Here was a city which a few months ago gave the Republican ticket the enormous majority of 60,000. So far as parties are concerned, the Republican Party stands precisely where it stood when Roosevelt won that triumph. So far as the Democratic Party is concerned, it has not budged an inch from the ground which it occupied when it met its Waterloo in the November elections. What is it, then, which gave to the candidate of the minority party a decisive success, so soon after an overwhelming defeat? Evidently, it was _the principle which he represented_. The National Democratic Party has never declared itself in favor of public ownership. The National Republican Party has never done so. _The People’s Party is the only National organization which has proclaimed and battled for the principle which was involved in the Chicago election._ So far back as 1890 the People’s Party of the state of Georgia, and of other states, grew tired of the deceptive compromise called _Public Control_; threw it aside as a failure; boldly advanced to the more radical ground of _Public Ownership_, and formed its line of battle. In spite of abuse, ridicule and defeat, our party has never faltered in its steady advocacy of the principle which at that time met the aggressive opposition of both the Democratic and Republican Parties. _In the campaigns made by Mr. Bryan he stood for no such principle as this._ In the campaign led by Belmont and Parker and Gorman in 1904 _the Democratic Party stood for no such principle as this_; nor has the Republican Party ever dared to proclaim itself in favor of such robust radicalism. Therefore, it is folly to say that the victory won in the Chicago election is a Democratic victory. It is misleading to say that this election illustrates the fact that “the Democratic Party always wins when it is Democratic.” The principle of public ownership has never been a part of the political stock in trade of the Democratic Party. Therefore the principle of public ownership of public utilities cannot be classed as Democratic, if we use the term in the partisan sense which attaches to it. _The principle of public ownership is Populistic_, and it is merely rendering to the pioneers of that movement simple justice when we say that the Chicago election, which wiped out party lines and gave to the people and to the principle a magnificent victory, _should redound to the credit of those much-abused and misrepresented men who thirteen years ago unfurled that particular flag and began to fight beneath it_.