St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1897-06-18
nr. Bryan In Vermont.

MI. III ydu NduS W winning WI
her people, he said, needed talking to.
He is both clever and audacious, we
will credit him with that, and if he
represented sound politics he would
take high places in the gift of the
people. But he has taken to the
wrong ship, and is certain to en-.
counter opposition; not as man,
for personally he is said to be quite
attractive, but his measures will be
combated, which logically can lead
in no direction but to certain trouble
if not downright disaster. 1t is
clever in him to persist in clever talk
about one dollar being asgood as an
other; any man can say that, but it
is quite another thing to make it so
in practice, and we misinterpret the
genius of the American people if in
1900 they do not decide to leave Mr..
By-an to his eloquence, and his clev-
erness, his silver and his dollar of the
daddies, and elect man who better
understands the real definition of
political economy. Disaster upon
disaster has followed the train OF
clever orators since the world began.
They deluded the Atheniens into a
fatal sense of security about their
northern frontier in Philips time,
and lost their independence in quicker
time than they could regain their
wits.
There is an excellent illustration OF
the extreme folly Of reliance upon
false notions about money in the
great work of Capt. Mahon upon
"The Influence of Lea Power upon
History" "The mines of Brazil
were the ruin of Portugal as those
OF Mexico and Peru had been of
Spain. All manufactures fell into in
sane contempt" In their mad race
after gold and silver, the Portuguese
abandoned the cultivation of the
soil. In fifty years they had lost
their power of self maintenance, and
were dependent upon the fleets and
manufactures of Holland and Eng
land for their supplies. "Of the five
hundred millions of dollars they had
extracted from the mines of America,
all but twenty-five millions had gone
to pay for their imports" An object
lesson of some sterling value in teach
ing the rest of our world the differ
ence between real and representative
wealth.
1t was kind of Mr.. Bryan to come
to Vermont, and we are grateful to
him for rousing sfrom our lethargy !;
for it is idle to deny there is serious
menace to the welfare of American
society in the policy that Mr.. Bryan
and his admirers are pledged to.
There is however an offset to our
fears, compensation for our claims,
the American people, working ma
jority, never get far astray. 1t was
the sublime confidence of Samuel
Adams in the hard. honest sense OF
the people that led him to defer his
judgment to theirs. The new school
of finances represented by Mr.. Bryan
is quite certain to spoil its opportu-
nifty in its mad haste to get silver.
Its followers are quite certain to
overdo the thing in their foolish de.
nunciation of the money power. In
their one-sided zeal for their pet
scheme, they will forget business, and
business methods, that there is a
science called economics with as in.
exorable unwritten laws as the laws
OF the Modes; and that silver must
find its own level in spite OF all nurs-
ing and feeding for an indefinite time
upon government pap. Then again
there is hope for those who believe
in the reasonableness OF things, in
the late rejection of Mr.. Bryan by the
southern populists; in the signs of
the times; in the discomforture of
the anti-department bill in the Illi-
nois legislature; in the halt that ap.
pears to be called by the supreme
court Of Kansas, populist in com.
plexion, to certain reputation ten
denotes for which Kansas has OF late