Life — October 29, 1908 — page 4: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“While there is Life there's Hope.” OCTOBER 2,188 No. 1357 VOL. LIL Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY AL MILLER, See'y ane Treat first Street, New York, JA. MurcHRLL, Prete, 17 West Thirt HERE never was such a cam- paign; never one so dull in its progress, and at- tended at its conclusion by voters so bored and reluctant. Hereabouts they have registered in fair quantities, and they will vote, but those who have come under our ob- servation are in a humor the like of which we do not recall in any Presi- dential year. Rarely do we meet a man who ex- presses anything like enthusiasm about voting for Taft. Almost everyone is willing to concede his merits; hardly anyone says anything against him; no- body dislikes him; plenty of votes are going to be cast for him, but crazy about him, nobody seems to be. It is curious; so excellent a mai But he was not the choice—not the wooed and won—of the Republican party, but a spouse selected by its master, and he is running in a hard times year as the candidate of the party that hard times overtook. Most of the Republican voters will vote for him, for they re- spect him and want him, but they will not holler. A great many Democrats hereabouts will vote for him, not be- cause they want to, but because they cannot bring themselves to vote for Bryan. These Democrats—all Demo- crats this year—want to fire the Re- publican party out of office. They yearn ardently to do it. They are tired of the Republican party, and tired to death of voting for its nominees. They hate its alliance with high-protection and favored interests; hate its assumption that it is the only squad of citizens in the country who are fit to govern the “LDFE* country. The ‘n inexpressibly to put the Republican party out, but they don’t dare vote to put Bryan in. So there is nothing these Democrats can do that is going to give them satisfac- tion. Most of them will go and vote for Taft because that is sensible, but they will do it sadly. Then, there is a large group of Re- publicans who hate Roosevelt and all his works with such violence of ani- mosity, that it is going to be just as much as they can do to drag them- selves to the polls and vote for Roose- velt’s candidate, and there is another big group who are profound admirers of Roosevelt, and only wish he had been more’ so, and had purged the party with more drastic vehemence than he has; and this group will vote with some dejection for Taft because they know he will not be any such thundering bolus as his predecessor. And there are Republican tariff-re- formers who know that they will not get tariff reform enough, and stand- patters who know that they will get too much. They will all vote for Taft, but none of them will do it with en- thusiasm, HERE are a good many Democrats in the country who wanted Bryan and have got him, but there are not many of them around here. Demo crats hereabouts who vote for him will do it cither because they are profes- sional Democrats, or because they are tired of having nothing but Repub- licans run the Government. The best of them know Bryan is unfit to be President, but they are so ashamed and distressed over the decadence of their own party as to be ready to vote it into office in the hope that the re- sponsibilities of power will develop men fit to shoulder them; and so, no doubt, it would in time. But though Democrats of this stamp will vote fcr Bryan, they will do it with anxiety and reluctance, and not without conscious- ness that they will be easily consoled if the other man wins. For that matter, thousands of voters on both sides are ready to be consoled if the other man wins. The Sun, for instance, is sup- porting Taft, but has tanks of ghoulish glee in its cellar to use in case the Roosevelt candidate is beaten. And who the Standard Oil people would rather have win, Heaven knows. HE Independent Democrat who has consoled himself for his purpose to vote for Hughes by the assertion that to elect Hughes is the way to do the Republican party the most harm, is a fair example in his state of mind of a large proportion of this year’s voters. They are voting, not for something they want, but to beat something that they dislike a little more than what they are voting for. Independent vot- ers with Democratic leanings in this State enquire anxiously why they should vote for Chanler. If they can find reasons they want to do it, but the present Democratic machine fills them with disgust, and how much else than that Chanler stands for the Inde- pendent voter does not know. Hughes is able, and has stood up handsomely to the Republican bosses. They and theirs will vote for him (if they do) with the sort of doggedness that belongs to captured mariners whom the pirate captain has invited to walk the plank. Hughes, however, will get a good many enthusiastic votes from folks whose hearts warm to moral reform, and Chanler will get some tens of thousands of hearty ones from folks whom moral reform has hurt, and who want to express their feelings. So there will be some eager voters of the State ticket here in New York, and plenty of them in matters of local concern in many other places, but so much lassitude about the Presidential tickets has not been seen before for a century. In the matter of principles there is hardly a penny to choose between the parties. As between the men the Re- publicans have by far the better can- didate, but their party needs the disci- pline of defeat, whereas the Democrats sorely need for the very country’s sake the discipline of responsibility and power.