AMS the weeks go by it becomes more and more evident that the prosperity promised upon the inauguration of a new political administration at the seat of national government, is endowed with the elusiveness of a phantom. President McKinley tells the people to wait and be patient, and the wisdom of patience under the pressure of trials cannot be denied; but very many of the people and among them some erstwhile staunch supporters of the administration, have arrived at the conclusion that patience, however good in the abstract, has ceased to be a virtue as regards the regime which now prevails in our State and national governments. And there are ominous signs that ere long they will be ready to resort to desperate measures to obtain the needed relief.
There come reports from Western Pennsylvania that a vast army of starving men—the underpaid operation—in mines and mills—are planning an uprising which will be marked by bloodshed and conflagration. In many other parts of the country the industrial conditions are such as to invite an imitation of their example. It is human nature to seek to find relief from the injuries it receives, in an outbreak of human passion. This will bring ruin and more misery, but not prosperity to the community which it affects. The passions of human nature are at the bottom of all the trouble to-day.
While factories are shutting down and wages are being reduced on every side, while the resources of the laborers are dwindling and the ranks of the idle and destitute are being augmented, the coal trust in advancing the price of coal, and the beef trust in advancing the price of meat. And the only reason the price of everything else that is necessary to existence is not advancing, and that we do not have to pay for air and sunlight, is that in the wisdom of the Creator the circumstances governing their probation were so ordained as to secure the most of them against manipulation by a trust.
High tariff and low tariff, bimetallism or a gold-standard, may cause industrial disturbance and depression, and the country is made to shift from one to the other; but the country can in time adjust itself to the situation which results merely from a political policy. But the happiness and prosperity of the people can never be adjusted to the greed and selfishness which seek to turn the [371] advantages of trade to the benefit of the few, by arbitrary interference with the natural law of supply and demand.
The SENTINEL has no remedy to propose for adoption by the Government or by political parties. It would only point men to that individual remedy which consists in the cherishing of right principles for the control of the individual life, and of faith in Him whose throne is in the heavens, whose kingdom ruleth over all, and who overrules in the kingdoms of this world. It likewise would say to the people, “Be patient;” but it would say it in the language of Scripture, “Be patient, therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord.” See James 5:1-8. The hope of every lover of justice and peace is the coming of the Lord. “For yet a little, and He that shall come will come, and will not tarry.” Hebrews 10:37.