Wichita eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1886-1890, 1890-01-28
THE ISSUES OF THE FUTURE.

From the Atchison Champion.
The great political issues of the future
of this country will be chiefly economic
the tariff, the labor question, and all
| those many issues related to and natural
| ~ growing out of these.
| Aside from the solution of the race
| problem in the south, which may be re-
garded more of a moral issue than any
at present engaging public attention,
there is not likely for many years to
come, if ever again in the history of the
nation, to be distinctively moral issue.
of national importance, at least not IN
the sense that the old slavery question
was.
The temperance question as distinct
lively national question, although mat
| ter of increasing and engrossing import,
is no more likely to be adopted as party
issue by either of the two great political
parties of the country, nor to be carried
forward to a successful realization by
any independent party, based on that
one idea alone and organized solely for
that purpose, than IS the adoption
of any one of a dozen moral prob
lens which might with equal propriety
and force be transferred Tor solution
to the field of partisan politics.
What was done politically for temper
ance should and will be accomplished by
the individual states, and not by a
National party formed for that specific
object.
SO that, it is reasonably certain for
these and other obvious reasons, the
Issues of the future, because of the rel
evency and pertinency Of all they in
volye will be largely, if not entirely,
those which revoive around purely econ
omic centers.
The relations of capital to labor re-
quire more definite and satisfactory adj
justment than that which now obtains
in this country. The question Of wages
and salaries; the number of working
hours, the trust problem, the rights of
corporations, the abnormal growth of
the money power of the country, the
tendency of the concentration of wealth
into comparatively few hands, together
with all those matters which affect the
citizen directly on the material side of
his nature and indirectly on the moral
side, all these enter as component
points into the issues which
at present challenge, and as
time progresses will yet more and more
challenge the attention of political
parties, and will force themselves as
never before upon the attention OF law
makers for equitable disposition.
The period to which Abraham Lincoln
referred when he said: Il see in the
future crisis arising that unnerves me
and causes me to tremble for the safety
of the country. By result of the war
corporations have been enthroned, and
an era of corruption will follow and the
money power of the country will en-
deavor to prolong its reign by working
upon the prejudices of the people
until all wealth is aggregated IN a
few hands and the republic is destroyed.
| feel, at this point, more anxiety
for the safety of my country than
ever before, even in the midst of
war'-the period thus prophetically fore
seen is at hand, and the issues it sug-
gest forces themselves upon public con-
sideration.
The party that is wise and brave
enough to accept the issues of the hour,
and which endeavors to provide, through
proper legislation, adequate safeguards
against the dangers which they fore
shadow, is destined to retain control of
public affairs for an indefinite period.
And Judging from its past temper and
record, the Republican party may be re-
lied on to meet its full responsibility in
the particulars indicated. If it does not,
if it shirks, lodges or evades, its doom is
sealed