The weakening influence of the barnacles growing upon that stalwart tree of Republicanism, and which had been washed there by the ocean tide of prosperity that had surged upon our nation, was felt in the campaign between Hayes and Tilden. And let all good Americans, Republicans as well as Democrats, uncover their heads in speaking of a man like Tilden, who was a man of the people, thought of the people, and of the horrors of civil war. Each succeeding administration tended but to weaken the hold of that good old Republican party, that Grand Old Party! (and it gives us pleasure to say it) upon the hearts of the American people, because the barnacles which had clung on to the life-giving roots of the stalwart oak of Republicanism and the Grand Old Party--those barnacles of sham aristocracy, believers in “caste” and class distinction, the wealthy--had managed to sap the strength of the vigorous young tree planted by Abraham Lincoln, until, deformed, it presented a spectacle obnoxious to the eyes of the “Common People” of America. The first decisive evidence of the dissatisfaction of the people was given in the election of Grover Cleveland in 1884. While Burchard, with that remarkable alliteration, “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” is accredited with having caused the defeat of James G. Blaine, the impression made upon the “Common People” by the spectacle of that dinner of millionaires, called the “Belshazzar feast,” at which the nominee of the Republican party, James G. Blaine, occupied a seat, was much greater than the howling of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion,” by an obscure preacher. The Republican party had ceased to represent to the minds of the plain “Common People” what it had originally represented. There had grown upon that party the fruit of evil, in the shape of a moneyed class, who assumed to be better than the plain “Common People” of America. Hence, James G. Blaine, with all his personal popularity, magnetism, and magnificent record, was unable to secure, from the ranks of the “Common People,” the votes necessary to elect him President. The defeat of Grover Cleveland by President Harrison was brought about (and there can be no doubt of it) largely by the use of money, secured as contributions from the moneyed class to perpetuate the control of the Republican party in the Federal Government, thinking that by so doing the power and assumption of social superiority upon the part of believers in “caste,” who cared nothing about the principles of the original Abraham Lincoln Republican party, and who were as far beneath it in patriotism, honesty, and truth as the earth is beneath the heavens, would also be perpetuated.