The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-18
DOES NOT SEE IT All.

If Gov. Pingree persists in telling
tales out of school and corroboratins
all that Democrats have been saying
about the internal consequences of Re
publican external policies he VIII
throw over the congregation as stiff
fleming a GOODNESS as did the darkey
who asked the exhorter ''Who
made dat fence?" when the
latter told how the Lord made
Adam out of clay and stood him
up against the fence to sunday. The
governor has opened his eyes wide
enough TO see the consequences, but
not far enough to see the cause. When
a government embarks in the policy
human nature is now constituted,
there will be an immediate increase
of those who want to be fostered. If
constitutional limitations prevent the
use of the powers of the general gov
eminent in their aid, they naturally
and logically turn to the state and
municipal powers, equally with the ma
tional government endowed with fos-
tering capacity.
If it is right that the national gov
eminent should help a maker of wool
ems or grower of wool or maker of
tin plate. why should not the city gov
eminent help the man who wants to
gain fortune in supplying gas or build
ing street railways or paving the pub
lie streets? If government is for the
purpose of aiding those who can Sc
er, why should not the men who ad-
minister that government and who
grant the assistance make something
out of it for themselves? Why should
aldermen, for instance, who grant a
valuable franchise to a corporation
that proposes to make gas or build
street railways or put in an electric
plant not demand, as a condition pre-
cedent to the grant, that they, too,
share the profits by anticipation? Why,
if the government make proclamation
thing that its whole power must be
used to prevent or minimize it, should
not those sheltered by the government
come logically and rightly to the con-
quite as great an evil to be suppressed
by all the methods known to our lat
ter day cOmmercialism If the one is
defensible, where is the distinction
that makes the latter indefensible?
SO, when Mr.. Pingree declared, with
all the earnestness of his strenuous
disposition, that, unless the Republi-
can party ceases to cater to syndi-
Gates, trusts and monopolies, it will
be buried in oblivion" it is apparent
that he realizes the consequences of
its policy of hating state socialism
without seeing that that policy is the
cause of the conditions he pictures and
will be the cause of the overthrow he
predicts. This is apparent from his
proposition that the party must be-
gin by advocating municipal owner
ship of natural monopoles and take
away from them the item of profit, -
for it indicates that he would have his
party go the full length and reach
ideal state socialism. From such a be-
ginning there is no logical middle
ground of stable rest until the end is
reached, now demanded by many.
where the government will take over
all the means of production and dis
tribution. AS in any scheme of gov
eminent, however ideal, the human
factor is Indispensable, and as what
ever there is of i'll in present condi-
lions is due to dependence upon that
factor, it is an unacceptable conclusion
that the last condition would be worse
than the first, When the governors
eyes are further opened to see things
as they are, he will see that the remedy
is democracy, not socialism; less gov
eminent not more; increased indi-
Vidualism, instead of collectiveness
more freedom for the man and less
power for the government. If, however,
he prefers to remain Republican, his
logic is incontrovertible.