Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1896-09-03

finance committee asks for contributions
they are met with the assertion that they
are already rolling in wealth.
The middle of the road popuists have
adopted course that still further COM
plicates matters in Illinois. A call has
been issued by them to members of the
peoples party Of the state asking them to
rally around a ticket of their own, as set
ting forth a sort of declaration of princi-
pies In which 1t is declared that the Tad
beneck-Taylcr crowd have gone over to
the enemy. What effect this movement
VIII have Cannot be predicted until Sep
tember 10, when a state convention will be
held and ticket in opposition to the one
named by the fusion forces at Springfield
will be put up. Democrats and populists
say that they are not afraid of the kickors
and declare that they are simply inS:ru-
ments of Mark Hanna and will be consid-
cred as such by the party throughout the
state.
The Result.
A democratic statistician figures out the
situation In Illinois this way: AT the last
presidential election S73,646 votes were
cast In the state of Illinois, OF these Mr.
Cleveland received 426,2S1 and Mr.. Harri-
son 1893, 2sS, while the combined vote of the
populist and prohibition candidates was
4S,oI1, leaving Cleveland about 10000 short
of an actual majority over all competitors
"A few minutes study of the returns of
lS2 can but benefit those who take an In
anything, they show that with the popu-
list and democratic forces allied it will take
a tremendous reversal to transfer the state
to the republican column.
while Clevcland's plurality was only
26,g93 four years ago, it would have been
close on to $1,000 had Viewers vote Of D.
207 been thrown to the successful candi-
date. Again. Mr.. Bryan will draw heavily
on the prohibition vote. Not that he is a
prohibitionist, but because of his free sill
yer views. AS far back as 1850 the prohi-
bition party was committed to an eXpan-
sion of the currency, and while its central
idea Is the inhibition OF liquor selling its
members, In the nature of things, will be
more or less influenced by the general cam
paign of education that is now in progress
from one end Of the country to the ether
There is no question about the growth
OF populist sentiment in illinois, The
party's candidate for treasurer two years
ago polled 50, 1913 votes, an increase Of
nearly 30 per cent In two years There is
good reason to believe that 1900 avowed
believers in the Omaha platform will vote
in this state next November
FROM these figures ii is a conservative
statement to say that $1,000 voters must
have changed their minds since 1882 in Or
der to give the electoral vote of Illinois to
Mckinley. This is an average of about
JOO to a county.
Another View.
But republican authorities declare that it
Is unfair to base calculations this year cp
the foregoing figures. They confess that
the populist vote for Randolph for treas
urer in 1884 was considerably more than
twice the vote polled for Weaver, but On
the other hand they point 10 the fact that
Wulf, the republican candilate , had a clear
majority over all other candi tes for state
reasurer-democratic. populist and prohibi-
.lon-a clear majority of 1869. A very
nun vote Tor an off year was polled in 1894,
the aggregate being only 24,3s0 less than
the presidential vote of 1872