What are their principles, their distinctive tenets, their tendencies?
Which of them is for tariff reform, for the further extension of civil service reform, a spirited foreign policy, for the regulation of railroads and telegraphs by legislation, for changes in the currency, for any other of the twenty issues which one hears discussed in this country as seriously involving its welfare?
This is what a European is always asking of intelligent Republicans and intelligent Democrats.

He is always asking because he never gets an answer.

The replies leave him deeper in perplexity.

After some months the truth begins to dawn upon him.

Neither party has, as a party, anything definite to say on these issues; neither party has any clean-cut principles, any distinctive tenets.