The Saint Paul Globe

THE SAME OLD GAME.

One of the favorite devices of Republican managers in previous campaigns was to quote liberally from English papers opinions indicating a hope of Democratic success. This was regarded as an especially convincing argument to lay before American voters. But these opinions were not sufficient in quantity to meet the exigencies of a hot contest, and resort was had to fabrications of editorials in English papers. It used to keep Democratic papers fairly busy in those days hunting down such forgeries and exposing them, but exposure in no wise discomfited the exposed or discouraged their efforts to save the country in their peculiar way; and they pursued their artifices with cheerful confidence that the end fully justified the means.

To us National Democrats it is very amusing to see Republicans now as busily and zealously hunting down and nailing the forged extracts from English papers put out by the silverites as we were in the tariff fight in nailing theirs. There are several of these, but that which has given the most concern is one from the London Financial News, alleged, at first, to have been contained in that paper of March 10 1894. It took a gloomy view of the situation in this country and declared that when "the grip of gold" was released through the "addition of silver to the volume of money, everything in America would take on a new face; labor and industry would gain new life." With a keen appreciation of the value of the anti-English card in our politics, the News was made to warn its readers that free coinage here would be "inimical and prejudicial to English manufactures and trade." Various changes were rung on this article, but all were attributed to the issue of March 10.

So effective was this as a silver campaign document that the Republicans began to hunt it down. We have received a copy of a pamphlet issued by the sound currency committee of Philadelphia which is chiefly interesting as illustrating how the Republicans hunt down a forgery of English editorials. We are obliged to admit that their method is much more complete than were those the Democrats used when the Republicans were playing that game.

Each page of the Financial News of that date is reproduced by photography from the first. with its stock market reports. to the last, with its advertisements. The reader is triumphantly asked to look it over and see if the forged editorial or any of its variations are to be found in it. With the aid of a magnifying glass of low power this is possible, and it is true that the heart-firing editorial is not there. Then there follows a facsimile of a subsequent issue of that paper, in which the editor says that he has read the forgery and that no such article appeared in his paper of March 10.

But the post-graduates showed their training. They changed the date of the News and asserted that their committee had a copy of that paper of April 30, 1894, in which the "grip of gold" editorial appeared. Very promptly the hunters got on the trail of this variation and drove it into a hole. The cable was brought into requisition; an inquiry was wired to the editor of the News. if the article repudiated by him had appeared in that paper on April 30. To this he responded that it had not; but explained that in the paper of that date he had quoted from a speech made by Senator Cameron, in which the latter used the words contained in the grip of gold" article, and on which the News commented vigorously and adversely. Not deterred by this conclusive nailing." the post graduates continue disseminating the "Grip of Gold" and have actually got up a photographic copy of the News with the editorial in it. So we have a fine illustration of two things: the expertness of Republicans in running forgeries into the ground and the cuteness of the post-graduates in forging.

There is no such clumsy work as their predecessors did, They find a speech of a silverite quoted in an English paper, and make the paper father the speech. That is as distinct an advance in cuteness of method as their idea of protection to silver is in logic.