The Birmingham age-herald., 1909-08-29
DEMOCRATIC HOPE.
Champ Clark Sees Fighting Chance In
 the House.

The Honorable Champ Clark of Mis-
 souri, democratic leader in the House,
 believes the prospects for his party in
 Congress are most promising because of
 the Payne-Aldrich tariff bill. Writing In
 the September Van Norden Magazine.
 he figures 1t out thus:
 Tn the Fifty ninth Congress the repub-
 lcans had majority in the House of
 IA In the Sixtieth Congress they had
 House majority of 57. In the present
 House their majority is AT. So that even blind man can see that the current
 Fl s against them. Holding all the seats
 that we now have, we must gain only 24
 in order to control the next House.
 Surely the tariff fiasco ought to give
 us not only 24 seats now held by the re-
 publicans, but twice A Indeed, the
 Payne -Aldrich bill Is such defiance of public opinion. such a thwarting of pub
 lie desire. that we ought to have as big a majority in the Sixty-second Congress as we had in the Fffty-second, when even New England sent more democrats that republicans to the House. as fruits of the Mckinley bill. History has a strange and instructive way of repeating itself.
 few figures may serve to elucdate the situation, and here they are: There are 19 republican members whose plural ities range below 1000; g whose pluralities
 are below 2oo0 and above 1000, and 1s whose pluralities are below 5000 and ahove oooO That makes 46 all told. With the current running against them, not a man jack of the 46 is certain of re-elec- tion.. When they think of the Payne Aldrich tariff bill and then of the first | Tuesday after the first Monday in No yember, 1910 the cold chllls creep up ] and down their spinal columns l One other thing is quite likely to help ua In 1910 In any event the Senate will remain republican until 1913. When the | henef,ciaries of the Payne-Aldrich bill reflect upon that fact and upon the fur l ther fact that they will hold the White | House till March 4. 1913, they may con | clude that there Is no sense in squander- inc theIr wealth in electing republican
 honse in 1910 and therefore leave repub- | lican candidates to paddle their' own canoes. Democratic prospects are i'm proving every hour.
 When I was boy, back in the hill | country of Kentucky, T heard an old
 backwoods doctor, who was good deal | of a philosopher. say that "the most sensitive nerve in the human anatomy | Is the nerve leading to the pocket-book. ' l He was correct When the average re- | publican voter finds that the promise oi | revision downward eventuated in revision i upward. and that instead of being low 1 cred the high prices of the necessaries oi l fife. against which he complained. have i been raised higher. he will do one Of two | things. He will either stay at home on | election day or go to the polls and vote l inc democratic ticket justifying himself 1 by the republican documents and | speeches.
 | Senator Aldrich Is so situated geo. l graphically and otherwise. that he can | afford to fout public opinion. So Is his l rirht bower on the finance committee Senator Reed Shoot of Utah. but the av- 1 erare republican in the Senate or House
 is not so fortunately placed. and must
 answer at home for what he does in | Washington. Consequently several re- 1 publican statesmen from the great Cen | tral West, now the seat of political em- l pire, have been keeping their ears close l to the ground.