St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-06-02
THE PATERNAL MANIA.
Insanity on the Incre ase in Uncle
Sans Domain.

Boston Globe.
A most extraordinary fanaticism
seems to be gaining Roadway in this
nation. 1t is born of that wild concep-
ton of our institutions which assumes
that the national treasury is the uni
versal feeder of all manner of schemes,
and the fountain from which all manner
of private relief should be supplied.
Last week Senator Butler, of South
Carolina. in the name of nine col
ored citizens of that state and their
families, asked congress to appropriate
$1,000 to send them to Liberia. AS ev-
cry other colOred family in the South
has the same right to call upon congress
for similar free ride, this gratuity, if
passed around to all corners, might pos
sibly cost the government some $780,,
100000.
On the same day that the above petit
ton was offered Senator Cockrell, of
Missouri, wanted The. government to
lend the farmers of the West. who are
struggling under mortgages, sum
nearly three times as large as the whole
national debt, provided all the mort
gagged farmers should take advantag e
OF it, at per cent interest, for twenty
years.
A still more extraordinary petition to
congress comes from San Francisco, in
which the government is asked to con-
slider all the unempl Dyed of that city as
an industrial army entitled to pen
sion in the form of employment, at the
hands of the nation. To give themselves
more the air Of pensioners. the indus
trial army has organized itself into regi-
ments. This scheme, if adopted by
ongreSs, would cost the country untold
millions.
Outside Of these paternal schemes we
have the standard cry of the protection
lists for the government to help build
ships for private individuals. The pro-
posal to pay sugar bountieS is only the
entering wedge for the extension of the
system. 1t is also proposed, in some
quarters, to introduce export bounties.
Finally, private individuals ask the
government to irrigate their lands. In
short, there seems to be general rush
of stockings for national pap.
How largely this paternal mania may
be due to such works as the Bellamy
book, or the encouragement lent to ma
tionaliSm and state socialism by prom
inent men, is uncertain. 1t is doubt
less largely due to the known fact that
the party in power is willing to be lavish
with the peoples money for the sake OF
keeping down the surplus. The col
ored men of the South and the farmers
and unemployed workingmen of the far
West have evidently got the notion that
the government has come to become a
SOFT of great gift enterprise, and they
are all scrambling to get In their claims
early.
The sure stopper for all this kind of
business is the simple inability of the
government to grant these petitions,
even if it wanted to. Here is the estl-
mate of the New York Sun of what
merely three of the petitions we have
cited would cost the nation if carried
out fully and impartially:
For the coiored emigrants to
Liberia ......... :. 80. s650,0oo, 900
per cent. -. 3,4oo, 100000
For the support of the indus
trial army ................. 1900, 100000
Total Observation-Disclosures So, 35O, OOO,O 900
When to this is added the pension
grants, shipping SUBSIDIES, export boun-
ties and other bonanzas yet to be
Matched in fertile brains, it amounts to
a huresnue of sober government we'll