The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1899-09-11
rRAIroR Or PATRIOT.

The Fairmont News is paper whose
innermost conviction is that Moses, or
whoever wrote it, made one of his mis-
takes in emitting from that interesting
account in Genesis of how everything
came to pass, the statement that the
Republican party was the answer to the
command LET there be light" Com
menting upon the basis of representa-
ton in the state convention of its party
next year it insists that the vote for
governor be made the basis. This would
decrease the number of delegates from
those counties where numbers Of Re-
It's. Their representation should be dimin-
ished, the News says, because the guber-
material basis would reward TRAITORS
Very probably the News uses the word
traitor literally and not figtratively. 1t
may be so constituted mentally as to be
unable to distinguish the literal from
the symbolic. Of recent years we have
not seen much use made of this term
applied to men who refuse to follow con-
vention commands; but the time is with
in the memory of men not yet old when
such men were called 'turncoats" and
'renegades," and were SO considered and
socially treated We have also had a
applied to men who disagree with the
war policy of this administration. But
that is another matter. The question is
whether, even figurativeIy used, the term
traitor can be applied to voters who,
for reasons that appeal to and convince
their judgment vote for the candidate of
an opposing party. II might be urged, in
opposition to the use made by the News
of a bad word, that the constitutional
definition of the word does not apply to
such an act; but, as the constitution has
the Monroe doctrine has been cut in half,
and one-half thrown overheard, there
seems to be little use in citing that defini-
ton of treason in disproof of the cor
reCtness of the News use of it. When an
administration is so regardless of such
weighty matters as the constitution and
the venerable doctrine of Monroe it is
hardly to be expected that Republicans
like the News will be other than careless
In the use of terms
Then We must object to the use of the
word by the News on the ground Of it's
inconsistency. If one man who votes
against his party's candidate becomes a
traitor to that party, then all men, of
all parties, who do. the same are also
traitors, and equally to be branded such
by men and papers of all parties. Demo-
cratic papers should so refer to the Re-
publicans who voted for Lind, but we
have seen no such Characterization of
them in any Of our papers. Republican
papers should 1mpartially apply the same
opprobrious epithet to Democrats who,
occasionally, prefer Republican candi-
dates to their own party's. Although
North gave Arnold the gold and commits
sion for which the traitor bargained, still
the English people, among whom he went
to live, treated Arnold as if he had been
an English and not colonial traitor.
We observed that the News is not con-
sistent in bestowing it's term Three
years ago there were a sufficient number
Of Democrats who, in the use of their
best judgment, voted against their party's
presidential candidate and for the Re-
publican to elect the latter. We do not
recall now that the News then character
lied them as traitors" and, though we
cannot so assert, we have no doubt that
| the News fell in with other papers of it's
party who classed them as patriots Now
it is clear, if men so doing are to be
dubbed traitors, that those men should
have been so called by all Republican pa
pers, for there is no line of conduct on
one side of which a man is traitor and
'on the other side of which he becomes a
noble, Independent, self-sacrifcing patriot
He IS one or the other on both sides of
the line. Either the News should be more
accurate in it's use of terms or more con-
sistent