St. Paul daily globe., 1891-04-28
THE REPUBLICAN LEAGUE.

Ocu. NIARhSON was Ill DDSlOu
when the Cincinnati convention of Re-
publican clubs elected him president of
the national league; and that generosity
of mouth which, in some men, follows
the receipt of fresh hOnors, made him
very communicative to the reporter as
signed to interview him.. From this ex-
preston of his "yiewS," it is evil
dent that the general" is growing
man. He IypifieS the philoSophic
Dutchman, who observed that ''the
more you lives the more you find. by
shiminy. out" Last fall the general
had reached point in his folsom
march upward from which he could
see that one of the things that allied his
party was that the people were reading
more Democratic papers than they were
Republican papers, ana we note with
pleasure that the convention which
made this diScoyerer its president
adopted his view, and entered a
pathetic appeal to all Republicans to
give their loyal support to those papers
which, amid all discOuragements, main
tanned the true faith Of McKinleyism.
Now, down in Boston, with his mental
eye cleared by the east wind which blew
through his whiSkerS, and wisdomed by.
the brain nutrition which Is to be had
in abundance in the baked beans Of the
historic town, he makes the further i'm
portant and true discovery that his
party is sorely afflicted by hegira of
its young men. But there was no need
of his journeying down to Boston to find
that out. The GLOBE could have as
sured him from its own view of the per-
sonnel of the state meet of the clubs
that this was the case. AS it gazed on
the crowd which had gathered it had
no difficulty in recognizing them all.
1t had grown familiar with their faces
in the performance of its duty as news
paper. in witnessing the gatherings of
the faithful and reporting their pro-
ceedingS for many years past. 1t did
not have to make special inquiries as to
the names by which any strange faces
in the crowd were known, for there
were none. No face had the freshness,
the embryo beard or mustache of youth,
but all the familiar faces bore the
seams and wrinkles of many tough
fight on the field of politics. 1t
was the same old gang who have
held the offices of the party for
the past quarter century. The young
men of the party weren't in it. Aud
the same was true of the delegates
whom the state convention sent to Gin
cinnati. They were the old boys who
had run and run with the machine for
years, and who knew every cog and
piniOn and lever in it. They were. as
eX-Chairman THURsToN said, ''all vol
unteerS, serving without pay" but they
were volunteers in the same sense that
privateer'S crew IS, expecting their
pay from the possible loot in the future.
The seriousness of this loss seems to
be appreciated by the leaguers, but they
fail utterly to realize either its cause or
the remedy. They fail to perceive that
the young Republicans are leaving the
party of their fathers simply because it
advocates policy which their sense of
| right and justice rejects. and that the
| Democratic party draws them to itself
| solely because it proposes to advance
reform bottomed on the proposition
that it is sboth right and just. A
party is always in danger when its
young men leave it. 1t is an infal-
lible sign of dry rot. 1t shows that
the party is undergoing the same proc
ess which brought defeat to the Demo
Gratis in go, to the Wings in '52-the
| stubborn adherence to policy which
| shocks the sense of justice of un-
prejudiced men, and compels them to
make their protest in the only way pos
sible-the desertion of their party. And
| how do Mr.. CLARKSON and his CO.
machinistS propose to remedy this? By
| admitting their error and e5pouSing
the right? Not at all. They put their
trust in organization, which will in
sure the getting to the polls of the
| masses who never change, who are be-
yond the period of growth, whose
brains are oSSifed; and, for the rest,
they will try and fool the people again
with their little trick of reciprocity. 1t
| matters not that protection and reci-
proclty are irreconcilables; that it is
trying to ride two horses going in oppo-
site directions: what care they if they
can get votes by it? They will rely on
tiiOl1 otiiOOlll-lOils5 uCNl OldUOlS W DcL O8
the voters so that they cannot see the
absurdity of policy which strangles
trade with one hand while pretending to
offer it welcome with the other. And
so undeveloped are the minds of most
men. so out of focus, that these trick
SterS are not mlscalculating in their ex-
pectations of befooling enough voters to
carry them again into power. The duty
of Democrats Is clear. They too must
meet their enemy with organization, not
so much to make the party compact,
readily-handled mass, as to keep up the
educational campaign, directed mainly
to intoxicating clear ideas of what reci-
procity is in itself. and what this spuri-
Gus article the Republicans are Offering
is. The country has had its lesson in
protection, and learned it; now teach
it what reciprocity of the BLAINE
brand is, and it will be impossible for
the Republicans to mystify enough vot-
ers to save them from the defeat that
| else is certain.
THE TIN TAX.