People's Pilot, Volume 4, Number 46, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 May 1895 — What is the Matter? [ARTICLE]

What is the Matter?

Tiie people of this country are aware that since about the ■middle of the year 1896 the business interests of the States ht»Vh been passing through a panic period from which they have not emerged as yet, although a great improvement is seen and a very pronounced feeling of confidence is everywhere expressed. A vast deal of time has been expended in trying to discover what the causes of this revulsion in business have been. Some say that it is due to the long period of high protection the country has had since 1861. Others declare that the election of a democratic president created such a general feeling of insecurity as to cause the panic. Still others say that it was the low-tariff bill* although the panic began long before the bill was framed or introduced in congress. Others charge it to the demonetization of silver in 1873. Some

say the Sherman law did it. Others maintain that the repeal of the Sherman law is at fault. In all this muddle of conflicting opinions a high-tariff newspaper of this city comes to the rescue. It affirms that “the direct results of the Wilson law no longer are doubtful. There are reduced prices for all we export, whether it be food iron, cotton or wool, reduced production of home, manufactures, reduced rates of compensation for labor, reduced purchasing powerof the people, reduced revenues from duties on imports, a startling deficit in the treasury, a large increase in the national debt.” As the Wilson bill, which was a low-tariff measure, did not pass congress at all it is not easy to see how it could possioly be the father of all these dire calamities, admitting, for the sake of argument, that they have occured. The Wilson bill gave way to a senate bill, which, except in two or three schedules, was an essentiallj a protective measure as the McKinley law which preceded it, and as the panic antedates by some months the passage of the senate bill it is not easy to see how it could produce the disasters complained of, al l of which have theii origin in 1893 or earlier.

But it is more perplexing still to know that the same newspaper within the last few months has charged that every one' of the disasters it now lays at the door of the “Wilson law’’ were due to the demonetization act of 1873 and that because of these perils silver should be restored to its former position as a money metal. Perhaps both the tariff law and the demonetization act can prove an alibi.—Chicago Record.