_The attempt to create class distinctions in Free America, upon the basis of wealth or assumed social superiority, is a crime, and as such will be punished by the Common People._
Society as the People Found It November 8, 1892 91
The Aristocratic “Chappie” _vs._ Abraham Lincoln 145
Hon. John Brisben Walker, on Homestead 161
Surrender at Homestead.--Organized Labor Defeated 183
The Cause of Bullets, ’61; Ballots, ’92.--Abraham Lincoln, the People’s Choice in ’60 225
Greece.--Venice.--The Rule of “Caste” 324
Not a Democratic Party Victory.--Democracy is Not the Name of a Party, but of a Principle 346
Not a Defeat of Abraham Lincoln’s Republican Party 390
The Populist: the “Allies.”--Elected by the People; therefore, with the “Common People” 409
Had a Johnstown flood, a Charleston earthquake, a war with Chili, or a Homestead strike occurred on November 8, 1892, instead of an election, those Napoleons of journalism, James Gordon Bennett, of the New York _Herald_, Joseph Pulitzer, of the New York _World_, and Whitelaw Reid, of the _Tribune_, would have had a score of representatives on the scene at once, without thought of expense; would have had every detail in its most minute particular investigated, and reproduced every statement, embellished by the pencils of a host of artists, utterly regardless of expense, keeping, as these magnificent journals ever have, good faith with the public and their readers, making lasting monuments of their wonderful papers for coming generations of journalists to gaze upon.
But a revolution occurred on November 8, 1892, a revolution of the American people, so overwhelming, so decisive, and so pronounced as to absolutely stupefy even the genius of the press. Instead of corps of reporters, artists, special correspondents, speeding over the land to ascertain the cause--not the result; the cause, the origin,--of this stupendous surprise, all the great journals of the country, having each nailed to its flag-staff some theory or text utterly inconsistent with the result, utterly disproportioned to the overwhelming revolution, that they have sought by vain endeavor to make an overwhelming result compatible with and agreeable to some one part or portion of the cause thereof.