The record-union., 1897-08-29
linds were as completly shaekled as

The population of the United States
/ (whether it be admitted as nation or
not, is a united people with one pre-
dominant instinct or conception, and
that is the belief in the equality of man,
independence, as against old-world
monarchism, aristocracy, caste or So
cial distinction Any tinge of subju-
cation inherited by the founders of the
republic, or brought to it by scions Of
European politics, has been entirely
eliminated in succeeding generations
and disseminated and dissolved in the
predominant and characteristic SEN
| timent. That such a people will
never submit to subjugatfon is too ap-
parent to need emphatic assertion.
That the people are alive and sensi-
tive to the tendency of their social and
political conditions was never so mani
fest as in the two last Presidential
campaigns, and they were never more
restless and demonstrative than in the
| last three or four years. They are but
awakening to the gravity and signifi-
cance Of unmistakable signs, and the
duration of the present pause or COM
parative quiet is a period likely to be
brief, and one of certain CESSATION.
If the writer of these lines has not
given a plain, uncolored and truthful
statement of conditions, as nearly as
might be condensed in limited space,
| it is the fault of his judgment. He
believes the common impressions of all
careful observers are approximately
! expressed If this is admitted, then
there is no fragrant exaggeration Of
causes for alarm. it is time to be
alarmed. The situation is ha-
zardous one. and there seems to be no
immediate promise of changing it. If
| there is to be remedy in legislation it
is not apparent in any measures under
present consideration. There must be
some radical, active efforts to provide
remedy or. like any disease left to
itself, the worst should be anticipated
whore the symptoms are so unmistak-
able There are diseases that never
cure themselves, and the malady de-
fined is one of them-more than that
it is chronic, and where it has afflicted
nations, it has never been cured. Left
to itself the disease affects nations as
it affects all things that decay, they
give way to other things.
There was a time when tariff ad-
justment and taxes upon commercial
eral welfare. That time, like the time
for the radical restriction of European
immigration to our shores, is past.
Both are now merely superficial meas
ures-the one may be made a source of
revenue as a tax upon luxury alone,
and the other can only endeavor to ex-
clude criminals, slaves and the colored
races. The latter should surely be the
Alzs 70 N1saJV fliY
the ascendency of the Caucasion race
and dispense with slaves, there is no
other reasonable or possible policy.
AS for the coinage question, with
which the public mind has been divert
ed. in what other than in a very tenn
porary sense could it remedy our ma
| tional disease? 1t would not be as
convenient for our princes to garner
the national product in a bulkier shape.
but if ii was in the form of hay, rather
than grain or gold, the same invincible
monopoly and Capitalization of the
common product would ensue.
! 1t seems in vain to reiterate these
fundamental principles and doctrines,
so firmly established and exemplified in
the ethical history of the governments
of the world and in the manifest ten
dencies of our own. They are never
out of sight and they have been
enunciated in every manner of phrase
and tone of rhetoric. If he is never to
profit by the most pndeniable truths,
established by every epoch of his his
tory, man must be pronounced hope
lessly selfish, improvident for his COM
munity welfare, hence incapable of con-
| tinuous elf-government or moral ad
vancement beyond the selfish goal of
temporal personal ambition.
Our Government. has f1ourished in pro-
portion to the wisdom of it's funda-
mental laws and their adaptation to
primitive conditions, and to its prolific
and unrivaled natural resources. There
has hitherto been plethoric territory
upon which the impecunious of the
Eastern nucleus have nourished them
selves when the selfish monopoly of the
general gain made them dscontented.
Had it been confined to the original col
onies how long could our Government
have maintained it's consistency
| 1t is idiotic to expect a race of pa
| triotS from the slums of our great cities
or from the graduates of almshouses,
asylums and penitentiaries. The inde-
pendent manhood of rural regions is
! being suppressed and subjugated by
every selfish method that ever aided
to blast a nation. Moralists may groan.
evangelists preach and sing hymns
Salvatonists beat cymbals and tam
bourines, politicians find places-and
! journalists and essayists may commend
or criticise from day to day-they will
meyer lack for material, but may perish
for followers and readers. The hungry
will not hear, the criminals will eat
rather than starve, the laborer will nor
accept salvation gospel for bread TIE
| lunatic will howl on, and ousted poll
tieians turn conspirators.
1t would seem the dominant element
of human nature is to be forever pois
oned with the venom of insatiate greed
and avarice. for which there is no med
| icine. Disntegration and death is and
always has been the infallible minis
ter
In concluding permit me to be so dog
matte and vehement as to assert, with
out qualification. that the restriction of
the selfish passions by the limitation of
individual accumulation is the only ra-
tional hope for human equality or the
perpetuation of our national polity 1t
may be attained under our Constitution,
but | believe a unity of common inter-
ests in real psternal government to be
the most apparent political policy. II
this is pronounced visionary, I am only
sorry that it is not more SO than 1t is
to nope for the continuity of our prev
alent social and political status.
CHARLES L. PAIGE.
JUST LIKE HORSES.