HON. WILLIAM ALFRED PEFFER.

Born in Cumberland co., Pa., September 10, 1831; educated in com. mon schools; engaged in teaching and farming; moved to Indiana, 1853, and engaged in farming; moved to Missouri, 1859, and to Illinois, 1861; enlisted in Union army and served in Department of Nashville; studied law and began practice in Clarksville, Tenn., 1865; moved to Kansas, 1870, to practice law and edit; elected to State Senate, 1874; Republican elector in 1880; editor of Kansas Farmer, 1881; elected to United States Senate, as a People's Party candidate, for term beginning March 4, 1891; an exponent of the ideas advocated by the Farmers' Alliance and other new parties; Chairman of Committee on Civil Service, and member of Committees on Immigration, Pensions, Irrigation and Woman's Suffrage.

for president, on a platform pledging the party to Democratic traditions, and tariff for revenue only.

The result of the campaign was the election of Garfield, with a Republican majority in the House and a tie in the Senate. On July 2, 1881, President Garfield was mortally shot, and was succeeded by Vice President Arthur. The forty-seventh Congress enacted the important tariff bill of 1883, lowering duties. It also enacted the Civil Service Reform Bill, introduced into the Senate by Geo. H. Pendleton, Democrat of Ohio. The elections of 1882 had proven disastrous to the Republicans, and in the forty-eighth Congress there was a large preponderance of Democrats in the House, but no legislation of political moment was effected. Both parties preferred to stand as nearly still as possible, preparatory to the campaign of 1884.

CAMPAIGN OF 1884.

The eighth National Convention on the history of the Republican party met at Chicago, June 3, 1884. James G. Blaine, of Maine, was nominated for president, on a platform which commended the party for its achievments; lamented the death of Garfield; endorsed Arthur's administration: favored a tariff for the protection of American industry; denounced Democratic measures in Congress; urged international standard of gold and silver; suggested the regulation of interstate commerce; favored international arbitration; denounced the importation of contract labor; favored civil service reform, liberal pensions, extension of the navy; insisted on a free ballot and full count in southern States; passed a pledge to secure to all persons full political rights.

The Democrats met at Chicago, July 8, 1884, and nominated Grover Cleveland, of New York, for president,

much against the wishes of Tammany Hall. The platform announced "the preservation of personal rights, equality of citizens before the law, reserved rights of States, supremacy of Federal Government within Constitutional provisions;" that a change of parties was demanded; that the will of the people was defeated by fraud in 1876; that the Republican party was extravagant, and had not kept its pledges to workingmen soldiers, and in favor of Amer ican manufactures; that the Democratic party pledged itself to reform the existing tariff and internal revenue laws, and denounced the existing tariff; that the Govern ment should secure equal rights to all citizens; that there should be no sumptuary laws; that the party favored Civil Service Reform, separation of church and state, legislation tending to advance labor, an American policy for restoration of American commerce.

The Prohibition National Convention met in Pittsburg, July 21, 1884, and nominated Ex-Governor John P. St. John, of Kansas, for president, on the usual Prohibition platform.

As a prelude to the National Convention of the Green, back party, a Convention of Anti-monopolists met at Chicago, May 14, 1884, which nominated Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts, for president. When the Greenback party met in Chicago, May 28, 1884, it also nomi. nated Butler for president, on a platform demanding the issue of legal tender notes in quantities sufficient to supply actual demands of trade and commerce in accordance with increase of population.

The campaign opened with great personal bitterness, and was conducted with an acerb spirit to the end. Mr. Blaine threw into it all his intense personalism, but the result was his defeat by the narrowest of all margins. At

the same time the House was carried by the Democrats. At this time there were two wings to the Democratic party, one favoring a tariff for revenue with incidental protection, the other standing squarely against the protective idea.

The new president elect, Mr Cleveland, at first favored the former wing led by Mr. Randall, but he turned, and in his message of 1887, announced his tariff reform, or free trade, sentiments, which became the party doctrine for future campaigns. With their majority in the forty-ninth Congress, the Democrats achieved but little party legisla ion. In the fiftieth Congress the House still had a Demoatic majority, while there was a Republican majority of ae in the Senate. The former passed the Mills Tariff Bill by a slender majority. It was defeated in the Senate. Nothing seriously affected the status of the two leading parties during Mr. Cleveland's first term of office.

CAMPAIGN OF 1888.

The Democrats entered the lists first with their national Convention at St. Louis, at which President Cleveland was re-nominated by acclamation, on a platform reaffirming that of 1884, and inveighing against the Republican policy of accumulating a surplus in the treasury.

The Republicans met in National Convention at Chicago, June 19, 1888, and nominated Benjamin Harrison of Indiana, f president, on a platform strongly favoring the protective idea and accepting the issue of free trade as presented by the Democrats.

The Prohibitin party met at Indianapolis and nominated Clinton B. Fisk, of New Jersey, for president, on a distinctive party porm.

The United Labo. party placed R. H. Cowdrey in the

field as its candidate for president. The Greenbackers, now figuring faintly in political affairs, united with the Labor Reformers, and nominated Alson J. Streeter for president. The American party nominated James L. Curtis for president. The Equal Rights party, nominated Belva A. Lockwood for president.

The campaign was one largely of discussion, the leading issue being that of Tariff vs. Free Trade. The result was the election of Harrison the Republican nominee, together with a Republican House of Representatives. The revolution of 1884 was now reversed. The Harrison administration was signalized by the passage of the McKinley tariff bill of 1890, involving the principle of reciprocity, the Administrative Customs' Act and the Sherman Silver Bill changing the actual coinage of silver, as provided for in the Bland Bill, to the purchase of 54,000,000 ounces of silver in a year-the amount of the American product— and the issuing of silver certificates against the bullion deposited.

The Democrats were not daunted by the defeat of Tariff Reform in 1888, but pressed the issue before the country with sufficient success in the elections of 1890, to win a large majority in the fifty-second Congress. This majority proved to be too large, unsophisticated and unwieldly. Such imposing questions as those appertaining to Samoa, the murder of Italians in New Orleans, the Chilian Imbroglio, overshadowed everything narrower. The Congress achieved nothing outside of routine and such few passing things as would contribute to success in the approaching campaign of 1892. The "pop-gun" method of doing away with the Tariff act of 1890, proved unsatisfactory to even its advocates.

But there was one question that would not down in