Democratic Sentinel, Volume 18, Number 1, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 January 1894 — CAUSE OF THE PANIC. [ARTICLE]

CAUSE OF THE PANIC.

TREASURY WAS EMPTIED BY THE REPUBLICANS. Mr. Cleveland Left a Clear Surplus of Over One Hundred Millions at the Close of Hla Former AdminUtration— Admission of New States. Meet the Situation Boldly. There is sn opportunity for the President. If not a positive duty, by a special message- to Congie-s. to laybefore the country the exact condition of the national treasury and the steps by which this condition has been brought about. The exhaustion of the treasuty is the direct result of a deliberative policy. The people are entitled to know just how that policy has worked, since they are now appealed to in its defense. They can in no way gain this knowledge so" well as from an authoritative < statement of the process by which the the treasury was reduced from abundance to bankruptcy. The Republican organs do not tell this. They dwell cn tne fact that the revenues have fallen off in the last six months. They do not explain that this temporary deficiency would be .of trifling importance had not the Treasury been emptied of its accumulations and the expenditures raised beyond the revenues _ by tho policy steadily pur.ued, both'by tho Congress and the executive, frem 1889 to 1893. Mr. Cleveland left a clear surplus of over a hundred millions, independent of the reserve for tho protection of the currency, with the ordinary expendituresaveraging $283,000,100 a year, or $105,500,000 less than the annual revenues. He received bick a Treasury actually emptied, with even the gold reserve impaired, and the ordinary expenditures raised, by an enormous pension list and other fixed charges, to $383,500,000, the actual payments last year exceeding the actual receipts. The excess oi expenditures over receipts could be easily met and corrected if the Treasury reserves had been left unimpaired. But they were gone. In one summer, during the panic of 1890, the Secretary of the Ti easury poured into the market a million dollars a day for seventy days, in the purchase of bonds, paying in that year alone a premium of over twenty millions to extinguish a debt not due". No doubt it was a help to business, but it exhausted the resources of the Government; so that in the worse curroncy panic of last summer the Secretary was powerless. During the three years from 1889 to 1891, $48,000,000 of the surplus had gone, not to the payment of debt, but to the payment of premiums alone. But this was not the worst. It was no doubt expected that the silver bullion purchased under the Sherman law would serve for the redemption of the Treasury notos issued against it. But the plan was a failure. The actual effect of the law was to drain the Treasury of its sound as-ets and substitute an accumulation of unmerchantable silver bars, which cannot be used in the payment of obligations and represent an absolutely dead investment. As the national credit lies at the foundation of business credit, distress and panic were the only possible results of this reckless and unfortunate policy, associated, as it was, with a tariff whose very purpose was to hamper commerqe and whose effect was to demoralize industry. The present administration has thus to meet the catastrophe ripened under its predecessors, with the expenditures already fixed and the immediate resources of the treasury exhausted. The Government is actually in debt, as the result of the po icy inaugurated by the billion-dollar Congress. The present Congress will have to provide for this deficit by a loan. It should do so boldly and promptly, taking care that the country shall understand exactly where the responsibility belongs. —Philadelphia Times.

Trying to Shanghai Reform. The Washington Post aptly recalls the story of the British herring eurer, who was for freo trade in everything but herrirg, anent the mass of correspondence now being poured in on Chairman Wilson by every mail, of which the following is a characteristic sample: I understand you propose to put poultry on the free list. lam raising Shanghai chickens out here in Nebraska and get *6 a pair for them: but if you let in chickens from China free, it will destroy my business. I have been a Democrat all my life, but if what you are proposing Is Democracy, I have voted the Democratic ticket for the last time. There are numbers of Democrats of this Shanghai breed in various States who are for the party so long as Democracy is their especial rooster. Their ideas of political duty and of public policy are bounded by the palings of their hencoops. They look on China as a personal enemy, just as they regard commercial freedom as a china egg contrived to natch out a brood of misfortunes for their personal bedevilment and aggravation. These Shanghai poultrers, who are willing that everybody else, even to the herring curers, should be taxed to support the Government, and that their own lifelong Democracy should make them “deadheads in the enterprise,” delight to call themselves Democrats when they have an ax to grind; but they think it most intolerable that any chicken of theirs should over get the ax. Such lifelong Democrats don’t know the meaning of the title they disport; and the sooner they shall drop off the Democratic roost, into the Republican henyard the better it will be for the interests of Democracy and for the chicken-eaters of the country.— Philadelphia Record. New States. ~ Biils have passed the House of Representatives to admit to Statehood Utah and Arizona, and doubtless New Mexico will soon bo added to the list, and possibly Oklahoma* It is claimed by the Republicans that Utah ought not to be admitted because of it 3 having tolerated and sanctioned polygamy. It is conceded that this institution is no longer sanctioned or defended. Utah has'a larger population than two or three combined of the six States admitted within the pa3t fe *• years, and is in every way bettor equipped for Statehood than any of them. It is claimed that Arizona and New Mexico have not the requisite population to entitle them to admission as States. Possibly that may be true, but this objection comes with poor grace from those who favored the admission of Idaho, Wyoming, and Washington. It is not denied that these States were all admitted lor the sole purpose of adding Republican strength to the Senate. blow that the Democrats are in the ascendant it may be that they feel well assured that Democratic Senators will come from these new States, and on this account are zealous for their admission. Republicans set a bad example, and they have no occasion to find fault if their opponents follow it. They relused to take in Utah and New Mexico, as they would probably add to the Democratic strength in the Senate. It becomes tlhe Republicans to keep silent, not murmur or complain, but quietly take some of the medicine they had administered to their political antagonists. It is an old saying that

“curses, like chickens, always oome home to roost." Mean and dishonest precedents are very apt sooner or later to trouble those who set them. To make the charge that the motive of the Democrats in pressing the admission of Utah and Arizen 1 is to get more political power in the Senate is an admission that this was the object of admitting Idaho and Wyoming to statehood when neither of them had a population to justify it—Cincinnati Enquirer. High Tariff Produces Trusts. Trusts are the natural and legitimate offspring of a high tariff. Offering a bounty to manufacturers causes them to enlarge their plants and increase production beyond the noi mal demand. Tempted by the prospect of large profits, which are rendered certain bv the prohibition of foreign competition, capitalists invest in manufacturing enterprises, and the result must be that home competition produce i an excess of that kind of goods which renders it certain that some must go to the wall unless a combination is formed to limit production, fix prices, and parcel out the territory which each fa.-tor in the combine shall supply. An overproduction of the goods "would necessarily knock down tho price. The home competition would be a regular cut-threat business. Tho artificial stimulant given to the home producer by the tax levied upon the products of foreign competitors,being a violation of the natural la ws of trade, must finally result in disaster —such as attends the violation of any other natural law. By organizing a trust the home manufacturers can establish an artificial price without reference to the cost of production. They are only limited in their prices by the amount of duties imposed upon foreign competing product. If they go beyond that the foreign manufacturer is invited to become a competitor. Hence the constant clamor for an increase of tariff taxes by American producers. Raise the tariff walls so high that importation is prohibited, then the trust can prevent domestic competition, and they can rob the consumer to their heart’s content. Repeal the tariff laws and a death-blow is struck to trust organizations. It is a truthful statement made by tho McKinleyites that the object of a high tariff is to check importations and give better prices to American manufacturers. A tariff for revenue can only be incidentally protective. and does not stimulate to its ultimate injury. Strong View* on the Tariff Question. If ever pearls were cast before swine it is in the effort of the administration to deal considoratoly and tenderly with the tariff hogs who have fed so long at the public trough. A univeral squeal is let up at the prospect of a decrease in the quantity of their swill. They denounce the measure fn unstinted terms. They deride the consideration shown them. They call its authors hypocrites and cowards who got into office on a false pretense of making a purely revenue tariff, and now dare not do it; in fact, never intended to do it. They point with scorn to the admission that the bill is still largely protective, and ask if this is what tho Democracy promised. It only shows how useless have been the concessions to the greedy beggars. The recipients for years of public charity, they now have the insufferable effrontery, in a time when everybody is curtailing expenses, either voluntarily or compulsorily, to demand that their gratuities shall be continued at full tide. Tho abuse would have been no greater had the bill, as it should, have cut right to the revenue line. We do not share the apprehensions expressed by tho committee that this would have injured any of the propped industries, and find in the list of our exports of manufactured goods ample proof for the opinion. But, after all, we apprehend that the wrath with which the Wilson bill is met is not so much because of the cuts it makes in the stealings as it is because tho gang see In it the speedy abolition of their privileges. They see that it is only a stop to bo speedily followed by longer ones until freedom of trade is established, forever.—St. Paul Globe.

Agricultural Implements. Some high tariff journals claim that if the Wilson bill passes, this country would be flooded with all kinds of farm implement i from abroad. This statement betrays the inexcusable ignorance of those who make it. If there is any kind of manufacture of which American mechanics have absolute control it is the production of agricultural machinery. They sell the tools, implements,and machinery of the tarm in all parts of the world in competition with those made elsewhere. The superior skill and workmanship of American mechanics give them a monopoly. The farmers in the South American republics will not buy an English cr German machine at any price. Without successful competition in any country the only possible reason for a duty on farm machinery is that it furnishes an excellent opportunity to organize a trust, enabling it to mako its own tsrms with those who use the implements in our own country. Our Minister to tho Argentine Republic, Mr. Pitkin, was interviewed the other day in Boston, and in it he sad: “You cannot get an Argentine farmer to touch anything in the shape of an agricultural implement unless it is of American manufacture.” Keeps McKinley Rnsy. McKinley's Ohio knitting is keeping him very busy at this time. He has landed the State up to its neck in debt; his party is fighting tooth and nails over the flesti pots; there is a lot of official crookedness to be straightened out; and the little Major is not much of a business man at best. —Detroit Free Press.