Washington, Nov. 12.
The presidential election of 1920, an election fraught with more tremendous possibilities than any previous election in the 145 years of the nation'sindependence, has passed into history, and if its results have not exactly staggered humanity, they have almost dumbfounded even the American people themselves, not even the most san-guide Republican having had the audacity to predict the unprecedented majorities by which his party was destined to carry the presidential and congressional elections.
As indicated in my_ previous letters, conditions were favourable to the Republicans from the outset of the campaign, and as the day of the election approached it became more and more evident that the tide was running strongly in favour of Senator Harding. Neither the example of the prominent Republicans who put the advocacy of the League of Nations before the claim of party nor the efforts of Mr. Gompers to persuade organized labour that its truest interests were bound up with the success of the Democratic candidate seemed to have much influence with the masses., They wanted a change and a change they were determined to have.
Reasons ror THE Vorine.
But the desire for a change was the only approach to a common interest that actuated the 14,000,000 people who voted for Senator Harding. Some—probably a majority of his supporters—voted for him because he is an uncompromising opponent of the League of Nations. Others, following the lead of Mr. Taft, supported him because they believed—and we cannot doubt their sincerity—that the United States would be more likely to enter the League if it had a president who was opposed to it than if it had one who was in favour of it. Six million German-
Americans voted for Mr. Harding for the reason that he favours a separate peace with Germany and because they consider that Mr. Wilson's abandonment of his famous 14 points has been prejudicial to German interests. Between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 Trish-Americans voted the same way, notwithstanding that Governor Cox had promised to bring the condition of Ireland before the League of Nations, while Senator Harding had distinctly stated, with most commendable courage, that he did not consider Irish affairs a proper subject for official interference on the part of the United States government. The voters representing 2,500,000 Ita-lions voted for Mr. Harding be-
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.