“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.
“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.
“‘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.’