St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-01-13
BRAVO. TOM Johnson.

---azzznA--
BRAVO, TOM JOHNSON.
Nothing SO invigorating and cheering
has been spoken since the great victory
of November, '92, as are the brave words
OF Tom l.. johnson. representative from
the Cleveland district in Ohio. There
is no use i'll denying, and it would be
folly to hide the fact. that a great wave
OF encouragement has swept over the
Democrats who gave to the campaign of
1892 its spirit and its hope, since, with
the incoming administration, elected to
carry out the pledge Oh which that cam
paign was Won, there has been nothing
but delay and dallying and compromise.
No one who comes daily in touch with
the Democrats of Minnesota but knows
that this feeling of depression prevails
in the party. The jibes and sueers of
the Republieans-who have had only
too good cause to taunt us with the
great discrepancy between our ante
election promises and reservations and
our pOSt-election attempts at fulfillment
we have had to bear i'll mortified
silence. Instead of obeying the man.
date Of the people and calling congress
together at the earliest possible date to
rectify wrongs we had so vigorously and
successfully attacked, the president,
with a deliberatiou which may have
comported with the immense dignity Of
his office. but which was painfully slow
when compared with the fervor OF the
campaign which gave him his seat,
waited until financial cyclone, gener-
ated in Republican misrule, was tearing
Its destructive path through the indus
tries of the country before he tardily
called congress to its August session.
The hopes that were raised that, dila-
tory as had been the action, the error
would be retrieved in the selection of
that scholarly statesman and sincere re-
former, William l.. Wilson, for chair
man of the ways and means committee
"a selection which we felt gave
ground for hope that the Chicago plat
form would be redeemed to the letter
have been greatly disappointed in the
bill which we are sure circumstances
which Mr.. Wilson could not control
have obliged him to present to congress.
We are not satisfied that the course
taken by the ways and means COM
mittee is the wiseSt or the best. The
path of prudence is not always the path
of wisdom or of safety, and the bridge
of compromise is a weak and perilouS
structure atitS best. 1t would have been
better for the party and for the coun-
try, ultimately if not Immediately. had
the ways and means committee drawn
its bill strictly upon the lines Of the Chi
cago platform. 1t would have en-
countered no whit less opposition than
would have had back of it the ire
mendous spirit of the public opinion
given expression in the ballots which
accomplished the revolution of 1872.
When will the managers of the Demo-
cratic party learn the wisdom of courage
and sincerity? Its recent history should
teach it that this is not only right, but
that it is the best possible policy. 1t
won the battle on the nation al field of
rs, although cheated out of its fruits,
by the courage with which it assaulted
abuses lntrenched in national legisla-
ton. 1t won in 1884. not because of its
infamous straddle upon the one vital
issue, but because 1t had nominated as
its leader man who had shown that he
possessed enduring courage, honesty of
convictions, and wonderful capacity
to resist pressure. 1t was this that made
Mr.. Cleveland successfully governor
and president. In 1892 the party won
not only because Mr.. Cleveland was
in re nOrnino0 lint a
for the first time it had met the dogma
of protection face to face in open field,
and crossed swords with 1t in mortal
combat. When the trlmmers and fall
terers in the convention would nave had
it becloud its purpose with uncertain
phrases capable of opposing constr uc-
ton, the convention Indignantly tore
out the subterfuge, and put its heart
and soul into the words which ex-
pressed its honest and sincere pur-
pose. The more courageous spirit
was shown in the Unprecedented action
of nominating for the presidency man
opposed by the delegation from his own
state, emphatic in its assurances that he
could not have its electoral vote. With
this plain proof Of the good policy of
high courage and downright sincerity
it is notifying and disheartening to
find that these men to whom the voters
intrusted the great cause of putting
into the statutes the reform that they de-
creed, with cowardice which they mis-
call policy and prudence, deliberately
perpetuate, if in slightly modified
form, the policy which they had de-
nounced as note only unconstitutional, but
as a fraud and a robbery. 1t would have
been wiser and in every way better had
the ways and means committee been
animated by the same courage which
inspired the campaign of 1892, and
drafted bill which would have ex-
pressed the declared wishes of the
people, and have presented it to Dem-
ocratic congress and to the country,
and, IN the storm of protest and denun-
citation in and out of the party, have
said with Senaca's pilot: ''Oh. Neptune,
you can save me If you will; you can
sink me if you will; but whatever hap
pen, shall hold my rudder true"
We have no expectation that the pro-
test so stoutly and valiantly made by
Mr.. johnson will have any effect in any
such reshaping OF the bill as will make
it carry the wishes of the voters: hnt it