The Providence news. (Providence [R.I.]) 1891-1906, 1892-05-07

The Journal has missed its vocation
in life. Instead of pursuing the dyspep-
tic tenor of its way as soured Mugwump
sheet, it should be actively engaged
in practical political manipulation. I"
The Journal displays calm, cold.
clear.headed ability to read the
riddle Of our "close elections" !"
which is plainly indicative Of
wasted genius. When the New York
World poured in its broadsides in the
spring campaign about corrupt elections
it fired with the aim of an amateur and
itself suffered the only damage in the
shock of the recoil. But the Journal
gets down to business. 1t is practical.
1t is able to reckon up to man the pur-
chasable vote of the State and to figure
out in a manner entirely satisfactory to
itself the exact buying power of the
principal merchants supposed to be in
the field. In these matters there is
nothing like good arithmetic.
But there are one or two points on
which, if we are not troubling our acute
and able neighbor too much, the News,
as comparatively unlearned in these
moneyed lines Of politics, would be CRATE
full for little further information. The
Journal indicates that the Republican
and Democratic parties "are just
about evenly balanced in this
State, and that, owing to certain
"new pecuniary resources" on the part
of the mocracy--concerning the ex.
tent and availability of which the Jour
nal shows remarkable insight if not
information-''we may con.
slider it tolerably certain that the five
thousand regularly purchasable voters
in this State will be hereafter about
evenly divided between the two parties"
Now what the NEWS would like to
know is this: counting out the Inde-
pendents, with whose numbers and the
program of whose political gymnastic
exercises the journal deals, no doubt
adequately, is it to the erich men who
have lately begun to take an interest in
Democratic politics." or is it to Republi-
can funds that the Prohibitionists
and Peoples Party have made up their
minds to yield? Without some
definite and adequate accounting for
these ballots the NEws-the fault lying
no doubt in its lack of experience i'm
such cash considerations and the shock
of novelty with which they strike its
mind-does not seem able to follow the
Journals reckoning for our contempo-
rary seems to think it has accounted for
the State when it has parted the vote
among Republicans, Democrats, Inde-
pendents and Purchasables.
Has the Journal Jumped the Prohibi-
ton and the Peoples Party vote in its
$4,000 regularly purchasable 1t
looks as if it had there is no other sup
position on which its count will hang
together, and yet, radically as the News
differs from the third and fourth parties
in its conceptions of public policy
and public duty, it must protest
that in its opinion the Journal here does
them grave injustice. The News has
often been unable TO account for the
course of politics in individual instances
in any other way than on the theory of
Prohibition delivery, not necessarily
with money recompense, to the Democ-
racy, but the supposition that the
smaller parties are commodities only is
not tenable.
There is one other theory which the
NEWS hesitates to promulgate. and yet
which suggests itself inevitably.
Throughout the Jonrnors article the
importance Of the Independent vote is
magnified consistently. THE party
that would win,' it is pointed out with
emphasis, must secure some Indepen-
dent votes. But as the Independent
vote in this State is just about equal TO
the purchaeablc vote II is -,iaip that tha