St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1890-08-03
VARIOUS CATACLYsMs.

There are political oracles who are ex-
tected to wall dolorously over the
threatening aspect toward their party
crockery of the great movements in
progress among the agricultural and in
dustrial classes. They may, perhaps.
find comfort in the optimistic fancy and
partisan hope that it is passing mad
ness" 1t will be time for serious con-
sideration when the intelligent and con-
sentative producers of the land, with
their overwhelming numbers. lose their
heads. 1t may be suspected that their
menaceS are directed more at the polit-
ical impositions that have made them
suffering victims than at any of the
pillars of the public interest. In the
latest issue of that excellent magazine
The Arena, there is paper contrib
uted by Prof. j. r. BUCHANAN
that has an interesting and some
what startling vision designated
"The Coming Cataclysm OF America and
Europe" He sees very lurid picture
of the agricultural situation, and alleges
that ''the legislation of financiers and
politicians has destroyed prosperity and
robbed the people of several thousand
millions, and furnished the major part
of the princely fortunes that tower
above the common plane of humanity
and threaten the stability of the repub-
lie; for the Jeffersonian republic cannot
stand on prince and pauper' basis. or
mighty landlordry and an humble
rack-rented tenantry." 1t seems to him
that the people are moving on to con-
summation in which they will take mat
tiers into their own unreStrained hands
and ''precipitate crash utterly unex-
amped in the worlds financial history"
In Illustration of this tendency he refers
to the demands of the Alliance move
ment in the South, and the case in Kan
SaS where farmers gathering resolved
not to pay taxes in December unless the
government helped them with the loan
of money at low rate or interest. In
the writer's view they will be I'M
able to meet their obligations with
out government aid, and it has no
money to loan. But there is CLEAN of
light. and, perhaps. an interpreting key,
found in the still more sensational part
of his picture. Every newspaper in
Stinct protrudeS in fine phrensy at the
prophesv of coming cataclySm, which
in its magnitude and horror will surpasS
anything of which authentic history has
preserved a record" This is the civil
war between capital and labor. lie
sees this tremendous spectacle with the
penetrative vision he is specially
endowed with. but makes the work of
the photographer in the East at least
unsatisfactory by introducing a nat
ural CONFUSION that will submerge all
the Atlantic coast from the north line of
with a tremendous tidal wave. All
who do not escape to the highest hills
will be swept away. The moneyless
and impoverished will have the
satisfaction for once of being on an
equality with the monopolists, million
aires and ariStocracy. Demoniac de-
aight will be taken in seeing the rich
old curmudgeons fioundering bottom
ward under the weight of their treas
nres. The prudent, as in the days of
Noah, will come West about five years
before these incidents. The details
will all be given with illustrations from
Photographs in the daily press Of the
time. AS it is thirty years away, it is
too soon to order extra papers. There
are nearly as sensational events to
transpire over the water, but they are
of no present interest. The aggravation
is thirty years. 1t is too long to wait.
IF the professor were not an accepted
scientist, and the magazine one of the
most staid, no credit would be given.
He would be takeu to an asylum. But
other events are not out of keeping
with the theories that the agricultural
classes are to become RoBEsPIERREs
and political iconoclasts in any dev-
astating programme.