From that day forth the popular voice was strangled into silence. The next administration (that of 1888) was prepared in the same manner. Wall Street has no politics except the politics of the bond; it has no platform except the platform of cent per cent. It suffices that when a president is to be elected he shall be one of us. He shall not be a man of the people; else in that case he would be a demagogue, a windbag, a _vox et præterea nil_. _Our_ man shall not even know the despised people. He shall not smell of the filthy ground, but must be "sound" on questions of finance. If he be not "sound," we will make him so. We will teach him his paces. If the people conclude to change their government, we will see to it that the incoming powers are just like the outgoing. As for the "principles" on which the candidate shall be chosen, we will attend to that. We will make his principles for him. We understand principles perfectly. We will fix the platform; we know the carpenters. If the candidate and his friends have already fixed a platform before the date of the convention, and if it have been published everywhere as the decision of the candidate and his following, we will take that platform from the wires and will carefully revise it, to the end that the "national honor" shall be preserved. We will write it over again into new meanings. We will interpret it so that no harm shall be done to the "national credit." We will make our candidate into a puppet. When we put our foot on the treadle his jaw shall drop and he shall utter many mocking words about the "national honor" and the "prospects of our glorious country"--signifying nothing. All this we will do for the public good. We will say that we are striving for national prosperity. We will proclaim our candidate as the advance agent of prosperity--until after the election. Then we will say that prosperity will come with the inauguration. Then we will say that it will shine out promptly when Congress adjourns and ceases to menace the national credit. Then we will say that prosperity will reveal itself when the hot season is over. By this time the hoodwinked people can be coddled to sleep, or else set to dancing with rumors of foreign wars. To this end we will have our newspapers carefully promote our principles and studiously avoid all reference to those subjects in which the people feel the deepest concern. Finally, we will omit all these matters from our history of "Wall Street, Past;" we will proceed to speak of our "Wall Street, Present," and will explain that it is in a state of "lassitude and expectancy." Indeed "lassitude and expectancy" is good.