The Crime of Caste in Our Country

by Benjamin Rush Davenport

CHAPTER XXV. THE POPULIST: THE “ALLIES.”—ELECTED BY THE PEOPLE; THEREFORE, WITH THE “COMMON PEOPLE.”

It does not seem to afford any great amount of pleasure for the hide-bound members of the Democratic party, the thought that possibly the Democratic party may become but a fifth wheel to the coach, and they view with evident dislike the growing power of the Populist party.

Quoting from the New York Sun, of December 11th, that able representative, in a journalistic way, of the Protection Democrats, we print the following statements:—

WEAVER AND HIS MILLION VOTES.

“The Populists are naturally excited and encouraged by their demonstration of numerical strength at the election of 1892. The Populist view of the achievement, and the Populist interpretation of its significance, are set forth in detail in the very interesting summary of results printed in another part of this paper. In brief, the claim is this:—

“One million votes in the South and West for the Weaver electors;

“Twenty-three electoral votes obtained by fusion or otherwise;

“Five Populist Senators and ten Populist Representatives in the next Congress;

“Populist State Governments in Kansas, Colorado, and North Dakota, and greatly increased Populist representation in the legislatures of these and several other States;”

Which evidently furnishes no great amount of satisfaction to that organ, which is essentially Democratic in a party sense.

Weaver, and his 1,000,000 votes, present the startling possibility to the organ of the Democratic party, that perhaps the people, who are members of that broader democracy, may be breaking away from the traces of the party harness. It is a little harder to prognosticate concerning future political events and manage the people, when they escape from party traces. The million votes for Weaver represent that part of the people who have become thoroughly exasperated by the manner of that excrescence, “sham aristocracy,” on the Republican party, and who, at the same time, were still unwilling to become harnessed in the party-wagon controlled by the Democratic party. Thousands would have been glad to vote with the Populists had that party not been filled with all kinds of incongruities and “isms.” There was a curse on the houses of both the Democratic and the Republican parties, and the people, exclaiming with Mercutio, in Romeo and Juliet: “I am hurt; a plague o’ both your houses! I am sped,” voted for Weaver and the Populists; because the plain “Common People,” who were Republicans of the Abraham Lincoln school, had no confidence in the Democratic party as a party. They were plain “Common People,” who wanted a party in which they would feel at home. They did not find it in the Democratic party, and, being absolutely disgusted with the degeneracy and social shams of the Republican party, they flocked to the party of the Populists to the extent of 1,000,000 voters, as presenting a haven—no matter how insufficient—in the storm created by the wrath of the people, caused by the idiocy and assumption upon the part of believers in “caste” in our country.

“The prestige of gains and achievements, indicating that the Populist party is destined to become one of the two great political organizations of the country.

“This last item is the deduction of optimism from the foregoing. The heavy popular vote for the Populist electors in some of the Southern States serves principally to show that under the conditions existing in 1892, the solid South would have been broken and its solid electoral vote lost to the democracy had not the Force Bill issue been put at the front. The twenty-three electoral votes credited to Weaver in the West and Northwest separate themselves, on analysis, into elements in which the Omaha platform and the specially characteristic features of the Alliance movement sustain a subordinate part. Colorado and Nevada went for Weaver because they were for silver, not because they were for Weaver. Kansas, Idaho, North Dakota, and the one vote in Oregon were gained by the acquiescence of the Democratic managers in a scheme of fusion obviously to the advantage of the Democratic national ticket. Weaver’s proportion of the vote, either popular or electoral, cannot be accepted as a trustworthy measure of the growth of public sentiment in the West in favor of the general programme drawn up at Omaha.

“The first solid and effective achievement in the list is the direct gain of the Populists in their representation in the Congress of the United States. This means something. They must have Senators and Representatives if they are ever going to shape the legislation of the country; and until they can legislate, or muster sufficient strength at the Capitol to force legislation agreeable to their ideas of public policy, they have accomplished nothing. Now they turn up with five Senators, as they believe, and with at least ten Representatives, as they have reason to be certain. It is a respectable showing for a new party, even if we do not count the silver Senators as Populists out and out. But, as an indication of the probable strength of the Populists in the Fifty-fourth Congress, or in the Fifty-fifth, as a reasonable assurance of future progressive development, it is worthless. We need only remind the Populists that their predecessor, the so-called National party, representing the greenback craze, and, in a measure, the dissatisfaction with political conditions that marked the period after the counting in of Hayes, went into the Forty-sixth House with fourteen Congressmen. The Greenbackers and Readjusters went into the Forty-seventh House with eleven Congressmen. In the Forty-eighth, their strength dropped to two. The Greenback wave had swept off and away; the two old parties confronted each other as before, and the phenomenon of a third party in Congress, mustering more than a dozen lawgivers, had disappeared as utterly as if it had never been.

“The same thing is true respecting the capture, with the aid of fusion, of some of the Western States. Nobody has forgotten the astonishingly sudden appearance and subsidence of the Greenback wave in the old and conservative New England State of Maine. In 1878, the Greenbackers cast about fifty per cent. more votes than the Democrats. In 1879, the Greenback vote was more than double the Democratic, and the election was thrown into the Legislature, which chose a Democratic Governor. In 1880, the Greenbackers fused with the remaining fragments of the Democracy, and carried the State and controlled its government. Where are the Maine Greenbackers to-day?

“The two great political organizations in this country have always been and must always be the party of centralization, paternalism, and meddlesome interference with affairs not belonging to the Federal Government, and the party resisting those destructive tendencies on the lines of Jeffersonian Democracy and home rule. The issue is permanent and the same, no matter what the parties may call themselves. There is no chance for the Populists on the ground now occupied by the victorious Democracy. If they can crowd the Republican organization out of the special function which it has filled with distinguished ability for a quarter of a century, that is their business, not ours. The achievement would be much like Jonah swallowing the whale.”

The Abolition party, which absorbed the old Whig party and made the present Republican party, had not nearly so respectable a beginning as the Populist party. With all the predictions of failure recited above, the Populist party has a name—and there is much in a name—which has already endeared it to the hearts of the masses to the extent of a million votes.

It was the suffering masses, the plain “Common People,” who, under the name of Populist, voted for Weaver. There can be no doubt about the affiliation between the Democratic party and the Populist party in the next Congress of the United States. Every Representative elected by the Populist, every Senator selected as the result of their votes cast for the State legislators, will recognize that the Populist party contains the same elements, to the plain “Common People,” as the Democratic party, and, therefore, faith will best be kept with the constituents by whom the Populist Representatives and Senators were elected, by acting with the Democratic party, so long as it continues to wage war upon “caste” and class distinctions and the accumulation of wealth in a dangerous degree in our country.

The Populists have a mission in furnishing to the weary wayfarer a resting place. Many political wayfarers who formerly journeyed under the guidance of the Republican party, hesitate before seeking the protection of the Democratic party. To such the Populist party furnishes a haven of rest.

Should the Democratic party and Grover Cleveland, as representative of the party by whom he was nominated, fail to secure to the “Common People” those rights of which they deem themselves deprived by the Republican party; and should there be a hesitancy or neglect in righting those wrongs of which the “Common People” complain, then the Populists, if some of the “isms” be weeded out of its fair garden, would furnish the Eden for the “Common People.” Should Grover Cleveland and the Democratic party neglect quickly and unhesitatingly to pass such laws, and execute the same, as will relieve the “Common People” of the burden that is cast upon them by ungraded taxation, then the “Common People,” by the might that abides with them, may select the Populist party, freed from some of its idiosyncrasies, as the party of the people.

It is merely a question of whether the Democratic party and Grover Cleveland will perform the will of the people. If not, the people, by a reorganization of this, the Populist party, will secure a political organization which will perform the mandates of the “Common People.” The “Common People” will thrust aside both the old parties and utilize that party which by the magic of simply a popular name was enabled to gain a million votes taken from both of the old parties.

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