The Ketchum keystone. [volume] (Ketchum, Idaho) 1885-1899, 1892-08-20

MOTTOs WIN 0fm4SSS tOW AE0 al "ASsa
malice toward 1one.
/ Which is it,? A political revolu-
ton or craze?
From all sides-West, South and
East-roll in echoes of the peoples
movement. A grand revolution OF
q great craze is in progress
! Is it "a craze" that will pass
away? Many conservative good
people in the East, who are not
"plutocrats," undoubtedly think it
is "silver craze" and "Rellamy
lunacy."
Time must prove whether it is
either of these things, or a revolu-
ton founded upon secure princi-
Piles.
Ifit is the latter, it is safe to claim
that it is the most interesting polit-
ical and social revolution in his
tory, and the most extraordinary
for its suddenness.
Up to four years ago the great
mass of the American people were
thinking and saying that the Re-
public founded by the Revolution
airy fathers was nearly all that is
hopeful and perfect in government.
Why this sudden unparalleled
discomfort in the United States?
Why, in "free America" this out
break that almost threatens a repe-
tition of the French Revolution?
'Tis startling question.
Already in the history of free
America are the conservative east
ern people and their political and
financial leaders actually, without
knowing it, resting upon a social
volcano.
If it be 80, it is time We began,
East and West, to look about US for
the leader, or leaders, to explain us
to ourselves; to look for a great
successor to Lincoln or Washing
ton to explain and to guide in the
new crisis of American affairs.
To look over the rapidly grow
ing reform press must impress any
thoughtful person that, while there
is some froth, it is probably no
mere tempest in q teapot that is
blowing, to disappear November
9Th, however the election may 60.
There is a two-edged spirit grow
ing that is at once dangerous and
bene6csnt. Something is going to
get hurt. Will it be plutocracy?|
And how much wildness and haste
is there in this growing hatred of
unjust money power that will tenn
porarily injure all, rich and poor?
Is already the republic of the
fathers in danger2 The founders
of the republic ''builded better than
they knew" but they did not know
enough to build for all time. They
secured to mankind the vote. But
they left the "rich-and-poor" ques-
ton to work itself out a century
later, as it proves. 1t was not ripe
for them.
It is not in the order of nature
that political forme, more than any
other, can be made to last for oil
time, There must be times of new
construction. In fact growth and
change must be going on all the
time, faster or slower, in order to
save the growing life that makes
it's own forms.
A leader is needed: new Lin
coin for the times! Have we got
him in Weaver or others just now
before the people? or is he coming
a little later from comparative OBJ
security, as did the first Lincoln?
IT'S most probable that there are
things that are wild in the present
movement. Why shouldn't
there be? With the trained men,
that should lead them, mostly on
the other side-the side of monop-
oily and priyilege-what could we
expect but something in the nature
of a craze in the first plunge Of the
war of erich and poor" that at last
will change the world-long system
that has turned out as its product
Dives and Lazarus.
Lincoln was truly, as Lowell in
his war "Commemoration Ode"
named him, "the first American"
Like all great men, the proof of his
greatness was in his being in ad-
vance Of his time. In comparison |
with him it might perhaps be truly
said that half of his countrymen
are still semi-European in their
ideas and feelings; that is, semi
aristocratic about money and labor.
He, with the soil of the American
prairies in his very blood, was
greatly simple in his feeling and
understanding of these two helps |
and stumbling blocks of the human
race-wealth and honest work. He
put his finger on our present
trouble. In his message to Congress
on December %, 1861, while dis
cussing the causes of the war, he
made use Of the following argu-