One feature of the recent elections throughout the country which escaped "m-mediate attention was the notable increase of the Socialist vote. The 86,000 votes which that party cast in 1900 have increased in two years to more than 400,000, and even this figure may prove to be too low an estimate. The strength of the movement is confined to no State or section; though it is most marked in Massachusetts and Pennsylvania.
The party while declaring for government ownership of public service corporations and for similar policies, is really more truly the expression of discontent among certain classes and elements at the methods and influence of corporations. It is more radical than the Democratic {Party though without any very definite Progress or policy.
finds its chief support in the large ities of the country and in this is curiously the opposite of the recent Populist movement which, with somewhat, similar principles, draws its strength from the farming sections, chiefly of the West. At any rate the Socialist movement has become-one that must be reckoned with by the politicians, for if its rate of increase should be maintained through the coming two years it would cast more than a mil ion votes in the next Presidential election.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.