It was not a question of the pocketbook with the masses. It was not a question whether they were doing better by reason of the Protective policy of the Republican party than they could hope to do under the Free Trade policy enunciated by the Democratic party. It was a clear-cut proposition: Shall we allow longer the accumulation of money in the hands of a few families, who are assuming before us and flaunting in our faces their claim to a social superiority, making a sham aristocracy, “caste,” in our country? It was not the pocketbook, for with regard to that proposition there can be no doubt that the American characteristic, “shrewdness in business,” would have inclined every voter to let well enough alone.
The Republican party and the principles enunciated at Minneapolis with regard to Protection had certainly the best of the argument. From a business standpoint, what was and is, is well. What may be in the future, under the Free Trade theories of the Democratic party, from a business standpoint, is problematical. But the voter remembered the snubs, sneers, and insults inflicted upon his wife and family by would-be social superiors, whom he associated in his mind, in an unmistakable manner, with the Republican party.
It was not a defeat upon the principles of the Republican party. It was a defeat of class, “caste,” and sham aristocracy. It was not a defeat because of the pocketbook.
On November 5th, the Mail and Express, of New York City, published the following editorial, which is absolutely truthful:—
BUSINESS AND POLITICS.
“Here it is the last week before the Presidential election, and so sound are all the conditions that people seem to have little time to talk politics. Never before in the history of the country has business gone right on with so much more than usual activity for the season. Money has been easy and the volume of exchanges, as shown by the Clearing House returns, unprecedented for the season. Anxiety over the result of next Tuesday’s election has neither interfered with the ordinary trend of trade nor has it checked its activity.
“The fact that wheat has this week sold at the lowest price ever known at New York (73½ cents) must interest the farmer in the cry of English cheap labor. If the Englishman comes to this country because he can live better here, he increases the demand for bread, and the farmer can certainly get a better return for his produce when he sells it to a workingman at home instead of sending it 3,000 miles across the ocean, paying freight room in a foreign steamship to support a foreign workman.
“It is rather surprising that this cry should have been raised just at this time. If the consumer and the producer are brought closer together, is it not better for both? They save the cost of the transfer from one to the other. If the English weaver can come to this country and work, so that his product does not have to cross the ocean, and then get his wheat, flour, and meal without having to pay the additional cost, do not both profit? The country is so large that we can well afford to increase its population when we can reduce to a minimum the cost of the exchange of necessary means of life.
“The market for iron is better all around, from the fact that stocks are being taken up faster than ever at this season of the year. This is due very largely to the even weather, which has been so favorable to building projects, the number of working days in October being probably more than in the same month for years, and now, in the first week of November, work is going on just the same.
“This will be apparent to every one who has watched the progress of work and seen new buildings reach the fifth or sixth story when, if the season had been adverse, they might not have been half as high at this time. The railroads have also contributed to consumption, for they are forehanded in placing early orders for the large increase in the equipment that they will have to have for next year.
“The voluntary advance in wages by the Fall River manufacturers is another suggestive indication. The South has had three years of steadily increasing cotton crops. The country has not only exported more than ever, but it has consumed more, and out of this great crop the proportion spun and woven in the United States has advanced even more rapidly. The figures will show that domestic consumption has increased proportionately faster than the crops.
“There is no better proof of prosperity than the ability of the people to buy clothes. Food they must have, but they can wear old clothes. Now, the woolen factories are full of work, and yet, thus late in the season, the orders are so large that the cotton manufacturers make a second advance in wages within three months. There is no idleness in the boot and shoe factories, and the rubber mills are as fully occupied.
“The country never was more prosperous on the eve of election.”
It is impossible for a truthful man, who is not talking for the benefit of “the galleries,” or as a political demagogue, to dispute the facts recited in the above article in the Mail and Express. That argument and the facts therein recited, ought to have had great weight; but did they? No! And the reason? The Mail and Express is owned by Colonel Shepard—doubtless a most worthy gentleman—but, unfortunately for any effect that might be created by the utterances of Colonel Shepard; unfortunately for the influence looked for by articles published in the Mail and Express upon this occasion, it is well and thoroughly understood that Colonel Shepard is a very wealthy man, a son-in-law of the Vanderbilts; that he represents the money power of the Vanderbilt family. The people of New York City (and Colonel Shepard and the Mail and Express is but an example) said to Colonel Shepard, to the Mail and Express, in no hesitating manner, November 8th, We will not dispute the facts that you publish concerning our prosperity and the advantages that we enjoy under the Protective policy. You appeal forcibly to our pocketbooks. But it is now the turn of the people to say to Colonel Shepard, the Mail and Express, and all the representatives of capital—The truth of your argument, so far as our pocketbooks are concerned, to the contrary notwithstanding, you, Colonel Shepard, representing that class of which your father-in-law was a prominent member, and to quote from his magnificent rhetoric—you, Colonel Shepard, Mail and Express, and representatives of “caste” and sham aristocracy, now in turn we say it, “You be damned!” as Vanderbilt a few years ago said “The public be damned.”
We have been Republicans, we, the “Common People,” until the party for which we voted in 1860, and which, under the leadership of that great Commoner, Abraham Lincoln, forever silenced the claim of the Southerner to social superiority. We have been good Republicans until you have fostered and aggravated the ulcerous sore of a sham aristocracy, defiling the healthy and vigorous body of the Republican party. You may have the best of the argument on Protection; it may benefit our pocketbooks, but we are not selling our birthright, the equality of man, for a mess of pottage!
The Mail and Express, at great trouble, and, doubtless, expense, furnished plausible excuses for the defeat of the Republican party, and disliking to admit the true cause, for in admitting that true cause, it would be necessary to hold the father-in-law of the proprietor of the newspaper responsible for his share of this “Waterloo.” (In fact, W. H. Vanderbilt was to the Republican party what Grouchy was to Napoleon at Waterloo.) With great care did the Mail and Express, saving no expense, ascertain the opinions of the various newspapers in the State of New York, concerning the cause of the defeat of the Republican party.
Its columns were filled with the opinions of editors throughout the Empire State. Many and various were the reasons given. The defeat was blamed upon the “stay-at-homes”; the defection of the farmers on account of the McKinley Bill; the Saxton Ballot Law; a simple desire for a “change”; lack of organization; and a few correspondents intimated that the “Common People,” tired of accumulations of wealth, voted the Democratic ticket in the hope of securing relief and equality thereby.