738 THE IMPENDING REVOLUTION. 



the great issue? The tariff question is an issue, but its 

 importance sinks into insignificance when compared with 

 the currency question. There is another obstacle which 

 we should, perhaps, speak of in this connection, and which 

 is a serious drawback to the proper- enlightenment of the 

 public mind on questions relating to devising a remedy for 

 existing evils. It is the custom of charging all the evils 

 to which we are subject to the opposite party. In order to 

 obtain a clear view of the situation, we must first "cast 

 the beam out of our own eye." It has been shown in 

 previous chapters that both parties are responsible for the 

 ills we have to endure. The Washington correspondent of 

 the Louisville Courier -Journal of March 7, 1887, says: 



"The session of Congress which has just expired has 

 been a complete and miserable failure. Not one single 

 law has been passed in the interest of good government or 

 for the benefit of the masses of the people. I would like 

 to speak well of the dead but in this case it is an impos- 

 sible task. The blame for the failure of the forty-ninth 

 Congress to pass a few wise and just measures of relief for 

 the whole people, rests upon no party organization. It is 

 simply a case where servants are delegated to perform a 

 duty and shamefully neglect it. The Democratic House 

 is as guilty as a Republican Senate, for neither body 

 brought forth any good, and in this respect the discredit 

 is even. ' ' 



James Russell Lowell, in an address delivered before 

 the Reform Club in New York, said: "What will be of 

 immediate advantage to the party is the first thing con- 

 sidered, what of permanent advantage to the country the 

 last. I refer especially to neither of the great parties 

 which divide the country. I am treating a question of 

 national history. Both parties have been equally guilty, 

 both have evaded as successfully as they could the living 

 issues of the day. As the parties have become more 





