New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-11-04
An EDUCATIONAL" CAMPAIGN.

That is rather cheerful and encouraging view
which our phiosophio contemporary, 1.-The
SUM-" takes Of the canvass which came to an
end last night. In the view of 1.-THE SUM-
the people have received an enormous amount
of valuable political education during the few
weeks it has continued" 1.-THE great mass Of
the honest and conscientious people, have re-
ceived "the instruction in politics and in the
management of public affairs which only such a
campaign can afford" "They have been lifted
above sordid and selfish interests, and they have
learned that the duty Of every citizen is to be
a politician and an intelligent student Of poll
tics" In the opinion of 1.-The Sun" political
information has been 50 widely disseminated the
comprehension of political principles so spread
abroad, and the popular capacity for political
criticism cultivated to such an extent, that " a
man would have to search far among the citizens
Of New-York to find any who are ignorant OF
the issues" involved in the election.
We are free to say that it has not so appeared
to u.s. On the contrary, it has seemed to us to
be less campaign of education and much more
a campaign of ignorance, passion, prejudice and
unreason than any we can remember There
was some reason, perhaps, in calling last year s
campaign an educational one. Our Mugwump
friends dwet with especial emphasis upon that
feature of it. They said the Democratic news
papers and orators were instructng the people
in political economy when they told them that
the tariff was destructive to all our business
interests, that it raised prices increased the
burdens of the poor and decreased the wages
of labor. 1t certainly was a discussion of an i'm
portant issue in politics, and though the argu
ments that had most weight were fallacious and
unsound, it might at least be said that they set
people thinking even though the things they
learned had afterward to be unlearned. But the
campaign that closed yesterday in this State
had, so far as the Democratic orators and organs
were concerned, no relation whatever to any i'm
portant issue. 1t was forced by all of them to
turn upon question that was neither vital nor
important an issue that had been settled be-
yond changing and that no vote or thousand
votes or hundreds of thousands of votes could
affect.
1t does not seem to us altogether encouraging
or inspriting to look out upon the sort of tur-
mol that has been going on for these three or
four weeks and reflect that all this is in the or
binary and apparently necessary process of self
governments that all this tumut in which there
seemed nothing but vast uproar OF confused and
indistinguishable sounds without sense or rea-
son is what happens and must happen every time
we set ourselves to choosing the persons who
shall make and execute the laws and admins
ter public affairs. The spectacle presented the
personal appearance language, manners, address,
habits of the conspicuous persons in these dem
onstrations, the character of the places they fire.
quent, the aspect of their surroundings, the in
struments they use, and the methods they pur
sue, are not calculated to fatter our National
pride or increase our self-reSpect. We are I'M
able to see anything in this that educates the
masses or lifts them above sordid and selfish in
terests. On the contrary there is much that is
demorazing and degrading.
There is one comfort out of all of it. though and
that is the reflection born out of our experience
as a Nation that. however the masses may be
misled and deceived by appeals to ignorance,
prejudice and passion, they can be safely trusted
in the end to do what is right.