New Ulm review. (New Ulm, Brown County, Minn.) 1892-1961, 1897-11-03
Current Opinion.
Dr., Crane on the Prostitution Of American
ism in Our Metropolitan Cities.
Ian Maclaren, the Scotch Novelist, Writes
of American Wastefulness.
The Income Tax in Great Britain. The
London Times on Gen. Wood
ford's Note.

The Income Tax in Great Britain. Thl
London Times on Gen. Wood
fords Note.
DR.. Frank Crane, the brilliant Chica.
goan, discusses the Greater New York
campaign in one of his pulpit editorials,
and draws the following conclusions:
At present it looks as if Tammany were
assured Of an easy victory. What hap
pened in Chicago. will happen in New
York. The better classes quarrel and
the solid phalanx of the hungry partisans
moves on to victory. Organization is a
tremendous power. The American pc.
litical party in its proper field is the
best, most democratic, most praiseworthy
of institutions. But it is so simply be-
cause it is so utterly the creature of pop.
ular choice and so quickly punishable
for it's mlsdeeds. But every power, ev-
cry organization, carries within itself a
seed of teebleness and abuse. Trans
ferred to the municipal arena, the nation.
al party is not there because the people
created it for that end, but because, be-
Ing created for another end, it usurps
this place for the selfshness of its leaders
it is not there to assume a duty for
which it can be held accountable, but
to acquire a privilege for which all its
accountability shall be lost, merged into
the larger issues of national campaign,
and thus shifted; it is not there, as is the
case in a presidential election, as the
perfect servant of the people, to do their
will and then retire till the next occa-
sion, but it is there as the master of the
people, to capture them by chicanery and
to enslave them for the benefit of few
ambitious leaders. In national elections
the party is pure Americanism; in mu-
nlcipal elections the national party is the
prostitution of Americanism.
In giving his impressions of America
and Americans, formed during his recent
visit to the United States, Ian Maclaren,
the Scotch novelist, rebukes the prodi-
gality and wastefulness which has sprung
up IN this country since the late war.
He says:
If one were placed in witness box
he might be obliged to declare that they
we're distinctly thriftless. An American
filings about his money with gorgeous
prodigality. Times there are when a
hard bitten, poverty stricken Scot cher
ishes a bitter grudge against his more
friendly cousin. It is when he follows
him into a continental hotel and finds
the lackeys despise his poor vail after
the royal largeness they have just re-
ceived. We can only stand and wonder
at our kinsman who gets his money so
easily, who holds it so lightly, who spends
it so lavishly-a man surely of a very
princely habit and far removed above
thought of saving. And yet it may be
allowed us to shake our heads and have
some misgivings as to whether this pro-
digalty is for the good of individual
character and the firm upbuilding of
people. Is the ostentatious waste of
food in hotels wholesome or justifable,
where the menu is bewildering in varie-
ty, and the portions supplied, beyond all
necessity, and more is taken away than
is used2 Does it conduce to stability and
self-restralnt to be quite Indifferent
about tomorrow and to reserve nothing
of today's earnings9 Have not the farm
ers traded recklessly on the virgin re-
sources of the land2 Have not the for
ests been improvidently cut down? Is
there not everywhere a certain want of
prudence and management which cannot
in the long run minister to moral strength
or even to material wealth? If it be
true, as is commended, that every great
empire has been built up on thrift, this
means that the homeliest of virtues does
not end in the accumulation of money,
but results in the creation of manhood.
And the best friends of America, there
fore, desire that amid all her prosperity
she shall not tall away into improvidenee
and luxury, but ever retain and cultivate
that habit Of simple and severe living
which was shown by her puritan fathers.
VIM. E. Curtis, the celebrated cores
pondent, supplies his paper, the Chicago
Record, with some interesting facts in
i.. No l~,s IN