They All Want It

Tbere are several iptereets in the country which would like to have the rebel flag incident made the chief issue of the nezt campaign. Weak aa ,tbat issue might be, they regard it as strong in oomparison with some othcrs that might be torced upon them. The big combination in coal, lumber, salt, glass, copper, iron and steel, would like to fight the rebellion over again in 1888. Alien landlords now on the point of being driven from the country, would not object to it if it promised to bnng back the party under whose rule they flouriflhed. The cattle barons who were ejected from the public lauda xrhich they had unlawfully monopolized would welcome it. The Pacific railroads, owing the government 8100,000,000 which they do not want to pa, would not object to a bloody shirt campaign. The land grabbing corporations which have been foroed to do justice to the settler and which have had their unearned grants forfeited all want it. The Dorseys, the Elkines, the Claytons and the Chafees are all yearning for a fight on the lines of a generation ago. Every pap-fed manufacturer and thieving monopolists in America, forced by recent events to defend himself against attacks which are increasing in force, wants to change the subject. Even Jay Gould would not object if the prospect were that the war issues would restore the party from which he bought the appointment of a justice of the supreme court. The claim agente, the subsidy Krabbers the naval and steamship rings, the rnsion swindlers and old Hobeson and Warren Keifer all regard the rebel flag as a first-rate thing to scare honest men with. The only trouble with this crowd is that is slightly too eager. It banks too muoh on an incident which will not avail them much. The "rebel" scare kept them in power eight vears after the country was ready to turn them out. It will not suffice to restore them to power now that they have been tnrned out.