Jasper County Democrat, Volume 10, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 19 October 1907 — A MELANCHOLY FALSEHOOD. [ARTICLE]

A MELANCHOLY FALSEHOOD.

The following paragraph ’from the Covington Republican is a fair sample of the kind of stuff that a certain class of Republican papers give to their readers. “One false step might put us back into the slough of industrial depression out of which President McKinley brought us,” says Vice President Fairbanks. He might have added that it was just such a false step that the people took in 1892 when they imagined that by the election of a Democratic president and congress they might improve upon the greatest degree of prosperity that up to that time had ever blessed the land, and this is no doubt a part of what be had in mind when he declared that in his opinion the paramount issue today is prosperity. Some ignorant or unthinking person may be fooled by such a solemn political falsehood as the above, but their number should be few. Mr. McKinley was elected president in 1896, but before that he was the author of the McKinley bill, the highest protective tariff measure ever passed up to that time. This bill became a law Oct. 6, 1890, and thirty days later the panic started. It was in full blast and hard times had settled upon the country before Mr. Cleveland was elected in November, 1892. Mr. Cleveland went into office March 4, 1893, but the McKinley high tariff law remained in force until Aug. 27, 1894. During all of the time that it was in force there were strikes and lockouts, banks and trust companies failed, mercantile houses tumbled and there was depression in all lines of business. It was K period of “hard times,” for which neVthe slightest responsibility rested on the Democratic party.

It was the duty of the Democratic party to adt as receiver of the national business, whiph the Republican party had wrecked. The party did its best, and so administered public affairs that when the Republicans again came into power they found the business of the country in vastly better shape than it was when Mr. Cleveland was inaugurated. And now again after another period of Republican rule, another panic is threatened. There are ominous business disturbances, the cost of living outruns the income of the common man, and the few prosper at the expense of the many. And we are operating under the Dingley tariff, which is worse even than the McKinley law.