POLITICS AND PROHIBITION.
Question. What do you think of the result in Ohio?
Answer. In Ohio prohibition did more harm to the Republican chances than anything else. The Germans hold the Republicans responsible. The German people believe in personal liberty. They came to America to get it, and they regard any interference in the manner or quantity of their food and drink as an invasion of personal rights. They claim they are not questions to be regulated by law, and I agree with them. I believe that people will finally learn to use spirits temperately and without abuse, but teetotalism is intemperance in itself, which breeds resistance, and without destroying the rivulet of the appetite only dams it and makes it liable to break out at any moment. You can prevent a man from stealing by tying his hands behind him, but you cannot make him honest. Prohibition breeds too many spies and informers, and makes neighbors afraid of each other. It kills hospitality. Again, the Republican party in Ohio is endeavoring to have Sunday sanctified by the Legislature. The working people want freedom on Sunday. They wish to enjoy themselves, and all laws now making to prevent innocent amusement, beget a spirit of resentment among the common people. I feel like resenting all such laws, and unless the Republican party reforms in that particular, it ought to be defeated. I regard those two things as the principal causes of the Republican party's defeat in Ohio.
Question. Do you believe that the Democratic success was due to the possession of reverse principles?
Answer. I do not think that the Democratic party is in favor of liberty of thought and action in these two regards, from principle, but rather from policy. Finding the course pursued by the Republicans unpopular, they adopted the opposite mode, and their success is a proof of the truth of what I contend. One great trouble in the Republican party is bigotry. The pulpit is always trying to take charge. The same thing exists in the Democratic party to a less degree. The great trouble here is that its worst element—Catholicism —is endeavoring to get control.
Question. What causes operated for the Republican success in Iowa?
Answer. Iowa is a prohibition State and almost any law on earth as against anything to drink, can be carried there. There are no large cities in the State and it is much easier to govern, but even there the prohibition law is bound to be a failure. It will breed deceit and hypocrisy, and in the long run the influence will be bad.
Question. Will these two considerations cut any figure in the presidential campaign of 1884?
Answer. The party, as a party, will have nothing to do with these questions. These matters are local. Whether the Republicans are successful will depend more upon the country's prosperity. If things should be generally in pretty good shape in 1884, the people will allow the party to remain in power. Changes of administration depend a great deal on the feeling of the country. If crops are bad and money is tight, the people blame the administration, whether it is responsible or not. If a ship going down the river strikes a snag, or encounters a storm, a cry goes up against the captain. It may not have been his fault, but he is blamed, all the same, and the passengers at once clamor for another captain. So it is in politics.
If nothing interferes between this and 1884, the Republican party will continue. Otherwise it will be otherwise. But the principle of prosperity as applied to administrative change is strong. If the panic of 1873 had occurred in 1876 there would have been no occasion for a commission to sit on Tilden. If it had struck us in 1880, Hancock would have been elected. Neither result would have its occasion in the superiority of the Democratic party, but in the belief that the Republican party was in some vague way blamable for the condition of things, and there should be a change. The Republican party is not as strong as it used to be. The old leaders have dropped out and no persons have yet taken their places. Blaine has dropped out, and is now writing a book. Conkling dropped out and is now practicing law, and so I might go on enumerating leaders who have severed their connection with the party and are no longer identified with it.