The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1896-07-22
WHITE MYSTERIES.

of Monday:
IF the eastern supporters of the Chi
cagO ticket have needed any Justifca-
ton of their course it has been sup
piled by the extraordinary manifesto
of Mr.. Andrew D. White, ex-president
of Cornell university. Mr.. White We
hemently undertakes to prove that the
silver issue is only an incident of
great movement which he calls Jaco-
binism and anarchy, but which people
! whose lines have been cast in less
pleasant places than his, or whose sym
pathies have been less atrophied by
prosperity, call a struggle for justice
and equal opportunities for all
Mr. White initiates the most rabid
organs of the trusts in the unbridled
extravaganza of his language, but it
may be worth while to try to disentan-
gle his meaning from the jungle of cpl
thets in which he has hidden it. The
Chicago platform he asserts, is one
leading logically and historically, as
shall presently show, to a despotism
which is the very opposite of all De
mOcracy, and in which all Democracy
and Republicanism worthy of the name
would be extinguished.' This is i'm
portant, if true, and the reader natur-
ally looks with interest to see how MI.
White will presently show it. 1t can
hardly be said to be Shown by series
OF assertions introduced with You
know as we'll as T., and You must
know, too The first serious attempt
to establish any logical connection be-
tween admitted facts and Mr.. Whites
conclusions is found in the statement:
- The platform indicates this by its
denunciation of any adjustment, no
matter how equitable, Of the Pacific
railroad question, by its proposed treat
ment of the supreme court Of the Unit
ed States, and by its demand, practi-
calIy for free riots in every state
AT last we have something definite.
The American people are asked to turn
their government over to Hanna be-
cause the Chicago platform proposes
that Mr. Huntington should be made to
pay his debts, and objects to the sub
stitutiOn of a centralized military rule
for local self-gOvernment- We do not
know whether Mr.. White understands
the Pacific railroad debt question. 1t
is to be hoped for the sake of his repU-
tatfon as a moral instructor of youth,
that he does not. 1t would not look
we'll for a man who has been at the
| head of a great university to be know
ingIy defending proposition to enable
! a few miIlionaires to swindle the gov
eminent out u an cAAlOAAAN - SSNNO@ NAA~---
the holders of greenbacks could posi-
bly, lose from silver payments if the
worst fears of the gold advocates were
! confirmed. But if Mr.. White has done
! this thing in ignorance, what is the
value of his recommendations on other
| points?
LAS to free riots the suggestion is
! bosh, and a very cheap and unworthy
sort of bosh at that. Mr.. White pro-
fesses to be a Iogician. He says that the
/ objection to unlimited federal interior
ence in state affairs means practically
! free riots in every state Will he ex-
| plain on what system of logic he
| reaches the conclusion that the people
who favor riot in every one of the 45
states will suddenly develop orderly
instincts when they act together as
| nation? The whole is equal to the
| sum of its parts, and if the forces of
order be overmatched in every state
they will be overmatched in the union.
! When the states become permanently
unable to preserve order within their
own limits the American republic will
not need Mckinley as a savior of So
ciety. It will need Caesar
1.-The essence of Mr.. Whites three
! columns of Mysteries is this:
! & For you must know, too, that 1t is
but the first installment of anarchist
! doctrine. If not resisted and over
whelmed now it is absolutely certain
| to be followed by other parts of the
| programme, especially the absorption
| of the bonds and stocks of railroads,
/ teIegraphs and various productive en-
| terprises of the country, with payment
| for them, if at all, in a paper currency
| of nominal value, and their manage
| ment by the central government, IN
der the cry that all such things have
been built up for the people, belong to
the people, and should be managed by
the people.
| 1T is characteristic of this once
well balanced thinkers disordered state
| of mind that he should fall into the
| vulgar blunder of confusing anarchism
! with socialism. describing the desire
for the assumption of new functions
by the government as anarchist doc
| trine, when any freshman at Cornell
! could tell him that the anarchists de-
! test such doctrines, and carry their
devotion to private enterprise to the
/ point of wanting no government at all.
! But leaving that point aside he has
/ given in this paragraph ample reason
/ for the existence and triumph of the
! new Democracy. The idea that the adj
| vocates of the Chicago platform would
/ favor the cOnfiscatiOn of productive
! enterprises with payment for them, if
at all, in a paper currency of nominal
value is a libellous assumption on
Mr.. Whites part which nothing in the
| work of the convention or the record
! of its candidates gives him any right
to make; but the belief that the new
awakening of the people will lead ul-
| tfmately to public ownership and Op-
] Grafton of railroads, telegraphs and
other natural monopolies is doubtless
we'll founded. And the knowledge that
| this rsr11llic is not alzzavs to lag sn-