The Mankato free press. [volume] (Mankato, Blue Earth County, Minn.) 1879-1924, 1898-11-04


It is one of the remarkable facts of
the present campaign that Mr.. Lind re-
fuses to be considered either the Demo-
cratic or the Populist candidate for
Governor. His friends Of the combina-
ton, who nominated him, note with
pain that while he is with them he is
not of them. AS he proclaimed at
Minneapolis, he is political orphan. !"
Mr.. Lind was trained from boyhood
in the Republican school of political
thought. That means that he was edu-
cateG to discuss and to understand
broad principles of government, and to
ignore the dervish howlings of the mere
demagogue and spoils hunter. 1t is
therefore not surprising that he is at
heart very much ashamed of the COM
pany in which he is forceds to travel
during the campaign of 1898.
To comprehend just why Mr.. Lind is
too much ashamed Of the company
in which he finds himself in
this year of our Lord, it
will only be necessary for the citizen
of average intelligence to look in upon
any one of the numerous committee
headquarters which are labeled Demo
cratic" or "Populist'' in any moderately
large center of population in the State
of Minnesota today. At these numer-
Gus headquarters" political interest
seems to have entered into unholy bonds
of matrimony with every unclean
prejudice known to undeveloped human
nature. Here lame and impotent polit-
ical corruption is found arm in arm
with all the reactionary forces which
forever struggle to compel mankind
back into the realms of barbarism.
When Mr.. Lind opened his campaign
before good sized audience in Mime
apolis, the notable features of his
speech were his announcement that
he was political orphan" together
with his tacit denial of any sort of af-
fliation with either the Democratic or
Populist parties; and his effort to ignore
the free coinage of silver as an issue in
the present campaign. Two years ago
Mr.. Lind proclaimed himself a Repub-
Gcan upon all the issues between parties
excepting only the free coinage issue at
the rate of 16 to 1. This year he admits
that the free coinage issue is dead, and
now very properly announces himself as
"a political orphan"
1t seemed very funny to be listening
to John Lind mouthing over the stale
and outworn arguments of Democratic
and Populistic demagogues. He was
particularly unhappy in trying to
fix upon the shoulders of the
Republican party the responsibility
for the growth of monopolistic tenden-
cies and the increase of gigantic trusts
and combines. No one knows better
than Mr.. Lind that the evolution of
monopolizing tendencies in trade, man
ufacturing and business, is an evil for
which no one political party is in any
sense responsible; and none knows better
than he, either, that the great thinkers
and leaders of the Republican party are
today engaged in striving to solve these
new problems in government without
doing wrong or injustice to any man or
any interest.
Tt is really sad to see man of Mr..
Lind's acknowledged intelligence stoop-
ing to the cheapest arts of the barroom
demagogue while striving to secure the
votes of his fellow citizens for the high
est office in their gift. Fortunately the
people of Minnesota are too well edu-
Gated on political questions to be caught
by the cheap and outworn claptraps of
the merest political place hunters.
When Mr.. Lind-the political orhan-
at his grand opening in Minneapolis,
took occasion to make an indiscriminate
and unwarranted assault upon Mr.. Ken
yon, the State Public Examiner, he very
evidently did not stop to consider the
probability that Mr.. Kenyon might pos
sess facts and figures in his Office which
would tend to relieve Mr.. Lind himself
of that fattering pseudonim of ''Honest
john" Very OPPORTUNITY, however,
Mr. Kenyon discovered that the Brown
county bank-of which Mr.. Lind
is director-had been engaged
in identically the same sort
of disreputable performances which
occasioned so muche public scandal
against the Bank of Minnesota in St.
Paul-the institution which had pro-
voked the, virtuous Indignation of the
political orphan"
The Bank of Minnesota had violated
the provision of the state law which for
bids the loaning of not more than 10
per cent of its capital to one individual,
firm or corporation. 1t had, indeed,
loaned more than 60 per cent of its cap
ital either to William Dawson or indus
tries representing the Dawson inter-
est. 1t was this violation of the
plain letter and spirit of the law which
led up to the downfall of the Bank of
Minnesota, and consequent losses to de-
positors and stockholders. 1t was in
this connection that Honest john crit