The National tribune. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1877-1917, 1895-11-14
THE ELECTIONS.

For years crowd of empty, vociter0us
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS and editors
-dinged the ears Of the American people
necessarily on two themes-the enormous
corruptions of the pension system, and the
expressions of the tariff 1t did not mat
ter in the least that these screechers were
grossly ignorant of both these subjects,
and their fallacies could be shown with
out Gn effort Exposure of their igno-
rance and falsehoods produced no effect
upon them. They seemed rather to
clamor the louder the more that all the
facts were proven TO be against them.
Back of these bowling dervishes, en-
couraging and applauding them, was
strong, bitter, unappeased element, against
whom the verdict went at Appomattox,
and it has ranked in their breasts ever
since. They were the only ones with
clear, distinct ideas. They wanted re-
venge on all those who had shared in the
work Of their overthrow The generation
which had grown up since the war, and
the millions of foreigners who have come
hither in the last few years. furnished the
material which this combination of bla-
tant demagogs and unrepentant rebels
worked on.
The elimination came in 1892.
Actuated by various motives, nearly
100000 voters absented themselves
from the polls
Part Of them had come to more than
half believe In the rant to which they
had listened for years.
Part of them thought in languid,
Indifferent way that ga change might
be good for the country, and it couldn't
do any harm to give the other fellows
a trial"
Thus it happened that less than 46
per cent. Of the entire vote swept the
whole country, electing the President,
and an overwhelming majority of the
House Of Representatives, and gaining
control Of the Senate. The whole Gov
eminent was delivered over to them.
The completeness of the victory
stunned the country, and this was fol-
lowed by CONSERVATION, which resulted
in panic.
The worst fears Of those who had OPP
posed change were only too fully real
lied. The newcomers seemed bent on
demonstrating their unftness for the
charge which had fallen to them. No
man now living can remember a Con-
gress-even before the war-at all COM
parable in badness and inefficiency with
the last one. Not one in its dominant
party had any approach TO competency
for managing National affairs. They
were mainly men whose sole ability was
to make distempered harrangues against
fictitious evils. They were calamity
howlers, professional reformers, blatant
Missionaries, absolutely destitute of prac-
teal ability. Their chiefest work was
a Tariff Bill, a thing of shreds and
patches, consistent and systematic only
in its depletion Of the Treasury, and IFS
raid upon American industries, and the
disasters it brought upon our farmers
and workingmen. 1t was baleful in
conception and dire in execution.
The distress it wrought to the work.
ingmen and farmers was matched by
that inflicted upon the veterans by the
new and narrow Interpretation of the
pension laws.
The result was easy to foresee. The
people who had taken the ranters and
shriekers at their word and delivered
the prosperous country over to their
direction, repented their mistake in sack
cloth and ashes, and made all haste to
repair their error. The popular tide
began to run against them at once, and
every election since has showed it swelling
higher, until those last week showed it
had reached the proportions of a revolu-
ton. States like New Jersey, Mary.
land, and Kentucky, which had always
been rockbound in their moorings, were
torn away, and landed on the Republican
side, while Iowa, New York, and Ohio