The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-12-29
QUEER BUSINESS IDEAS.

We publish in another column a
somewhat violent and singularIy illogi-
cal letter from a correspondent who
thinks that he has seen the error of
his ways, who repents him of having
aided the cause of sound money last
fall, and who now modestly demands
that the G | b make confession and
retraction of its sins Inasmuch as, we
are not conscious of having done any
thing but the right thing in the unfor-
tunate controversy which agitated the
country, we cannot find anything to
confess or retract. Certainly Mr.. An
derSOn's views do not commend them
selves to any sober judgment. He must
trace his disappointment however, not
to anything that has happened in the
last few months, but to the unfortunate
standard which he, in common with
so many others, has seen fit to adopt
The G o b e has already entered it's
protest against the adoption by both
parties of the prosperity test" Any
thing more absurd and illogical than
this, or more calculated to defeat good
government and keep the people in a
perpetual ferment of discomfort and I'M
rest, cannot be conceived Give us
control of the government, says one
party, and wheat will be 81 a bushel,
and every man out of employment can
get work at 81 a day. When the peO-
hN oil
put that party in power, and it's prom
ises do not materialize, no matter how
beneficent its work in other directions
may be and how impossible that it
should bring about the results that it
promised, they turn and rend it. Put
us into power. says the opposition, and
there viii be no more failures and no
more distress. All the factories will be-
gin running. Everybody will have
steady employment, and there will be
no blot upon the country's prosperity.
When it succeeds and this does not
happen. then the same people insist
that if their votes had been cast diff
ferently the situation would have i'm
proved
The whole idea at the bottom of
this, that you can create" prosperity
by voting one party into power and
another party out, is as baseless as the
Idea that you can create" value by
an act of congress. The man who rests
his political faith upon the prosperity
test, upon the idea that prosperity is
a creature of legislative act, upon the
Idea that any party or any laws that it
can pass will make us all rich and
happy, is doomed to perpetual disap-
pointment and eventual despair Laws
and lawmakers are all-powerful to in
terfere with prosperity, to disturb bust
ness, to make and continue losses. In
the opposite direction they are prac-
tically impotent. The l O b e has not
one word to take back of its protest
against the proposition to further de-
base our monetary system Had that
succeeded, we firmly believe that every
industry in this country, save that Of
silver mining, would be PROSTATE to-
day, and millions of people would be
parading the streets without employ
ment and clamorous for food to keep
them from starvation. That the Re-
publican policy will restore prosperity
to this country we have never believed
and never said. On the contrary, we
have opposed that policy from begin
ming to end, before the campaign and
during the campaign and since the
campaign, as inimical to the best in
terests Of every citizen of the United
States. Both the great parties, which
were telling the people of this country
last October that they had a. sovereign
specific which was sure TO bring and
keep prosperity, were trying to fool the
voter, and neither of them could posi-
bly, keep it's word
If we had, as Mr. Anderson laments
that we do not, some more silver dol
lars, We do not see wherein our posi-
ton would be bettered We know Of
no way in which those dollars could get
into MIR. Anderson's pocket or into ours,