New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1891-06-08
NEW PARTY GENESIS.

That curious compound OF unwisdom and good
sense, ex-senator Blair, of New-llampshire has
been making some observations about the AL
lance party which Democrats quote with pleas
ure. He thinks that if the new party takes up
the issue of free education it will beat both
parties in the next campaign. As no other
orator ever talked longer time to smaller
audience than Senator Blair on his Education
bill, it may be assumed that he feels more
interest in the subject than the public has yet
manifested. 1t seems to him that the people are
boiling with excitement on the topic to which
he devoted his great speech. But neither tele-
soopic nor microscopic survey of the country
discloses any prevailing popular excitement about
the matter. The farmers conventions at the
West invariably demand with &lanlmity and
much sternness extinction of the. school-book
jobbery and reduction in price OF school books,
but it never occurs to any of them to change the
control of the schools or to propose what Mr..
Blair calls free education.
The remarks of Mr.. Blair are quite sound in
one respect. He thinks that the new third party
is almost entirely composed, as respects lts
active and managing men at least, OF tne oid-
time Greenbacl or tat-money agltatOrs, anu
the other used-up hacks and cast-oh odds ana
ends of the Republican and Democratic partles,
who have been getting up third parties Tor
living ever since they ceased to be appreciated
by their former associates. 1t happens that this
later form of craze gathers in the adherentS OF
the soit-mOney parties of past years, through all
the Western States, and thus is found to be
strong where they were strong and positive In
their delusions and weak where they were
weak 1t does not need prophet, nor the son
of q prophet to foretell that the so-called new
PARTY will 90 the way of several older parties
that have preceded and particularly OF the
Greenback or National party, which polled
500. 900 votes in twelve States in 1873, but
only 800, 600 in the whole country in 1880.
Mr.. Blair is right in the belief that any new
party must have an issue in which the people
take deep interest in order to survive single
campaign. The money question does not pre-
sent such an issue, because the fat-money non
sense has been cast aside as unworthy OF serious
consideration by all practical men. The AL
lance members themselves, though they start
out with the idea that some new kind Of money
can be brought into use by loans upon products
or lands, are rapidly coming to discover that
such loans must be practically unlimited IN
amount, and that the paper so issued must be
nothing but fiat money, and as fast as this fact
gets into their heads they pull out of all political
relations with the third party. If the fiat
money clanks have net already opened the
eyes OF all sensible farmers to the folly of then
schemes, they can be trusted to do so within
another year. The silver question offers no
issue on which the new party can gain strength,
because no demand for free coinage can go
further than the votes of Democratic members
of Congress. Mr.. Blair ventures the prediction
that Republicans will go in unitedly for free
coinage of Silver next year. which is like some
other information, important if true.
The strength OF the Western party is its
weaknesS-it is essentially class party, for the
peculiar and exclusive benefit of persons in GER
tain occupations. The fact that class legiSla-
ton is proposed has ever been fatal to such
political experiments in the past, and this one
starts with the added disadvantage that it is
disowned, repudiated and emphatically opposed
by large majority of the farmers whose in
teIestS it processes TO favor. 1t may be seriously
doubted whether even Mr.. Blair and one of his
longest speeches could give it new lease OF
lifO