The Big Stone Gap post. [volume] (Big Stone Gap, Wise County, Va.) 1892-1928, 1900-08-30
1896 and 1900.

ing Mr.. Bryan for the President IN
dicates plainly enough that a large
proportion of the Sound Money DEM
ocrats who supported Mr.. Mckinley
in 1896 will leave nothing undone to
prevent the latter's election this year
TO these will be joined a large num-
Der of Republicans who are quite as
hostile to the Administration and It's
unconstitutional and dangerous tend
encies. This movement makes a re-
view of the election returns of prevl-
Gus years of peculiar interest at this
stage of the campaign in order to OBJ
tain a tolerable estimate of the
Anti-Bryan Democrats in 1876 as
we'll as to throw light on the outlook
for the coming election. In lS92
the total vote for President was as
follows:
Cleveland, Democrat. ..... 5,32l roo
Harrison, Republican .....5,l iJ,2Ol
Weaver, Populist. ........1 ,Oi2,13l
This leaves ont Of account the
scattering votes of the ProhibitioniSts
and the Socialists. In 1896 The vote
for President was as follows:
Mckinley, Republican iii ,6Ol
Bryan, Silver DemOcrat...o,1O 9'O1E
Palmer, National Democrat l3l,649
Total. I3,755,3Ol
Republican plurality ..... GO2,555
The extraordinary interest in the
election in 1896 serves to account lor
the large increase in the vote that
year. Another reason for the great
disparity between the vote in lo92
and that in 1896 is that in 1872
Harrison and Cleveland had each lost
share of his popularity. This IS
seen bv the election returns OF 1888,
when Cleveland had not as many
votes as he received four years later
and when Harrison's total was 2oO,-
600 less than his former vote. The
increase of nearly 100000 in the
Democratic vote in 1896 is readily
explained by the transfer OF the Pop
uliSt strength to Bryan, without TAX
ing into account the fact that the lat
ter received no small number of Re
publican votes. Making every allow
ance, on the other hand, for the fac
tors in the enormous increase of al
most 1000, 900 in the vote OF Nc
Kinley over that of Harrison, it is a
moderate estimate from the above
figures that not less than l,OO0,OOC
Democrats who voted for Cleveland
in 1892 voted straight for Mckinley
in 1899. There is no other way OF
accounting for the enormous increase
in 1896 in the Republican majorities
in the great States of New York,
Pennsylvania and Illinois, in which
Commonwealth party lines had pre-
viously been well defined, and in
which the result of the election had
not been hard to anticipate.
But the signs for which the polit-
ical star gazers are watching intently
fail to manifest themselves with dis
tinctness. 1t is evident, however,
that before this Presidential contest
began the Republican strength had
already greatly declined from that OF
1896. This is seen by the election
returns for Congress two years ago.
The New York Tribune Almanac
gives the vote cast in all the States
for Representatives in the Fifty-sixth
Congress as follows: Republican,
$3.50, GIG; Democratic, 5,2OS,316.
This shows a very small margin be-
tween the two parties. In New York
the Republican majority for Congress
men, which was upward of 100000
votes i'll 1895, dwindled to less than
$4,000 in 1898. But the elections
for Congress in 1892 were held before
the imperial policy of the Admins
tration had been developed in for
bidding proportions; before "benevo-
lent assimilation" in the Philippines
had been converted into criminal az
erosion; before the act imposing a
carpet-bag Government upon Porto
Rico had been passed, and before the
country had begun to fully realize
the effects of the Dingley tariff in
breeding legion of Trust monopolies
to despoil the people.
The bookmakers are much better
Judges of the odds in horse race,
especially when knavish confederate
has pricked the navicular OF the fav-
orite or dosed his oats, than they ale
of the result of Presidential election.
Their gambling instincts are all at
sea when it comes to estimating the
strength and direction of great polit-
zeal currents and the moral influences
which operate when new issues arise
for ISOLATION. To the mighty forces
that are silently mastering through
out the land to decide this great con-
test for or against Imperialism, for or
against the spirit of Miitarism and