Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 24, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1895 — WHERE BLAME RESTS [ARTICLE]

WHERE BLAME RESTS

REPUBLICAN POLICY CAUSED DEMOCRATS TO BORROW. Measure of the G. O. P. Brought on the Panic—The Attempt to Have Democrats Punished for Republican Blunders Will Not Succeed a Second Time. Whose Incompetency? Through the mouth of that illustrious public and private fluancier, Charles Foster, the Republicans of Ohio have the amazing effrontery to denounce the Democratic party “for its deplorable Incompetency in handling the national finances, borrowing §162.000,U00 in two years." Why did it become necessary to borrow that much money in two years? Harrison entered the White House on March 4. 1889. During the fiscal year ending four months later the revenues exceeded the expenditures hy §105,053,443. During the following year, under the same revenue laws, ffie excess of revenues over expenditures was §105,344,490. Then the Republican party, having complete control in both houses and their own man in the White House, so changed the revenue laws and increased tlie expenditures that the excess of receipts fell in 1891 to §37,239,762, and In 1893 to §9,914,454. Before the end of Harrison’s administration the revenues had fallen below the expenditures, and Financier Foster went to New York to negotiate a loan the resumption act. By whose deplorable incompetency was a surplus of more than §105,000,000 annually converted into a deficit in less than three years? As a result of whose deplorable incompetency did the deficit grow after the Harrison administration gave place to the Cleveland administration? The same-revenue law —the McKinley law—under which the surplus disappeared remained in full force for more than a year and a half. The same laws increasing the continuing expenditures remained in force, and, with the exception of the sugar bounty, still remains in full force. All these were Republican laws, for which the Democratic party is in no way responsible. The revenues fell off after the panic of 1893, as they did after the panic of 1873. But to whose deplorable financial inepmpetency are we indebted for the pauic of 1893? When that panic occurred the Republican organs throughout the country were practically unanimous in attributing it to the Sherman silver law, passed by a Republican Congress and approved by a Republican President. They, with the Republican leaders in both houses of Congress, applauded the President for calling an extra session to repeal that law.

When the disaster first befell the Republicans did not attempt to deny that their party was responsible. It was a measure of their own party which by their own admission brpught on the panic and greatly reduced the treasury receipts. It is undeniable that the Republican sugar bounty and other additions to continuing expenditures and the repeal of the duty on sugar contributed to the creation of a deficit. Yet the Ohio Republicans, through Financier Foster, coolly charge that the deficit and the necessity for borrowing were due to the “deplorable incompetency” of the Democratic party! Comment would be superfluous. It would add nothing to the force of the naked facts. The . attempt to get the Democratic party punished for Republican blunders and crimes succeeded in in 1894; it will not succeed again.—Chicago Chronicle. McKinlev’s Set-Back. In the Ohio convention Gov. McKinley was badly beaten. He was not a candidate for any office, but he is the head of a machine, and the traditions of Ohio require the head of a machine to control everything within reach, to give battle to every challenger. So when Mr. McKinley’s candidate for Governor was beaten, tiie Governor was beaten. He may have a “solid" delegation to the national convention, but he cannot trust it. Ho has ceased to be the sole dispenser of patronage. His own followers will be disheartened, and he will be exposed to treachery. It is a vulgar and- sordid game they are all playing, but they know the rules and the risks and they seem to like it. The man who beat Gov. McKinley was ex-Gov. Foraker. He is much the same sort of a.Republican as McKinley, only more so. He is keener, more active, more unscrupulous, and more vindictive. But it is plain that Foraker could not have beaten McKinley had the general feeling of the Republican party in Ohio been as strongly on McKinley’s side as it has been until recently. Foraker is a shrewd and energetic organizer, but you can’t organize successfully against a strong sentiment. The final test is at tlie polls, and there the votes of men count who take no interest in the preliminary struggling and scheming. These men have long been great admirers of McKinley because of his very simple and intelligible, because extreme, protectionism. They have “gone back” on him, because they have begun to lose faith in protection. He was the representative of their favorite theory In iiolitics, and the theory having lost favor, the representative suffers. Probably the average Ohio Republican would deny that he was any less a protectionist than he was five years ago, but he is, and the set-back he has given to the champion of protection shows it. The fact is that for the first time in nearly forty years the sincere protectionists, the men who really believed that the country could be taxed into prosperity and would be ruined if the tax were lessened, have had to face actual experience of lower taxes, and they find that they are not ruined. Take a single perfectly conclusive illustration. In 1893 large numbers of employers of labor declared that they would have to reduce wages if the Democrats carried tlie elections. Before tlie McKinley act was repealed they did reduce wages. Now wages are going up again. These very employers are raising them. Some are doing it willingly, some reluctantly, but all are able to do it and know that they are. Their strongest argument for McKinleyism is wiped out Now, these men cannot help being influenced in politics by this fact. They can no longer look on McKinley as a savior of society. They will not give money lav-

ishly to restore tariff duties that they are getting on very well without They will not work as they have worked for the protection party. They will not try to scare their employes to voting for it because they know it would be of no use. They have been living in dread, honest dread, of a disastrous crash, and they have landed quietly and comfortably on their feet. That does not mean that the Republican party Is going to pieces, but it means that the essential Republican doctrine of extreme protection is being outgrown.—New York Times. . No Tariff on Tunnels. New York City is preparing to construct a system of underground railways, which will Involve the digging of about fifteen miles of tunnel, costing about §55,000,CK)0. By some strange oversight the McKinley bill omitted to impose a duty on foreign tunnels, and the manufacturers of tunnels In this country will have to compete with the pauper tunnel Industries of Canada and England. In those countries it is alleged that tunnels can be had for practically nothing, all that is necessary being to dig away the earth and Insert the tunnel. Whereas, owing jo the import conditions of the tunnel industry of the United States, the cost of underground excavations is much greater here than in foreign countries. If it is not too late the next Congress, which is a truly high tariff body, should provide for a duty of at least fifty per cent on all imported papuer tunnels. In this way we shall be able to keep our borne markets for ourselves; pay hlglj wages to tunnel builders; and In the course of time establish the tunnel Industry ou as firm a footing as that of growing wool or making steel rails. Senator Sherman Forgets. “We are in favor of a protective tariff,” says Senator Sherman. “We bad such a tariff. While It was in force we hgd prosperity, good times and mon6y in plenty.” Is Senator Sherman falling into “second childishness and mere oblivion” that he thus forgets the truth of recent history ? “We had such a tariff” in 1873. Widespread bankruptcy followed, and for five years thereafter this country passed through the worst period of industrial depression ancf general business paralysis it has ever known. All over the land the highways were thronged with tramps. During all of that period “we had such a tariff,” but through tlie highly protected industries of the Senator’s own State and of Pennsylvania resounded the cries of starving labor and Ihe ratling volleys of Pinkerton guards repressing labor riots. Surely the Senator cannot have forgotten how all this reached its climax in the terrible scenes of 1877 and continued until his own party was forced temporarily to modify its policy ? —New York World.

What Makes Prosperity. To attribute the revival in business to tho hope of a return of the Republican party to power and of a new era of McKinleyisin is the worst of partisan fanaticism. If any professional tariff-monger imagines that the Industrial world attributes the Industrial movement to such a hope, let him go and ask the Carnegie Company and Its fellow manufacturers, as well as the hundreds of thousands of workingmen whose wages have recently been advanced, and he will be told that the prosperity is due to conditions of which a prime factor Is the confidence that the industrial peace will be disturbed by neither tariff nor financial legislaion. With these conditions party sentiment has nothing to do. The tariff idol lies prone, and the crowd of its worshippers is dally diminishing.—Philadelphia Record. Admits Increasing Prosperity, But— The New York Tribune, chief of calamity howlers, has at last been constrained to acknowledge the glad recovery of business. With delightful inconsequence it says that the people are beginning “to enjoy the fruit of two overwhelming Democratic defeats,” and “hearty congratulations are in order for the substantial improvement in business which has already appeared." It is no small tribute to the new tariff that its most malignant enemies are compelled to acknowledge the revival in trade under its beneficent operation and,influence in less than nine months from the day of Its passage. In less than nine months more they will wish to forget that they were ever in favor of the McKinley tariff.—Philadelphia Record. Silks as Luxuries. The voice of McKinley is to be invoked in favor of higher duties on silks. Cheap silks have become one of the few luxuries of the thrifty poor, and a little group of manufacturers demand tlie right to tax them more for the indulgence. That there is no reason for it the record shows. Under all tariffs raw silk has been free. The present duty on manufactures of silk is 50 per cent. This is exactly what it was under the Republican commission tariff of 1883-90. The McKlnleyites raised it to 60 per cent. A call for more than 50 per cent on any article of clothing will never again be popular in this country.—New York World. • Readers Who Believe Anything. An incorrigible Republican joker insists, with an air of gravity, that the advance in wages and revival of business are “a direct consequence of the restoration of the law-making power to the Republican party.” Is not the Senate a partof the law-making power—likewise the President? There are two elections between the Republicans and a restoration to power. Are wages really jumping up on that contingency? What sort of readers do the orgniis imagine that they have, anyway?— New York World. How to Catch Plntocrats. Chief Justice Fuller to the American people: “Here is your income tax, what there is left of it. It didn’t hit the fellow it was aimed at. Just open this door here, labeled ‘direct taxation,’ and you will see how to catch the big millionaires, monopolists and speculators.” • McKinley’s Views. At the latest reports Gov. McKinley’s position on the silver question was still that the tariff is not a tax.—Louisville Courler-JournaL