New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1890-11-22
Nv OVERWORKED VICTORY.

This will not do gentlemen OF the opposl-
+;on Won can cite Your great victory to prove
almost ANYTHING you like. But 1t cannot De
cited TO provo everything at once. When one
naper declares in one article that the chlel
meaning of the election is rebuke Oh improper
partisan methods, and in another artcie ue-
clares with equal solemnity that its Chief mean
ing was a rebuke of the new tarH when one
person gravely asserts that it meant rebuke OF
the Election bill, and sundry others declare
that the wrath of the people was chiefly be-
cause Congress would not vote for free com
age of silver. the thing begins to be ridiculous.
large victory like this will stand some
stretching. But if everybody wears out inc
whole of il in behalf of his private notion Us a
tariff reformer, or Civil Service refOrmer, On
silver reformcr, or champion of shotgun cleo
tons. it will not last long enough to serve any
body effectively.
The danger is that people may presently per-
ceiye that the election proves nothing aoou'
any particular thing, because there are SO many
others about which it is claimed to prove some
thing. If the decision of the voters actually
turned upon the tariff question: then 1t ola not
turn upon the election, or Speaker Heed melh-
DDS. Ii it proves that the people were ehidseu
at the Election bill, or defects IN the Clvll ser
vice, then it does not prove that they were
dspleased with the tariff. Only about Tort
night has passed, and already Congress has
been soemny informed that it must do or undo
about dozen things, on the ground that the
people decided that matter at the recent cleo
ton. If this goes Oh much longer even the
Augurs themselves will begin to laugh, and the
tic OH oil
The answer will naturally be made that as
multitudes of men are influenced by many
ideas, a great many causes in different states
and districts combined to produce the result
True. but in that case there is no verdict OF
the people about any one thing in particular
On that suppositOn there is no certainty that
a large popular majority, if it had voted about
the tariff exclusively, or the Election bill ex-
clusiyely. OF the Silver bill exclusively, would
not have sustained either. The demand that
Congress should repeal the Mckinley bill be-
cause the people have voted against two or
twenty other measures or things is sufhclently
| ridiculous to be laughable.
In sober earnest members of Congress will
also need to guard themselves carefully against
trying to ride each his own private hobby
horse of explanation through the same gate
| at the same time Every man who wanted to
have shade less duty on binding Irvine, or a
shade more on something else, is tempted to
| rush before the House or Senate and demand
that things shall be altered to suit him, the
| millions in their might having SO decided. But
| it would be wiser first to attend to the things
which every member of the party knows in his
private conscience to be blameworthy. When
that has been done, and thoroughly done, 1t
will be in order to consider how far the stay at
homes, who actually turned the scale, may be
presumed to have stayed at home for one rea-
| son rather than another.