The representative. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1893-1901, 1896-05-20
EAST AND WEST.

Chicago Times Herald: Senator Allen,
of Nebraska, has put with grateful mode
ration the ant.pathy of the West toward the
East in magazine article. Most Western
men and not few Eastern men who hav4
taken pains to investigate the sentiments
of western people at close range must
know that, far from being the exciting
cause, the free-silver and communist:c
heresies now so stoutly maintained in many
parts of the country beyond the Mississippi
are really but the consequence, the per-
verted expression, of hostility to any
thing on which the East, and especially
New York city, has set the seal of it's ap-
prevail.
In some degree the feeling is aggra-
waited by the existing business relations
of the two sections. The western man
who suffers by reason OF the extort:on
and oppression of railway companies
traces the source of his woe to Wall street
The rates at which his produce is carried,
the markets which fix his compensation,
the cabal which, by the manipulation of q
single day, has swept away his invested
earnings is situated in the metropolis of the
East.
But It would be unjust to the intelligence
of the West to assume that it measures
his wrath by the troy scale. The western
man bears about with him the feeling that
the East regards his people as an alien
and curious community, worthy of being
plucked by spectators and STUDIED" by
amateur travellers, but incorsiderable as a
factor in the Intellectual life of the country
The feckless prOvincialsm Of New York s
a tradition in the West. Any Nebraska
school boy can bound New York state;
the New York man who can bound Me-
braska would be considered a miricle of
useless information.
Hurt to the quick by Indifference and
contempt, the western farmer, not long
enough in possession of power to view inso-
lence with languor, has nourished his wrath
and kept it warm these twenty years. He
is not by nature a revo,ut.onist. More than
any other man he cnerishes the traditions
of the republic, values the letter Of the con-
stitution and abides by the law. If he has
been de,uded into the worship of false gods,
be assured that he has no designs on the in
tegrity of the nation. He has proved his
faith by his works. HIS patriotism is at
tested by hundred battlefields. There is
no need to protest it further. To insinuate
that his feeling against the East is the
groundwork of discomfort with the govern
ment is so l:belous that even to seriously
combat the ins;nuation seems out of place.
To put the case in word, tne free silver
craze and every other choreic outbreak that
has confused the politics of the West are
the reflection of eastern intolerance. :ndif-
ference and contempt for the millions of
Americans who worship the flag in the light
of the westering sun. None feel tbs more
than the patriotic and level-headed men Of
the far west, who have set their faces
against Their own neighbors in the unequal
battle for the national credit. The time
has come for the East to know the truth
for unless it eniarges its vision beyond tne
highlands of the Hudson the day is not far
distant when It, in its turn, will be the re-
gion of discomfort and protest.