To loudly proclaim, as did the New York _Sun_, that an exhibition of the will of the people, so pronounced as that of November the 8th, was occasioned by the Force Bill, is as utterly unreasonable as to ascribe the magnificent volume within the banks of the Mississippi to some little trickling rivulet flowing from the plains of Nebraska. To say, with the _Tribune_, that the grand result pronounced in the mighty voice of the people was produced by the misunderstanding of the McKinley Bill, is as groundless as to ascribe the echoing thunder tones of heaven to the swelling throat of a canary bird. To herald over the land, “Pauper emigration did it,” with the New York _Herald_, is about as pregnant with truth as would be the assumption that the foundation and everlasting strength of Christianity has for its basis the misguided vaporings of a negro preacher in Richmond, who proclaims, “The sun do move.” To announce, as did the _World_, that “Tariff reform and WE, the Democrats, achieved this victory,” is entitled to as much respect as would be given the utterances of a drummer boy of the Federal Army at Gettysburg.
It was not any one nor all of these causes that moved the people. Each newspaper, Democratic or Republican, has selected some nail upon which it hangs the laurel wreath of victory, inscribed with its own puny text for which it has fought its little battle, and each newspaper of the Republican press has covered, with the tattered garments of defeat, its little text wherein it had proclaimed that the Republican party would be victorious, and labeled its tattered garment of lack of judgment with some phrase like, “Disloyalty of Platt,” “Incapacity of Carter,” “Want of Organization,” “Lack of Popularity and Magnetism of our Candidate,” “The Voters didn’t come out.” Had the press no part of its own reputation at stake, they would have searched and delved into the bosoms of men; yes, neither space nor distance, time nor expense, would have been spared by the magnates of the newspaper world to ascertain the true cause. But in ascertaining that true cause, it would have been necessary, in announcing the same, to stultify themselves in what they had been predicting, proclaiming, foretelling, and advising, for months and years.