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.