Staunton spectator and vindicator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1896-1916, 1904-11-18
WASHINGTON LETTER.


Washington, d. c.. Nov. 12.-There
is no denying the fact that We Demo
Gratis were on Tuesday night astoDish.
ed and COMPOUNDED. That Parker
might be defeated-that, of course, was
among our counts and discounts. But
other announcements excited more
than transient incredulity. was in
the parlors of the National Congress
slonal Committee of the Democratic
party in the Riggs House when the
wires first began to buzz. Congress
man Cowherd, chairman Of the Com.
mittee, held the floor in bis usual
buoyant temper, and walked up and
down reading aloud the dispatches
handed to him. He had just returned
from the w est where he had found his
own Kansas City district "all right and
secure and had discovered that Mis-.
souri, sought to give 10000 for Par
ker" Even before the returns began
to come in he was feeling very sore be-
cause the party had not backed up his
Committee and when a dispatch said
that Pennsylvania would send to Con-
gress one Democrat and thirty-two
Republicans he came as near profan'
ity as he ever does. and told the hum
dreds of friends assembled round him
that his committee had not received a
single dollar from the national COM
mittee during the campaign and that
the members had taken $500 out of
their own pockets to pay for the only
printing they had been able to get
The declaration caused grave faces,
sharp comment, and many expressions
of sympathy, especially when it was
announced that Cowherd had been
overthrow in his own district because
be had been compelled to be present
in Washington. He is very popular
in the House, one of the shrewdest,
readiest. most active and enterprising
members, chosen out of the entire
body because Of his political sagacity.
The causes of the landslide to Roose.
velt ?-for there are many. You can
judge as we'll as your correspondent
can. There seem to be in the United
States about eighty million opinions
on this subject. l asked prominent
Republican yesterday for his diagnosis.
"Well," he said. by his sagacious &C
ton, Roosevelt made himself solid with
the Catholics, the Hebrews. the negroes.
and the union labor vote. He rushed
the Panama business through. and,
whether right or wrong, the people
like man who does things. The nor
NAL Republican vote on Tueday was
reinforced by million men who want
the President always to carry chip on
his shoulder and who will back him up
to any extent.
And all the people cried, come,
brother! Your one good term deserves
auother!"
Senator Jones seen at his residence
here says it was the alleged prosperity
that carried the day,-the people that
have money and the people who hope
to get money. To this WAS added the
belIigerent feeling which has prevailed
in the United States for the last six
years, filling the streets with boys in
uniform and sending to the polls an
army of prevented Democrats willing
to follow to any conquest Theodore
the king of the Northern Cloths. A
Republican friend of mine insists that
every lynching anywhere ia the United
States cost the Democrats at the polls
on Tuesday ten thousand votes. But
l think be is dreaming.
The Presidents formal declaration
that under no circumstances would he
be candidate for reelection is re-
ceived here at par as a sincere avowal.
1t seems little hasty and premature.
but it is just.like the impulsive Koose-
welt. The fact, however, remains that
a President of the United States is no
longer the arbiter of his own destiny,
and he is liable to be seized by enlogists
and flunkeys and dragged into the
White House again even against his
own protest. What he will do during
these next four years nobody can tell.
He can so conduct himself as to promote
universal harmony, amity and peace;
or he can adopt a policy which will
make his name synonym of aggres-
sion and conquest, and bring the re-
public to the verge of ruin. He should
be Kept stra ght by the consciousness
that the eyes of the world are upon
him.
The numerous bronze gentleman on
horseback that preside over the so uares
and circles in this city are to receive
an illustrious reinforcement in the
person of solitary pedestrian in mill
tary uniform of foreign and ANTICIPATED
aspect, whose metallic counterpart
will be unveiled in the grounds of the
new War College next Saturday. These
are better known as the Arsenal
Grounds, but during the last two or
three years a long row of limestone
villas has been erected here for the use
of officers. and fronting them on the
other side of the park are being built
very comprehensive and substantial
barracks, adequate to all emergencies
The parsonage to mount the pedestal
is Frederick the Great, one hand rests
on his sword hilt, and the other carries
a cane-perhaps the very cane that his
father belabored him with when the
youth was caught in bis boyish pranks;
perhaps the very sword that he flung
away at the battle OF Mollwitz when
he found refuge in a barn ten miles
from the battlefield; perhaps the very