The Irish standard. [volume] (Minneapolis, Minn. ;) 1886-1920, 1904-12-03

"~S.S
the governorship Of Massachusetts, re-
sulting rs it did in the election of the
Democratic candidate, William l..
Douglas, Of Brockton, contributes n
unique chapter to the history of Amer
lean politics. Shorn of equivocal
phmseology the story Of the Douglas
campaign is a revelation of how a
clever Yankee shoemaker has literally
"pcgged" his way into the gubernator-
ial chair Of a state which stands pro-
verbally for scholasticism and erudi-
tion in it's statesmen and aw-givers,
says the New York Herald.
Indeed so strong has been the Re-
publicansm in this campaign that
every other candidate, both state and
national, who received a plurality of
votes was Republican. The state
which elected the Democratic candi-
date. Douglas. by. a plurality of 35. .71O
over Governor John r.. Bates, Repub-
ican candidate for reelection, cast n
plurality of SG,279 votes for Roosevelt
over Parker. Nor was there single
other Democrat on the state ticket
who was not hopelcssly buried under
the Republican returns.
A man, then, such as William Il.
Douglas, attaining to an Office such as
the governorslip OF Massachusetts,
under circumstances so far removed
from the ordinary, must of necessity
have something of an anomalous pcr-
sonality. One reasons instinctivcly
that such man must be possessed of
more than the average amount of Yam
kce wit and sllrewdncss; that to have
accomplished so much under crcum-
stances so adverse, so inimicnl to his
every ambition and project, lie must
have in him something of genius. And
yet Il careful study of the man at close
range, in the light of little knowl-
edge of the true inwardness OF his re-
cent election, will not bear out such a
theory In the light OF those facts,
facts that are daily receiving new and
important accrctions, it seems that
William T.. Douglas, far from being n
genius, is only the victim of strange,
altogether remarkable force, which,
once it had gained its momentum,
neither he nor any other human being
could have stayed. Massachusetts
gasped at his election. For hours after
it happened Massachusetts could not
believe that it had really happened.
The Boston newspapers that sup
ported him most energctically during
the campaign gaspcd too at his elec-
tion and for hours held back their
special editions with accounts of the
landslide for the Democratic candi-
date. Even they doubted the evidence
of their own telegraphic reports upon
their pet candidate.
If it seemed impossible to all these.
If all these henchmen gasped with as
tonishmcnt, their surprise was MS
naught to that Of the shoemaker of
Rrockton. That he should have walked
up the morning after election to find
himself the chosen governor of the
state Of Massachusetts was undoubt-
cdly as great a surprise as it was to
every one Of the 234,311 men who cast
their votes for him on the eventful day
preceding.
They have a saying up in Massa-
chusetts that cas- Hull goes so goes
the state" The state, as every school.
boy knows. is stronghold of the Re.
publican party. 1t has always been
counted upon to cast a heavy Republi
can vote for the party's presidential
candidate. It's great statesmen, its
great orators, in fact, the bone and
marrow of it's political life, have been
Republican.
The little town Of Hull casts not
quite five hundred votes all told, and
if there is such thing as a Democrat
within it's corporate limits he is not
known. In defiance of all tradition.
Hull, rock-ribbed Republican Hull.
the state political barometer, split it's
ticket to a man this year and cast a