The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-05-01

has lifted up his voice In blatant baWl-
ing out against the might Of oppression
that brushes the masses, and which ne
proposes to lift from the shoulders of
the doWntrodden ones-using Pat scan
nell for lever and Dick Bell for the
fulcrum to rest that lever upon.
He has wrought himself into some
mighty samples Of the fine frenzy that
used to be potent in hypnotizing the
''yap" jury man; he has warped his
elongated form in straining for periods
that would rip the everlasting stuft1nS
out of his mother tongue: he has as
sailed the tympanums, of his hearers
with bolts of bombastic buncombe; he
has scaled the empyrean to fit the ar
rows Of eloquence with the feathers OF
f1amboyancy, and he has insulted the
understanding of his hearers by as
saulting them with the small shot OF
sense wrapped in the windy envelOp
Of sesquipedalian verbiage.
If conversation could be cashed IN
Bill Erwin would have had the wealth
Of the world collected years ago. He
has been all his life engaged in the
defense of criminals, but he never had
so bad q case, such obviously guilty
clients nor so stubborn jury TO NIX
in all of his career. His conversation
has gone for nothing and not zone or
the periods that he has wrought In the
past two months has ever found
place in the archives Of the talk that
has joined the hosts Of dead words.
He is known as a mountebank whose
art Is juggling with scraps OF sound.
He don't know a principle even by
sight, and his knowledge of economics
&c restricted to a mathematical COM
prehension of the value OF the weight
of so many thousands Of words project
ed against the ears of the juryman.
He has coined catch phrase, eco
nomic liberty and he goes about howl
ing 1t as though he thought 1T meant
something. He Is dangerous in the one
respect that he knows how to fatter
the man of low intelligence by adj
dressing him in language that Is to-
tally unintelligible to him, but which
he is pleased to have addressed him,
because that fact implies that he I'M
derstands 1t.
That is all there is of subtlety about
Bill. He losses bouquets of words at
any one who will listen to him, and he
Is not likely to lack listeners.
In the school of economics he Is
tyro. He does not even understand the
doctrines Of that party to which he
claims to belong, and he is SO care
less of the tenets of Populism that he
never hestates to sacrifice those tenets
to the requirement of the period he is
making. The Populist stands for pa
per money as the medium of exchange,
| If he stands for anything, yet Erwin,
| nearly every time he has talked in this
| campaign, has declared against any
sort Of money that lacks intrinsic value.
| His political beliefs are formed to fit
| the crimes of the clients he is defend
| ing He is the tool of Dick Bell and
| his satellite Scannell, yet he claims to
stand for individual liberty. He is led
to the platform and the tap Of his
word tank turned on-and that Is all
| the management he needs.
He has professed to be the leader of
| the labor element of st. Paul. yet, as
an absolute fact, he has not in this
campaign received the Endorsement Of
a single labor organization.
His charlatanry carried him so far
that he actually Joined the BARRIERS
union, and it is not claimed, even by
| his friends, that he was not hippodrom-
| ing when he did It,
| He drained the treasury Of every Ia
| Dor organization in the Northwest to
| get his fee for defending strikers, and
| he has demanded political support in
addition to his money fee.
! He stands for nothing but Dick Bell
and he would never have been noticed
| in a local campaign, If it had not been
| for the fact that Bell has some knowl-
| edge of practical politics.
| Bill Erwin has been listened to dur
| ing the campaign by good many peo-
| pie, but he has made no votes by his
| talk. His hearers have been induced
| to go and hear him as they would be
| induced to go to an entertainment of
any kind that afforded some fun and