New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-11-16
THE MAN AND THE ISSUE.

Ii is a curious fact to Republicans by no means
rnwelcome, that the Democrats generally inter-
pref recent elections as compelling them to make
the next Presidential contest on the one issue
on which they were distinctly beaten this year.
These elections, they say, render imperaively
necessary the nomination of Mr.. Cleveland The
one policy with which his name is identified was
roundly beaten by the election of Major McKin-
ley in Ohio This same issue was deliberately
lodged in New York, where the party succeeded
with large majority, so that even in the ex-
Presidents own State his patty won by evadng
the question which his nomination must make
predominant. In Massachusetts, and Iowa,
where local issues were uppermost, these helped
the Democrats so far that their scanty plurali-
ties promise no success in National contest.
Yet Democrats commonly suppose that these
very elections make Mr.. Cleve'and's nomination
necessary.
The explanation is found in a fact which the
Democrats do not openly acknowledge, but which
he who reads between the lines will not fail to
understand The party was supposed, year
ago, to have better possibility OF success than
on the tariff question. BY fBing with the
Western Alliance, and assiduous counting of the
farmers as respects silver coinage and the money
question, it was hoped that half dozen Western
states could be won. But in that case Mr..
Cleveland would not be possible candidate. 1t
is evident now that this policy was for time
believed to offer the best chance OF victory, and
if previous gains in Western States had been
retained, Mr.. Cleveland might have been showed
aside contemptuously.
Instead, the Western elections prove that the
Democrats retain substantially nothing Of their
gains in 1890. They lost Ohio by phenomenal
majorities; they made dismal failures in Kansas,
Nebraska and Dakota, and saved Iowa only by
the aid of Republicans who opposed prohibition.
The Alliance is clearly vanishing like fog after
the sun. grows hot. In some States it retains
the support Of Democrats almost exclusively, and,
according to Governor Campbell, hurt the Demo
cratic party in Ohio more than it helped. The
fondest hopes of success by its aid at the West
have been blighted. But BESIDES it was seen
that the Alliance, if at all encouraged and
strengthened by Democratic leaders, would be
more dangerous to Democrats at the South than
to Republicans at the West. Evidently De-
mocracy could not afford to risk the possible loss
of several Southern States by counting the favor
of the Ocala fanatics with the certainty that
they would gain nothing at the West and would
lose thereby at the East
So Mr. Cleveland becomes the last resort, and
the tariff issue is the only one upon which the
party now hopes to make a stand The shrewder
Democratic journals now point out that the party
cannot expect to carry any Northern States ex
cept New-Jersey, New oll, Connecticut and
Indiana, and that it must carry all these and all
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Connecticut or Of West Virginia to the Republi
cans, or loss of any larger Southern State,
would be fatal. In effect, the entire West is
abandoned as hopeless, notwithstanding the pre-
tence so often made that the Western people are
opposed to Protection. On this statement by
Democratic journals, it may be realized why
there + much anxiety manifested by capable
men of that party since the recent elections.
The attempt to carry four Northern States
against Protection, Of which NewYorb and In
diana voted in favor of Protection in 1888,
while the vote in Connecticut was practically
a tie, does not offer so exhilarating a prospect
as Democrats would like.
There is another thing to be remembered
Some Alliance leaders openly proclaim their pur-
pose to oppose Mr.. Cleveland by every means
in their power if he should be nominated by the
Democrats. President Polk has declared that he
should stump North Carolina against that candi-
date, and the Democratic plurality in 1888 was
only 1900 there. In Virginia ii was only
800, and in West Virginia only 900. In
these and other Southern States it would not
take a very great diversion of Democratic votes
to the Alliance to give the Republicans plural
ity, and the prospect that Mr.. Clevelands nomi-
nation will be peculiarly offensive to Democratic
voters who have sympathized with the Alliance
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