Party in the presidential campaign of 1884, when Godkin's opposition to nominee James G. Blaine did much to create the so-called Mugwump party, and his organ became thoroughly independent, as was seen when it attacked the Venezuelan policy of President Grover Cleveland, who had, in so many ways, approximated the ideal of the Post and Nation. He consistently advocated currency reform, the gold standard, a tariff for revenue only, and civil service reform, rendering the greatest aid to the last cause. His attacks on Tammany Hall were so frequent and so virulent that in 1894, he was sued for libel because of biographical sketches of certain leaders in that organization; the cases never went to trial. In 1896, Godkin broke with the Democratic party after it nominated William Jennings Bryan. He supported the National Democratic Party (United States) third ticket because it championed a gold standard, limited government, and free trade. His opposition to the war with Spain and to imperialism was able and forcible. Later life He retired from his editorial duties on the 30 December 1899, and he sketched his career in the Evening Post of that date. Although he recovered from a severe apoplectic stroke early in 1900, his health was shattered, and he died in Greenway, Devon, England, on the 21 May 1902. He was buried at Saint Michael's Church in Haselbech, Daventry District, Northamptonshire, England, near the home of the friend with whom he had been staying. Legacy Godkin shaped the lofty and independent policy of the Post and The Nation, which had a small but influential and intellectual class of readers. However, he had none of the personal magnetism of Horace Greeley, for instance, and his superiority to the influence of popular feeling made Charles Dudley Warner describe The Nation as "the weekly judgment day". He was an economist of the school of John Stuart Mill, urged the necessity of the abstraction called economic man, and insisted that socialism, if put into practice, would not improve social and economic conditions in general. In politics, he was an enemy of both sentimentalism and loose theories in government. Godkin had critics. In 1892, after Benjamin Butler published his memoir, Butler's Book, Godkin criticized it. Butler's biographer Elizabeth D. Leonard writes that Butler decided that "after decades of being 'the target of a few ignorant, irresponsible, mercenary news writers' — including The Nation'''s founder, E. L. Godkin,