Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1900-12-20
The New Congress.
st Louis Democrat.

OF Louis democrat
The exact partisan complexion of
the Senate of the Congress which
comes into existence en- March t, 1901.
has not been determined, but there is
a reasonable probability that the
Republican majority will be fully
twenty. This is longer lead than
the one which the Republicans have
in the present Senate, although the
| majority in this body is greater than
any party has had since the recon
struction days. The Republican
majority in the House of Represent
atives which will enter next March
will be fOrty-seven. In the present
House the Republicans had lead of
thirteen at the beginning of the ses-
sion in 1899, though it has been
strengthened slightly since then by
| the unSeating of two Or three Dem
OcratS whose title was not good. In
the Congress which was elected in
1896 when Mr.. Mckinley was chosen
the first time the Republicans had a
lead of only eleven in the Senate, but
they had majority of about fifty in
| the House.
Thus the Republicans will start out
at the beginning of President Nc
Kinley's second term with a better
working majority than they had
when he began his first term. Their
lead will be longer in the Senate, and
though it will lack two or three
votes of being as great in the House
as it was" four years ago it will, in
reality, be larger, because the silver
eX-RepublicanS are all drifting back
to the Republican party, and many of
the Democrats will work with the
Republicans on alll issues of import
ance. No election since that of
Monroe in 1920, in the era of good
feeling, when there was nominally
only one party in existence, has left
less of a sting to the beaten party
than the one just held has done.
Many of the men who supported
Bryan are glad that he was beaten,
and considerable number of those
who supported him with sincerity are
accepting the situation, as. revealed
by the tremendous preponderance on
the Republican side, are dropping
silver and ''imperialiSm, and are
ready to strike hands with the
Republicans on all subjects of prime
Importance which will come before
the country in the next few years.
Thus Mckinley will have greater
support in the measures which he may
recommend in the Congress which is
soon to come into legal existence than
he had in the one which entered
power with him in 1897.
Never did party start out in a
presidential term with brighter
prospects than those which present
themselves to the Republicans at
this time. Mr.. Mckinley has received
larger majority of electoral votes
than any president has obtained
since Grant in 1872, when all the
Southern states were not repr esented
in the electoral college. He has
larger popular plurality than any
President before his time has ever
gained. The majority which will be
on his side in the Senate will be
greater than any president has had
since Grant, while the minority will
be much less hostile to him than it
was to Grant or to any other
Republican president whom the
country has had. In the House, too,
the minority will be unusually COM
PLEASANT. 1t was known long before
the election that there we're thousands
of Democrats in the south and west
who were supporting Bryan because
they were confident that he would be
beaten, and they were not yet pre-
pared to cut themselves loose from
their party. These Democrats are as
happy over the result of the election
as are the Republicans or the honest
money Democrats who voted the
Republican ticket. In fact, the
present time is really an era of good
feeling in a much truer sense than
was the eight or ten years of the first
quarter of the century which received
that name