four months that are devoted to the
campaigning; they work day and night, regardless of sleep or food. A few
hours rest, taken when a momentary lull will permit, must suffice; a
hurried meal must appease their appetite. Meetings have to be arranged;
funds distributed to the various committees; literature has to be
prepared and distributed; doubtful districts need the attention of the
ablest spell-binders; the movements of the opposing parties have to be
met and counteracted.

Especially is the present campaign an exciting one. The strain on old
party lines has at length snapped. The two leading parties in the West
and South are disrupted. While not utterly disorganized, the same
parties have suffered serious disintegration in the manufacturing
districts of the East.

On the virtual ruins of the effete political organizations, the spirit
of the people finds utterance through the agency of the new party which
chooses as its name the "Independence Party." Vitalized by the infusion
in its body of the energetic and patriotic young men of the country, the
new party sprang into the lists, as it were, full grown. Its period of
adolescence has been as rapid as the transit of a comet. Yesterday it
had not existed, even in the minds of dreamers; to-day, in the
convention of one of the great political organizations an attempt was
made to throttle the voice of the majority. The voice of a single man
rose high and clear above the tumult; it was the voice of a Moses come
to lead his people from bondage. And that people were quick to
appreciate the importance of the presence of a great leader. The
convention cast aside all conservatism and cant; it produced a platform
that offered to mankind the direct and constitutional means for the
restoration of general prosperity and the re-establishment of the
principles of equality.

In the first struggle against the entrenched power of corruption, the
new party had been defeated, not by reason of a disinclination on the
part of the people to support it, but because of the coercive methods
employed by the Trust Magnates. In the momentous campaign of 1900, the
vote of the people being divided, the candidate of the Democracy was
elected. He was a man of worth and was eager to do the people's bidding.
This, however, was not productive of any good to the people, as the
President had a House and Senate hostile to him. Thrice his first
Congress had attempted to impeach him, and they were deterred