Without a moment’s hesitation, the American people would have decided that the Republican party should continue in control of the affairs of the nation, especially when that Republican party had for its standard-bearer a man who, like Benjamin Harrison, possessed the confidence of the American people—a man in whom the American people recognized every patriotic principle inherent in the breasts of the common, plain people of America.
But the Republican party of 1892 had become lost in the mist arising from the exhalations from the manure heap of sham aristocracy and “caste.” Figures looming out of the gloom of the present, hardly compare favorably with those giants who cultivated the soil in which was planted the Republican oak tree.
Through the miasma arising from the rotting present of the Republican party, the picture of Thomas Platt appears. In the pellucid atmosphere of the Republican party of the past, we see the picture of Seward.
Amidst the odoriferous present we find the likeness of the skillful, the Honorable Matthew S. Quay. Upon the clear sky of the past is mirrored the majestic Roscoe Conkling.
Amidst the hurly-burly and charlatan parade of the present, we perceive that prince of clowns and jesters, Chauncey M. Depew, king of after-dinner speech-makers, the witty buffoon who represents the princely Vanderbilts, the man who was never heard of except when clothed, either in dress suit or imported English clothing. By the side of this figure of the present, look back and see the picture of that man of the Republican party who met Stephen A. Douglas on the stump in Illinois, whose jests were filled with the meat of common-sense, whose heart was an out-gushing spring of kindness towards his fellow-men, the “Common People.” Place the present picture, Chauncey M. Depew, in dress suit, supported by the Vanderbilts’ millions, beside the long, angular figure of that Illinoisian, Abraham Lincoln, supported by the people—but pause; this is sacrilege!
Republicans, you know why your party was defeated. Be frank; be brave; be manly, and charge it upon the proper cause—“caste!” affectation! sham aristocracy! degeneracy!
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.