The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-12-11
AT THEIR PERIL.

The Republican members OF congress
and the administration will refuse or
neglect to take any step towards cur
rency legislation this winter at their
peril 1t is no surprise to find that nearly
all the average party leaders, men who
can see no further ahead than the tenn
porary eXpedient of the moment and
who believe that safety lies in finding
some middle course which will offend
nobody, are strongly set against any
attempt to touch the currency. Men
like Cannon and Tawney, mere politi-
clans of the machine stripe, whose idea
1t is to lie quietly in a soft berth and
try to stay there by giving no offense
in any quarter are desperately OPP
posed to financial legislation. Perhaps
they are right, too, in their confident
assertions that there will be none. The
probability is that the bulk of their
party is of the same opinion. It does
not dare take up the money question,
because it is not united upon it itself
The division in the Republican ranks
in favor of fiat money is as threaten
ing to its solidity as was The free sill
yer movement within the Democracy
two years ago. The leading Republf-
can newspapers of the country, the
New York Sun and the Chicago Trib-
une, are fighting shoulder to shoulder
in defense Of the greenback. To hope
that the Republican party will accom-
plish monetary reform is about as ra-
tfonal as to believe that a Democratic
national convention, if it were to as
semble tomorrow, would declare in
favor of the gold standard This is
the practical situation which the party
has to confront.
On the other hand, it cannot be deaf
to the angry mutterings of discomfort
that arise from the voters in every
part of the country. 1t postponed the
inevitable for a little time by declar-
ing that the passage of a new tariff bill
was a first and urgent necessity. The
tariff for the trusts was used to put
financial reform in the background and
to pacify the public with the explana-
ton that two steps of such Importance
could not be acted upon at the same
time. That makeshift will no longer
serve. The tariff is out of the way.
Now congress must either deal with the
money question or agree to let it alone
The Republican party will, therefore,
pursue this winter a policy of inaction
only at its peril. 1t knows, as we
al ba ioI
paramount and predominating in the
last campaign. 1t knows, and the pres
ident and the secretary of the treasury
o can see, that their party is bound by
the most solemn pledge, no matter
whether expressed or implied, to bring
order out of financial confusion and to
establish the currency system of the
United States on a settled and scien-
tific basis 1t might not be able to
do that and still escape punishment
If it were to bring in a bill providing
adequate currency reform and support
1t in both houses with the full strength
of the party vote, it could decently
claim that it had done it's best. Were
the advocates of cheap money in the
senate to prevent it's passage, the re-
sponsibility would rest with them, and
not upon it's sponsors.
But the other policy, that which most
Republicans, in their fear, recommend,
and which we believe is most likely to
be followed the policy of not even try
ing to legislate, of classifying promises
made in every congressional district
upon every platform a year ago, of
lying down supinely and making no en-
deavor to reform the currency, will be
met with universal condemnation. If
the party takes this course, which ap-
pears now to be inevitable it will ex-
perience at the next election a reverse
so overwhelming that recovery will be
almost impossible. Voters who feel
that they have been betrayed will de-
eide to do what hundreds of thousands
of them declare already that they are
prepared to do-that is, vote against
gressional and presidential election, no
matter at what sacrifice or how far
the opposition may diverge from their
personal views, in order to inf1ict
penalty upon those who have been
&alse to their trust. 1t is not only the
fate of monetary reform that hangs in
the balance this winter. it is the future
of the Republican party. We believe