The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1896-10-13
IT IS LOOKING FINE
Henry George Is Pleased With the
Showing in Michigv.
SOME OF THE GOOD SIGNS
Strong Forces That Used to Pull
Apart Are In Union I his Year
The state In Shape
for silver.
SOME OF THE GOOD SIGNS

Special Campaign Correspondence to
the Standard.
jackson. Mich. Oct. ., 1896.
have learned enough Of Michigan
TO convince me that If the election
were to come Off tomorrow Bryan
would carry this state by handsome
majority, and to further convince me
that the tendency in his favor is stead
lily growing and that when he passes
through the two peninsulas next week.
making the 55 speeches he Is booked
for, even II most of them be mere
greetings to the crowds that will gath
er at the stations, II is likely to swell
into a veritable tidal wave.
have tried to get my information
as to how the currents of thought are
running from the best and most relia-
BILE sources-and have no need Of let
ters of introduction to find In the
towns of Michigan men whom l can
trust and who will tell me frankly
What they know. The conclusion
have reached is that there is no need
of my going further to form an opin-
ion. and that 1t is now as sure as any
i
the third of November comes Michi-
gan will vote for Bryan and Sewall.
Michigan has been counted as re-
publican state. But to analyze the
vote on presidential elections Is to see
that for IL years past any union OF the
clements opposed to the republican
rarty would have given q different re-
suit. In the last presidential election,
| that of 1892, Michigan. Of the electors
chosen from congressional districts.
elected seven republicans and five
democrats. making. with the two elec-
tors at large. a vote In the college OF
nine republicans and five democrats.
| OF the aggregate popular vote, that OF
the republicans was 222, ,7OS: that of the
| democrats, 202, ,296; that of the popu-
| lists, 1882; that of the prohibitionists,
| l4,069. The republicans had a plural
| ity Of 2O,4l2. But on the union OF the
three opposing elements they would
rave been beaten by 13,4S9 votes.
That union Is now assured. The
democrats in this state have adopted
a wise policy. They are not pushing
themselves to the front. nor even
| speaking much of themselves as demo-
Gratis; but to avoid arouslng the preju-
| dices of old opponents now their allies,
speak Of themselves rather as new
| democrats" This, indeed, since the
Chicago convention. gave a new life
| to the democracy that Cleveland had
practically destroyed. better expresses
| the position Of the party that there
| discarded so much of the un-democrat-
| ic element that had weighed 1t down.
While the official certificate of the fu-
| sionists Is recorded as that OF the
democratic state and national nomi-
nations" the vignette which furnishes
| the distinguishing name consists OF a
head Of Bryan encircled with the le-
gend. Democratic Peoples Union Sill
| yer Ticket" And this union on equal
| terms Of all the reform elements ap-
rears to be actually complete. and
| men who have long been accustomed
to oppose each other are united now
| with a strength born of their agree
ment In the common struggle against
plutocracy.
The old politicians among the party
managers seem. on what appears to
me a not unreasonable assumption,
confident of carrying the state by
some 10000 or 5000. The populists are
| working earnestly. the larger part OF
| the prohibitionists will certainly vote
for Bryan on the national ticket. the
democrats will come to the polls in as
great IL not greater force than in 1892.
| the gold democrats are comparatively
few: and from every part Of the state
| come reports of republicans who never
voted for a democrat before who are
| working and will this year vote for
| Bryan. That their estimate Is not a
large one seems to arise from a doubt
| of the influence which the corpora
tions and large employers may have
upon their men: from an uncertainty
as to the vote of the upper peninsula.
| which they nave not been able to ade-
auately reach, and from fear of the
| great amount Of money at the disposal
OF their opponents.
But from what have heard l think
the feeling among the workingmen OF
| Michigan Is as strong and intense as
| / have found II in other places, and
that the attempts of employers to in
| fluence II are producing a precisely
contrary effect TO that they intended.
| AS to the upper peninsula, where
| the owners Of the rich mineral depos-
| its have reduced their laborers to a
| condition similar to that Of the work.
| ers in the coal and iron regions OF
| Pennsylvania, il is hardly feared that
there will be any republican gain. but
| merely that the increase in the Bryan
vote will not be as large as in the low
er peninsula. But even In the upper
| peninsula labor is sharing In the gen.
eral alarm. and the mine workers
union OF Northern Michigan has just
| published an address to workingmen
| generally, similar TO that Issued by
the locked-out men OF the Brown
Works in Cleveland. declaring that
Mark Hanna has employed a system
attic course Of coercion against union
men.
As to the use OF money. after a GER
tain point and in a time like this. IL is
powerless. Nearly $50 600. so one Of the
men who knew about it told me. was
raised outside Of the regular party
fund. to defeat Mayor Pingree in De-
troit a few years ago. But IL seemed