The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-08-29
The Elections in Vermont and Maine.

From the ~. Y Times.
In this country where public opinion, indie
pendently expressed, has so great weight, the
importance of the elections to be soon held in
Vermont and Maine cannot be over estimated.
In this respect Vermont has an extraordinary
advantage. She fires the first cannon of the
campaign. AS We have formerly shown, the
Kentucky elections were subject to conditions
which entirely deprive them of value as an
Indication of public opinion. There is an
absolute reign of terror in that State, growing
out of the prejudice against both negroes and
Union men, which deferred large numbers of
Republicans from voting. But for this fact,
the result of the election would not have diff
fered substantially from that of 1866. 1t is
fortunate, then, that the first free expression
of popular opinion is to come from the Green
Mountain State. Through and through that
State is for Grant and Colfsx. Only let the
full vote be polled, and the Republican ma
jority ought to reach, if it does not exceed,
that OF 1866, which amounted to nearly
twenty-three thousand.
No Republican should stay from the polls
because it Is only State election, and because
it is impossible for the Democrats to win.
Let him remember that every vote lost by the
Republicans in September and October is so
much lost in the weight of public opinion on
the side of General Grant. Vermont will
influence Maine, and the wave from those two
States will flow over Iowa, Indiana, Ohio and
Pennsylvania in October. The momentum
and effect of that wave will be measured by
the Republican majorities given in these early
elections.
There is every reason why Vermont and
Maine should maintain the positian held by
them in 1866, and We believe they will do it..
Let no voter allow himself to be diverted by
the side issues which Democrats are urging
so strongly, because they dare not face the
one great question which is involved in the
campaign. The charges of financial corrup-
tiOn and of heavy taxation should be hurled
back against the assailants. We are to take
the offensive, and not the defensive. When a
Republican voter is asked to account for reve-
Due frauds, let him reply that these have
grown out of the quarrel between Congress
and a refractory President-a quarrel which
was perpetuated by the attitude of the Demo
cratic party. Ii he is asked to account
for the burden of an immense national
debt, let him charge the responsibility OF
that burden upon the party which forced the
war and made the debt a necessity. II negro
supremacy is thrown in his face let him deny
the existence OF such an element in our poll
tics and point to the late Mississippi election
as the basis of his denial; and let him, more
over, charge against his opponents that they,
by their taotious opposition to an amendment
which left suffi age to the States, made the
negro vote a necessity of any possible restora
ton. Ii he Is told that the Republican party
has been to any degree surrendered to extreme
radical leadership, Let him deny the surrender,
and point to the nomination of General Grant
for President as the surest indication of libe
raj and conservative policy. Let him, more
over, attack the Democrats on the ground o
their extreme policy, shown both in their plat
form and their candidates, as well as in tht
published speeches and letters OF their nomi
nee for Vice-President, and of their parolet
Confederate friends in the South.
Every Republican voter in Vermont an
Maine may also remember that the reaction {