"A cynic once said that an Independent is a Republican who always votes the Democratic ticket." And we may assume that this statement, if true, is sufficient motivation for the Republican hope that the Independents will find it too cold a day to go to the polls in the coming Congressional elections. It requires no keen observer to see that the Republican situation is uncertain; many seats in both the House and Senate are being contested vigorously.

More and more the campaign centers in a discussion of economy which has been caught up in characteristic newspaper fashion as "The One Big Issue". Following President Harding's veto of the bonus comes the statement concerning finances by Under Secretary of the Treasury Gilbert. While additional taxes will spell disaster, he says in effect, there is no alternative if there is persistence in any program of expenditures beyond the limits of the Government's income.

Equally emphatic is the National Budget Committee's stand: "The first and prime duty is to refrain at all hazards from going forward with each and every proposal that means the expenditure of money." That there is ground for such statements cannot be disputed. Careful estimates place the probable government deficit for the present fiscal year at six hundred and ninety-seven million dollars.

While facts and the voters do not often seem connected, perhaps people will have an eye to the government's purse strings at the polls this November. But perhaps also, if it is a toss-up between two candidates, the present office holder may win, if he can successfully expand his credit for his industry as a member of a Congress in which some five thousand bills were introduced, and three hundred enacted.