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The President's Message

The President's Message image
Parent Issue
Day
9
Month
December
Year
1898
Copyright
Public Domain
OCR Text

The President's Message

As a chapter of recent history the president's message is a notable contribution to contemporary literature. As an epoch marking document it is a lamentable failure. It was confidently hoped that Mr. McKinley would at this juncture outlie the policy which the republicans will pursue with our new colonial possessions. Nothing was expected from a great party leader. but in this instance Mr. McKinley has acknowledged that he is too weak or too timid to perform the duties of a leader in a great emergency - that he is still groping for the thread which will lead him safely into line with public sentiment and save his bacon in 1900. The country knows as much now concerning the future of our newly acquired territory as it did before the message was received, and no more. The president tells congress what it already knew; and leaves that body to find its own solution of the perplexing problems presented in his narrative. 

Upon many of the minor questions which are now occupying a share of public attention Mr. McKinley takes a more decided position. He wants congress to take immediate action upon the Nicaraguan canal proposition. But he overlooks entirely the deep waterways project which is of so vast importance to the people of the lake region. He is, as was to be expected, in favor of retiring the greenbacks with gold and of the other projected currency reforms which are calculated to make the grip of the gold standard secure.

He strongly recommends an increase of the regular army to a peace footing of 100,000 men. This proposition is a dangerous one. Our regular army in the past has proved equal to all emergencies, even when the Indians on the western frontier occupied the attention of a large portion of it. There is nothing in the domestic situation to demand an increase of the former peace footing of the army and every regular soldier, placed at the command of the president more than is necessary to insure domestic peace and tranquility is a menace to republican institutions. The events of the past season have proven that in case of foreign war an efficient volunteer army can be placed in the field at short notice. 

The recommendation for an increase of the strength of the navy will probably be met in a different spirit by the people. In the early days when constitutional government was forming in England, Englishmen were always opposed to a standing army which could be turned against them at home and were always ready to support a navy which could only be used in advancing British interests abroad. For similar reasons the American people can look with favor upon an increase in the navy when they will frown upon a similar proposition with regard to the army.

In line with the history of his party in the past, Mr. McKinley favors the subsidy of steamship lines to our newly acquired possessions. in other words we take the new territory to advance trade and then subsidize the traders for whom the territory is acquired. 

the director of the mint, Roberts, in his annual report says:

"the truth is that prices in all domestics are related to prices in international transactions and cannot be separated from them. The values of all goods that enter into the common consumption of mankind are international.

And that is just what we have been for years trying to pound into economists of the protection school to which Mr. Roberts belongs. When protectionists venture into a discussion of the money question they always unearth the fallacies of high tariff arguments.

Gen. Joe Wheeler permitted his galantry to get the better of his judgement in the bill he has introduced in congress providing a testimonial to Miss Helen Gould for the active interest that very estimable young lady took in the welfare of the soldiers and sailors during the war with Spain. According to her means Miss Gould did no more than hundreds of thousands of other American women did.