Clarksville weekly chronicle. (Clarksville, Tenn.) 1873-1890, 1877-08-11
THE TRUE SOURCE or TROUBLE

and in usurped possession of the
property of their employers, we re-
Trained from specializing upon the
CAUSES of the depression in business
and shrinkage in profits which have
led to the present deplorable state of
affairs, not only affecting the railroad
interest but manifested in every
department of industry, trade and
commerce throughout the country.
Depression so universal cannot be
caused by anything originating in the
mines and railroads alone, so that
while we shall have to criticise the
action of railroad companies and
mining interests, we shall still have
to go further back and investigate
the policy of our government itself
in refernce to its whole commercial
pOlity. The problem we have to
solve, if possible, is toascertain how
it is that large working population
has been developed, whom the bust
ness they are engaged in is nolOnger
productive enough to sustain in
moderate comfort. For this is the
allegation on the side of capital, that
the interest or profits on capital have
been reduced to little or nothing,
and that out of this little or nothing
they are expected to pay wages as
great, or in some cases even greater,
than they did in more prosperous
times.
OF course this cOmpels us to enter
into the cause of this stagnatiOn in
business of which nobody can be
unaware, and we need not be at
loss for alleged causes. Thus, here in
the West and South the answer is
loudly and pertinaciously made that
the resumption act is the cause
of all our distress by contracting the
amount of currency required for
business transactions. Now our OPP
iniOn has long been given that the
fixing an arbitrary period for the
resumption of specie payments ire
spective of the state CT business at
that time was very dangerous
mode of legislation, pregnant with
disastrous consequences, fiat thecOn-
templated period the business Ofthe
country should be in stagnant con-
dition, in which case it would neces-
sarily aggravate that stagnatiOn.
In the present case this has evident
~ been done, but the stagnatiOn
in its degree existed long before the
resumption act was passed, and we
have to look further back for the
ions ct OTigO B1diOTIm.
This essential and central cause,
both of our mining and railroad
troubles and of our commercial and
financial depression, we conceive to
be the vicious legislation of the last
sixteen years. This legislation,
instead of leaving all departments of
human industry free to find their
natural fields of employment, and
so enable the supply of labor to be
determined by the natural demand
for it, has made it its business so to
frame the commercial fabric by pro-
tective tariffs and bonuses in various
forms as to build up great industri-
al interests where the natural laws
of demand and supply would not
have evoked them. The natural
result has been that that which has
been artificially created has to be
artificially sustained until the means
of its sustenance can no longer be
found, and then comes collapse, as
now.
The iron and railroad interests
will be exclusively considered in
this paper, though the same process
has been applied to countless other
interests, with similar results. This
restriction is adopted both because
we have not room for the more eX-
tended enquiry and because iron
and railroads are our main difficult
ty now. Long before the war the
iron interest i'm Pennsylvania was
clamOrOus for protection, to so great
an extent that in Pennsylvania even
Democrats were protectionists. This
and other demands for protective
imposts were held in check so long
us the South was n pOtentical agent
in politics. But from 1861 down to
very recent times the voice of the
South has been shut out from the
nations counsels, and the agricultu-
raj West unaided by the South was
not strong enough to resist. So pro-
lection had full swing. Now pro-
lection means that the farmer must
pay two prices for his spades and
plough shares in order that they may
be made in this country; they can
be made i'm England, Belgium or
Germany and delivered here for one
price, but that $50 they argue)
would be sacrificing our free labor
to the pauper labor of Europe. So
a heavy tax must be put on the Eu-
IbllSstll HuONlS lllStl NllO AllltI1CttH
farmer may not get them too cheap,
for if he does he will trade with
those countries. Now the argument
in favor of this system, that it was
necessary to secure American labor
from European competition, was af-
ter all Il delusion, for the labor was
not here to demand protection. 1t
was the purpose of this legislation
To bring it here and it did bring it
miners from Ireland and England
and Germany thronged to this coun-
try and We're put to work in Pennsyl-
vania mines, new mines were open
ed for them and a new population is
grown up there-such population
rs we now have to deal with at
Mauch Chunk and Scranton. And
all this, remember, at the expense
of the American farmer, who pays
for it by giving two prices for his
ploughs and hoes and pitchforks.
There we leave it for a while and