Editor’s note: While compiling this week’s Out of the Past column, we came across this editorial from the Nov. 2, 1916 issue of the Enterprise Record Chieftain. It was published the week before the presidential election between Woodrow Wilson and C. E. Hughes. We found its message timely and decided to share it on the eve of our election 100 years later.

Next Tuesday is Election Day, the climax of a campaign of 10 months in Oregon. Every citizen should consider it his duty to vote, and should mark his ballot all the way down for the men he believes best qualified for the offices to which they aspire. After casting his vote, each citizen should go about his business, abiding by the result without cavil and without bitterness, The winners should be accepted cordially and in good faith, as they will deserve the support of all so long as they perform their duty.

A great American campaign is a tremendous strain on everybody. It is impossible not to get interested in some of the candidates and issues, and the result generally contains some disappointments as well as some successes. But Americans are a good-humored people and have had much experience in political battles. They take the result philosophically, the winners crowing without gloating too much, and the losers standing the raillery with a smile and many a sharp retort, and both forgetting the sharpness of the conflict in a few days.