Democratic Sentinel, Volume 14, Number 49, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 December 1890 — THE McKINLEY MILLENNIUM. [ARTICLE]

THE McKINLEY MILLENNIUM.

Well, the McKinley millsninm is at hand. The tariff haa been "revised by it* friends,” and it wouldn't know itself from a Chinas* wall. Everybody must pay more for everything, so everybody is going to be better off. The farmer must pay more for tht necessities of life; so, of course he Is going to pay his heads more or they, also, have to pay more for too necessities of life. The artisan, th* shopkeeper, the meehanio, must all pay more for what they boy. Of oonrfe they will restore the natural balance of things by paying their employees batter. It is perfectly simple, isn't it?—as simple as anytning in * Alice in W ondarland. ' It is so Simple that e plain oitizen is driven to wonder why, if the MoKinley theory is comet, and nigh prioes and prosperity mast necessarily walk hand in hand, t's epublie n majority in oongresa did not bring about the glorious result that thsv bate achieved. by the far simpler means of a law decreeing that a dollar shall hereafter be oelled an eagle, and a dime a doll ar. and a cent a dime. It wo’a really have been a much more popular measure. Think how grateful a-dOllar-a day workingman would feel if be oonld teal ze that by grace of the republican party, he walked home every payday with sixty dollars in his pooket, instead of tbs six he got before! Of coarse, he would not feel so grateful when he o ime to the further realization of the faots that his two dollars for rent mnst thereafter be twenty; and that chuck steak was sixty cents a pound, instead of s x; and that a seventy-five cent shirt "as #7.60 under the new system.— B t the these little drawbacks are inseparable | from th* McKinley idea. The old scheme of lifting vonrself np by yonr boot strape works just the same way in finance that it works in any other application.

Artificial voices will remain artificial < alues so long as a pint is a pound, th* world around. Congress may soy to the manufacturer of a certain artioie: "Here, you may charge a dollar more for yonr product th in you now oharge; and we see th»t no foreign manufacturer undersells you.” But congress only raises the price of the article Congress oannot increase its value a dollar’s worth to the man who has to buy it. He is out of pooket by the transaction when he buys tbs article at the new price—and be is out of pooket just one dollar. Yon see, it is tb« old bootstrap theory, bo far as national prosperity is involved. Congress has not add. ed a dollar to the common stook. It has mersly shifted a dollar from one mag's pooket to another's, Of coarse, th* men with the empty pocket is less prosperous. Andrew Carnegie is richer; Plain John Smith is poorer. Great is 'McKinley 1 i Bnt, the manufacturer being the rioher by h dollar; perhaps he will divide that dollar with his employes? Perhaps he w|ll, But congress, singularly enough, has omitted to pass a law instructing him to do so. Until that law is passed, it is unlikely that the employer will go back on the prinoiple that has gnided his oourss for a lifetime, and bay his labor at any ighsr rate than the market rate. Perhaps, too, *he manufacturer bring a dollars worth richer, he will buy more bread, and put up prioes in the wheat market, and so benefit the farmer- if th* farmer is ev' r able to g*t within six months pf the rulipg prlpoff Pf tbp wfcp*t market. Pf* haps be will. But we are of the optnion that he has all the bread— andjallth# cake —that he wants, already.—Puok.