The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-11-05

1t is not one moment too early to
begin the work Of preparing parties
and men for the issue that will shake
this country four years from today.
A little less than four years ago one of
the most thoughtful men in st. Paul, a
man versed in politics and prominently
associated with the Palmer and Buck
ner movement said to the
writer: Is it net your opinion that the
next campaign will be carried on over
the financial question:" He added to
this query a mass Of facts, figures
and inductions which had convinced
him that what had seemed probable
then, namely, the maintenance of the
American politics, would fail to come
to pass; and that the great melee of
1896 would be around the standards of
honest money and cheap money His
foresight was justified. Now, it seems
to us that, just as the issues and the
under currents of the campaign of 1892
fOreshadowed those of 1896, so those Of
1896 foreten clearly those which are
to be in 1900. We soothe and fiatter our
selves with the idea that the fight
which we have fought has been not
only good one, but final one This
is the delusion common to all mortals
and mortal things. There is no final
ity. Each step of progress leads but
to another, and the trumpets that
sound one victory swell the summons
to another battle.
We f1atter ourselves that the intens-
ity of the fight this year can not soon
be paralleled, and that we have laid at
rest the worst that threatened us.
We have, it is true, killed one of
the monsters that assailed us. The
free silver fantasy will invade our
visions no more. But the most mon
strous, grim and menacing of all the
figures that stalked across our hori-
zon in this campaign looms, dim, in
deed, but portentous, above our future.
For the first time in our history the
appeal has been made upon a large
scale to. the class issue. The essential
hostility of man to man and interest
to interest has been proclaimed as a
substitute for the gospel of mutual
interest and mutual helpfu1ness. 1t
is the curse Of issues like this that.
though beaten down, they perpetuate
themselves. Growth like this in the
human heart is not cut away by fail
ure at the ballot box. The men whose
attempt this year led only to disaster
will not give over their assumed lead
ership, or tune their harsh roaring to
the cooling of the dove because they are
outvoted. Does any one imagine that
Altgeld will retire from politics, or
that he will change from anarchist to
Democrat? Does any one suppose that,
after this event, Tillman viii become
decent and sane? Does any one even
persuade himself that Mr.. Bryan will
step off the stage, or that he will cease
to instill into the peoples hearts that
subtle poison which he spread so
widely over them in the last three
months; the notion that poverty and
virtue are always identical; that the
possession Of property is a synonym of
Viciousness, and that the "haves" and
the thave 2ots" must be arrayed
against one another in enduring bat
tie?
This denoniac force when reused to
life in a nation, is hard to kill. 1t
is like some Indictment to individual
passion; some single yielding of the
always upright man to the lusts of the
flesh. Never thereafter will he be SO
armed against temptation Never
thereafter can he wholly resist the
insidious creeping in of the memory
OF an hour of forbidden delight. Thrice
guarded must he be thereafter to the
end that he shall stand secure. Thus
1t Is with our nation today. Four
years ago those who thought that
cheap money, with its appeal to the
debtor class andisftsl brftSe sto dishon-
esty. would Win. laid theig Hans to cap
ture The party organfza tioff and make
their fight. Today the eeiass issue