Morning journal and courier., 1883-11-10
THE REGENT ELECTIONS.


 Looked at from an entirely non partisan standpoint, the results of Tuesdays elections are in every way encouraging. There is TO tidal wave, no strong drift, in favor of either party. Like the elections Of two years ago they reveal 8 decided disposition on the part of the people to give their support to those candidates who are most worthy of it. But Ter has been defeated in Massachusetts in an election with which national questions had little or nothing to do, and in which the main issue was the character and fitness Of Butler himself. The fact that he is practi- eally driven from political life is probably recognized with about an equal degree of satisfaction by both parties. The defeat of Malone in Virginia occurring at the same time awakeas satisfaction not whit the less impartial, and points significantly to the real feeling of the voters. His influence in southern affairs has been wholly bad. He, more than anyone else, is responsible for the demoralization of his State in questions of finance, and the support he has received in some quarters from Republican influence has been anything but creditabie to the party and it is quite as glad to get rid of him as the Democratic party is to get rid of Butler. Everywhere there seems to have been practi- cally one issue-honest and capable rulers and good government. The reelection of Mayor Low in Brooklyn is reassuring. He is the best example that the country affords of the ideal city government-a non-partisan ad ministration on purely business principles. In the State of New York the result is espee- ially significant. The Democratic majority of one hundred and ninety thousand last year has disappeared. No sensible man now believes that the election of Cleveland was any indication of drift towards either party. It simply showed, as we said some time before the recent election, that the voters were interested rather in the men they were voting for than the principles they were supposed to represent. As the New York Evening Post remarks: F'They (the Demoorsts) tried the experiment of carrying the State upon platform which was silent on the tariff and all national issues aad which was emphatic upon nothing save the eces- sity of turning the rascals out. They made their campaign mainly upon the issue of put ting the Democratic party, including raEcals, into office, and they are now able to estimate pretty accurately the value of that issue as 8 ralIying cry for next year. With Republi- can ticket against them which excited no popu- lar interest, and in support of which 10 sys- tematie campaign was made, they have come so near to defeat that they have no better chance of oarrging the State in 1884 than the Republicans haves@
 Just after the October election in Ohio we said that the vote had not turned on party questions and that it gave no promise of the result of the coming presidential campaign. We think the recent elections fully sustain this view. Taken together the recent cleo lions cannot be claimed by either party ss promise of success. They do show, however, that the independent vote, which holds the balance of power in the country, is not with the Democratic party, and that some other cry than that ''the Republican party must go' will be needed to rally the independents to their support. Nothing has yet appeared to show that the majority of the country in a purely national contest on national questions is not still, as in 1884, with the Republican IaartY.