“‘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.’