The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1900-03-05
DISCONTENT FADING.
j. j. Ingalls, Writes of What President
Mckinley Is Accomplishing

TT. J. ingalls, in New York Journal ]
The most extraordinary phenomenon
of President McKinley's administration
is the subsistence of social discomfort.
Something has scattered plenty over
a smiling land. Employment is album
dant and wages rise. Agriculture en-
barrasSeS the farmer with its riches and
burdens the fleets of the world with its
abundance. Commerce thriVeS beyond
precedent. Manufactures multiply and
replenish the earth. From Cape Nome
to Porto Rico, from Manila to Maine,
forges blaze, stacks smoke, wheels re-
volve, spindIes hum, and electric lights
turn night into day. 1t is an illumi-
mated chapter from the romance OF
prosperity.
Even the per capita that mysterious
and menacing specter whose shadow
has so often darlxened the feast, has
increased from $2247 when Mckinley
was inaugurated to $25.42 at the close
of the third year of his administration
the most rapid growth of money in cir
culation in our history, and very large
ly in gold.
Whether this prodigious change is
due wholly or in part, or not at all. to
the policy of the administration is i'm
material. 1t has happened. 1t may be
cause and effect, or it may be coin
cidence; but the millions who were
ground between the upper and the
neither millStOnes of adversely in that
dismal interval after the collapse of
1893 know that it has taken place.
They are not inquisitive as to how it
came to pass. What they desire is its
continuance.
AS soon as the farmer has a bank
account he ceases to be interested in
abstract questions of finance. The ca
pacity to draw check makes him con-
servative. The artisan who owns his
home and has constant occupation at
living wages thinks less of communism
and the redistribution Of the assets of
society.
Such a condition, while conducive to
tranquility and happiness, is not fav-
orable to reform. A people contented
and PROSPEROUS become inert and pas
sively submit to wrongs that 1t is more
difficult to resist than to endure.
For this reason the encrOachment of
monopolies is now insidiously destroy
ing competition and opportunity in ev-
cry department of commercial and in
dustrial activity. Even the newspa-
perS, usually SO prompt and vigorous
to resent injustice and oppression, sub
NIT to the extortions of the trust which
has recently SO enormously increased
the price of paper almost without
murmur of protest With combined ef-
fort they could wiring the necks of these
malefactOrS and throw their carcaSSeS
on the composite heap of Mammon,
where they belong. This trust levies it's
blackmaiI on education and religion, on
the school book and the Bible, on knOwl-
edge, literature and libraries, on free
thought and free press, which are the
sentinels and guardians of liberty.
OF all the unforgiven crimes of the
money power this is the most indefen-
sible and Infamous. If the Republican
party does not strangle these monsters,
it is certain that some other party will.
The presidents career in the begin
ming is a striking illustration of the i'm
mense value of pure, high, stainless
personal character as an element of
success in public life. He wears the
triple armor of him who hath his quar-
rel just. He has escaped calumny.
All our recent presidents, with one ex-
ception, have been reputable enough,
but Mckinley has been more than this
he has lived up to his ideals. He has
made the golden rule the law Of his
conduct. He has been loyal to his home,
faithful to his friends, magnanimous to
his adversaries, constant in his devo-
ton to duty. He has paid his tithes of
anise, mint and cummin: he has not
omitted the weightier matters of the
law.
His defects and limitations are rec
ognized, but no one doubts his patriot
ism, his cincerity, his determination to
do right, his love of justice. He is safe
and sane; a planet and not a meteor.
His opponents respect him, and the peo-
pie, regardless of party, honor and trust
him,