Little Falls Transcript

A Kentucky Mystery.
From the Pioneer Press.

Kentucky shows us a mystery. Without sharing the extreme optimism of those who declare that the recent election presages a break in the solid South that will surely restore the Republican party to control at the next election, it is fair to observe that the changes this year in popular sentiment are entirely unexplained. Up to the present time the Democratic press has contented itself with offering the usual excuse—that Democrats, being sure of the state in any event, stayed away from the polls, and thus permitted a reduction of the usual majority; which, if repeated, would make Kentucky Republican. But, unfortunately, the figures show this to be the exact opposite of the truth. Kentucky Democrats had enough of that last fall, when Mr. Carlisle had a narrow escape from defeat in his own district. The lesson was learned and this time they went to the polls and voted. The Democratic loss of some 15,000 in the size of the majority occurred in the face of the fact that the vote of the state in 1887 was greater by 9,000 than it was in the presidential election of 1884. There were few stay-at-homes, but there was an extraordinary change in public opinion. As compared with the election of 1884 the Labor and Prohibition tickets received an addition of about 8,000 votes. The Democrats lost some 7,500 votes, and the Republicans gained that many. The Courier-Journal's explanation that the Democratic loss was caused by this increase of the minor parties would account for so much; though it is not particularly hopeful as far as next year is concerned. But even that does not indicate in any way where the 7,500 new Republican votes came from. There is no way out of it but to assume that the Democratic party not only lost the bulk of the Labor vote, but that several thousand Democrats also voted the Republican ticket, at an election where there was no dissatisfaction with the candidate and no apparent cause for local defection. It is equally futile to argue, as the high protective organs have done, that the change was caused by a revulsion of feeling in favor of a high tariff. There is not another state in the Union where the adoption of even an out-and-out free trade platform by the Democracy would make as little difference to the party as in Kentucky. For a generation, at least, Kentucky Democrats have stood by the doctrine of tariff for revenue only. It has been taught to them as the first tenet of their political gospel by the leading Democratic paper of the state. It has appeared in platform after platform, and been reasserted in convention after convention, until to ascribe a loss of votes in Kentucky to advocacy of low tariff is as absurd as it would be to expect that advocacy of high tariff would cost Republicans part of their majority in Pennsylvania. There is no specific explanation for the Kentucky mystery. It seems, therefore, entirely reasonable to attribute it to general discontent with the policy of the present administration, which has been, at times, fiercely assailed in the state. It is worth while to bear this in mind as the first real expression in any part of the country of the feeling in the Democratic party toward the present chief, who received its support three years ago and will ask for it again in a year from this time.