The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-08-16

save the party from utter rout. 1879
was a gloomy year for the leaders Of
the party.
Then came the bumper corn crop of
1879, with shortages abroad that made
prices high. Greenbackism, like every
financial heresy that has ever agitated
any people, had It's genesis In financial
depression. There never has been and
probably never will be, until economic
education becomes more widely diff
FUSED and the immutable laws Of
finance known and accepted as such,
a time when demagogues' the
orists and ,sentimentalists have
not risen to the surface and
caught the popular ear with
their diagnosis of the cause and their
remedy for the trouble. The very dis
tress in which these monetary con-
Vulsions castai the majority Of men,
their inability to grasp the remote
causes that have produced them, con-
meet with that singularly tenacious,
medieval idea Of the divinity Of gov
eminent to make numbers ready to &C
cept the dogma Of governmental re-
sponsibility for conditions and might
to relieve them. They reason, with a
logic that seems forceful to them, that
their trouble is lack Of money; that
the source of money is government;
therefore let the government issue
more money. Men of more inteli-
gence, but in dire distress, yield to
this childish logic and dignity the cause
by their support
The enormous crops and high prices
OF 1879, combined. with the resumption
OF specie payments that restored to
the currency the boarded gold and sill
yer, removed what the popular mind
accepted as the cause of distress, and
the elections of 1880 gave the Republi-
can party again the control of the leg
1slative and executive branches of gov
eminent. The foolish act of emitting
greenbacks vas saved from it's conse-
quences by the luck of a great crop.
The party proceed to play the fool with
1t utilized it's complete control to en-
act the tariff law of 1888, disregarding
the advice of its commission that rates
might be reduced Is per cent, and in
gun the policy Of depressing silver
prices by accommodating a pile by pur-
chase that formed a constantly increas-
ing menace to. the metals market. It
aggravated conditions by the Sherman
purchase act, and crowned it's folly with
the Mckinley act. The inevitable re-
suit followed in the popular reaction
of 1892. Here again luck came in to
of his folly. Democracy fell heir to
them instead. No greater piece of
luck ever befell a party than was the
defeat Of the Republican party in 1892
1t enabled it to cast upon the Demo-
Gratis the blame of the panic of 1893,
the sole product of their own foolhardi-
ness.
Again that good fortune that takes
children and fools under it's guardian
ship is interfering to prevent the de-
served punishment for violation of
economic law. Again a prolific crop
meets an eager market abroad with
rising prices, and again a financial
heresy, the direct FeutgroWth of oondi-
lions produced by economic folly, based
solely upon the monetary stringency
that always follows a financial panic.
melts away before the influx of money
to move the crops, and the general
impulse thereby impaired to all lines
of industry. 1t may even save the
party from the~incredible folly of the
Dingley act. Yes, there is fact in the
phrase, "a fool for luck"