Fergus County argus. [volume] (Lewistown, Mont.) 1886-1946, 1894-11-29
BUT TWO PARTIES.
The Populist Party Has Passed LIST Zenith and
is Now On the Down Grade.
[St. Louis Globe Democrat.

[St. Louis Globe Democrat
The wreck which came to the Popu-
lists in the recent election adds another
illustration to the many which were
furnished before of the fact that two
parties are all that are needed by the
American people All over the country
where the Populists had gained foot
hold they lost ground in the canvasses
of 1898 and 1894. In those which
have just taken place their defeat was
conspicuous and overwheling. They
lost many of the seats which they held
in congress, and in the state election
in Kansas and Colorado they were
buried under an avalanche OF votes.
In Nebraska, where an improper Re-
publican nomination for governor
gave them a chance to carry the cleo
tion, their small majority was obtained
through fraud, and probably will be
overturned by the the courts.
The fate OF the Populists is the same
as that OF all the other minor parties
which have appeard in our politics.
The Anti-Masonic, the eKnowNothing,
the Greenback and the Labor parties,
after starting and fretting their little
hour upon the stage, passed away.
They either represented preiudices
social or religious like the first two, or
like the others, they stood for ideas
and policies which were fallacious or
mischievous. Not one OF those parties
championed any purpose or policy
which could stand the test of iutelli-
gent investigation. They represented
no great opinion or doctrine which
endures. Necessarily they appealed
only to class, and, by the constitu-
tion OF their being, the moment they
stopped growing at the geometrical
rate of progression death came to
hand.
| Two parties at one time are all that
can thrive or exert any important or
lasting influence in this country.
Every policy which ought to prevail
is sure to find champion sooner or
later in one or other OF the great
organizations. This has been the
Experience of the United States from
the beginning. Government by parties
is natural and inevitable in all coun-
tries having representative institu-
tions, but the popular will, when
defnetely determined and intelligently
expressed, can be carried out far more
promptly and effectively in countries
where there are only two parties than
it can where the political elements
are split up into fragments and shift
ing combinations of fragments, as is
the case in most OF the countries OF
of continental Europe. The influence
which the Home Rule party in the
United Kingdom has exerted is not an
argument for a third party here, fol
the conditions of the two countries
are materially different. That coun-
try is much less Homogeneous than
! this is, and the Home Rule organiza
ton is an Irish party strictly, and
. more alien in its character and pur
: poses in the British polity than any
party in this country could possibly
, be to our traditions and institutions
7 The record of Great Britain, indeed
, furnishes the strongest sort of al
I instance of the all-sufficiency of tive
: strong and evenly balanced parties
e for there are only two strictly Brtisl
s parties, the Liberal and the Conserva
ltive.