It could not be a matter of reason. It was a matter of sentiment. And (again repeating) no one seems to understand that to be the case better than the President-elect. It was the sentiment of detestation upon the part of the masses--the “Common People”--for that assumption of class distinction, the attempted introduction of “caste” in our country by those who are allied to, or who had forced themselves upon, the Republican party.
The cold and clammy arms of “caste,” in which the Republican party was encircled, doomed it to defeat. All of the great virility with which it was endowed when, as Abraham Lincoln’s Republican party, it represented the “Common People,” was crushed out of it by this venomous python, so that when it faced, in 1892, the arrayed resentment of the “Common People,” it was but a shapeless, disfigured form, in which all the beauty, purity, and strength with which it was endowed at the time of its creation had ceased to exist. Had the Republican party retained the vigor that marked its young manhood before it became suffocated by this mass of putrid matter, called aristocracy, there would have been another story to tell of the election November 8, 1892.
Had the argument been well defined, as it was in the last election, with parties of equal merit in the eyes of the people, possessing equally the virtues and spirit of the American people--had we arrayed upon one side the Democratic party, with its oriflamme of “Free Trade, State Banks, and No Force Bill,” and upon the other side marshaled the Republican hosts under a leader like Lincoln, a man of the people, upon whose standard should be written, “Protection for American Industries, Sound Money Guaranteed by the Faith of the Nation, and Fair Election,” can any one who is fair doubt as to what the issue would have been?
It was not, Novembers, 1892, a battle between the Republican party and the Democratic party, and when journals like the New York _Sun_ would attempt to yoke the people’s will by party principles and party traditions, they are merely preparing a harness of cobwebs, which public opinion will tear asunder, and ring the death-knell of the Democratic party in so doing.
The New York _World_, November 10th, publishes a remarkable editorial, in which it recites, among other things, what this victory does _not_ mean. The editorial is given, because, if it be correct--and the New York _World_ is certainly good authority--then it surely does not mean a victory for the Democratic party, while it does mean a victory for the “Common People,” the democratic masses, and such cries in future as that of the New York _Sun_ against an income tax, because it is contrary to the Democratic party, will be meaningless, inasmuch as the Democratic party has not won this victory, and Grover Cleveland was not elected President by the Democratic party.