In their long and able arguments against the Porto Rico tariff, Republican editors and members of Congress provided the opposite party with a great amount of campaign material. Often as a Republican on the hustings or in the press declared imperialism not an issue, or at any rate not an important one, he was drowned in a flood of recent quotations from the most authoritative Republican sources proving that it was not only an issue, but one of the most important ones which ever agitated the Republic. As Democrats put it, Balaam prophesied in favor of Israel. Several minor matters were much dwelt upon by campaigners, with a net result favorable to the Democrats. A great many in his own party believed, no doubt wrongly, that the President's policy had in main features been influenced by consideration for powerful financial interests, or that at points these had in effect coerced him to courses contrary to what he considered best. The commissariat scandal in the Spanish War incensed many, as did the growth of army, navy, and "militarism" incident to the new colonial policy. [Illustration] Parade of the Sound Money League, New York, 1900. Passing the Reviewing Stand. Then there was the awkwardness with which the Administration had treated the Filipinos. In 1900 it seemed clear that these people could never be brought under the flag otherwise than by coercion. Anti-imperialists were not alone in the conviction that Aguinaldo's followers had been needlessly contemned, harassed, and exasperated, and that had greater frankness, tact, and forbearance been used toward them they would, of their own accord, have sought the shelter of the Stars and Stripes. Moreover, our measures toward the Filipinos had alienated Cuba, so that the voluntary adhesion of this island to the United States, so desirable and once so easily within reach, was no longer a possibility; while the coercion of Cuba, in view of our profession when we took up arms for her, would be condemned by all mankind as national perfidy. The sympathy of official Republicanism with the British in the Boer War tended to solidify the Irish vote as Democratic, but--and it was among the novelties of the campaign--Republicans no longer feared to alienate the Irish. The Government's apparent apathy toward the Boers also drove into the Democratic ranks for the time a great number of Dutch and German Republicans. Colored voters were in this hegira, believing that the adoption of the "subject-races" notion into American public law and policy would be the negro's despair. The championing of this movement by the Republican party they regarded as a renunciation of all its friendship for human liberty.