Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 January 1915 — REPUBLICAN DRIFT SHOWN IN FIGURES [ARTICLE]

REPUBLICAN DRIFT SHOWN IN FIGURES

New York Times Shows Compilation From All States—Republican Gain Was 2,528,418. New York Times. Between November, 1912, and November, 1914, the republican party was born again. The official figures of the November vote In all the states, for the first time assembled and made public in the Times today, tell the story. The total vote cast for republican candidates last year was almost double the presidential total for two years before. In 1912 the vote for Mr. Taft was 3,484,956. In 1914 the republican vote reached a total of 6,013,374. This is a republican gain of 2,528,418.

Only once before in our political history has such a marvel of party regeneration and upbuilding been achieved. In 1872 the, democratic party was in sore straits. It had seven candidates for the presidency. The vote cast by the minor fractions of the party was insignificant —it represented only discontent, with the nomination of Mr. Greeley, a lifelong republican, as the candidate of the party. The Gree ley vote was 2,834,079. General Grant had a plurality of 762,991. Two years later, in 1874, the democrats secured a majority in the house- of representatives. That was a remarkably quick recovery, but in 1876 Mr. Tilden, with 4,284,885, actually carried the county on the popular vote. His plurality over Hayes was 260.935, 'a1th0ugh after thjj electoral commission had rendered its decision the electoral vote stood 184 for Tilden to 185 for Hayes. The subsidence of the progressive upheaval, of course, accounts for this enormous gain made by the republicans in two years. The Roosevelt vote in 1912 was 4,119,507, while the vote for progressive candidates last November was 1,906,417. There were only five states, California, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas and Pennsylvania, in which the progressive vote exceeded 100,000. Almost half the vote of that party was cast in three state, California, Pennsylvania, Illinois, where the total progressive vote was 932,679. Nevertheless, in Illinois and Pennsylvania, the progressives were outvoted.

The progressives lost 2,213,000, but the republicans gained 2,528,418. These additional recruits came evidently from the number of those republicans who in 1912 took refuge in the democratic camp, or perhaps with the socialists, for it is to be noted that the socialist loss in the two years is 214,378. The democrats gained 31,943 votes, which represented the return of the Roosevelt democrats to their own party. The democrats retain their control of the house in the next congress not through the success of their own appeal to the country but by the~obliging conduct of the progressivesdn'a good many districts, where they insisted on running their own candidates. Thirty'nine such districts are specified by the republican national committee, where the candidates of the party were defeated through the presence in the field of progressives. That is moer than sufficient to account for the small democratic majority in the house. The loss by the progressives of a good deal more than half their vote, which went bodily to swell the republican vote, is the great significant fact. The republicans have come into their old estate as a great party. That they are again a dangerou sparty for the democrats is manifested from the fact that their total vote is only 311,588 behind that of the party in power. The democratic leaders will find matter for serious thought in these official returns of the vote.