The herald., 1897-01-16
FIGURES THAT LIE

t L
1t is gratifying to see that the Chi
cago Times-Herald, an ultra gold bug,
newspaper and devout worshiper at
the Canton shrine, can be honest and
fair when it tries Referring to the ef-
fort of Senator Lodge and Secretary
Morton to show by figures that Bryan
got the illiterate and Mckinley the in
telligent vote, the Times-Herald has the
goodness to rebuke them both and point
out how Just the reverse of what they
show is true. 1t says: Secretary Nor
ton OF the agricultural department re-
Gently issued pamphlet containing ta-
wealth, production, savings, population
and education of the states that voted
for Mckinley and of the states that
voted for Bryan. In these tables the
comparison in respect to illiteracy is
confined to native whites, thus exclud-
ing the most illiterate classes of the
population the colored and the foreign
born.
Senator Lodge in the current North
American Review, also publishes a set
of tables Of similar purport, though he
does not exclude the foreign born nor
the negroes from his computation. These
statistics apparently show that the larg-
est percentage of the wealth, education
and population of the country lies in
the Mckinley states and that where illit-
eracy is the greatest there Bryan got
the most votes
But when Senator Lodge goes a step
further and claims that these figures
demonstrate that the public schools
not only teach people how to vote in
telligently, but also rightly, on funda-
mental questions, and Undue them with
the strongest American sentiment" he
makes a too-sweeping deduction. Hit
eracy had little or nothing to do with
the election.
One might as we'll argue that Colora
do cast its vote for Bryan because it has
mountains, and prove it by showing
that all the other mountain states went
for him also.
1t is in juggling with such statistics
that we find proof of the adage that
figures will lie," and it can easily be
retorted on Mr.. Lodge from his own ta-
bles that the states containing the low
est percentage of illiterates, Nebraska.
Kansas, South Dakota, Washington and
Wyoming, all voted for Bryan. 1t can
further be shown that in the southern
states, where Bryan obtainedhis largest
and most potential support, it was the
intelligent and educaed whites that
voted for him, while the illiterate blacks
voted for Mckinley
There is no ground for drawing such
conclusions from these statistics, for
there is nothing more fallible and more
equivocal as an assumed starting point
in respect to politics Heredity and en-
vironment have a good deal more to do
with elections than the common schools.
and the average voter is no more res
ponsible for his political or religious
beliefs than he is for the color Of his
eyes.
How is it with Mr.. Lodge himself?
With the blood of George Cabot tingling
in his veins could he ever, no matter
what the emergency, vote a Democrat
ic ticket? And yet, if he had descended
from William Eustis he might have
some time been a Democratic governor
of Massachusetts, like the late Governor
Russell. The stalwart farmer who
boasts of his six Republican sons, or his
six Democratic sons, does not do so be-
cause they learned their politics in the
public schools. He attended to that HIM
self.
We have but little patience with that
class of statisticians who are always
trying to show that a considerable part
of the American electorate is ignorant
and vicious, and that it is confined large
ly to one party, or to one section of the
country. At one time it was the ignor-
ant foreign vote, atanother the ignorant
negro vote, and now the ignorant silver
vote. All such reasoning is foolish. Let
us be fair.
CHANGING FRONT