Pittsburg dispatch. [volume] (Pittsburg [Pa.]) 1880-1923, 1890-11-13
Women, According to the Speaker,
the Important Factor in the
Election Result.
SHOPPING TALES HAD EFFECT.
Drummers as Democratic Missionaries and
Manufacturers With High-Price
Talk Also Helped.
SENATOR SHERMAN ON THE RESULT.
Industrial Enterprise BE Thinks, VIII be Checked, as
Capital is Now Timid
ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE D1sPArcH.l

ESPECIAL TELEGRAM TO THE DIsPATcH.l
PORTLAND, November 15.-It is a fact
that Speaker Reed looked rather downcast
for a day or two after the late election.
Even vet be has not got back the whole of
his genial smile, but he has recovered quite
portion of it, and nov appears like man
to whom life is, on the whole, worth living.
He has had, since the great event, very
little to say to newspaper men, but as he has
been free enough in his talk with his
friends, naturally some of his remarks have
become almost common property here. He
admits the result of the election was essen
tally surprise to him.
In his stumping tour, he found abso-
lutely no surface indications Of such an up
hesval as occurred on the 4th instant. Not
only, he says, were his meetings the largest
and most enthusiastic that he ever ad-
dressed, but there was among the Repub-
lican managers in many of the districts
visited by him feeling of confidence, which
in the light of what really happened seems
almost pathetic. In Michigan, especially:
he was told of almost certain gains in the
Congressional delegation, and he had al
lowed himself TO have considerable faith in
the predictions.
NO ORDINARY oFF-YEAR WHIPPING.
Mr.. Reed certainly makes no attempts
among his acquaintances here to palm off
the Republican disaster as only an ordinary
off-year whipping. The Speaker said, when
asked how it happened:
The Republicans always 60 in for big things,
and this year they got big thing-the biggest
licking they ever had. You know that when
we have a really big tidal wave on this earth it
is not one thing alone that brings it about. The
sun ana moon happen to be in just such a posi-
tion IN regard to the earth, and other conditions
come into help. In the same way this political
tidal wave was caused by a peculiar conjunc-
tion of circumstances.
For one thing the Democrats began their
campaigns in the close districts on an average
at least a month earlier than did. Repub-
liCan Congressman had to stay in Washington
until the last moment, and In such campaign
as this months start meant great advantage
20 the other fellows. Then the course of many
manufacturers was to tie great disadvantage
OF the Republican party After the tariff bill
was once passed and they had obtained Just
what they needed and wanted at the hands of
the majority IN Congress, what did many of
them dc but turn in and for the sake of little
temporary advantage, helm to set the people
into panic about the Mckinley bill
DRUMMERS AND WOMEN HELP.
Again, in hundreds of cases, the drummers
were Intentionally or unintentionallE mission
aries to preach Democratic doctrine. They
went all over the country with their stories of
advances in price that were to be made next
week or next month. on account of the Nc
Kinley bill. But am inclined to think that
the most important factor in the result of the
election was the women of the country. 1t is
the women who do the shopping, who keep the
run of prlces, who have the keenest scent for
increased cost They hear in every store the
clerks behind the counters explain how this
article or that could not be sold hereafter at
the former price, because of the Mckinley bill.
They went home and told their husbands and
fathers, and their stories had tremendous
effect at the ballot box.