Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-09-11
Wise Outsiders Refrain from Making
Any Prophecy.
PREFERS TO WAIT FOR RETURNS
Many Changes in Voting Constituency
During Last Year.
TWO COMPLETE TICKETS ARE UP
insurgency Not SO Strong, But the
Liquor Question is One of the
Paramount
Issues.

AUGUSTA Me. Sept. lO.--(special Sele-
gram mot for a generation has so fierce
political battle been fought in Maine
as that which practically came to a finish
tonight. And it has been great many
years since there has been so great a
doubt as to what the result will be until
the votes are counted Monday night
The republicans claim they will elect Gov
ernor Fornald by a safe. though perhaps
reduced majority. and will return an un-
broken republican delegation to congess.
The democrats are claiming the cleo
ton of Col Fred w Plaidet as governor
and say they will capture the First and
Second congressional districts.
The wise outsider refrains from making
a prophecy, but is inclined to regard the
democratic claims to be most likely to be
borne out when the returns are in.
For thirty years Maine has been so stead
fastly republican that politicians ceased to
be uneasy about its vote one way or the
other But in the last few years great
changes have taken place in Maine's voting
constituency.
insurgency Not strong.
Insurgency Is not as intense or powerful
III hdlnG It's III OInOi SldlSsi buN StlS IauSNS
which have produced 1t elsewhere are act
lively felt here. Together with dissensions
and counter currents in the republican fold,
it. has been strong enough to force the re-
trement OF so long potent a political fac
tor Senator Hale.
With these forces and others at work, the
election on Monday will undoubtedly have
Ia national Importance that Maine's elec-
tons have lacked for nearly a generation.
This elections result will be the forer'ln-
ner Of what may be expected at the No
vernber elections in other states.
/ In 1894, the year when the great reaction
against President Clevelands adminLstra-
tion begun. the republican plurality was
sc ,sl7 In a total vote of 99,TH. Two years
later the republicans reached their high
water vote with plurality OF As,24s in a
total vote of 1896 Then began gradual
recession. In 1896 remarkable falling off
set in when the republican plurality t0r
governor was only s.O64 in total vote Of
1870, 40.
Two years ago, in 1905 1t fell stll lower
and in proportion TO the whole vote the
loss was still greater. In total vote of
| 9Sl9 the republican plurality for governor
was only 1888.
LiquOr Question Not an Issue.
The issues which are having this effect
are mixed. They are partly state issues
and partly national. In Maine probably
more than anywhere else, state issues, even
in campaign in which representatives TO
congress are elected. assume an inordinate
| Importance. This is because Maine has
( long been a prohibition state and yet the
| prohibition question is as burning an issue
| as ever The democratic organization is
making 1t a principal Issue and 1t is likely
that 1t will have very considerable effect
/ on the elections, but for a curious reason
which does not appear on the surface.
Five years ago the republicans devised
plan of enforcing the law over the heads
of local officials. An act was passed Great
ing state enforcement commission, with
power to send its deputies into any part of
the state, This law, the republicans argued,
would put stop to liquor selling But not
only has 1t not done this. but 1t has served
to irrltate a large number of surreputious
4 liquor sellers who heretofore have been
ward workers for the republicans.
How large a factor the Illicit liquor
ers form may be judged from the fact
seners form may be judged from the fact
that there are several thousand arrests ir
Maine yearly for selling liquor, and that
these arrests are only a fraction of the
total amount of liquor selling going on
These Illicit dealers are all more or less
miexd in the subterranean channels OF
politics and exetr a strogn influence.
This enforcement act forms one of th'
chief issues of the democrats. They as
sert that prohibition is nil in Maine that
dives have multiplied: that arrests hav,
increased; that social drinking clubs have
sprung up; that liquor expresses have
multiplied; that the right OF city towr
and county TO its own police force regu
/ lation has been taken away. and thatonly
one county has so far consented to pa,
the expesnes Of the enforcement commits
sion, all OF the otner counties refusing