The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1891-10-08

The architects of the Farmers Alliance
and the Peoples Party, like PETER, Jerry
Simpson and Ignatius Donnelly are the
modern reproductions of the lead
ers of Shay's rebellion, which
took place more than q century ago
in Massachusetts,. The engineers of this
rebellion are described as fellows who
would spend forty shillings a year
for rum and then head a mob
to have the governors salary
reduced, although the salary did not
amount to three pence man in the whole
commonwealth. The whisky rebellion in
Pennsylvania in Washington's second term
was fomented by brains Of the same
quality that are possessed by the hirsute
PETER and "Sockless Jerry" At the close
of the Revolutionary war there was no lack
Of fellows who desired an abolition of
debts, public and private, and new divi-
sion ofproperty, and the Farmers Alliance
philosophy of finance as expressed in the
sub-treasury scheme was illustrated in
the disastrous State Land Bank of Rhode
curity and pledged the faith of the state
for its redemption. This money which
the state declared legal tender for public
and private debts never circulated at par
it paralyzed the industries and COM
merce of state, and led to the Reputation
CT the greater part of the state debt; one
dollar in coin came to be worth fifteen of
the Land bank issue, and the end
was a collapse of credit and business
so complete that it took years for the state
to recover from it. The Rhode Island
principle was applied with disastrous re-
suits to France by John Law in Ills.
and in our day the Argentine Republic
tried to obtain prosperity under the same
system of finance that had failed in
France and Rhode Island so miserably and
its terrible consequences are familiar facts.
The sub-treasury scheme of the Farm
ers' Alliance nevertheless, is supported
today id spite of these historical warnings
by many persons who would probably feel
insulted if they were described as other
than intelligent men. Granting, as we
must, that the leaders of this movement
are fairly intelligent men, it is clear that
neither for them nor for the majority of
their followers can it be pleaded that they
are moved by ignorance to advocate folly.
The true solution of the situation is that it
is due not nearly so much to popular
ignorance as to the lack of public moral
sense.
The theory that higher education in
political learning will prove specific cure
for our national sins of tax cheating, mu-
nicipal extravaganza, financial folly, will
not serve our turn, because these sins are
enacted and endured not so much through
ignorance as through ingrained dishon-
esty and deliberate selfishness. In 1s74-76,
ex-United States Senator Thurman, an
able man, equipped with ample historical
knowledge, became Greenbacker, and
in 1873 was a silverite; his son, an
able man, is under the inspiration of his
father, an ardent advocate of free silver
coinage. Alexander H. Stephens, of Geor-
gia; Ben Butler and ex-senator ingalls,
were all children of colleges and of culture;
all men of superior intellect, and yet all
were Greenbackers or silverites. Did these
of Hght2 The truth is that the moral
sense of the people, not their lack of the
light represented by learning and study, is
at fault.
Political dishonesty and personal selfish
ness are the soul and inspiration of
wicked legislation and dishonest finance
within and without congress. No man of
ordinary business knowledge but honestly
despises Greenbackism. Democratic Con-
gresham Harter, in his denunciation of
free silver coinage, says:
The only honest and unselfsh man who can
contemplate without dread the consequences of
an unlimited coinage of silver dollars worth IS
per cent. less than the standard (gold) dollar is
he who knows nothing of the nature OF money,
who has never mastered the rudiments of the
law OF coinage, who is ignoran. of the expert
encc of nations, and unacquainted with the in
fallible operation of Gresham's law.
The sort of intelligence that secures
state against moral blunders in legisla-
ton, against financial folly and extrava-
gance is common enough now, and our
difficulty and danger are not to be averted
by founding schools of political learning.
but it is to be found in an awakened ma
tional moral sense to take the place of the
cynical indifferentism with which all men
in politics, whether children of common
schools or children of colleges, whether
they know all historical and political
preceients or not, look at public measures
and public men.
The mass of the people are not ignorant:
they sin against light from selfishness or
moral indifference to everything except
the prospect of lodging debt or making
one dollar two by scaling their debts or
swindling the national treasury as cheer
fully as they do any other corporation.
Political learning will not make rs
wiser or more honest in action until we
vitalize public moral sense As a people
We know a deal better than to do as we do.
We curse our own congress; curse
extravagant and corrupt officials. and vet
they fairly reflect the prevailing moral
sense of the time. Institutions do not
make men but men make institutions.
The stage, the courts. the press. the leg
islatures and the laws are as good as the
people. The fountain head of politics is
the people, aud the stream cannot rise
above its source. Brains, knowledge and
culture do not keep leaders in congress
and In politics from enacting folly and ex-
travagance, and threatening financial leg
islation instinct with dishonesty through