The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-07-09

New York, July S-fSpecial Corres- ondence.)-Neither Republicans nor Democrats seem to regard it too early for speculation on this Presidential candidate sand party realignments Of 1908. Especially is this true of the Re- publicans. The anti-Roosevelt Repub- licans, of whom there are few. are < even less assertive than they were be- fore the national convention last year. when Senator Hanna and Quay we're alive and Senator Scott aided by Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York sympa- thisers, was trying feebly to stem the Roosevelt tide. Eos practical working purposes there is now no anti-Roose- welt faction in the Republican party. There probably won't be any at the end of the Presidents term. The Repub- lican Senate will, no doubt measure swords with the executive whenever good occasions offer, but individual Senators of that party are not likely to seek, or at least to obtain. reelection on any platform of serious Republican opposition to him. Each succeeding event of Republican history, each new development of Republican policy. strengthens the President with the workers and the newspapers of his party. The logical end of this is the renomination of the President If he will accept the renomination-and perhaps without his consent. Speculation as to his successor begins, then. with a tacit acceptance of his own candidacy: providing 1t may be brought about; and 1t usually ends with the conclusion that if the President won't run again he will name, without very much opposition. Secretary Taft to succeed him. That, too, Is a logical conclusion, because Secretary Taft, more nearly than any body else. embodies Roosevelt Republi- canism, the most highly developed policy of political centralization yet at- tained
 The Democrats.
 Greater latitude for speculation is to be found in the Democracy. Leading Democrats are as much divided in their theories of their party's future as they were after the second Bryan defeat Of 1900 Standing out in singularly strong relief, however, Is the central fact that Southern influence on Democratic opfn- ion is weightier today than 1t has been at any time during the past forty years. The Democracy carried few Northern 6tatse in 1896 and fewer in 1900, when the so-called radical wing dominated It's campaign policies and selected It's candidates. It did not carry any North
 
 conservative wing was dominant. As usual. the South's fidelity was proof against errors in each of these cleo tionS Both the Eastern Democracy and the Western Democracy. with their opposite convictions and practices and ,unassimilable personal elements. have tried and failed to hold the national organization in line. They are both weaker in their respective sections than they were before their separation. The South Is the only section left where success has given the Democrats real authority to speak in the party councils since Cleveland went out of office. Many Northern Democrats of dicern- ment see in this fact a very good reason to listen to the Southern Democracy. and perhaps to acknowledge its supre- macy, when it comes to the planning for another national campaign. .tA
 It is not so much who the South wants for President as 1t Is what the South advocates in federal politics. that Interests those Northern Democrats who concede the South's title to Jurisdic- tion. There are some able Southern leaders who have gone on record In op- position to the territorial expansion of the country, an assertive foreign policy. a powerful navy, the Isthmian Canal and other national policies which have been called Republican because the Re- publican party has opportunely been in power when the exigencies of govern men drought these politics to the front Such Southern leaders have as- sumed and perfunctorily maintained op- position to the national policies largely because their Northern contemporaries advised 1t. Southern Democrats are not tanti-expansionists, they believe in a