It _is_ most extraordinary and unusual for the American people to seek a change in the administration at a time of unwonted prosperity, but the inward agitation of soul at the thought of great wrongs committed by a pretended beneficent party led to the revolution of ’92, in very much the same manner as inward agitation on another subject brought about that which placed Abraham Lincoln in the Presidential Chair. The American workman is above the American dollar!
The New York _World_, in an editorial of November 16th, says: “The _Iron Trade Review_ is putting the manufacturers up to a dodge in order to make the people sorry that they voted for Mr. Cleveland. Its advice is that the manufacturers reduce the wages of their workingmen ‘to fortify themselves in advance in view of the increasing probabilities of destructive foreign competition.’ Is this an indication of the kindly feeling entertained by the Protectionists for their workingmen? They have professed that their tax policy was maintained for the purpose of increasing wages. They have been charged with misrepresentation; and they are now advised by one of their organs to prove that the charge is true, by making the wage-earners suffer in order that revenue reform may become unpopular. Nothing could better show the dishonesty of the Protection claim that the tariff exists for the workingman. If that claim were true, the manufacturers would resist every tendency toward downward wages, instead of pushing them down in order to gain an advantage for themselves in a political controversy. The wages of labor are regulated by the supply and demand of the labor market, and the people who would cut down wages, not because they must, but because they want to revenge themselves for a Democratic victory by making the workingman suffer, are the people who have been insisting that the McKinley law repealed the law of supply and demand, and that they are the true and unselfish benefactors of the workingmen. Happily, the next President is a Democrat.”
Presidential Candidate of the People’s Party, 1892.]
The workmen of our country, it is true, want better times, cheaper clothing, the doing away with trusts, and many other desirable changes; but far more than this, they feel the need of the absolute crushing out of the last vestige of “caste.” They at last realize that “caste” is a crime; and the common people have, at heart, no sympathy with criminals, and especially criminals of that class. The common people stay at home, work hard, and very seldom have need to “go to Canada,” or take a flying trip to Southern Europe. Their sins are mainly those of passion. At their best, they are kindly disposed to their fellows; but they are _human_. They feel a snub from their employer or employer’s son as keenly as their honest, hard-working wives and daughters feel the haughty stare and condescending patronage of Madame Crœsus and her bejewelled daughters. Here we offer our readers some explanations, given by the common, average American citizen, for the defeat of the Republican party at the polls on November 5th. The article is taken from the pages of the New York _Tribune_, November 21, 1892, the official organ of the Republican Vice-Presidential candidate, and therefore entitled to more than ordinary consideration. The article is headed “The General Discontent.”