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Show Eastern Political Conditions I HHHE election excitement has passed, but not J the bitterness of the campaign in the east- em states. Election in Utah is merely a Punch and Judy performance, which does not change from year to year; indeed, the dress of the principal actors is not changed; the same old rusty red and black show up again year after year; age cannot wither them nor custom change j their infinite weariness. But in the east it is dif- i ferent. The standpatters are sore; the insurgents jt are filled with onlyalfjamothered wrath. The ( standpatters look upon the insurgents as old man - Diaz does on the revolutionists; with the same bit- terness they think what the Republican party has accomplished in the past, and that it all has been a jeopardized by men with more ambition than either brains or capacity. On the other hand the j Insurgents are saying to themselves: "The idea f that some old fossilized trilibites, too dull to read signs or even distinguish manifest facts, should get in the path of progress and jeopardize the 1 glory of seventeen years of triumph, by sheer downright stupidity and meanness is an unbear- able thought." And the exulting Democrats are, down deep, a little afraid of their victory. The m wise ones are consulting as to how to shape i things so that the hungry madcaps of their party will not neutralize their victory and leave them in f a worse position two years hence than ever. It t Is a queer situation, and has had no parallel since I Mr. Cleveland's first election. It will be remem- S. bered that during that term very little was done i to be remembered, except Mr. Cleveland's pension vetoes and that enough Democrats joined with 'if the Republicans to make possible the beginning j of the creation of a modern navy. But the late election was not a presidential election; that is j still two years away, and what to do in the mean- jj: time will, among extreme partisans, be the ques tion. "What to do to not neutralize the present op- portunities, will be the question among level-head- ed Democrats, but are there enough of them to , steer things? ( v How to get the Democrats to "put their foot f in it" will be the study of level-headed Repub- licans, but are there enough of them to accom-( accom-( fy plish that? In the meantime we suspect that President Taft, no matter what may be his pres- i . ent bearing, is mad through and through; that i down deep he thinks he has been misused, that he j feels that the country ought to have C led his lofty and patriotic purposes and sustained him, but even Massachusetts went back upon him, to massSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSm say nothing of Ohio, for whose glory he has done so much. As we look upon it, the men whose downfall so many are celebrating, ought to be about the only one to take a cheerful view of things. He ought to be saying to himself: "Look at the fix they are all in! The Democrats have won just enough of a victory to seem to be in it, and yet they will have no say; the Republicans have frittered frit-tered away their strength and each side is charging charg-ing the wrong upon the other. No effective legislation leg-islation can come out of such a Jumble. But think; a year and a half hence when all is confusion, con-fusion, how naturally the people will turn to me as the great pathfinder; the pacificator; the enemy of monopolies and combines, the people's dear friend, the country's savior. They say my sun is set and cannot see that it is but a passing cloud to make the coming light more clear and beautiful. My sun set? Why, mine is that kind of a sun whose beams will be so refracted that I will seem to shine on and on after my sun shall really be set. |