The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1894-05-09
Iu Ohio and Indiana.

The result of the election in the thrC
congressional district of Ohio and OF
the municipal elections in Indiana was
awaited with interest by men of every
political creed. The election in the
Ohio district was TO supply vacancy
caused by the death of Representative
Houk, whom the democrats elected in
1892 by plurality of 4,316. The can
didates were Paul j. Sorg, democrat,
and E. G.. Rathbone, republican. The
canvass had been lively one. Mr..
Sorg was very wealthy and very popu-
lar. He won the day. 1t was the first
ray of light that had beamed on the
democratic pathway since the grand
triumph of 1892. The democracy were
in ecstasy. What though, in the dem
ocratic state of Indiana, old-time an
chored democratic municipalities by
scores had been carried by the repub-
licans, had not the party held its own in
the Third Ohio district? Was not that
glory and satisfaction enough for one
election day? But people whom afllic-
ton has chastened are sometimes
easily gladdened. A man crushed into
a jelly, legs and arms broken, teeth
knocked out, eyes gone, can feel a
sense of relief amounting almost to
rapture that fate has nearly done its
worst. So, when the democracy, who
had picked themselves up and crawled
out of the debris of the wrecks that had
been fast accommodating along their old
triumphant way since the November
elections, on Tuesday last found that
in the Third Ohio district, amid the gen.
eral ACKNOWLEDGMENT, the party head,
though badly banged, had not been
knocked clean off the shoulders, Joy
and eXultation knew no bounds. But
here, too, later returns and maturer re-
Election have somewhat moderated the
tones of eXultation. 1t was not so great
victory after all. Houk was elected
by a plurality of 4,316 in November,
1892; in May, 1894, the democrats,
with a candidate of vast wealth, retain
their hold on the district by plurality
of 1,721.
In the present Ohio delegation are
ten republicans and eleven democrats.
Harrison carried the state at the cleo
ton in which these congressman were
chosen by a majority of 1912. The
New York Sun publishes figures that
show that if the election in Ohio on
Tuesday of last week had been general,
and the democrats had suffered through
out the state the same ratio of loss as
in the third district, fourteen of the
Buckeye states representatives in con.
gress would have been republican,
seven democratic, and the republican
majority in the state would have been
some $4,000. These conclusions show,
with all the accuracy of cold mathemat.
les, what reason there is in the demo-
cratic hullabaloo over the election of
Brand-from-the- Burning" Sorg in the
Third Ohio district last week. Republi-
cans will not envy them whatever of
frigid comfort that event may yield
their opponents.
But if the democrats were swelling
with hope and exultation over the
news from the Third Ohio, they were
dumb as oysters over the returns from
Indiana. Fully twenty democratic
cities in that state report an overthrow
OF Bourbon rule. No such sweeping
majorities have ever before been re-
ported from the land of the Hoosiers.
The republican gains, extended over the
entire state, would have insured a
majority of nearly 10000.
Thus are the people, under the stress
OF greater misfortunes than ever before
in the history of the nation, with one
single exception, overlook them, recov-
ering their senses and reversing the
verdict won by fraud and misrepresen-
tation in 1892.