THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO.
Question. What is your explanation of the Republican disaster last Tuesday?
Answer. Too much praying and not enough paying, is my explanation of the Republican defeat.
First. I think the attempt to pass the Prohibition Amendment lost thousands of votes. The people of this country, no matter how much they may deplore the evils of intemperance, are not yet willing to set on foot a system of spying into each other's affairs. They know that prohibition would need thousands of officers—that it would breed informers and spies and peekers and skulkers by the hundred in every county. They know that laws do not of themselves make good people. Good people make good laws. Americans do not wish to be temperate upon compulsion. The spirit that resents interference in these matters is the same spirit that made and keeps this a free country. All this crusade and prayer-meeting business will not do in politics. We must depend upon the countless influences of civilization, upon science, art, music—upon the softening influences of kindness and argument. As life becomes valuable people will take care of it. Temperance upon compulsion destroys something more valuable than itself—liberty. I am for the largest liberty in all things.
Second. The Prohibitionists, in my opinion, traded with Democrats. The Democrats were smart enough to know that prohibition could not carry, and that they could safely trade. The Prohibitionists were insane enough to vote for their worst enemies, just for the sake of polling a large vote for prohibition, and were fooled as usual.
Thirdly. Certain personal hatreds of certain Republican politicians. These were the causes which led to Republican defeat in Ohio.
Question. Will it necessitate the nomination of an Ohio Republican next year?
Answer. I do not think so. Defeat is apt to breed dissension, and on account of that dissension the party will have to take a man from some other State. One politician will say to another, "You did it," and another will reply, "You are the man who ruined the party." I think we have given Ohio her share; certainly she has given us ours.
Question. Will this reverse seriously affect Republican chances next year?
Answer. If the country is prosperous next year, if the crops are good, if prices are fair, if Pittsburg is covered with smoke, if the song of the spindle is heard in Lowell, if stocks are healthy, the Republicans will again succeed. If the reverse as to crops and forges and spindles, then the Democrats will win. It is a question of "chich-bugs," and floods and drouths.
Question. Who, in your judgment, would be the strongest man the Republicans could put up?
Answer. Last year I thought General Sherman, but he has gone to Missouri, and now I am looking around. The first day I find out I will telegraph you.
—The Democrat, Dayton, Ohio, October 15, 1883.