The Birmingham age-herald., 1912-02-11

| It Is idle, nay. it is worse than idle,
 to deceive ourselves, and for us to cry | 'peace, peace, when there is no peace -
 It is injurious to the policies and prin.
 ciples we believe are best for our coun-
 try and our people
 The following states, known as the
 solid south,' have continuously voted l for the democratic nominee since 1892: 1 Alabama. Arkansas, Florida, Georgia.
 Louisiana. Mississippi. North Carolina, | Tennessee, Texas and Virginia-and
 their combined electoral vote aggre-
 gates 126.
 | The following states comprise the
 solid north" and they have never falt-
 cred in their support of the republican
 national ticket since 1892: Iowa, Maine.
 Massachusetts. Minnesota, New Hamp- shire. Ohio, Pennsylvania. Rhode Island
 and Vermont. Their total electoral vote lis 124.
 | These offiical figures show how near | ly balanced the two great parties are l in their voting strength and that d
 great majority of the voting strength
 in the electoral college is changeable-
 variable-depending on business condi-
 tions and local influences.
 One very remarkable feature in the
 list of possible candidates is that the
 democratic party has but one candidate
 that would be assured of the electoral
 vote of his own state. Missouri has two
 strong and able men, Messrs. Clark and
 Folk. Missouri in 1908 and In 1904 gave her electoral vote for the republican | .g. 4 ed a republican governor in 1908. Tn
 1910, in the congressional election, IS
 democrats and three republicans were
 chosen to represent the state in the 1 House of Representatives
 Illinois has not gone democratic since
 1892 and its popular majority for MT.
 Taft was 179,122; and in 1910 the repub- ! iean majority was more than 60000, and only Il out of the 25 in the House are dem
 ocrats. Mir. Harrison of Chicago is the l favorite son of Illinois.
 | sMr Harmon of Ohio is similarly situ- ated. The state in presidential years is about as certain to go republican as Geor- l gia Is sure to go democratic. It went .em- ocratc In 1905 1908. and in 1910. The dem ocratc majority for governor in 1908 was | 19,372, but MT. Taft's majority was 60,59i l The vote was full one; .he prohibition
 vote fell off and presumably was given to | the democratic nominee. In 1910 Governor Harmon received the phenomenal majority of 1O0.377, and this led 10 a hope that he was the logical democratic candidate for the presidency in 1912 But an analysis of the vote will show that it was not his popularity that won. but republican leth- argy. MT. Harmon received in 1910, 25,6ii
 less votes than Mr.. Bryan received when
 he was candidate for the presidency. But the republican candidate for governor received 195.6l2 votes, less than Mir Taft
 in 1908. There were ,256 less votes cast
 in the suberna toria election in 1910 than in the presidential election in 1908 One
 other point that seems to have been over looked and that is while MT. Harmon
 had in 1911 over 10000 majority, yet he actually received more than 75,000 less votes in 1911 than he did in 1908. These
 facts will show that Governor Harmon's
 strength has been greatly overestimated in Ohio.
 | Governor Foss of Massac chusetts is un- fortunate in this, that his state has been in the republican column since 1o.i. But in 1911 on the tariff issue the state wens democratic by S102, but almost 42,000 votes were cast for Governor Foss on tickets other than the regular democratic ticket and there were some IS, 600 less votes cast than in 1908.
 One of the most hopeful candidates for vice president is Governor Plaisted of Maine. Under his leadership he wrested Maine from the republican. column and re- ceiyed more than 5000 more votes than MT
 Taft in 1908, and his republican opponent
 received only 23l5 less votes than Mir. Taft
 while the total vote, instead of being less than in presidential years was 34,696, more than was cast in 1908 And not only So. but the legislature Is also democratic in both houses. Both United States senators