The Houston daily post. [volume] (Houston, Tex.) 1886-1903, 1902-11-06
MEANING OF THE ELECTIONS.

Ante-election apathy and the light vote re.
corded Tuesday plainly interpret the results
in the doubtful States.
They mean, in general way. that voters
are content with present conditions
The country is prosperous. The great
evils of modern commercialism. which are
so manifest TO the discerning mind, have not
yet come home to the unthinking citizen.
and so long as he does not feel the pinch,
or so long as he enjoys the bounties of a
pethorc condition, he does not concern
himself about the portents of the future and
so prefers TO let we'll enough alone" ac-
cording to the fetching but fallacious phil
osophy of Mr.. Hanna.
In the State of New York the economy OF
Governor Odell has been approved by the
up State people who know thrift and saving
better than they know craftsmanship I'm.
der his administration direct taxes have been
abolished altogether and the entire burden
falls upon corporations and special interests.
This means so much to the property owner
that he votes to preserve his exemption, not
realizing that the republican policy is but a
trick to shift the taxes to the corporations
and license them to levy greater taxes in an
indirect manner
Perhaps he people win learn after while
Otherwise the New York election is a
| splendid exhibition of democratic virility
Coler's majority in Greater New York upset
all calculations, and It was only the supreme
effort of the rural sections-if indeed. there
were not wholesale frauds-that saved even
so excellent a republican administration as
Odells. There Is nothing whatever to in
dictate the slightest rehuke to the so-called
Socialism of the democratic platform
In Pennsylvania and Ohio it appears that
the lesson of the late coal strike was lost
upon the laborers who returned to power the
party of their oppression They seem nm
able to understand that It was the righteous.
ness OF their cause which won. aud that the
extremity Of the operators and the impor-
tunity of the republican politicians only at
the eleventh hour brought about under the
pretense of concession settlement which
was in reality complete victory for the
strikers. II is altogether possible that GER
tain influences among the workingmen were
employed to make a political return for the
arbitration commission. The coal operators
and the republican politicians have not lost
their cunning. nor are they the first to make
a virtue Of necessity.
The Post can find little basis for the con.
tentlon that tariff reform has made any ma
terial gains. The republicans stood pat on
protection and trusts, They vaguely prom
ised some revision Of the schedules and Ger.
tain halfhearted efforts to find way 10
curb the bad" trusts, but surely the voters
were not deceived by these promises. Even
in the Middle West, where there was repub
lican division on the tariff. the factions ap
pear to have got together. Conservative"
campaigning has had no appreciable effect
AS The Post sees It. the election means
that democrats must renew their efforts all
along the line. RepubIcanism is fastened
upon the country by all the devices that ap.
peal to selhshness and fear--artihces that
delude the people who. because they are
doing well, can not see how they are being
wronged. The democratic party must
awaken them from this false sense OF safety |
or they will be aroused by some general
disaster to crops or commerce and. mad. |
dened by improvidence and want, will work
vengeance and violence. in a way to imperil |
our free institutions.