The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1896-09-25
TWIN RELICS OF DEspoIIsM.

The children of nations, like the chill
dren of men, are victims of heredity.
The founders Of the new carry with
them and retain the concepts of gov
eminent, it's powers and functions, in
which they were born and nurtured
Where they have been pressed by the
sharp point of some misuse or abuse of
that power they buttress their new
state against it's repetition, but where
the dull points have caused no irrita-
ton the abuse or misuse of power is
carried into the new nation and adopt
ed without question as being of the
fundamental and established order It
is not until larger and saner ideas of
what a government Is and what it's
simple functions are that these trans
planted misconceptions begin to be
questioned, and then it requires years
of educational effort to eradicate them.
The United States is the victim. of
this transference of hereditary ideas of
government. Rejecting monarchy be-
cause it's despotic powers were the one
great apparent evil, it retained and
incorporated in it's new government
two, at least, of the most cherished
powers of every absolute monarchy, the
system Of fostering" industry by
laying taxes on imports, and the pow
er to force upon the people a monetary
system through the operation of legal
tender enactments. They are the twin
relics Of despotiSm transplanted and
f1ourishing today amid a people who
delight to boast Of their freedom and
their happy exemptions from the abso-
lutism of monarchs. Both are potent
forces here, as they were whence they
came, in depriving the people of their
freedom, and each is irreconcilable with
any elementary conception of individ-
ual liberty,
Whatever else one derives from read
ing the histories of nations, whether Of
those in which absolutism, more or less
modified, still holds sway, or of those
who have struggled up into a larger
measure of freedom, one impression is
that the constant problem of the ruler
was to get revenue. Whether it was
CT defense, or whether it was needed to
support the magnificenee of his court,
the money problem was the ever press
ing one. If the heavy hand Of direct
taxation was laid too severely on the
people there came discomfort with It's
danger of eliminating in revolution.
Men are even yet so unenlightened that
they submit without protest to methods
Of taxation that merge tax in cost,
while they would revolt against pay
ing the same amount directly. Their
pocket nerves are sensitive only to the
direct draft, and respond but DULY to
the indirect draft that produces greater
injury, but obscures the source. Mon
archs early took advantage Of this and
adopted the tariff system as being a
process by which, as the French
finance minister said, ''the largest
quantity of feathers could be plucked
from the goose with the least squawk-
ing"
The change of the precious metals
into convenient form for commercial
use was early taken over exclusively
by governments. Monarchs and their
ministers soon found in this monopoly
convenient means of raising revenue.
The value of the private mintage de-
pended upon the fact tnat the coin
contained the value the market gave
the metal Kings began counterfeiting.
that is, putting out coins having less
precious metal in them than their