any testimony which can be taken as evidence that the ‘unbounded popularity’ of Grover Cleveland or the (by the Democrats so called) broad financial and economic policy of that party, has brought about this sweeping victory. A talk with the independent voter shows, first, that there exists among the smaller tradesmen, among those whose votes turn the tide toward victory or toward defeat, dissatisfaction because, as they claim, they are unable to compete with combinations of capital; they want decentralization of capital, and trusts prohibited by law and the law enforced.

“A condition of affairs exists, the dissatisfied tradesman claims, in which he cannot earn a living. The Republican party was in power, and had been, with the exception of four years, for a quarter of a century, and while it possibly may not be responsible for trusts and for the centralization of wealth and capital, yet the tradesmen says, ‘I cast my vote for Cleveland and Democracy to make an experiment, the result of which I am willing to take the consequences of.’

“The workingman was influenced to vote for Democracy more because he had been repeatedly told that all rich men and manufacturers are Republicans than for anything else. Capital, of late years, has been denounced so severely, and strikes, the cause of many of which are hard to determine, have of late been so frequent (fortunately for the Democratic party, because by these strikes Democratic speakers were able falsely to claim that they were caused by the attempt of the rich Republicans to crush the workingman, and because by the shortness of the campaign the Republicans were unable effectively to disprove these Democratic statements) that the Republican party, although its policy of protection was approved by the labor union leaders, has been in a measure handicapped.

“The independent farmer voted the Democratic ticket because the prices of farm products are not up to the figure he thinks they should be, and because the Democrats have told him that their financial and economic policies, if carried out, will enhance the value of his farm products, give him the markets of the world, and greatly decrease the cost of the necessities of life, although he cannot disprove that this state of affairs does not exist to-day, almost wholly because of a protective tariff.

GREAT NUMBERS OF NEW CITIZENS.

“But there is another element, and one which always has and always will contribute to Democratic success. Naturalization was unusually large this year; the citizen of foreign birth is a power in the land and the Democratic party was felicitously named. There is something in the word ‘Democracy’ which appeals strongly to the citizen of foreign birth. In this country ‘Democracy,’ as applied to the Democratic party, signifies to them that have left their homes in Europe, a party of the people in contradistinction to plutocracy and to aristocracy, the party of wealth and the party of people of noble birth. That this has weight with a certain foreign element is conclusively shown in the statement made by several foreign laborers in Washington County. Their knowledge of things American is not sufficient for them to grasp the import of the policies advocated by either party, and hence it is that they vote for the party whose name means the most to them. From a talk with many of them I am convinced that it is a natural antagonism toward the party in power, a love for the word ‘Democracy’ that caused not a few newly made citizens to vote for Mr. Cleveland. One of them told me that the Republican party was made up of bankers, of great manufacturers, of men who had formed combinations for the purpose of advancing the cost of necessities of life—the party, in fact, to which every one who has money belongs. In other words, that to be a Republican is to be a capitalist, and to be a Democrat is to be a man of the people: that by voting the Democratic ticket the power could be taken from the capitalist and put into the hands of the people, and that the people ruling the people would mean legislation which would give the greatest good to the greatest number.

“A talk with the people shows further that the Republican party is still very much in existence; that its defeat in this election does not mean a rebuke for anything that it has ever done, nor for any policy which it advocates, but it means that unless the Democratic party makes good the promise which it has given to bring about better times, it will meet with a defeat more overwhelming than that which overturned and shattered Republican hopes in 1892, and that the Democrats will not only lose the States which have gone from the Republican ranks this year, but that West Virginia, South Carolina, Alabama, and Louisiana will turn from their allegiance to Democracy, cast their vote either for a third party, for fusion, or for the Republicans, and for future years make what is now known as the Solid South nothing but a mournful Democratic memory.”

Through the whole of these interviews, when attention is directed to the subject, it becomes perfectly apparent that the thread of the story is the people’s objection to the prevalence of social distinction among them. It is half expressed in nearly every one of these interviews, while they hesitate to put it in words; possibly because they highly appreciate that as the motive that so powerfully moved them on November the 8th. And then again, because of their hesitancy in expressing their recognition, even, of the attempt on the part of those possessed of greater wealth, to assume social superiority of those less fortunate.

CHAPTER III. NOVEMBER 8, 1892.

November the 8th, 1892, will be noted, by the historian of the future, as a date constituting a milestone to mark the road and journey of struggling humanity. What July the 14th is to the French, July the 4th is, and November the 8th will be, to the American people.

The surface of the waters of public opinion presented a peaceful appearance at the dawning of that autumn day, but beneath the tranquil surface there raged subterranean and powerful forces, moving the deep waters of public sentiment. The much-discussed “general apathy” was the silent, sullen wrath, dangerous in individuals as it is in the masses. The silent fighter is tireless and terrible. The people had ceased to be moved by oratorical effort, brass bands, and torchlight processions. They had become surfeited with argument upon the subject of Protection. The changes had been rung upon the effect of the passage of a Force Bill, until the people had become as accustomed to the beating of the flanges of the newspapers upon the rails of this somewhat attenuated subject, as a slumbering passenger on a railway train. In fact, the cessation of the clangor would have attracted more attention than the continuation of the monotonous drumming.

The leading journal in the Force Bill camp had been that preëminently vigorous newspaper, the New York Sun. Under the guidance of the genius of the Hon. Charles A. Dana, the New York Sun had seized the most attractive, because the most novel, instrument of noise presented in this campaign of education. It had blown such vigorous blasts, that a large portion of newspaperdom, who regarded the opinions expressed by Mr. Dana as apt to be eminently reasonable, had joined in the chorus of the Force Bill farce, and created discordance and noise enough to have nauseated the masses with weariness of the subject. The pot-house politician, as well as his more exalted brother of the Fifth Avenue palatial political headquarters, was abashed and confused, by the fact that his efforts to arouse enthusiasm among the masses were utterly fruitless. They neither agreed with him nor disagreed with him. There was no room for argument. It was like the professional pugilist descanting on the beauties of the bruiser’s art to a Whittier, Holmes, or Longfellow; the subjects, upon which the politicians of all degrees and kinds had exhausted themselves, were not interesting.

The issue before the people was sentimental. The detestation of the prevalence and growth of a pretended and sham aristocracy, became the important and all-absorbing theme within their hearts. They heard the talk; they read the dissertations of learned editors, and while it was all, doubtless, the product of powerful brains, it was not the most important matter in the struggle to be decided that November morning, between the masses and an assumption of “caste” in free America. Mr. Thomas Dolan, at the Clover Club, in Philadelphia, in referring to the result of the election, had at least the candor to admit the cause of the Republican party’s defeat. Had he, and gentlemen of his doubtless aristocratic tendencies, realized the impression that their course of conduct was making upon the minds of the mass of the Common People prior to that eventful day, November the 8th, and had they taken warning by the signs of the times, had they believed less in the Burchard theory of Blaine’s defeat in ’84, and more in the efficacy of the impression, prejudicing the minds of the people against Mr. Blaine and his party by that banquet,—which has been dubbed in political parlance, “the Belshazzar feast,”—they might have been forewarned. But those who have been, for the last thirty years, attempting to create an artificial order to govern society, “caste,” have become so puffed up by wealth, and blinded by the ever-narrowing view they are able to obtain from their assumed exalted position, that they have lost sight of every other consideration; becoming absorbed in their own one overmastering emotion—love of money. Before this god of Mammon they had performed such obsequious service, that they imagined the only appeal necessary to make to the people, was the one so much paraded by the Republican press, i. e., the advantage of Protection to the pocket of the poor man. Upon this day, November 8th, which was to decide, in no doubtful manner, the destiny of the nation with regard to its social life, in the silence, communing only with their outraged sense of the rights of man and the equality of all mankind, the voters sought the confessional-like closets in the booths, established by the introduction of the Australian system of voting. There was no hurrah, no noise, no violence, but a tremendous outpouring of men, filling every voting precinct in the land, creating a larger percentage of voters who exercise their right of franchise than on any former election ever held in America.

As the hours of the day passed, some of the keen observers and astute party leaders began to realize that the existence of a general “feeling of apathy” had been more apparent than real; else what was the meaning of this outpouring of voters, who, silently and with determined, fixed certainty of purpose, sought to exercise their right as citizens? Even in those sections of the large cities where the wealthy reside, and in the back country, where it is difficult for the voter, often, to find the time, opportunity, and the means of getting to the polls on election day, it was the same story. The nation had been aroused in some magical and mysterious manner, which was beyond the expectation and prognostication of the politicians and party leaders. The people had taken the matter out of their hands. They had simply taken the ship of State into their own keeping, and the professional politician had to cling to the life-line in the wake thereof.

Wonderment seized these gentlemen of supposed miraculous political perspicacity. They asked one another, by their silent and inquiring glances: “What does this mean? Is our occupation, like Othello’s, gone?”

The people, regardless of their mistaken mouthing, like some massive Percheron horse, had taken the bit; and, regardless of all attempts at guidance, were exerting the strength which, when aroused, they possess, contrary to the expectations of the learned gentlemen of the political profession. When the sun went down, November 8, 1892, none were less able to predict the result of this tremendous uprising of the people than those who by their diplomacy had arrived at that position, so enviable in the minds of petty politicians, Chairmen of various Campaign Committees. Chairman Carter might have exclaimed, with the drowning people at Johnstown, as he sank beneath the flood of indignant “Common People,” “Whence comes this water?” Chairman Harrity might well have been drunk and delirious, as the result of his own good fortune, for as surprising to him as to Chairman Carter was the existence of this slumbering volcano of indignation which had brought about the overwhelming success of the candidate who represented, in the minds of the people, the opposition to the growing aristocracy which had become engrafted upon the Republican party. Chairman Harrity might well have been dazed by the remarkable results of his own endeavors, had he not realized that his efforts had been incidental to, and not the cause of, the success of Cleveland.

It is not presumed to criticise the conduct of the campaign as managed by the campaign committees of both sides. Their duties, without doubt, were performed in a most masterly manner. The organizations with which both committees worked with tireless energy to achieve success for their respective sides, cannot fail to impress even a very tyro in politics. It was, however, like two learned physicians, disputing over the disease of a patient, and both being in error; each applying established remedies that experience had taught him were efficacious in the disease he had imagined it to be; both equally in error because they had mistaken the complaint of the patient. To the average politician of the present day, Tariff Reform and Protection constitute the sum of all evils and diseases of the body politic. Like Dr. Sangrado’s instruction to Gil Blas, they have only two remedies: phlebotomy and plenty of hot water. And the astonishment expressed by them at the possible existence of some other disease and some other remedy, was productive of as much consternation as that in the breast of Gil Blas, at the result of the treatment of his patients at Valladolid. As the returns from the different States began to arrive at the headquarters of the different committees; as the result of the opinion of the people upon this momentous occasion (so fraught with disappointment to the aristocratic believers in “caste”) became apparent, surprise and astonishment were depicted upon every countenance; while, mingled with unalloyed delight in the breasts of the Democrats, and with mortification in the hearts of the Republicans, the same surprise and astonishment existed. That Illinois, a State that had sent over 200,000 men to fight under the Federal flag, and in which such large sums of pension money had been annually distributed to the disabled veterans for many years, should have been so unmindful and heedless of the display of the time-honored and ensanguined garment, the “Bloody Shirt,” and the howling of the Republican press about Cleveland’s vetoes of pension bills, was simply outrageous to the minds of the stupefied Republican leaders.

Could it be possible that their so often victorious shout of sectionalism, and constant address to the pocketbook of the veteran, had been relegated to the shadowy shelf of “innocuous desuetude”?

They looked aghast at the result of the counting of votes in Indiana. That much-talked-of, recently-discovered Gas belt, in which had sprung up innumerable manufactories, whose workshops were filled with “Common People,” had failed to find an all-obscuring attraction in the glittering gold that the magnates of wealth had held out to them as an inducement to perpetuate the power of the rich and to increase those privileges and class distinctions that they fondly hoped would be accorded to them by the American people. Verily, like DeFarge, in Dickens’ “Tale of Two Cities,” the workman of the manufacturers in Indiana had presumed to hurl the magical Louis piece back into the carriages of the wealthy, rejecting with indignation the attempt to bribe their honor, and their sense of the equality of man.

The negro of Alabama, Georgia, and Virginia, upon whom these bondholders thought they had a mortgage, by their claimed procurement of his emancipation, had, even in spite of his color, previous condition, and gratitude, joined with his fellow-citizens, the “Common People,” taking as the representative of those who had most benefited him and his race, the immortal Abraham Lincoln, a man of the “Common People”; and, by the negro’s vote, was added strength to the blow, struck by the white Democracy of the Union, at this arrogant assumption of that thing which the negro, along with the white man, had learned to hate and resent—the assumption of “caste” upon the part of any set of citizens in the United States of America.

The wool-grower of Ohio, the home of the popular McKinley, added sorrow to the cup held to the lips of the would-be aristocrats. He no longer felt bound to bow his head before the advantages held out by the party of wealth. He preferred to take a little less for his wool, and a little more respect for himself, his wife, and children in the social world, where every landmark of equality was being washed away by the tide of aristocratic tendencies. The bewildered Republican leaders gazed with terror upon the transmogrified weapons with which they had waged war. The sword of steel, when held by the hand clad in a golden gauntlet, had become a weapon of straw. They murmured to one another: “If these weapons have failed us, in what shall we seek safety?”

Consternation was in the council of the great of that party who, for more than a quarter of a century, had controlled the legislation of the Republic, and by whom was created, in the minds of the people, the errors of social distinction and “caste” that have crept into the country. The Republicans, assembled at their headquarters, became more bewildered at each new piece of evidence of the disapprobation and rejection of those doctrines, the understanding of which they deemed such conclusive argument to the minds of the people. The oncoming storm had no centre. It was blowing in all directions of the Union. Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, even manufacturing Pennsylvania, were sending a horrible howling of destructive wind, which would sweep away all their carefully-prepared barriers. At the Democratic headquarters, no less was the degree of wonder stamped, though with joyous imprint, upon the faces of the party leaders. Could it be possible that Illinois had cast the majority of its vote for the leaders of the Democratic party, those standard-bearers against whom so much had been said to prejudice the mind of that great Soldier State, the home of Lincoln, the birthplace of the Republican party and of the Grand Army of the Republic?

It was hard for the most hopeful to realize. Had the vaunted undoing of the Democratic party in the State of Indiana, the increase of the manufactures, and the personal popularity of a President, one of Indiana’s chosen sons, been proved false and groundless? Had the negroes in Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia joined the Democratic “Common People,” in spite of the promised covenant of their salvation, The Force Bill, and added to the majorities in those Southern States? Connecticut—much-protected Connecticut; could it be possible that she would increase the few hundred majority accorded to the Democratic candidate four years ago?

All seemed so utterly out of keeping with the fondest hopes and expectations of the sagacious chieftains of Democracy, that incredulity was stamped upon every countenance. It seemed to be utterly beyond the comprehension of the wisest of the political world of both parties, that, possibly, they had been treating an unknown and unappreciated disease, the nature whereof they had failed to recognize. The result was not compatible with any established theory of either party. The people had evinced such utter disregard for all the old arguments and well-tried remedies, that it dumbfounded the physicians who pretend to minister to the wants of the nation. From such unsuspected quarters, and in such ridiculous proportions, had come the disapproval of the people, that all were at sea; some wrapping themselves in their own glory, proclaiming, like Cock Robin, “I did it, with my little bow and arrow;” others, seeking to shield themselves behind the transparent, fragile shield of another’s fault: “He did it, his unpopularity;” “Protection did it; it was his policy;” each trying to escape the general stampede, occasioned by the long-suppressed indignation of the people who objected, not so much to the economic doctrines of the Republican party (not that they had become converted to the tenets of the Democratic faith), but to that crime of “caste” which, with its many ramifications in the whole mass of society, was causing them unhappiness.

It is not well for the Democratic party to lay the flattering unction to its soul, that the mass of the people had become converted to the principles enunciated by that party in Chicago, at the Convention where Mr. Cleveland was nominated. It would be as delusive and disappointing to them, in some future election, as it has proved to the Republican party upon the occasion of their late discomfiture. On the other hand, the Republican party should be well convinced, by its downfall, that the people will not endure the wrapping up, in silken garments, of the progeny of the deformed and diseased state of European society, palming the enshrouded babe off as an offspring of that land that lit the torch of freedom for the world.

CHAPTER IV. SOCIETY AS THE PEOPLE FOUND IT, NOVEMBER 8, 1892.

Society, as the people found it, on last election day, was certainly not as attractive as that autocratic gentleman, the distinguished Ward McAllister found it, and has helped to make it, as related by him in a book which has been published with much flourish of trumpets, entitled “Society as I Have Found It.”

While the volume itself hardly rises to the dignity of a dime novel, it still, doubtless, is a true statement and record of the doings and pretensions of the very class of people who, by their presumption, have aroused the silent and sullen indignation of America. The book referred to, and its writer, Ward McAllister, of course, received a large share of criticism and ridicule. The absurdities of the book impressed the critics of the newspapers all over the land. It was made a butt for the squibs, sarcasm, and ridicule of some man on every newspaper throughout the country. Passages were selected from the book wherein Mr. McAllister poses himself in the position of a first-class cook, and where he recounts how he has been playing the millinery maid for some lady of fashion. Of course, it struck every one as ridiculous that any manly man who claimed to be an American should be impressed by the criticism made upon the “cut of the tails of his dress-coat,” or to pay any attention to the advice of “a well-dressed Englishman, well up in all matters pertaining to society,” as to the peculiar fashion to be adopted concerning a man’s hat; how he should wear his watch-chain, etc. All such things were so extremely amusing and so utterly farcical to the brainworkers attached to the newspapers, that they held up the book and McAllister as objects to create merriment. That was the only possible view that could be taken by them of anything so absurdly funny as a man’s highest ambition, his idea of dignity, his aim in life being so small as that evidenced in McAllister’s autobiography.

There was another side to that question. A creature like McAllister is not a spontaneous or instantaneous creation of our great Republic. There must have existed a congenial atmosphere in his “smart set” to produce an exotic of such rare and unattractive perfume. Had it not been perfectly apparent that Ward McAllister was not the only person who imitated and aped foreign manners, and desired to create a social distinction in America, the book would have been a roaring farce. Had the people at large supposed that he was the single individual in America who approved of and earnestly desired to create a collection of idiots who should claim that “caste” could exist in our country, then the people would have regarded him much in the manner they would a buffoon on the stage of a theatre, or some idiot who, from a desire to attract attention, paints his face sky-blue. But the very advertising that this blooming flower of sham aristocracy received at the hands of the newspapers—which was done by the newspaper men in a spirit of levity, possessing, as they do, sufficient brains to find McAllister and his subject utterly absurd, in conjunction with many other well-advertised and extravagantly absurd assumptions on the part of the wealthy, made a much deeper impression upon the minds of the “Common People” than it was supposed that it would or could do. McAllister’s “smart set” in this country—and his “smart set” is not confined to New York City, but exists in some form or manner in every city, town, village, and county in the Union—this McAllister-like “smart set” in each little community, as well as in the large cities, has managed by its arrogance and assumed superiority to arouse a spirit of resentment among the “Common People” of the Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Jackson stamp, because the masses have seen an attempt to establish something which would create an inequality between the citizens of the Republic.

It was a monstrous joke that the Knights of the Pencil saw in McAllister and his “Society as I Have Found It,” and, like the keen-witted men that they are, they proceeded to hurl the javelins of their wit and sarcasm at this balloon of idiocy and impudence; but in piercing the balloon, the nauseating odor arising from its explosion pervaded the nostrils of the “Common People” with more than ordinary unsavoriness.

In every little village and town, and even through the farming sections, there is some would-be Ward McAllister and “smart set;” some little circle who from some imagined cause or reason, in their own conceit are a little better than the typical old settlers of our country, who brought the Republic into existence. They try to impress, and sometimes most insultingly, this supposed superiority upon the minds of the “Common People.” In one little village it will be, for example, the owner of some protected little factory, which, in the wisdom of the legislators, has been protected to encourage and increase the industries of our country. In the solicitude of the legislators for the welfare of the people (acting honestly and in the best interests of the country), they have created the possibility for this man, this small manufacturer in the little village referred to, to accumulate a few thousand dollars more than his fellow citizens of the little village. The money has not been earned either by his sagacity, business ability, superior education, nor his intrinsic merit as a commercial genius. It is the result of accidents and the necessity that the legislators honestly felt existed, to create manufactories in our own country, to furnish the articles consumed by the people, rather than to buy the same from England and other foreign countries, sending our gold abroad out of the country in payment therefor.

The honesty of purpose and the wisdom of the action of the legislative part of the Government, it is not the province of this book to question. It is to record the result of the action upon the social relations of the different members of that little community, or village, in which the small factory was established, and the attendant unhappiness arising from the accumulation of a disproportioned amount of money in the hands of one of the citizens of the community. The manufacturer, becoming prosperous, began to assume an air of social superiority. He was enabled to take a trip every now and again to some near-by city. He there saw his model McAllister. He returned to his village with un-American affectations, aping the manner of his model—the McAllister of his near-by city. He began to draw around him (in much the same manner as McAllister describes the creation of the “Patriarchs” of New York) those whom he deemed suitable for that superior social position which he, modelling the machinery after the manner of the city McAllister, deemed so desirable.

Before proceeding to describe the birth of this superior social class, and the method of its organization, for which information we are indebted to this Prince of Cooks and Coats—McAllister—it is desirable to regard in a political way this local would-be aristocrat, the manufacturer. He imagines that Protection, the tariff, by which he has been enabled to amass the wealth, as the foundation upon which he bases his claim to a more exalted position, socially, than his fellow citizens, is entirely due to the doctrines of the Republican party. He loses sight of the fact that the Republican party did not owe its origin to Protection. The Abraham Lincoln Republican party did not owe its victory and popularity in the hearts of the people to Protection. There were other causes which operated powerfully in producing the result of the election in 1860; but the manufacturer of that little village, before mentioned, absorbed by the one idea that Protection has been the one cause of his success, and that it was due to the Republican party, becomes oblivious to the fact that the necessities of the Government, during a war to preserve the Federal Union, became so great that revenue had to be derived from some source, and that many of the duties imposed upon foreign importations by the Republican party had for their cause the stern necessity of the soldiers in the field, fighting to preserve the Union; that the war was not a battle for Protection. It had for its origin other and very different causes.

The war, which had been the outgrowth of the election of the candidate of the Republican party, created expenses which the Republican administration had to meet, and as a means to that end it became necessary to increase the existing duty and to place new duties upon imported manufactured articles. And by so doing they carried to a successful termination the great struggle for the preservation of the Union, to which the Republican party had pledged itself; which, together with the inclination and desire of some of the prominent members of the Republican party to increase the manufacturing industries of the country, has brought about that Protection and tariff by which he, the village manufacturer, has profited. He never stops to consider whether the tariff was a means to the end so profoundly desired, the preservation of the Union, a means of furnishing sinews of war by which the stars were retained upon our flag. He regards the tariff and Protection only in its personal aspect. The Republican party, to him, means his benefactor, to whom he owes an eternal debt of gratitude for enabling him to acquire that which, without Protection and tariff, he never could have obtained in the open field of the commercial battle wherein the world at large may contend. The position held by great thinkers of the Abraham Lincoln period is utterly unappreciated by him. That this tariff and Protection, which has been such a boon to him, was not created for his especial benefit, never suggests itself to his mind; that men of the Lincoln day and stamp should have had in view only the preservation of the Union and creating a fund to pay the expenses of those engaged to accomplish that end, does not occur to the village manufacturer.

In fact, many of the Republican politicians have made too much of the Protection doctrine and not enough of the cause that created it. This village, protected, small manufacturer, communing with himself, concludes that without Protection he could never have amassed that wealth which he is endeavoring to make elevate him above the social status of his fellow citizens. He acknowledges, possibly, to himself, that without Protection he might still be struggling for existence upon an equal plane with the “Common People,” above whose heads he hopes to elevate himself socially. He regards only the Republican party of to-day, utterly oblivious to the fact that he and men of the McAllister and the “smart set” type have no just appreciation and no great admiration for the father of the Republican party, Abraham Lincoln, and his doctrines, which are the doctrines and sentiments of the “Common People.” He merely knows that Protection helped him, and he cares nothing for what it was that brought about Protection and compelled the Republican party to advocate a high tariff during the Civil War.

Hence, this village manufacturer, this would-be social leader, the imitator of the city Ward McAllister, is a most ardent Republican. The little set of satellites which he gathers round him, glad to imitate the examples and opinions of one who has attained success and who is a recognized leader of this social movement to create “Caste” in our communities, become also ardent Republicans. In other words, it becomes almost a mark of respectability (so called) in the little community wherein resides the small protected manufacturer, to be a Republican.

The very word “Democrat” smacks so much of the “Common People.” A man of intelligence, education, or wealth, who is a Democrat, becomes a social anomaly in that little community. A few prominent men through the land, who have become associated with the Democratic party, are spoken of merely as the result of inherited opinions through a long line of ancestry, similar to an inherited religion, or a motto on a coat-of-arms. A man who believes in Democracy, in its broad sense, is regarded in these little communities, when he is possessed of education, intelligence, and money, as a kind of firebrand. His every action is viewed with suspicion. So firmly has it become fixed in the minds of this little set of satellites, who surround the local manufacturing magnate, that “Republicanism” and “respectability” are synonymous, that they find it utterly incompatible with reason and refinement for a man to be respectable, according to their definition of the term, and not at the same time be a Republican.

The “Common People” in these little communities, many of whom have been Republicans with Abraham Lincoln, many of whom were veteran soldiers of the Union, became more incensed by the impression created by this local “smart set,” than convinced by argument, during the campaign of 1892.

Before proceeding to more fully dissect the sentiment created by this kind of nonsense, and by its almost invariable association with the Republican party throughout the land, we will return to the admirable, unabashed Ward McAllister, and quote something from his text-book of snobbery, as to the methods adopted in the creation of the “smart set” in New York, which has furnished a model for similar creations through the length and breadth of the land.

“As a child,” writes this scion of a race of nobles(?), “I had often listened with great interest to my father’s account of his visit to London, with Dominick Lynch, the greatest swell and beau that New York had ever known. He would describe his going with this friend to Almack’s, finding themselves in a brilliant assemblage of people, knowing no one and no one deigning to notice them; Lynch, turning to my father, exclaimed: ‘Well, my friend, geese, indeed, were we, to thrust ourselves in here, where we are evidently not wanted.’ He had hardly finished the sentence when the Duke of Wellington (to whom they had brought letters, and who had sent them tickets to Almack’s) entered, looked around, and seeing them, at once approached them, took each by the arm and walked them twice up and down the room; then, pleading an engagement, said ‘Good-night’ and left. Their countenances fell as he rapidly left the room, but the door had barely closed on him when all crowded around them, and in a few minutes they were presented to everyone of note, and had a charming evening. He described to us how Almack’s originated—all by the banding together of powerful women of influence for the purpose of getting up these balls, and in this way making them the greatest social events of London society.

“Remembering all this, I resolved, in 1872, to establish in New York an American Almack’s, taking men instead of women, being careful to select only the leading representative men of the city, who had the right to create and lead society. I knew all would depend upon our making a proper selection. I made up an Executive Committee of three gentlemen, who daily met at my house, and we went to work in earnest to make a list of those we should ask to join in the undertaking. One of this committee, a very bright, clever man, hit upon the name of ‘Patriarchs’ for the Association, which was at once adopted, and then, after some discussion, we limited the number of Patriarchs to twenty-five, and that each Patriarch, for his subscription, should have the right of inviting to each ball four ladies and five gentlemen, including himself and family; that all distinguished strangers, up to fifty, should be asked; and then established the rules governing the giving of these balls—all of which, with some slight modifications, have been carried out to the letter to this day. The following gentlemen were then asked to become ‘Patriarchs,’ and at once joined the little band:

These proud patriots, constituting a tribunal upon whose decision a man’s claim to social equality with any other citizen in New York must rest, could find much in the conduct of their descendants to question with regard to their title to social superiority. The ventilation given to the Drayton-Borrowe-Millbank affair reflected no great credit upon the great name Astor—the first on the list of the “Patriarchs.” The asinine utterances of a descendant of another of the “Patriarchs,” which is here given, gives little evidence of inherited wisdom or common sense.

In the curious case recently tried in New York relative to the right of a women’s association to erect a statue to a lady who, though counted among the metropolitan “Four Hundred,” was possessed of much public spirit and philanthropic energy, one of the witnesses—a member of the same family—testified that her grandfather “never invited such people as Horace Greeley” to his house. A correspondent of the New York World enquires:

“Is it possible that we have an aristocratic society in this republican country of ours to which the great founder of the Tribune could not be admitted? Horace Greeley was born in New Hampshire, the native State of Gen. John Stark, Levi Woodbury, Daniel Webster, and a long line of soldiers, statesmen, and men famous in literature. If it is a title to aristocracy to belong to a family who were original settlers of the country, the Hamiltons are comparatively a new people, the great founder of the family being an emigrant from the West Indian island of Nevis about the year 1770. The Schuylers derive their distinction from Major-General Philip Schuyler, who was a distinguished officer of the Revolution, but whose services could not compare with those of that sterling old hero of Bennington—John Stark.

“Why, Mr. Editor, there are thousands of good Democratic citizens who can trace back their descent to the Pilgrim Fathers, more than a hundred years before Alexander Hamilton landed from the West Indies. Is it not a relic of feudal times and barbarism to claim distinction above our fellows and superiority of birth on account of the deeds of an ancestor a hundred or more years ago?

“‘Honor and fame from no condition rise.

Act well your part; there all the honor lies.’”