Question. What is your opinion regarding the Republican nomination for President?
Answer. My belief is that the Republicans will have to nominate some man who has not been conspicuous in any faction, and upon whom all can unite. As a consequence he must be a new man. The Democrats must do the same. They must nominate a new man. The old ones have been defeated so often that they start handicapped with their own histories, and failure in the past is very poor raw material out of which to manufacture faith for the future. My own judgment is that for the Democrats, McDonald is as strong a man as they can get. He is a man of most excellent sense and would be regarded as a safe man. Tilden? He is dead, and he occupies no stronger place in the general heart than a graven image. With no magnetism, he has nothing save his smartness to recommend him.
Question. What are your views, generally expressed, on the tariff?
Answer. There are a great many Democrats for protection and a great many for so-called free trade. I think the large majority of American people favor a reasonable tariff for raising our revenue and protecting our manufactures. I do not believe in tariff for revenue only, but for revenue and protection. The Democrats would have carried the country had they combined revenue and incidental protection.
Question. Are they rectifying the error now?
Answer. I believe they are, already. They will do it next fall. If they do not put it in their platform they will embody it in their speeches. I do not regard the tariff as a local, but a national issue, notwithstanding Hancock inclined to the belief that it was the former.
—The Times, Chicago, Illinois, October 13, 1883.
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.