“To find out why the people voted as they did, one must ask them. It is they that have piled up these great majorities, and, seemingly, have repudiated Republican doctrines, and put the seal of disapproval upon what the Republican party believes has given this country unexampled prosperity. Let any man who believes that the ‘popularity’ of Grover Cleveland, the demand for free trade, or any policy which is shown in the Democratic platform, other than that which embodies the general statement that the Democrats will give the country better times, is the cause of Republican defeat, ask the people why they voted as they did, and he will find that it is this tendency, unconscious and entirely undeveloped, toward socialism which has given the Democrats victory. It is not permanent nor lasting, so far as it exists in seeming antagonism to Republican policies. In 1896 a cyclone of disapproving votes is just as likely to sweep over the Democratic camp as it has this year devastated the Republican stronghold. “But it is one thing to make a statement, and another to prove it. In order to ascertain what it was that brought defeat to the Republican party, I took a trip through the States of New York and Vermont, and in five days interviewed several hundred laboring people and men who are in business in a small way in various mercantile pursuits, and who voice the opinion and sentiments of thousands in similar walks of life. Talk with many was profitless. They had nothing against President Harrison, nothing in particular that they knew of against Protection. They did not vote the Democratic ticket because they were impressed with the greatness of Mr. Cleveland, or with the soundness of his views, or with the policy of the party as presented in the Chicago platform. They said they wanted better times and more money. They wanted cheaper clothing, cheaper fuel, cheaper everything; but they wanted to sell what they had to sell, whether it be labor or goods, at the highest possible price. They did not, because they could not, deny that the country as a whole had grown vastly prosperous under Republican administrations. “They were not sure that the McKinley bill or previous tariffs had had anything to do with the hard times which they declared exist. The laborer could not say but what the cost of store articles had decreased largely in the last quarter of a century. In fact, many of them could remember when articles of common consumption and use cost much more than they do to-day; while the products of the farmer and the stocks of the shopkeeper, so the farmer and the tradesman were obliged to affirm, were sold not many years ago at a lower price and with less profit than to-day.