Better Times At Hand

Washington, October ai. - The last week but one of the campaiga opens under auspices which are regarded by leading Dejnocrats here as very encouraging. Factional differences in several states have been settled and harmony has been restored where bitter party strife threatened disaster. In New York the situation has been greatly improved by the withdrawal of Strauss and the selection of Grant as the Democratie caníidate for the mayoralty. Strauss was nominated in the hope that he would add strength to the local and state tickets, but so much opposition was developed that the party leaders welcomed his declination, and it is admitted that whether elected or not, Grant's candidacy will materially strengthen the state ticket. The attitude of the administration toward Senator Uil] 's candidacy, which has been in sorae doubt heretofore, now appears to be most friendly. Secretary Lamont, Secretary Gresham and Secretary Carlisle are all using their inflnence to mass the Cleveland following ia New York under Senator Hill's banner, and it is reported on high authority that the president, within the next week, will make a contribution to the campaign fund and accompany it by such a letter as he had intended writing some time ago, indorsing the state ticket and pointing out the necessity for united action. Much interest is feit here in the result of the campaign tours of Reed and McKinley through Michigan and the northwest, and it is believed by the best judges that owing to Reed's reported utterances on the subject of the tariff, which he has since repudiated, the exspeaker's efforts have about offset those of Gov. McKinley, leaving the republicans in Michigan without advantaee. Reed's denial of hts reported statement is accepted here with a grain of salt, and in some quarters he is severely criticised tor not adhering to what is believed to have been a declaration made by him, not necessarily for publication, but nevertheless reflecting his real sentiments. Ex-Congressman Ben Butteworth, of Ohio, has this to say of Reed's denial: "And right in that connection I must say Tom Reed, in his reported interview, gave expression to the wisest and most popular thing he has said in three years. It is since reported that he is inclined to qualify his statement, and in that he is foolish. The McKinley bill as it passed the house was thought, ia some features, to represent one extreme; the tariff plank in the Chicago democratie platform represents anotherextreme,and proclaims a war of extermination against the system. That plank suggests purpose on the part of the democracy to revise or modify the protective syst;m, but to destroy it altogether, so in '94 we have to contémplate the policy of certain extreme tariff men on the one hand and the free traders on the other; the mass of the people are in favor of the middle ground." The party leaders are observing the contest in Chairman Wilson's district in West Virginia with close attention. The reports from the remote parts of the district indícate thatWilson is gaining steadily among the farmers, while his friends in the more populous regions declare he is losing no ground there. A significant feature of the campaign is a fact that Wilson is now stnrnping a section of the coal and iron mining district where Senator Gorman has large interests in common with exSenator Davis and ex-secretary Steve Elkins, while Senator Gorman hirnself declines to take the stump ia anp state on the plea of ill-health. Chairman Faulkner, of the democratie congressional committee who is spending Sunday at his home in West Virginia, wi'l return here tomorrow, and promises that the closing days of the campaign wiü witness the hottest fightine yet seen.