The Crime of Caste in Our Country

by Benjamin Rush Davenport

Could not one editor have been found by the inquiring representatives of the Mail and Express who possessed sagacity sufficient, coupled with enough frankness, to say, directly, that it was not against the policy of the Republican party, their platform, nor candidate, that the people voted November 8th, but that it was against that element in society which the proprietor of the Mail and Express represents so ably as the son-in-law of W. H. Vanderbilt, the sham aristocracy, snobbery, and the believers in “caste”?

It is not so much a matter of astonishment that the editors of Republican newspapers should have misjudged with regard to the cause of the social revolution as it is to find that eminently representative American, General Benjamin Harrison, the candidate of the Republican and the present President of the United States, giving expression to ideas so erroneous as those accredited to him in an interview published in the New York World, November 13, 1892.

The American people will always regard with kindly feeling the present President of the United States, General Benjamin Harrison, as a citizen of the Union, who was elevated to the position of Chief Executive of the nation, and who has kept faith with those by whom he was elected. It is well for a President, upon leaving the White House, to feel that he carries with him into his reabsorption in the mass of the people, the respect and confidence of his fellow-citizens. President Harrison, personally, has the respect and admiration of every patriotic American citizen in this broad land of ours. He may feel justly that satisfaction which is the reward of services well rendered to the Republic. Had his party, or, rather, the party which nominated him, the Republican party, not been cursed with the crime of “caste,” doubtless he would have been re-elected, for he enjoys the confidence, irrespective of political affiliation, of each individual voter in the Federal Union.

In the day of disaster to the party by which he had been nominated, in the bewilderment arising from the overwhelming defeat of the Republican party, President Harrison may reasonably be excused for his erroneous judgment as to the cause of the disaster to the Republican party. That he should seek for an excuse, standing upon the vantage ground of truth itself, in the idea that the people of the Union had become Free Traders, possibly may be justifiable. At the same time, President Harrison is so thoroughly American that we would have expected a nearer approach upon his part to the real cause of the defeat of the Republican party.

That the Republican party had the best of the argument, so far as sound finance is concerned, there can be no question or doubt. There lingers yet, in the minds of many voters, recollections of the debased currency in use prior to the National Banking Act, passed by the Republican party. A bill issued now by a bank has the guarantee of the credit of the Federal Government behind it. Such would not be the case should the penalty tax of ten per cent. upon State banks be repealed. Every dollar of currency to-day in use in America is worth a hundred cents. And a lively picture to the contrary is presented by the experience of those older citizens who endured all the inconveniences of a State bank currency. The most ardent Democrat (meaning member of the Democratic party) would hardly have temerity sufficient to assert that the financial policy, as advocated by the Democratic platform, adopted at the Chicago National Convention, is superior to the sound money existing by reason of the legislation enacted under the Republican administration of the finances of the Federal Government.

But the people said, November 8, 1892, it matters not whether the currency be debased or not. We, the plain “Common People,” will not be debased into social inferiority! It matters not whether there be thousands of counterfeits in the currency of the community. We would rather have counterfeited currency than counterfeited aristocracy! The dollar to-day, guaranteed by the faith of the Federal Government, may be worth a hundred cents, and we’ll make it worth only fifty cents, as guaranteed by each State in the Union, but the position, socially and otherwise, of each man and citizen of the Union must be worth a hundred cents. And we are weary at the attempt made by sham aristocrats to depreciate the value of that doctrine, which is dearer to the American than dollars and cents—the EQUALITY OF MAN.

With regard to the Force Bill, the Republican party had the best of the argument. Their platform, as adopted in Minneapolis, only indorsed the idea of a fair, free, and honest election, all of which was but the reiteration of part of that Rock of Ages for the patriotic American—the Constitution of the United States. Can any man argue that, as a good citizen of the Union, it is proper for him to believe in anything other than a fair, honest election? If there be such, he is not to be found in the ranks of the plain, common, honest people, who absolutely abhor any fraud upon their franchise as citizens of the United States.

So that, in point of fact, apparently the three great issues to be decided in the last campaign by the American people were: Protection versus Tariff; National Banks versus State Banks; Fair Elections versus Frauds on the Franchise.