Democracy, few, of course, had received the rewards which they
deemed due them. In vain did officeholders contribute toil and money
while that disappointed majority were so slow and spiritless in rallying
to the party's summons, and so many of them even hostile. The zeal of
honest Democrats was stricken by what Gail Hamilton wittily called "the
upas bloom" of civil service reform, which the President still displayed
upon his lapel. To a large number of ardent civil service reformers who
had originally voted for Cleveland this decoration now seemed so wilted
that, more in indignation than in hope, they went over to Harrison.
The public at large resented the loss which the service had suffered
through changes in the civil list. Harrison without much of a record
either to belie or to confirm his words, at least commended and espoused
the reform.

Democratic blunders thrust the sectional issue needlessly to the fore.
Mr. Cleveland's willingness to return to their respective States the
Confederate flags captured by Union regiments in the civil war; his
fishing trip on Memorial Day; the choice of Mr. Mills, a Texan, to lead
the tariff fight in Congress; and the prominence of southerners among
the Democratic campaign orators at the North, were themes of countless
diatribes.

A clever Republican device, known as "the Murchison letter," did a great
deal to impress thoughtless voters that Mr. Cleveland was "un-American."
The incident was dramatic and farcical to a degree. The Murchison
letter, which interested the entire country for two or three weeks,
purported to come from a perplexed Englishman, addressing the British
Minister at Washington, Lord Sackville-West. It sought counsel of Her
Majesty's representative, as the "fountainhead of knowledge," upon "the
mysterious subject" how best to serve England in voting at the
approaching American election. The seeker after light recounted
President Cleveland's kindness to England in not enforcing the
retaliatory act then recently passed by Congress as its ultimatum in the
fisheries dispute, his soundness on the free trade question, and his
hostility to the "dynamite schools of Ireland." The writer set Mr.
Harrison down as a painful contrast to the President. He was "a
high-tariff man, a believer on the American side of all questions, and
undoubtedly, an enemy to British interests generally." But the inquirer
professes alarm at Cleveland's message on the fishery question which had