Page:Challenge of Facts and Other Essays.djvu/387

368 The answer will probably here be made that the party elects the man, forms his "backing," will control his policy, and will not be ignored. I beg to call attention here to the illustration offered of the mischievous ambiguity in the word party. I have been speaking of parties as great bodies of voters, but those who present this objection mean by parties the group of professional politicians who control party machinery. In regard to parties in that sense I can only express my opinion, without entering on any accurate measurement of the heaps of dirt which each has piled on the other, that I, or any other similarly situated private and independent voter, have nothing to choose between them. I therefore pay little heed to platforms and letters; I have been deceived by them until I have lost all confidence in them and regard them much as I do sensational advertisements.

I look at candidates, and if the point be urged about the "backing" of each of the men now before us, I will state just how that appears to me. I have no information other than what the newspapers have given us all. From their story I do not see how any one can feel respect for the candidature of Governor Hayes. It appears that Mr. Cameron was piqued because some members of his delegation violated a sacred political tradition and did not throw the state vote as a unit, and he therefore refused to give the state vote as a unit for their candidate at the decisive moment. The senatorial aspirants could not see the prize go to either one of their own number and agreed only that it should not go to Blaine. These two things combined gave it to Hayes. At the time I expressed the opinion that this course of events, when one reflected that business in hand was the selection of a chief magistrate of the