The Saint Paul globe., 1897-03-04
THE NEW ADMINISTRATION.

tive will be, for the next four years,
the member OF that party who has
been most prominent in the public eye
ever since the session of 1890, in which
the bill bearing his name was passed.
Mr.. Mckinley becomes today, however.
the president, not of the Republican
party, but of the United States. AS
such he has right to be judged fair
ly and honestly by men of all parties,
and to receive praise or blame, not
according to the sources from which
his power springs, or according to his
own past record, but by his fidelity to
the great trust henceforth lodged in
his hands. Few men have had a
more difficult or discouraging task
placed before them than that which
is Mr.. McKinley's study today The
poorest citizen of the United States
need not grudge his lease of power
Not only is he set in the midst of
whirling passions and conflicting selfish
interests, whare censure must be his
portion, whatever path he takes, but he
has been SO long bound down to pre-
determined action by his own record
and by the policy Of his party that he is
scarcely free agent. That record and
that policy, however sincere in it's ad-
vocacy Mr.. Mckinley himself may be,
seem to us certainly productive of par
ty embarrassment and IF future
disaster. Let us, as citizens with a
common destiny and a common interest
In the progress of our own affairs, look
calmly and impartially at the work
prepared for the new presidents hands.
First of all, he has to contend with
the clamorous crowd of officeseekers
that have dogged his footsteps, filled
his days and nights and made life a
burden to him since his election, bid
ding fair to break down the magnificent
strength that withstood the exhaustive
efforts of a prolonged campaign What
that pressure is few can realize. Our
private advices from Washington say
that it is something terrible. 1t is
almost distracted. There are from five
to 500 applicants for every position
that can possibly become or be made
vacant. They rage against the civil
claims, they beg, they demand, they
threaten. For Mr.. Mckinley the day
of inauguration is not a day Of relief
from this incubus, but only marks the
deepening of the plague.
In the next place, Mr. Mckinley is
bound to build up our industries, and
to increase the happiness and comfort
of the people by a policy which can
no more bring this about than the
waving Of a magician's wand can Gre
ate an island out of the depths of the
ocean. He is pledged to improve the
condition of the people by taxing them
more heavily He is bound to in
crease revenue by the same process and
the same measure which he declared
seven years ago was a measure to re-
duce revenue. He must call congress
in extra session. he must sign the bill
it presents to him, which bill will rep
resent only the aggregate demand of
the greedy manufacturing interests of
the country, and he must abide by the
results That he has made his own
bed will not decrease the discomforts
of lying in it. He is bound, sooner or
later, to do something with the finan-
cial question. 1t has been dextcrousIy
postponed for a little while, but it
will not take a four years sleep. His
party is as badly divided on that issue
as is the opposition. If no currency
reform is consummated, if the
greenbacks are not retired. if
nothing is done to bring har-
mony and reason into our none
tary system, his administration will be
condemned four years hence by a vote
as decisive as that which elevated II
to power.
Far from last or least among the diff
f1culties that he must master will Mr..
Mckinley find the matter of a sane
and honorable foreign policy. Here.
again, his party has provided him with
abundant embarrassment. With unin-
telligible short-sightedness the Repub-
licans have forced jingoism to the ex-
treme not only during the campaign.
but in the few months since the cleo
ton. They did not seem to see that
their policy would react upon the heads
of the new administration and its SUD-
porters. They stirred up, by foolish
agitation and by recklessly false state
ments, a passion that, when not graft
fed, will turn against themselves. We
do not suppose that Mr.. Mckinley and
his cabinet will suddenly lose their
senses and declare war against Spain
or Great Britain forthwith. If they
do not, they will have to follow exact
ly the same policy which they have
been berating and vilifying as that Of
traitors and poltroons. In the Cuban
situation the new president will find
the most perplexing problem of his i'm
mediate heritage. He owes it's trouble
some features to his own supporters.
Even more dangerous than this. and
arising from the same cause, is the
crucial test by which this administra-
ton will be tried. and by which it is
bound to fall. Never was there a more
short-sighted or senseless political act
than the placarding of Mr.. Mckinley