The Ketchikan miner., 1908-09-12
TEE INDEPENDENT VOTE.

The future of American politics is in the hands of the independent vote. The age of party supremacy is pass
 ing. More and more this has been demonstrated in every part of the re-
 public. This does not mean that there is no longer any place for party or ganization, party issues or party lead CTS. They have if anything, a larger part than ever before. It is their pro-
 vince to champion distinct and im-
 portant advance movements and plead their cause before that ever increasing
 jury intelligent, widely read, un-
 committed to any party, the independ-
 ent vote. It is this vote that elected a Republican governor in Democratic Kentucky and Democratic governors in Republican Minnesota and Oregon. It was that vote that elected Grover
 Cleveland and Theodore Roosevelt as presidents of the Union. It was also tha. vote that put aside both the reg ular party nominees in the Alaska elect on and elected James Wicker
 sham as delegate to congress. It may be tickle, it may make blunders, it
 may be the despair ot politicians and sometimes the prey of demagogues. but it is here to stay and every party and every candidate must reckon with it, and in the long run this plain, practical, independent public who care little for party claims or party tradi- tions, who have laid their flowers long ago on the graves of Jefferson and Lincoln, Jackson and Grant and left them and the dead issues of the 18th century behind and are now liv
 ing in the 10th century, are more and more concerned with solid business conditions and, a square deal, observ ance of law, the overthrow of monop- Oly, sober people and a government for the people and not for the few.
 These people will not be fooled or defeated but will give us better gov ernment than our fathers ever had.
 The people have an old fashioned notion that they are rulers in America and they propose to assume the throne. Any senator or congressman or speaker of the house who imagines he is master, not servant of the people and blocks their wishes, as has been done in other days will wake mp some | day as kings once did to find that the | judgment day has arrived for them. No party with an honest, straight l platform, no candidate who is a patri Ot and states man, no servant of the people who has clear conscience and a clean record has aught to fear from a condition like this. This is the age for men. It cares little what political buttons they wear but what the can didaJes are. Its idols are the Folks the Johnsons, Hughes and Roosevelts no matter where they five or what party name they bear.
 All this has much to do with the political conditions of the present. No man can possibly predict whether MT. Taft or Mir. Bryan shall be elect- ed. There are few positively Repub- lcan of Democratic states left. There are many independent ones. Neither the Democratic nor Republican party will either one elect president this year. The independent vote will make the decision, probably andwili choose between MT. Taft or MT. Bryan. Yet the lesser parties are no mean factors for if they do not elect their candidate, they may seriously affect the results They must be reckoned with. The Socialist party, which has platform with some very sensible blanks in it, is DO small item in the great cities, and, strange as it may seem, is making many converts among the farmers. They cast 90, votes in 1900, they expect l, 500 GOO this year, The Independence party as { } yet an unknown factor, has an excep-