The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-12-21
AGAIN THE GLASSES,

MI HOuSSon returns to the charge
with diversion into more profitable
fields, which leads US to think that he
may yet get onto right ground. He
chafes under the just charge that those
who hold the same political views with
him attempted to divide the American
people into classes, and to array one
against another at the last election,
His attempted exculpation fails in some
important particulars which we think
1t worth while to point out First, Mr..
Hcdgson has a very vague and I'M
fortunate way Of using Che word
class" What we objected to partfc-
ularly in the late campaign was the
deliberate creation of hostility between
labor and capital, employer and en-
ploye, rich and poor, and the instilling
into the public mind of the idea that
there, is inherent and incurable enmity
between them. This, and not oppo-
sition to powerful interests that may
combine against the public good. con-
stitutes the class issue. The former
we opposed and condemned with all
the strength of a belief that, if per-
sisted in, it must destroy popular Iiber-
ty and free government in this country
III the latter we join with an equal
certainty of conviction and depth of
fervor.
What we criticised in the last cam
hn IN f1a1
class as against the creditor class, on
the assumption that the former are all
honest and oppressed and the latter all
thieves and murderers. We say,
as we always said, that the in
terests of capital and labor are at
bottom identical. No community can
prosper where the rights of either are
denied. Moreover, human nature is
that men are men, with many noble
qualities and considerable native mean
ness and injustice that must be ground
out of them, whether they wear dia-
monds or rags. We have not observed
that, on the whole, they intend to use
unlimited power moderately and justly,
whether their pockets are filled with
dollars or with evidences of debt Or
ordinations Of labor, useful and neces-
sary as they are, have not been more
tender to the rights Of the individual
than organizations of capital The man
who owes money is neither virtuous
raa4o
man who has loaned thousands to as
sist in the development of industry
is neither an angel nor a demon on
that account.
Therefore, we say that the class
- ISSUE by which we mean distinct
ly the setting of rich against
poor and of capital against labor, in
permanent, perpetual and irreconcil-
able warfare. is an evil thing. 1t Is
based upon a false conception of hui
man nature. 1t can end only in the
crystallization of our homogeneous
people into classes, and in that bitter
conflict between rich and poor which
must end in alternating victory and
oppression by one and the other, in
successive periods of tyranny by the
powerful and instruction by the
weak, through which no republican
government can last. Unnecessary and
Unjustifed as such issue is by anything
I'm American conditions, we cannot view
the attempt to raise 1t too seriously or
x,c,,ha+ too
Mr.. Hodgson's idea of the classes"
as he now states it. is an entirely differ
ent thing. The classes that he speaks
shout are the great combinations that
are attempting to infringe upon in
dividual liberty and to Cypress the
people. Against those we long ago de-
clared perpetual and unconditional
hostility. If the last campaign had only
been waged against them, if the issue
and the war cry of that great fight
had been made the subsection of mo-
ncpolies and trusts and the securing 10
all men Of equal opportunity before
the law, how gladly would every Demo-
crat have gone into the fray, with
flashing sword and heart ready to