Cresco plain dealer. (Cresco, Howard County, Iowa) 1913-1945, 1914-11-13
The Election Result.

u0 LI01LlVu NooulG'
ITO have held it's own in the Senate
and to have been able to organize the
House even by the slenderest majority
under prevailing conditions shows the
confidence of the people in the Wilson
policies. No party before has revised
tariff and shown such victory in ar
off year"
This is the statement of Secl etary
Daniels, commenting on election results.
The surprising feature of Tuesdays
election result is not that the Demo
cratic majority in the House was cut
down but rather, in the light OF history,
that majority was retained.
Every change in the tariff carries
with it disorganization of business and
in the case of Democratic change the
men of money hostile to Democratic
rule leave no stone unturned to precipl'
tate as far as possible conditions OF
financial depression.
The present year with . reduction in
tariff schedules, with new currency
law and with the tremendous influence
for the creation of instability that the
European War wrought, amazement
grows that stagnation was not general
instead of being an incident peculiar to
certain localities.
of all these conditions the Republican
leaders made the most. Every situa-
ton that could be converted into
cause for calamity howl was indus
triously heralded. And what is the
result The Democrats maintain prac'
tically their old lead in the Senate, and
in the House, really unwieldy before,
they will have in the next Congress
safe working majority.
The situation is remarkable and it
was brought about after fight that
throughout the country resolved itself
into one practically clean cut between
Democrats and Republicans. The Bull
Moose party, SO effective in 1912, had
become a factor almost negligible.
Back in 1889 the Republican party
revised the tariff and in 1892 Grover
Cleveland was elected. In 1909 the
Republicans revised the tariff and in
1910 and in 1912 they were beaten.
Changing tariffs mean new business
alipnments and new business align
ments during the process mean, psychol'
.ogical or otherwise, more or less
depression. This depression always is
charged to the party in power. That it
was possible to retain the support of
the people as was shown by Tuesdays
election in face of the fact of tariff,
currency, income tax, and the war
revenue measures, new and not yet
working smoothly, and the complete
Reorganization and partial destruction
of foreign trade due to the war, indi-
Gates President Wilson'S hold upon the
faith of the public is most firm.
It we're childish to maintain that the
magnitude of the Democratic victory in
1912 was the result of other than
abnormal conditions. II is patent that
much of the Democratic strength came
.s the result of Republican protest
against its own party leadership. This
dissatisfaction has been largely swept
away and the issue on Tuesday was
one essentially between the forces Of
the two leading parties and the Con-
gressional result was Democratic VIC
tory, for an entirely new House has
been elected.
There is little in the outcome that can
afford consolation to the Republican
party. Harmony has been sought but
it is hardly to be assumed that the pro-
Rressive element in evidence in the
Republican vote last Tuesday will find
qualification in the return to Congress
of the reactionary Cannon and Penrose
and others of their stripe. 1t is hardly
to be believed that the rank and file of
the party would return tn the Payne
Aldrich tariff, that they would favor
the undoing of any of the excellent
progressive legislation Of the Wilson
Administration. Yet the undoing OF
these things is what Csnnonisn and
Penroseism stand for.
There was surprise in the defeat of
Sullivan in Illinois but this is easily
accounted for in the failure of the state
Progressive party-the best organized
in the Union-to remain steadfast. In
Iowa, while there we're other influences
ut work which contributed their share,
the large factor in the defeat OF Mr..
Connolly was the tremendous normal
Republican majority he faced. His
campaign was one of the most remark
able in the history of the state, but in
a commonwealth which Mckinley and
Roosevelt were wont to carry by eighty
to one hundred thousand votes, with
dissatisfaction in the Republican ranks
all but eliminated, defeat by forty
thousand and by a man who has sue