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Show FUTURE SECTIONALISM. i '.' It is all very well to inveigh against eectionalisni in this vast nation of wonderfully diversified and wide-spreading wide-spreading geographical conditions, but it is absolutely impossible to weigh matters affecting the majority, the government gov-ernment as a nation, or the people locally without taking into the matter purely stctional considerations. Last fall we were all edified by Governor "West's reasons for not wishing to appoint ap-point delegates from Utah to the Pan American convention at St. Louis on the score that the purposes of that convention con-vention were purely Bectional. In the abstract the governor's reasoning was j good, but in the concrete it was bad. It is all very noble to sacrifice one's Belf for the good of the nation, our neighbor, or a great moral principle, but as a business proposition it wna't hold water at all. Sound politics like acceptable charity should commence at home. Our first duty is due to our-self, our-self, family and neighbor. After that comes the outsiders. It does not take a violent effort to deduce a rather vigorous vig-orous states-rights argument from this proposition. Allegiance due first to self, then tojfamily, then to neighbor and neighborhood very soon takes in the state in which one lives, and by the earne soundly moral rule, a group of Btatea with which we are banded, as with hooks of steel, by our common interests, in-terests, common associations, and 10m-ruon 10m-ruon sympathies. A lot of people planting potatoes have common interests and common sympathies. A policy which is obviously obvi-ously to their advantage would be sus- ; fc'duieiy"probabiy be" opposed by others not engaged in the same pursuit. pur-suit. So is it that the cotton states are sectional in the same sense, that the potatoe, wheat raising, or wool producing states are sectional in the sense to which we allude. New England, New York and Pennsylvania are sectional in this, that they are engaged almost exclusively in manufacturing enterprises. They stand for tariff" while the west and south stand practically for free trade Or at least for tariff for reyenue only. Our willing disregard for sectional in terests has robbed ue of our silver. Had we made a fight, call it sectional or whatever else you like had the west and the south stood together and battled earnestly as an unit, section alized if you will, we had had our good old money of the ages yet a potent factor fac-tor in trade. The entire west and the south would have had money with wuicu ro carry on tneir trade, our silver sil-ver mines would be actively at work. There had been no idle, starving men, no armies of tramps, no mortgage fore closures, no pinching hard times, no panic conditions. This fair western land of plenty would have been smilingly smil-ingly content had the sort of sectionalism section-alism we have hinted at been practiced. prac-ticed. The sectionalism of the future must not be predicted upon moral or religious re-ligious principles, but upon those which are purtly economic in their Eature. The sectionalism of the future will not run her lines of demarcation east and wtBt, they will be drawn from the north to the Bouth.with a decided eastern trend. South and west will rule, and rule for the prosperity of the whole, while the petted industries and protected trusts and corporate sharks of the north-east will have to be eatisfied with what the generous and prosperous west and south gives them. Organized thus the generous sections we have named will soon have enough to warrant the most liberal, just and generous division with our less fortunate fortu-nate fellow citizene of the ea6t and north. We need a JitUe of the section aliem which is necessary to enable us to utilize our advantages and the womb of the future is pregnant with the influences in-fluences which are to work this mighty and sadly needed revolution. |
