st grow.
They are the natural offspring of national events. They must embody
certain hopes, they must gratify, or promise to gratify, the feelings
of a vast number of people. No man can make a party, and if a new
party springs into existence it will not be brought forth to gratify
the wishes of a few, but the wants of the many. It has seemed to
me for years that the Democratic party carried too great a load in
the shape of record; that its autobiography was nearly killing it
all the time, and that if it could die just long enough to assume
another form at the resurrection, just long enough to leave a grave
stone to mark the end of its history, to get a cemetery back of
it, that it might hope for something like success. In other words,
that there must be a funeral before there can be victory. Most of
its leaders are worn out. They have become so accustomed to defeat
that they take it as a matter of course; they expect it in the
beginning and seem unconsciously to work for it. There must be
some new ideas, and this only can happen when the party as such
has been gathered to its fathers. I do not think that the advice
of Senator Hill will be followed. He is willing to kill the
Democratic party in the South if we will kill the Republican party
in the North. This puts me in mind of what the rooster said to
the horse: "Let us agree not to step on each other's feet."

_Question_. Your views of the country's future and prospects must
naturally be rose colored?

_Answer_. Of course, I look at things through Republican eyes and
may be prejudiced without knowing it. But it really seems to me
that the future is full of great promise. The South, after all,
is growing more prosperous. It is producing more and more every
year, until in time it will become wealthy. The West is growing
almost beyond the imagination of a speculator, and the Eastern and
Middle States are much more than holding their own. We have now
fifty millions of people and in a few years will have a hundred.
That we are a Nation I think is now settled. Our growth will be
unparalleled. I myself expect to live to see as many ships on the
Pacific as on the Atlantic. In a few years there will probably be
ten millions of people living along the Rocky and Sierra Mountains.
It will not be long until Illinois will find her market west of
her. In fifty years this will be the greatest nation on the earth,
and the most populous in the civilized world.