Bisbee daily review., 1906-07-13
THE FIGHT
 FOR CONGRESS.


 in the house of representatives of the fifty-ninth congress there are 252 republicans and 13S democrats, the republican majority being 114 h order to carry the house by a ma jority of one, in the campaign now opening, the democrats must hold all the seats they now have and win fifty-eight from the republicans.
 Democrats are confident that they will do better than this, and there is reason for believing they will. There is every reason to hope that they will control the house in the sixtieth con gress by a good working majority, if not by large ohe. Republican poli- tic:ans who speak of the democratic predictions of success as "hot air may Sincerely believe that their party has ninety-nine year lease of graft and bossism in Washington, but it is E.ore likely that they are only talking to keep up their courage.
 of course, the capture of the house of representatives by the democrats this year would be nothing less than a political revolution, but there is every indication that just such reyo- lution is dated for the coming Novem- Der elections In order to give the democrats control of the house it need not be the most violent fevolu- ssion that has occurred in American politics within comparatively recent years.
 The conditions under which the two parties enter the congressional cam paign of 1906 are more nearly like those of 1874 than of any other re- cent period, says the Republic. In that year the disastrous Greeley cam paign had brought the democratic membership of the house to a lower ebb than it has since stood at. There were only ninety-twd democrats to 194 republicans, republican major ity of 102 in membership much smaller than that which the house now has.
 And yet, in the elections of 1874 the democrats gained seyenty-six members, increasing their numbers to 16s and reducing the republicans to 107. In this election, therefore, the democrats changed republican ma jority of 102 into democratic major ity of sixty-one If the democrats do anything like so well in this years elections, they will control the house in the sixtieth congress by larger majority than the bumper vote they had in the forty-fourth.
 The republicans fared even worse in the elections of 1890 In the fifty first congres they had majority of seven, the membership consisting of 159 democrats to 166 republicans. The landslide of 1890 left the republicans with only eighty-eight members in the fifty-second congress to 236 demo- crats, democratic plurality of 14s, taking no account of the eight pop ulist members.
 The republican preponderance in the present house does not at all rep resent the relative strength of the two parties. It is nothing but the accidental result of the Roosevelt tidal wave and the collapse of Park CT, who was worse beaten than Greeley. In this campaign political conditions are more nearly normal than they have been at any time in. the last twelve CT fourteen years, and the battle will be fought, unemotion. ally. upon the records of the respec- tive parties.
 According to present plans, 1t seems, the republican congressional campaign committee is going to wage its battle mainly upon President Roosevelt's record, which, in so far as it is available for campaign thunder, is wholly democratic. Most of the good he has accomplished has been by the aid of democratic votes. and the people are aware of the fact.
 The one great democratic reform he has rejected is tariff revision, and the democrats will be tolerably well able to take care of that for them selves on the hustings.
 Tariff, political bossism and ma chine rule in politics are the prime issues of the year. As the democrats