The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1868-10-09
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
HDIroRIAL OPINIONS OF THE LEADING JOURNALS
UPON CURRENT ToPIos-CoMPILRD EVERY
DAY FOR THE EVENING TELEGRAPH.
The Come cticut Town Elections The Drift
of the Popular Tide.

From the N. Y. Herald.
The returns of the late town elections in
Connecticut show, in the summing up, hand
some Republican majority on the aggregate
popular vote. In New Haven alone the Demo
cratic majority of two thousand two hundred
and ifty-three of last April has dwindled
down to majority of nine hundred and thirty
one, and the Democrats are generally the losers
in the strong Republican towns and in the
strong Democratic towns. The arithmeticlau
of the special organ of our Democratic Man
haitian Club of ''bloated boDdholders' gives
us an interesting explanation of these losses.
He says that in the towns where the Democrats
were largely in the minority they allowed
these recent elections to go by default, and
that in other towns, where the Democracy were
sure of a majority, they made no effort to
bring out their full vote, and that thus they
were the losers in both cases. But, to cut
short the argument, this aforesaid arithmeti-
clan, who figured out great Democratic gains in
q Republican ma ajority of twenty thousand in
the late Maine election, fatty tells us that
these Connecticut town elections are OF "no
sort of consequence" This will not do. We
think they are very, very significant, and our
reasons for this opinion may be briefly stated.
In the Presidential year, and especially in
the heat of the contest, State elections,
county, city, and town elections, are all con-
trolled by the Presidential issue. Thus, it was
Grant against Seymour in the September State
elections in Vermont and Maine and both
parties went into those elections upon that
idea. The result in each of those States was
accordingly accepted as pretty fair indie alton
of the drift of the popular tide, not only in
Vermont and Maine, but throughout the
States identified with the cause of General
Grant against the Rebellion. The results of
these little town elections in Connecticut are
subject to the same Interpretation. The De-
mocratic leaders and managers understood,
too, the importance to their Presidential ticket
of holding Connecticut in these town elections,
but their followers failed to come up to the
work. General apathy has evidently fallen
upon them. The energy and enthusiasm
which marked their contest for Governor of
last April have died out, and SO they have
permitted these October town elections to 60
by default. But whyP II is because of the
blunders of the Democratic National Conven-
tion of July in regard to both the party ticket
and platform for the Presidency.
With the announcement of Seymour as the
Democratic candidate on Wade Hampton g
revolutionary platform, the popular reaction
which in 1867 set in against the radicals was
arrested, and the popular Union elements OF
the North which had rallied around the banner
of Lincoln in 1864, against the Democratic
Chicago pronuncidmiento that the war was a
failure, began to rally again around the banner
of Grant. All our political elections since held,
from Maine to New Mexico and from Colorado
to Connecticut, tell the same story, and we
expect that from Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana
Iowa, and Nebraska the popular verdict or
Tuesday next will settle the question of the
succession.