18th Dec. Tue, New York papers received by the last American mail, the latest: being dated the 11th of November, are full of interesting matter anent the recent Presidential Election. There is. one thing to be said first about the election of Mr. Cleveland, that he was essentially the popular choice. Up to the very last, the " bosses" and party leaders had no certain idea which of the two candidates, Harrison and Cleveland, would come out ahead at the polls. As Cleveland was the popular choice. of the Chicago convention, his record in the Presidential chair before not having made him: a favourite with Tammany and the men to whom politics are a trade, so that, these latter "knifed" him in 1888, so he was the popular choice on the 8th of November. It was, ias-we Presidential election at which the jointed out a month ago, the. first
ballotting was conducted in almost. all the States under what is called the Australian system. It had become hope-Jess to spend much money in bribery, because it was impossible to tell whether the man. who was bribed had. carried out his contract. It was not known definitely when the mai) left whether Ohio had gone Republican or Democratic; if it went Democratic, Cleveland has the honour of having received, under a really secret ballot, the largest number of votes ever cast ina Presidential election in the United States. And this is the result of a campaign in which there has been a remarkable absence of personal abuse and slander; of unfortunate sensations, such as the Morey letter forgery, the Burchard incident, and the Sackville-West episode; and of the brass band and bass drum element.
The New York Herald, as will be seen from its leading article which we reprint in another column, considers the success of Mr: Cleveland, which it did its best to promote, the triumph of democracy over oligarchy. The Democrats are the true friends of the working classes, it says; the McKinley tariff, for which the Republicans fought, did nothing for the working man, but served only. to enrich the manufacturers, turning the United States into a plus mocracy. This is the view taken also by the World, the leading Democratic paper of New York.. It says the morning after the election "Mie next President will be a de-morat. Grover Cleveland is elected. Who, people. have triumphed over the plutocracy. Men are stronger than money. The hidden and abhorrent forces of corruption have not prevailed over the intelligence. and virtue of the voters..
"The: World told the protected monopolists and their protected agents that money cannot stop a. landslide nor Rep block.an avalanche.
"'The election has proved: to be a landslide, an avalanche, a cyclone, a tidal wave—everything that typifies irresistible power.
"The overtaxed, insulted, defied peopple have risen in their might and overshadowed the Republican. party.. The voters have entered final judgment upon the verdict twice rendered by them in eundemnation of the Republican policy and practices. The issues in a national election have never been more thoroughly debated or more generally understood.
"Phe will of the people must now become the law of the land. To defy them further, as the Republican Senate and administration. have done for two years past would be moral treason. It is a great victory, well and worthily won. 'The Democratic patty displayed the courage of its convictions in' its nomination for President. It wanted Grover Cleveland for its candidate and nominated him. It believed in its principles and boldly declared them.
"Courage and honesty have won. Long live the Republic."
The New York Times, a more independent paper, but in favour of Cleveland as the better statesman of the two candidates and with the better policy, writes on the same. morning Itis with no undue exultation over a fallen foe that we regard the result, but with profound gratitude that the American people have chosen so wisely and so justly and with firm confidence in the future. The Republican organisation has suffered a crushing defeat and deserved it: he Republican party remains with the great body of its voters as honest and as, devoted to the best interests of the country as they have ever bey. The powerful machinery of the party, which for at Jeast eight years has been used by corrupt and unscrupulous men to serve the selfish ends of greedy monopolists as well as their own, is broken. It can never be reconstituted for like uses. The honest voters who in the past have blindly supported it are no longer numerous enough to restore it. If the party is again to be a controlling force in the Republic it can only be under the better leadership of better leaders towards better ends.
Meanwhile the victory of Mr. Cleveland is the most. signal since the re-election of Lincoln in the last year of the war for the Union. At no time since then has the moral sense, the intelligent patriotism, the civic pride in what it is right to be proud of, been aroused or demonstrated its strength in so overwhelming a fashion. It is} plainly and indisputably a moral triumph and one in which the Democratic party has cause not merely for the strongest gratulation, but for deep thankfulness, because it shows not only that the party commands a tremendous majority of the American people, but that it deserves to command it."
The Hrening Post, which was strongly publican when the Union was in danger, but which became " mugwump" when Blaine was the Republican candidate, and has consistently opposed high tariffs. and modern. Republican methods, writes "Mr. Cleveland's triumph to-day has been largely due to the young voters who have come on. stage since the reign of passion and prejudice came to an end and the era of discussion has opened. If the last canvass has cou-sisted largely of appeals to reason, to facts, to the lessons of human experience, to the teachings of Christianity and science, and has brought confusion on the preachers of medieval barbarism and absurdity; if it has put a stamp of horror and. contempt on the attempts to make mutual hate a necessary accompaniment of peaceful industrial competition—thus furnishing Socialism with one of its best.weapons—it is to Mr. Cleveland, let us tell them, they owe it. But they are indebted to him for something far more valuable than even this—for an example of splendid courage in the defence and assertion of honestly formed opinions; of Roman constancy under defeat, and of patient reliance on the power of deliberation and, persuasion on the American people. Nothing is more important, in these days of "boodle," of indifference, of cheap bellicose patriotisia, than that this confidence in the might of common sense and sound doctrine and free speech should be kept alive."
Last of our extracts comes one from the New York Tribune, the organ of the Republican party, whose editor, Mr. Whitelaw Reid, was made Minister to Paris by General' Harrison, and was the Republican candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Ihe Tribune is recognised as being the best edited morning paper in New York, and it has been ever since the time of Horace Greeley, whom Whitelaw Reid succeeded, the favourite journal of the farmers. On the morning of the day after the election the Zribune would. not own that Cleveland was elected, but it owned that "the returns received at the hour of writing are not satisfactory to Republicans." It acknowledged the loss of New York, and that Cleveland had carried "a South made solid by fraud and wholesale denial of the right of suffrage," and it went on to say "It is needless to say that the result will bea great disappointment to Republicans, because they have confidently relied upon the assurances of long experienced leaders in different States, whose knowledge of the people's wishes has rarely been defective. It has been hoped that the splendid results attained under President Harrison's administration had placed beyond doubt the maintenance of the Republican. policy. for years to come, A result in doubt. is, therefore, most disappointing, and if it proves that a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress have been elected, the consequences to the business and the industries of the country will not be such as to ensure that party a long lease of power."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.