Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1901-03-22
NON-PARTISlAN NATIONAL POLICIES.

| The fundamental and vital national
policies Of the American people or Of
that dominating popular majority which
| in the end gives shape and movement TO
| momentous public measures are not par
| tisan. Party organizations are merely
the great debating clubs, through whose
discussions and tentative experiments in
government the electoral masses are in
structed and public opinion is definitely
| formed. Hence, at intervals grave Ques-
lions of national moment are affirrua-
lively presented by the federal execu-
| tive. which are too broadly American In
spirit and too intrinsically sound to en-
courage anything like unity in opp.s
ing party opinion. They are questions
| affecting the honor or traditions of the
| republic, and where the attitude of the
administration is too plainly in line
| with the general Judgment to be safely
assailed. In such cases silent acQuias-
cence in the position of the party in
power by it's political adversaries, with
curt words of communication from the
| more independent and honest of it's OBJ
ponents. has come to be accepted as a
tacit admission that the measure in
question is too broadly national in it's
scope to be treated as party issue.
| This characteristic in American politics
| due to partisan sagacity tempered by a
wholesome and encouraging spirit of pa
triotism-is never msnterpreted by the
electorate. nor has it longer a doubt :ul
| significance abroad Especially do Eng
| lish statesmen understand it's full mean
ing. For three quarters of century
they fostered the manufacturing inter-
ests of Great Britain by fighting thu
| policy of protection in the United States
= h, Ito oy.t1, ND
an empire from tie same organization
in the northwest by exchanging for it
their consent to the annexation of slave
territory in the south. to which they
had neither possessory claim nor valid
| right Of guardianship. They have
achieved some gains by avaling them
| selves of political antagonisms in the
United States, but have been most dis
Greet in contending for advantages in
matters in which there has been little
or no division of public opinion.
President Cleveland's demand for ar
bitration in Englands dispute with
Venezuela was not really opposed by the
republican party, however he may have
been rallied in vein of pleasantly by
some of its organs at the doughty spirit
displayed by him toward the one ally Of
the organization of which he was at
that time the accredited leader. 1t was
one of the cases to which we have re-
ferred. in which party considerations
give way to the higher demands Of ma
tional duty. and the word of authority
becomes the echo of the voice of a
united people. The voice was heard and
needed in England, for it was not to be
challenged. 1t was also recognized in
the portentious silence of the last demo y.
cratic national platform on the subject
of tariff protection, and in the anguish
ing condition of the manufacturing il
terests of the United Kingdom may now
be read it's meaning. So long as protec-
ton remained a party measure in the
United States it was actively antago-
nized by the free trade statesmen Of
England, and successfully. too, whenever
the democratic party managed to secure
the control of national legislation, but