“The farmers acknowledge that perhaps the elements may have had something to do with poor crops, that the opening of the vast farming territory of the Northwest, and the inexorable enforcement of the law of supply and demand, may have had something of a disastrous effect upon the farmers of the East. But these were not looking for reasons. They did not want reasons. They did not wish to consider causes. They did not think that they and their affairs have anything to do with causes, effects, policies, or platforms. All they know is that times are bad--with them. All they want is better times. ‘Figures don’t prove anything,’ they say. ‘We are hard up, and have been for years; we do not know what causes hard times, nor do we care, if the future only brings prosperity. The Republicans are in power, and have been since 1862, with the exception of four years; therefore, if they have not given and cannot give us better times, who can but the Democrats? We are going to try them.’ “This is what a part of that vote which gave the Democratic majority in New York thought. They would have voted just as readily for Populist, Prohibition, or Socialist candidates had they thought that any of these parties had the power to better their condition. But this element was not large enough alone to give Mr. Cleveland a majority in New York State. It was the smaller tradesman, the farmer, and the laborer. These are the ones, and such the element whose vote gave success to the Democratic party, and in voting thus they had no intention of rejecting any particular Republican, or of approving any particular Democratic policy. AN EXAMPLE OF POPULAR REASONING.