The commercial. (Union City, Tenn.) 190?-193?, 1906-07-13
THE FIGHT FOR CONGRESS.

ocrats, tn Republican majority
being ia. In order to carry the
House by a majority 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 t ID a t
they viii do better than this, and
they will. There is every reason
to hope that they will control the
House in the Sixtieth Congress by
a good working majority, if not
by large one. Republican poll
ticians who speak of the Demo
cratic predictions of success a s
shot air" may sincerely believe
that their party has ninety nine
year lease of graft and bossism in
Washington, but it is more 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 revo-
luton, but there is every indica-
ton that just such a revolution is
dated for the coming November
elections. La order to give the
Democrats control of the House
it need not be the most violent
revolution that has occurred in
American politics within compare
lively recent years.
The conditions under which the
two parties enter the Congressional
campaign of 1906 are more nearly
like those of 1874 than of any 9TH
er recent period. In that year the
disastrous Greeley campaign had
brought the Democratic member
ship of the House to a lower ebb
than it has since stood at. There
were only ninety.two Democrats
to 1874 Republicans, Republican
majority of 102 in membership
much smaller than that which the
House now has.
And yet, in the elections of 1874
the Democrats gained seventy six
members, increasing their num-
bers to 16S and reducing the Re-
publicans to 107. In this election,
therefore, the Democrats changed
a Republican majority of 1902 into
% Democratic majority of sixty
one. If the Democrats do any
thing like so we'll in this years
elections. they will control the
House in the Sixtieth Congress by
a larger majority than the bumper
vote they had in the Forty.fourth.
The Republicans Jared even
worse in the elections of 1890. In
the Fifty first Congress they had a
majority of seven, the member
ship consisting Of l59 Democrats
to 166 Republicans. The landslide
of 1890 left the Republicans with
only eighty eight members in the
Fifty. second Congress to 236 Dem
ocrats, Democratic plurality of
las, taking no account of the eight
Populist members.
The Republican preponderance
in the present House does not at
all represent the relative strength
OF the two parties. 1t is nothing
but the accidental result Of the
Roosevelt tidal wave and the col
lapse of Parker, who was worse
beaten than Greeley. In this cam
paign political conditions are more
nearly normal than they have been
at any time in the last twelve or
fourteen years, and the battle will
be fought, internationally, upon
the records of the respective par
ties.
According to present plans, it
seems, the Republican Congress
sional Campaign Committee is GO
ing to wage its battle mainly upon
President sevelt'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 re-