The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-08
FOLLOWING THE nLAzED WAY.

A sense of duty having constrained
us to criticise with mild acidity those
acts and policies of the present admin
istration which shocked our convic4
lions of a properly conducted govern
ment, the same sense of duty compela
to an enumeration of those acts, pol
icies and purposes which, being in ac-
cord with the similar acts and so forth
of the preceding administration, COM
mend themselves to us as being emil
nently legitimate and proper. We do
this with the greater pleasure that 1t
puts us now in harmony with our Re
publican "molders of opinion, who
were so fierce in their criticisms oil
these acts and policies when Mr.. Cleve-
land did or pursued them and are now
so profuse in their laudations that
Mr.. Mckinley adopts them.
In the first place we find the present
president criticising the endless chain
quite as vigorously as did his prede-
cessor and quite as stoutly as he de-
claring that he will issue bonds to re-
plenish the gold reserve whenever the
danger line is reached. When we re-
call the raving at Mr.. Cleveland fol-
issuing bonds, we cannot prevent the
pleasure that Mr.. McKinley's vindi-
cation of his action affords us. We
trust he will never have occasion to
buy gold with bonds, but his willing
pacc to do C0 In an emergency iS oOm-
mendable. Next in rank as to impor-
lance comes his ratification of the pol
icy his predecessor pursued in the mat
ter of the Cuban instruction. We can
INDUCED in by the whole chorus Of Re-
publican papers and spouters, and their
meanings over the disgrace in which it
involved this land of the free and home
of the brave still rumble in memory.
The world was begged to hold itself
until their party got into power, when
a vigorous foreign policy would speed
| lily be begun that would enroll Cuba
among the other dynamite republics of
this hemisphere. We have waited in
vain for that policy and now we have
the same assurance from this president
| that his predecessor communicated to
congress a year ago. The time may
come when something will be done, but
that time is not yet.
| Descending to minor matters. we
have semi-off1cial announcement that
| the present commissioner of pensions
has made the discovery that there are
actually such things as frauds on the
pension rolls and that drastic measures
will be taken to weed them out. Here
again we see the administration
worthily treading in the path blazed
| out by the one it superseded, and again
we seem to hear the uproar. the in
| dignation, the vituperation hurled at
Mr.. Cleveland and his commissioner OF
pensions when they announced that
they, too, found the coffee-coolers and
malingerers on the roll and were going
to hunt them out. The inspectors sent
| out were branded as Spies the
| frauds were paraded as honorable old
soldiers whom this "soldier-hating" ad-
ministration was bounding to their
| death; depriving them of the pittance
that kept them from the poorhouse
Like tow the heart of the vo-
ciferous professional old soldier
fired up at the enormity. How
frantic posts adopted denuciatory
resolutions, and editorial columns
blazed with fiery invective. We
have noted recently that some of these
papers have changed their tune, and
| 1:e exnect now TO hear a chorus of an.