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Show UNOFFICIAL RETURNS SHOW PRESIDENT WILSON. RE-ELECTED Result So Close In Several States That Republicans Republi-cans Demand a Recount-Democrats May Not Have Working Majority In House of Representatives. President, WOODROW WILSON. Vice. President THOMAS R. MARSHALL. New York, Nov. 11. One the face of the unofficial returns, the above is the choice of the American people for chief executive officers of the nation for the next four years, but the result is so close in several states that Republican Re-publican leaders are not willing to accept ac-cept the verdict until a recount of the ballots has been made in these states. The situation is extraordinary and has resulted in days of nerve-racking strain for the people of the country. If the election officials of a few remote precincts in a few states know how the nation has been waiting breathless to hear from them, they must be swelled up enormously with a sense of their Importance. For on those few precincts pre-cincts has depended the nation's choice of its chief executive. That Mr. Wilson's victory over Mr. Hughes will not be conceded without a recount in the close states, such as California, Cal-ifornia, New Hampshire, New Mexico and North Dakota, was determined at conferences of the Republican leaders here. Chairman Willcox asserted a recount re-count would be demanded wherever the margin of Democratic victory was so small that comparatively few votes would turn the scales. He and his associates as-sociates say they take the position that there should be no cloud upon Mr. Wilson's title to the presidency. The Democrats, for their part, declared that there must be a recount In New Hampshire, even though the returns gave the state to Mr. Wilson. That the returns are still incomplete is due to the presence on the border of th National Guard of a number of states. The soldiers are permitted to vote by mail, their ballots being forwarded for-warded to the auditors of their home counties, and In Minnesota especially the vote of the Guardsmen is likely to cut a figure in determining whether the state goes Into the Wilson or the Hughes column. Minnesota was as bad as California in the matter of shifts, and as Its delegation dele-gation is nearly as large, it, too, was watched with the intensest Interest. Through days and nights of counting, the race was a see-saw, with but a thousand or so of votes separating the candidates. Neither side would admit ad-mit defeat, and even now both are awaiting the soldier vote and the official offi-cial count New Hampshire a Surprise. Perhaps the most surprising of all the states was New Hampshire. It alone of ali New England failed to give the Republican candidate a substantial plurality, ana for days no one knew In which column it would land. The astonishing closeness of the vote was shown by the rival claims, three days after the election, of 100 plurality for Hughes and 84 for Wilson. In the circumstances cir-cumstances It Is no wonder that the managers of both parties should demand de-mand a recount. New Mexico, with three electoral votes, attracted national attention by placing itself early in the list of doubtful doubt-ful states, and as It soon appeared that almost every electoral vote would be vital, the returns from down on the border were grabbed hot off the wires. After veering back and forth for days, New Mexico was definitely placed In the Wilson column, though there, too, the president's margin was so scant that a basis was afforded for the call for a recount. A few mistakes discovered dis-covered in the flimrpq of the nroclnrt officials might well swing the state over to Hughes. Willcox Demands Recount. On Friday National Chairman Willcox Will-cox of the Republican party handed out the following statement : "The result still depends upon the vote in a few close states. It must be borne in mind that the returns thus far announced are, In most states, unofficial, un-official, and may be changed by' the official count required by the laws of those states. "Twice during these unofficial computations com-putations yesterday In California mistakes mis-takes In additions were announced from that state, substantially changing figures previously given. "It is a common experience that the result of the official count almost always al-ways varies from the returns first announced. an-nounced. "Where the vote Is as close as that sported la several states, it may well be that material changes will result from the official count. "We owe it to the country to take all necessary steps to see that an exact ex-act and honest count of the vote is made. When the current seemed to be running against Mr. Wilson on Wednesday Wednes-day the Democratic managers announced an-nounced their intention to demand a recount in every close state. "All we desire is to make sure that the vote is counted as cast." Both sides conceded that no matter what action might be taken in regard to a recount there was little likelihood of a contest being carried to the house of representatives as it was after the C V? Hayes-Tilden campaign in 1876. Legislation Legis-lation enacted in 1S87, it was said, made the state sovereign In pronouncing pronounc-ing judgment in a recount of the presidential pres-idential vote. How Congress Stands. Congressional election returns, nearly near-ly completed, assure President Wilson In the forthcoming administration a Democratic senate, but with five districts dis-tricts still undecided, the best that the Democrats could claim was a plurality of four votes in the house. Upon the basis of revised returns the Democrats have elected 215 members mem-bers of the house and the Republicans 211. In addition there have been elected elect-ed one Independent, one Socialist, one Progressive and one Progressive Protectionist. Pro-tectionist. Four districts in West 'Irginia, two of them nominally Democratic, and two Republican, and one district In New Mexico, are sun unaeciaea. n tnese districts do not change, the Democrats will have 217 and the Republicans 214, a plurality of only three. As there will be four members of other minority parties, a working majority ma-jority for the Derr- rats is improbable unless some of the minority members should choose to cast their lot with the administration forces. The senate, according to latest figures, fig-ures, will consist of 54 Democrats and 42 Republicans, a majority of 12. The Democratic majority In the present senate Is 16. An unusual feature of the result Is the election of the first woman to congress, con-gress, Miss Jeanette Rankin, Republican, Repub-lican, apparently having been elected In Montana. Six States Go Dry. Prohibitionists are jubilant over the results of the election where prohibition prohibi-tion was an Issue. From Washington the legislative committee of the Antl-Saloou Antl-Saloou league issued a statement, saying: say-ing: "Prohibition has taken another great leap forward. Michigan has voted for state-wide prohibition by 75,000 majority, Nebraska by 35,000, Montana by 20,000 and South Dakota by 25,000. Idaho has adopted a prohibition pro-hibition constitutional amendment by a majority of 3 to 1. Utah has probably prob-ably elected a legislature pledged to enact state-wide prohibition. Washington, Wash-ington, Iowa, Colorado, Arizona and Arkansas have defeated attempts of the liquor people to secure the. adoption adop-tion of proposals which would nullify their prohibitory laws. "Thus 24 states out of 48 one-half of the states of the Union have now declared for state-wide prohibition, Women Vote as Do Men. From the general result it Is clear that :ia the men voted In the sulTrag states, so did the women. In Illinois men and women seomcii about equally divided as to preference. prefer-ence. The state went for Hughes by a big plurality. In Kansas, Colorado, Montana, Washington, Oregon and California where women also vote, Wilson was successful, but his pluralities were not sufficiently large to indicate that the woman voters supported him as a unit. Farm Vote the Factor. There are several great outstanding facts concerning the result of the election, elec-tion, one of which is that labor, in all the big industrial states except Oliio, declined to give its undivided support to President Wilson despite his claim to it on the score of having persuaded congress to pass the Adamson "eight-hour" "eight-hour" bill. New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Indiana, In-diana, all gave the Republican candidate candi-date pluralities, and Ohio's vote in favor fa-vor of Wilson is not certainly to be attributed at-tributed to the labor vote. Another interesting development was the Independence of the West, which is asserting that it elected a president without the aid of New York and Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania and other big western and central states. When it was found, early in the evening of election day, that the empire state had gone for Hughes, the newspapers of the metropolis, metrop-olis, even those that had supported Wilson, conceded the victory to the Republicans, without waiting to hear from the middle West. When the returns re-turns came in from these regions, it was found that the farmer and stock raiser had decided the election. ' Yet another fact that calls for comment com-ment Is that Governor Johnson of California, Cal-ifornia, running on the Republican ad Progressive tickets, has been elected to the United States senate by something like 300,000 plurality, and yet the state went Democratic on the presidency. |
