The Sauk Centre herald. (Sauk Centre, Stearns County, Minn.) 1886-current, 1894-09-06

who took an interest In politics then
cannot have forgotten the secret alarm
with which the old parties questioned
whether this new combination might
not temporarily swamp the country. 1t
was mere flash in the pan. The sober,
| intelligent voters were disguised equally
| by the unprincipled leaders whom 1t
brought to the front and by the crazy.
| quilt platform which it became neces.
sary TO adopt III order to take in the
MANNED, the halt aud the blind. The
new movement that promised so much
fell to pieces as ii it had been one Of
Coxey's armies There We're still few
fanatics or feehle-minded who voted its
ticket; but it ceased to be serious and,
became distinctly ludicrous with the
campaign of Ben Butler for the presi-
dency.
The sequence of these events has been
noted with some care, because again we
have history repeating itself with al
most the accuracy of copy from tho
printed page. We have had farmers
Alliances" formed, just as the old
Oranges We're, TO promote mutual inter-
ests and to check the aggressiveness Of
corporations. AT in about the time
when their practical FORK was mostly
accomplished, the battered hulks Of
politicians discarded by both the great
parties got control of their machinery.
Then they We're united with the still
surviving demand for currency infia-
ton. This led to the craze of the sub
treasury scheme. Then the owners Of
silver mines saw their opportunity to
foist their product ON the people at
double its actual value. So we go ON to
the Peoples" party with its double ap-
peal TO agricultural discomfort and to
prevailing ignorance on the money
question And now we have again the
great strike and the proposed union Of
labor with the new organization. By
exactly the same steps have the two ex-
periments proceeded to the same fate.
The second saw its prime two years ago,
viii get its death blow this fall, and
viii disappear in 1896, after an imita-
ton of the Butler campaign.
There is another element that makes
this conclusion more than ever sure.
This is the alliance of Populism with
anarchy, and the fear and hatred which
the latter has inspired. In the earlier
period referred to the people Of the
United States knew of this horrid faith
only as they knew of the tortures of
Siberia; as something alien, afar,
impossible to connect with our
system of government or our common
life. Now they have gazed at it within
striking distance. The worst that would
have happened in the 70s and earlier
SOS if the party of fierce and iconoclastic
discomfort had come into power would
have been legislation destructive Of
railroad properties and injurious to our
finances. Now they know better. A
Lewelling, Waite, an Altgeld have
taught them that the later movement
differs from the former by adding to
equal or greater ignorance an implacable
hatred of liberty. These men have been
tested, and have shown that they regard
neither law nor public opinion, and that
they would not hesitate to invite civil
war in order to fasten their despotic
wills upon the people. These are the
disciples of the new anarchy; to vote
for whom is not merely to vote for de-
based currency and the legislation of
demagogues, but is to vote, as senator
of Minnesota expressed it, ''for the SUBJ
mission of the United States govern.
ment." He who fears for the result Of
such an appeal in this state or in the
nation has too little faith in the virtues
and patriotism of the American people.