St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1894-09-30

human activity, IL is especially true Of
those questions arising out of our social
organisms as to their functions. their
limitations, the purposes to which their
powers may be applied. Here the record
OF the experiments that men, always
striving after something better, have
made are stored away in the histories
OF the race. in books with which COM
paratively few are familiar. The great
mass of men are ignorant of what their
forefathers have attempted and failed
at. or found impracticable.
10 them the past with its records Is
night from which they have emerged.
aud before whom is the bright future
and present filled with boundless con-
tidence in itself. Do they find condi-
tons that are or seem to DO evil? They
set about remedying them without
thought or care il their ancestors had
also seen the same things and expert
mented with their removal. They de-
mani the exercise Of these associated
powers of men we call government
without questioning ii the same powers
had ever before been invoked for the
their ideal government. without stopping
to consider what it is. or recognizing
that it has its limitations in tue same
laws that limit the individuals Of which
il is composed, they set its wheels in
motion. confident that nothing can stay
their progress.
In all these things the average man,
which means the majority Of men, ig-
more the methods they would have sense
enough to see were essential If they
were going to open farm or build
barn or engage in any OF the vOcations
of life, on which they would not VEN
ture without experience Of their OwnO or
unless they utilized the experience
gained by others. They assume that
the associated powers of all men are as
limitless as are those of Omniscience
and that it is only question how they
will have these powers employed, to
do not know that other men in other
days have thought the same and have
set the wheels to going round and only
brought mischief on themselves: or If
told of it, they attribute failure to the
want of intelligence Of the experiment.
ers, less favored than themselves with
the enlightenment Of the present; and
they go calmly on to the same fate that
overlook and punished their predeces-
sors.
True as this is of most things, it is es-
pecially true of money. The great
instrument of converting what one has
into what one wants has to them lost its
character of a means and becomes an
end. That it is simply a. slorehouse Of
commodities which one does not want,
to be retained until the occasion comes
to get the thing one does want, is
ignored. The governments stamp OH
it is the evidence to them that the gov
ernment makes it. If the government
can make 1t. why should it not make
plenty of it? 1t is what we all want
of which no man ever yet had enough,
and the want of which is the cause of
all the hunger and poverty In the world.
Why not. then. have the government
make enough SO that there should be
neither hunger nor Gistressful poverty
in the world?
Anu 81 s"ioo hou ouI VI ioui' ishoi.
Ing OF ignorant of the experience of the
men of the past in such matters. clamor
for the making of more money; aud the
one man of the four who has asked IL
other men in other days have ever tried
this experiment. and if so how did they
succeed, eXcites the pity of the other
three men by assuring them that the
thing they propose has been tried time
and again by various peoples, and that
it has invariably brought greater dis
tress. sharper and more general want of
money and increased vastly the poverty
of men,