Springfield Weekly Republican

REPUBLICAN PANIC ABOUT OVER.
Administration Majority in the House Expected—Col. Roosevelt's Prospects as Seen From the Capital.
From Our Special Correspondent.

WASHINGTON, D. C., Sunday, October 30.

The managers of the two political committees are approaching the elections of next month with the expectation that the republicans will retain a small majority in the House. The republican managers have gone carefully over the doubtful districts, where they have concentrated more well directed effort than in almost any previous contest, and are convinced that they will hold enough of them to keep the House under administration control. There was a good deal of a panic at republican headquarters a month ago, after the unfavorable votes in Vermont and Maine and when reports were daily reaching Washington of republican dissatisfaction and apathy. Work was begun to arouse the country to the importance of continuing sound money control of Congress, if business prosperity was not to be retarded. This work is believed to have been effective. The republicans will lose many districts which they carried in 1896 upon the crest of the wave for the maintenance of the gold standard, but they expect to pick up a few new districts in the wheat belt, and they have a considerable margin upon which to lose. The managers of the silver campaign are "going it blind" in much their usual fashion, claiming victory, but counting upon nothing but a general breakdown in the republican lines to bring it about. It takes their most sanguine computers to wipe out the whole of the republican majority in the House, and even then the populists or eastern democrats are left in a position to dictate the organization of the House.

The tidal wave upon which alone the silver democracy base their hopes of success is among the possibilities, but is not now regarded by good judges as among the probabilities. The percentage of republican loss in Vermont and Maine would be sufficient to make sad havoc with the present republican majority in the House, but would not put the democrats back in as favorable a condition as 1892, when they had about 80 majority. The greatest dangers the republicans have had to fear have been that their own voters would stay away from the polls and that the gold democrats would either stay away or vote for the candidates of the silver organization. Both these classes of voters have been the object of earnest effort during the last three weeks. The republicans in the really close states, like Indiana and New Jersey, are so used to voting when there is an election that they will probably show smaller losses than some of the states where there is a big republican majority to bank upon. As for the gold democrats, the effort has been made to convince them that the republican party is still favorable to sound money, in spite of the foolish attacks upon President Cleveland and Secretary Carlisle in the campaign handbook and the refusal of the republican leaders at the last session to take up the problem of currency reform. Reports from the eastern states indicate that the gold democrats will generally vote for the republican candidates for Congress, but that they refuse to be dragooned into support of republican state candidates for the purpose of keeping Platt and Quay in power or convincing the Spanish cabinet that "the country sustains the president."

Opinion here has grown more favorable to the election of Col. Roosevelt than was the case a week or two ago. The large republican registration in the country districts of New York is regarded as assuring a full republican vote, while Croker's mistake in attacking Judge Daly appears to be having influence with the independent voters. Gold democrats of pronounced party loyalty will vote for Van Wyck, who is held in very high regard by those who know him, and their votes will make mincemeat of the majority of 213,000 which was rolled up for Gov. Black in 1896. There will be enough votes left, however, if the republicans come out, to bring Col. Roosevelt down to Harlem bridge with a majority of 100,000 or more, and it is doubtful if this can be overcome in Greater New York. Van Wyck should receive almost exactly 100,000 majority if he holds the Tammany vote of last year for mayor, one-third of the vote for Low, and the vote for Henry George. These would give him, in round numbers, 300,000 votes, against 200,000 for Roosevelt, and would represent about the normal strength of the two parties when the democrats were united under Cleveland. As matters stand, however, there are likely to be gold democrats who will vote for Roosevelt for various reasons, cutting down the "legitimate democratic plurality," while similar democratic divisions up the state may carry the Roosevelt majority outside the greater city considerably above 100,000. Unless republican disgust with the canal scandals and the way in which the Platt candidates are dodging them is more potent than democratic divisions, Col. Roosevelt seems reasonably safe.