The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-12-31
THE EXPECTED QUESTION.


THE EXPECTED QUESTION
The inquiry of a correspondent
which appears in another column con-
corning present business and financial
conditions, was answered sufficiently,
perhaps, by an editorial in Tuesdays
G o e. He is another of those who
think that the prosperity test" is the
final solvent not only of political pol
tcies, but of right and wrong. In this
no Republican has the right to rebuke
him, because that party played the
advance agent of prosperity" racket
for all that it was worth. 1t is only
the men who stood on the Indianapolis
| platform and stood by it's candidate
who did not feed the people with de-
iusive hopes Of impossible good things
that were to happen in case they should
| be successful, but made their appeal
/ on the sound old principles of the Dem
| ocratic party, to the intelligence and
! honor of the nation. Men who take that
| stand in politics are not to be con-
/ founded by the events that faIsify the
/ prophecies of others before the ink
/ with which they are written has had
/ time to dry. We simply remind Mr..
| Faussett that the G l o did not sup
| port Mr. Mckinley or desire his cleo
ton. Because we have escaped the
| greater evil of free silver coinage is
no reason why we should not have to
| suffer for the lesser evil of eIecting a
president and congress pledged to tar
| III tinkering, and possibly not above
some agreement with the silver people
under the specious plea Of "bimetaI-
| Iism."
Our correspondent, however, exagger-
ates altogether the condition of the
country. There will always be failures
ana disagreements concerning wages,
! but such troubles are not general at
this time, nor even frequent enough to
call for comment, had not the opening
FOR just such reprisals been made for
the silver men by the nonsensical chat
ter about the advance agent" IT
| seems to us that one who assumes TO
crlticise should know better than
our correspondent when he cites.
as proof OF the unhappy
state of affairs, that there are but a.
| few banks in Minnesota that cannot he
closed almost any day by few of the
depositors calling for their money"
! This all turns on the meaning Of the
expression few" Taken literally. this
| is not true. There are hardly any banks
in Minnesota that could not pay a few
| OF their depositOrs. There is no bank
| in Minnesota, nor in the United States
| that has on hand an amount Of cash
| equal to its total deposits. What profit
| there would be in taking the peoples
! money to put it into vault, lock it
up there and pay interest on it, it
would require new financial author
! ity to discover.
That we still have to work out
many of the evil effects of our
Wretched financial policy is undoubt
edly true To use the illustration
which we have already employed
/ patient convalescing from a danger
| Gus Illness is not expected to go ont
and do full days work That bust
| ness is interfered with and discoura o,ed
| by the exhibition of Republican fndif-
ference TO the interests for which 1t
assumed to be so solicitous is also true
| TO inhict upon the country an extra
session of congress is one of those blum
| oers that are also crimes. Mean
while, the condition of the conn
try as whole is fairly prosperous
what distress there is is chiefly in the
cities. And just why our silver friends
think that bank failures support their
| arguments, We cannot for the life of
US understand. We were told. during
| several months of hot camnaign
that the gold standard was the result
Of conspiracy between bankers and
other capitalists. It was the bankers
according to the silver orators, who
made all the profits and fiIched their
hard earnings from the public because
Oh the gold standard. Now, that
system was approved during the
recent election, and still these bankers.
who are supposed to profit by it so
| Immensely, become insolvent If there
| could be found in the facts anv argyll
ment at all as to the relative worth
OF the gold standard and the silver
standard, it certainly has nothing in
1t to support the contention of the lat
ter. The fact that banks fail under
the gold standard throws their princi-
pal argument to the ground.
WERE THEY BUNCOED: