The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-07-12
THEY WAIT LEADER.

THEY WAIT A LEADER.
Not less than one-third Of all the
voters III this country, and probably
more nearly one-half, are waiting to-
day for the appearance of the men who
shall lead them to battle in November
under the old standard one glance at
which awakens all their loyalty and
their love. Party conventions do but
penetrate the surface of limited areas
of public feeling. The great mass Of
the people have no other avenue Of ex-
preston than through the conventions
of parties with which they may
have ceased, for the time being,
been true in every great up
heaval of the heart and mind of the
republic since it began. 1t is true pre-
emineLtly today There is a restless,
surging, turbulent mass Of humanity
billowing back and forth between the
Atlantic and the Pacific that demands
a new and higher leadership and the
old, strong wine of the gospel of Dem
ocracy. Interrogate meL as you meet
them on the street, stop workman as
he goes by and ask him his opinion of
the political situation, and you may
speedily satisfy yourself Of this. Here
is one who thinks that the sun of the
national existence rises and sets in the
turbid pool of McKirleyism. Here is
another who believes that by an act
of legislation, which declares that the
multiplication table is a mistake, and
that establishes a scale of values I'M
known to human agreement and con-
sent you can regenerate mankind and
usher in the golden age.
These two types exist, and their rep
resentatives are numerous But if you
make this interviewing quest among
the people you will find, as frequently
as either Of them, the man who disap-
proves Of both, and who longs for a
chance to express his firm convictions
of the fidelity and eternal truth of the
fundamentals of Democracy. He is a
bimetallist. He knows that there can
be no standard of values except that
which has been established by the COM
mon consent of all the nations. He
knows that, even if you establish the
silver standard by legislation, your
silver itself and all other prices will be
measured by gold just as they are now,
because the world wills it So What
he wants to see is the free and unre-
Strlcted use of both metals as money,
Icr0t hnIY ~, ~,
possible, by an international agreement
upon a practical ratio He is wearied
of the robbery called protectionism. He
has seen it set class against class and
erect an order of millionaires and an
order of serfs in a republic of free men.
he has seen 1T debauch the whole NOR
al sense of the people, until men are 10
longer ashamed to proclaim to their
fellows their belief that the prices of
commodities and the profits of private
interests should be manipulated by leg
islation. He is tired of the squandering
of the imperial resources of this coun-
try upon selfish projects, and demands
return to the simplicity of the faith
ers. He is full Of sense of ranking
injustice against the .serried powers of
wealth and influence that throng to
the capitols of our state and fill the
halls at Washington. His hope and
wish is for truer republic. a purer
political atmosphere, a government
where the man is everything and the
circumstances nothing
will tol1 ~,
foundry dissatisfied with the political
situation and outlook He is out of
harmony with Republicanism, as rep
resented by Mckinley, and with a hy-
Bird Populist- Democracy, as represent
ed by Bryan. He does not expect the
millennium, and he knows that those
who promise to bring it to you tomor-
row or a silver platter are very sure
to tumble you into the ditch What he
does want is honesty, economy. SIM
plieity and absolute equality before the
law in this government of ours. What
he is asking for now, with outstretched
hands, is a party that shall represent
those principles and those Only, and a
man great enough, strong enough, sin
cere enough and close enough to the
great heart of the common people to
become the embodiment of these ideas.
This man Of whom we tell you is on
every street in every city of the re-
public. He throngs the factories and
workshops. He holds the throttle of
the locomotive and labors at the fur
naces Of mighty engines. He IL filling
the soil of the stony fields Of New
England and the fat prairies Of the