The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-11-22
EXCEPTIONS TO THE RULE.

lildl lIC ptIiOOS VI clNllNlly III oIlS VI
the fields in which human activities
are employed were followed by a reac-
ton of equivalent force and degree,
it is plain that there could be no rate
of progression. Civilization would os-
cillate, with the regularity of the move
ment of a pendulum, from civilization
to barbarism. Whatever degree of
progress had been attained would be
lost in the equivalent backward move
ment. Reactions humanity has had
that have swept its civilization back
wards for time, but it was more the
relaxation after exertion than a return
to the initial point under the operation
of a law that exacts precisely as
much as it gives. But such retrograde
movements always leave a net residu-
I'm of clear progress, something per
manently attained that serves as new
point of beginning from which a for
ward movement can be again initiated.
Recently there closed in the second
largest city of the world a political
contest for it's control. One of the con-
testants, the victorious one had earned
a reputation for maladministration of
the municipality that had made it's
name odious. Once it had been driven
from power by a revolt beginning with
in its own ranks and carried on I'M
til its chiefs We're either in prison or
had fled from justice to foreign coun-
tries Tho ho
lowed Tammany again to get hold of
the machinery of government; but,
granting all that is charged against
II to be true, it never went back to
the rottenness of the Tweed regime
Again the moral sentiment of the COM
munity rose against it, and it was
driven out and a business reform adj
ministration installed. The police force
was relieved from it's degradation and
put where each man could retain his
self-respect. The streets, for years
given over to dirt dust and mud, with
street cleaning abandoned as an UNI
solvable problem, We're made and kept
clean. The street cleaners, from being
d bloOl oC.IlIAGNl, DO,S-ttI ~ eli, IeSDecJIGSS
class, consciously of the dregs of So
ciety, were organized, taught self-re-
spect, inspired with an esprit du corps
and made an efficient body of faithful
workers. The ''pantata," the police
man who winked at violations of law
when committed by those who had feed
him, disappeared. Not all was done
that was needed to be done, but much
was accomplished that will last.
Now has come, through combina-
ton Of malign influences in both po-
ltical parties, reaction. Tammany is
soon to be again in complete control.
During the struggle the constant APP
peal was to prevent this because it
would be sure to be accompanied with
a restoration of all the misgovernment
against which successful resistance had
been made. All that had been gained
would be lost. Jobbery would again
prevail, and corruption would again
render the police force stencil in the
nostrils of decent people, Voters were
asked to compare the condition of the
streets under the reform and under the
Tammany administration and ask
themselves if they would exchange the
present for the past. And when the
election declared that Tammany had
been restored there was a general ap-
prehension that all that had been ac-
complished was lost; that the reaction
would be equal to the progress achiev-
ed.
There is occasion for uneasiness
There will be some reaction some
backward movement. Tammany has no
ideals, its aims are not high, it's con-
ception of government, its uses and
purposes, is tinctured with CONNER
cialism. But the reaction will not be
equal to the forward movement. Some
where back of the point gained, be
tween it and the initial point, the
backward movement will go and stop.
There will be a net gain that Tam
many will have to respect and permit
to stand. The streets will never be
again what they were. The police force
VIII ne pellef IMAM IL was. JoDbery
there will be, for jobbery and govern
ment are synonyms with the sachems.
but it will never again be as open and
shameless. By and by there will be
another spasm of reform; public sem
timent, educated by what had been ac-
complshed in the way of reform, will
rise and install a progressive admins
tration, and out of it will come another
pit of solid and permanent advance
ment. An inscrutable wisdom seems to
require that progress of the race should
be thus slowly and painfully made.