The Daily News. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1912. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LV, Issue 146, 7 November 1912, Page 4

The Daily News. THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 1912. THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.

It seems certain now, judging from our latest cablegrams, that America is to j have a new President next year. The elections have gone overwhelmingly to the Democrats, and Dr. Woodrow Wilson, the popular Governor of New Jersey, seems practically assured as the leader for the next term of office. Dr. Wilson is a leader who is universally respected for his high character, though his opinions have been generally regarded as somewhat advanced, even for a Democratic candidate; but the growth of political discontent and the advance of Socialism of late months in America have pointed all along to the selection of a President with advanced views. Several candidates have figured from time to time in the public eye during the involved and tortuous processes that go to the making of an American President, but these have been gradually wiped out by the inevitable process of elimination, until the contest has been reduced to a triangular duel between President Taft, ex-President Roosevelt and Dr. Woodrow Wilson, the eleventhhour selection of the Democratic Party. The Republican cause has gone back, particularly in the country, where Woodrow Wilson is particularly strong. This has militated strongly against President Taft's chances of .re-election, particularly when added to Lis action in thrice revetoing the Tariff Bill in the face oi both the House and the Senate. Mr. Roosevelt's picturesque candidature is still fresh in the minds of everybody, and it has been embellished with alt the possible stage effects, from mastadons to manslaughter, but his final decision to stand on purely independent lines, and as the representative of Roosevelt alone, has, apparently, not commended itself -to a country where party politics show a very distinct line of cleavage, and even that "bullet in his breast" has not brought him the strong sympathy vote that such a strenuous experiment ought to have evoked. The unrest in the United States for many months past has invested the present Presidential election i with more than ordinary interest. I America has been passing through a mental and moral crisis somewhat similar to that of Germany from 18S0 to 1890. "We have," says the Chicago Inter-Ocean, the organ of.the Democrats, "swallowed overdoses of German Socialism without knowing what it really is, and without understanding that it means a denial of a hereafter and the elimination of a God from the human soul. Now we are swinging back to the sanity of a pure Democracy." This estimate seems to have been tuirly accurate, and the great Republic is

seemingly prepared for the nexr year to elect an honest and popular leader who can be confidently depended upon to steer a safe and certain course between the' Scylla of Socialism and the Oharybdis of Conservatism. American politics are badly in want of the purifying element, and there seems a reasonable prospect of their securing this under the administration of Dr. Woodrow Wilson.