Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1884-06-30
WASHINGTON LETTER.
The Speculation Fever and How the Dis
ease Was Beg0tten.
A Supposed Tarif-Blest Republic il
Texas Run by Peter Smith,
How 1t Runs Down and Starves Ont
An Apology.
speclal correspondence OF tho Gazette.

1
to give unreal prosperity and prices to
the few, the enormous premium taken
| from production to enrich manuiactur.
ing begot the speculative, unnat-
ural prosperity of protected classes.
This has lasted until, Blaine, the EN-.
bodiment of the economic policy of
his party, becomes candidate for the
presidency. Unhappily for Blaine,
just rs he steps upon the stage the real
supplants the unreal. The enforced
transfer or wealth from the many to
the few has begotten no wealth. The
! creations of the policy are unsubstan
tial as the riches of Garrison and
Gould and Grant. The whole country
through its own experience to day
learns "that thieving never thrives."
The war tariff in peace is worse than
theft. 1t is robbery, and the robbers
do go at last to perdition.
| A MODEL GOVERNMENT IN TARRANT,
Suppose Tarraut county surrounded
by a Chinese wall, and that the people
| within had no communication with
| the exterior world, and let us suppose
Hon. Peter Smith an idiot, and that
he decreed that everything in his
dominions should cost the farmers so
per cent. more than its value, and fifty
per cent. more than the actual cost of
production, while farmers should be
paid fer cotton just what cotton
costs. These farmers would pay
the shoe and hat and clothes makers
two prices, and two prices for all inn
plements of husbandry and for sugar,
tea, coffee and wooden goods two
prices. Farms would he abandoned
t,xtH
town and become tradesmen and man
ufacturers. These would have for q
time, till farming became wholly profit
less and unproductive, grand gala
day of unnatural prosperity. Then
the Wall street people of Fort Worth
would begin to prey upon one another,
having made wool and cotton and
corn growing profitless. Suppose
Hon. Peter contemplating the re-
suits of his legislative policy
should find that everything was going
to the demnition bow-wows and the
wealth he had produced by the legally
enforced transfer of riches from the
farmers to the towns-people was all on
paper, and that real production was
protitless, because the producers with
in the Chinese wall could not sell at
prices which would enable them to
buy shoes, clothes and groceries at
prices the grand mogul had fixed.
Suppose this absurd policy were
operative in your Tarrant coun-
ty? Those who remained farm
ers would live on. They
, would buy the least possible. They
; would learn to make their own clothes
! and devour bread and bacon. They
would at last buy nothing in town,
and the towns-people having nothing
else to do would prey upon one an
other. Each would seek to outwit the
other, and Fort Worth would be full
y of Wards and Grants and Garrisons
and Enoses, and one after another
they would fail and one brick would
J slowly knock down another until the
whole unsubstantial fabric OF false
and ruinous and unnatural selfish
4 system of government would be
Il destroyed.
, HON. PETER SMITH TAKES AN IN
yENTORY.
Hon. Peter, while flush times lasted
and while his banks and mills and
trades-people imagined themselve:
n most prosperous, had taken about one
FL tenth of the county and conveyed il
d to a half dozen bold operators who
n mortgaged it and built a railway. One
IL blatant, noisy, bold fellow, we will
., call him Blaine, was foremost of thes,
le railway spectators. Having the lane
l. given to them and the roads costin.
le them less than nothing of cours,
of Blaine and his associates waxed fa
lg and built palaces. Somebody paid 70
e all this splendor and when Hon. Pete
IL began to look closely into the matte
,e he found that this money had not beer
Is dug out of the ground. 1t had no
re been produced by the lands or by tn
q railroads or by Blaine. But million
d. of what was called money had beel
ne expended in the construction of thes
81 roads and Hon. Peter was puzzle
er to discover whence ii cam
e. and whose loss and whose gal
was it. Events rapidly unfolded tn
mystery. Promises OF the future ha
been discounted. The people had &C
ire vanced the money, and with thi
re palaces had been reared, and with thi
by The railway builders had secured ever
as description of property. Burdens {
'or taxation and the law compelling pre-
ducers to pay so per cent. more for a
they used and consumed than 1t WE
me- worth, stopped both consumption an
N. production. Farmers could not affor
ats. to sell at natural and buy at unnatur,
prices, and farmers slowly abandone
ely the plo " handles, their children sougf
d. other fields of industry, all of thel
Ich wanted TO hop counters and measul
IRE tape, or become lawyers or doctors ,
hold some of Hon. Peters tax-gathe
ing offices. The town fourished; ii
country was odious. Honest to
, a was hardly respectable. God mac
ps, the country and men the town, an
Dck the morals of Hon. Peters subjec
led confessed the fact. Vices grew apa,
ms. and immortality reigned and even Il
religion of Hon. Peters fathers lest
potency. He'll was abolished belle
: a only to find in the Forts Wall sire
ms It's Pandemon-ium. Ingersoll mil
ted istered In the highways and marke
,ev- places rs did Christ and his disciple
nv while Biaipe's name, on silver plat
designated his cushioned seat In a 20
geous temple dedicated to fashion m
our French horns. Men became duo
the and women were products of sewil
machines.
HON. PETER TAKES AN INVENTOR
nme Hon. Peter couldn't help sect,
n. that his whole scheme OF COVER
snts. ment was rotten and wrong. II
financial was az false, artificial al
En- unnatural az his revenue and faxir
System. Both We're instituted TO q
rich the town and rob the countr
OW Blaine's bonds were substituted
read gold and silver as the basis of cree
for Hon. Peters currency. The ban
ers were enriched, but their gui
were the farmers losses. The iatt