“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.
“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.
“A tailor who lives in a little town not far from Albany, and whose entire stock in trade does not amount in value to the cost of one bolt of goods owned by his more fashionable brother who does business in Broadway, voted on November 8th his first Democratic ticket. I asked him why he did so, after having voted for four Republican candidates, and having all his life approved the Republican policy of Protection. He said: ‘I voted for Mr. Cleveland, not for anything Mr. Cleveland or the Democratic party have done, but rather for what he and his party have said they would do. Nor did I vote against Mr. Harrison because I do not like him, nor against the Republican party because it has always stood for Protection, but more with a view of making an experiment than anything else. I do not believe that times are good with a majority of people; I know they are not with me. This does not seem to be the day for the man who is in business in a small way. I don’t know anything about the condition of affairs in free-trade England, but I know that here we have Standard Oil trusts, a sugar trust, a rubber trust, and a trust in almost every line, and if a small dealer attempts to compete with a large dealer, the weaker man is crushed. The great clothing company, with its millions of capital, undersells me, and I am compelled to meet its prices or go out of business and get into something else.