St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1892-11-15
STAY-AT-HOME VOTERS.
The Latest Explanation of the De-
feat Of Republicanism.s

The Latest Explanation ot the De-
feat Of Republicanism.s
NEW YORK. Nov. 1.-THE latest eX-
PLANTATION or the election IS given Dy
Frederick Ii. Wall, the census expert Ill
charge of the statistics of true wealth.
He says the election wentthe way it dld
because a million Republican farmers
stayed at home last Tuesday. All the
other surprises of the election seem TO
him to have been but the following Dt
natural laws well established by sta-
tisticS. In a paper prepared for delly-
cry before Johns Hopkins univerSlty,he
says:
"The decrease in the per cent of our
population engaged in farming, from
1880 to 1890, was exceedingly small.
You NAV ask how, then, could the per-
centage of our population in cities nave
increased from 1905 to %. per cent? In
answer, because the percentage or our
population in villages decreased from 80
to % per cent during the eighties: In
the counties OH bOth sides of the Mlssls'
sippi every county save one for stretch
of twenty miles shows an absolute de-
crease during the eighties in the farm
ing population. 1t is not only so in all
the country east of the Mississippi, but.
also in the counties containing the major
part of the population west.
"Whether this exodus of young people
from the farms, the money and the
money and the wealth has been piled up
i'm the cities in the North Central states.
which contain 0ne-third Of the wealth
of this continent, the increase in the
value of urban wealth has been SIX
times as great as that of the farms,
which have actually failed to increase
as fast as the mortgage Indebtedness
upon them.
SIS it any wonder TIL at this election
means more than defeat for one party?
There is nothing surprising to statistl-
cans in the Cleveland victory, except
that it has been cut down by the new
methods of balloting. The Republican
farmers have not become Democrats.
In the Northwest they voted largely as
PopulistS. but in the Central and East
ern states they voted against all three
parties. The fact that 1000, 900 Repub-
lican farmers stayed home and took
care of their own business, together
with the magnitude of the PopullSt
vote, was the one alarming feature OF
the defeat. The stay-at-hOme voters,
who decide nearly all doubtful elec-
tiOns, seemed to be as large as in 1852
or in 1876.
''From 1877 down to the present, as
well as during the corresponding perl
cd from 1886, the Democrats carried
every other presidential election, and
yet never failed of being beaten i'll the
Intervening election. and that they car
ried every off election except the one
during the Mexican war, which was
close. Although there was no third
party in 1852 strong enough to get an
electoral vote. yet so per cent of the dis
satisfaction with the Wings was shown
by the usually large stayat-home vote.
The Peoples, orsRepublican, party was
the natural result. The Populsts have
already elected twentysix electors, and
the tremendous stay-at-home vote i'll
every state shows that things are ripe
for a reorganization of parties. The
only question is whether great minds
will step to the front and lead the re-
organization, or whether it will be left
to the political kickers and ignorant
men with socialistic inclinations."