Great Falls daily tribune., 1920-10-23
BIZ FREDERICK
HASKN

put III glass case of convervatism. and
set to blowing pretty soap bubbles of
platltude and generalization, while Mr..
| Wilson and his supporters went about
! the country hurling hard bricks of fact
about what they had done and what
they were going to do.
Are Voters Intelligent
This Republican campaign was based
upon an idea which is in direct discord
with the theory of Democratic govern
fnent, and has often proved to be in di-
rect accord with the facts of it. The
| theory is that the American voter is a
person of independent judgment and
good sense who votes always in obedi-
ence to those qualities. The fact has
often appeared to be that he is blinded
| by personal prejudice, and votes accord
| ing to his emotion of the moment, throw
| ing cool judgment to the winds.
| In this case the prejudice theory did
not seem to work to perfection. Wilson
at least offered definite statement of
aims and intentions, while Hughes Of
fered nothing but opposition to Wilson
and the pleas of party loyalty. NO one
has ever decided exactly what happen
ed, but it might be said that when the
smoke cleared away, the Republican
party was found PROSTATE on the field
ers all about it, In California, which
was the decisive state in the election
the voting was so independent and the
tickets were so heavily and variously
scratched that it took a long time TO
count the vote and many minor errors
were made.
What happened in California has al
ways been a mystery. Senator tlram
Johnson. running on the Repubi!can
-.
carried it for himself by d colossal ma
iority. Yet it gave majority to VIII
son for president. Some haZarded the
guess that the independent and progress
sive element back of johnson was not
wholly satisfied with the Hughes cam
paign. That progressive vote which
Roosevelt led back TO the fold did not
seem to be as large as it had been when
he led it away in 1912. The west, which
had given Roosevelt most of his votes IN
1912 was what carried the day for Will
son in 1916. The result seemed to con-
firm what had been indicated four years
before~-that there is really body of
independent and thinking voters in the
country who will not travel in partisan
leading strings, but will follow leader
of either party if they think he is offer
ing something definite.
Labor Makes Political Progress.
Next to this emergence Of an indie
pendent vote. perhaps the most interest
ing thing was the participation of labor
in the campaign 1t will be remembered
that in 1908 the American Federation
of Labor had for the first time taken n
partisan stand. 1t was generally agreed
afterwards that the labor leaders had
failed to deliver the labor vote both that
year and the following one. Neverthe-
less there was significance in the fact
that organized labor had entered parti
san politics without disrupting its or
ganization, as it had done at least twice
before. In 1916 labor had more induce
ments for supporting the Democratic
party than eyer before. The Adamson
eight hour law had just been put on
the books in the midst of a storm of
denunciaton from capital and of approv-
nj from labor.
Whether labor really voted the Dem
ocratic ticket in 1916 was ut least n
moot question. The big industrial CEN
ters of the east went Republican as
usual, thus indicating conclusivelT that
the labor vote was at least divided there.
On the other hand, there seemed to be