The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1884-11-28
A REPRESENTATIVE AMERICAN.
The Bear the Prototype of the Business
Man and the Politician.


The Bear the Prototype of the Business
Man and the Politician.
'Gaths" New York Letter.
The manufacturers, with the winter before
them, unquestonably taking time by the
forelock, and propose to sleep all the winter,
the bears and certain other animals hibernate.
| If you do not know what hibernate means you
are not good bear The bear is the most
representative American animal He has been
killed off in most of our States but he looks
more like the average business American than
any other animal You take the drummer on
the road, with his good big forehead, fair but
not long nose, good teeth and therefore, good
digestion, and you get the natural son of the
American bear
If the drummer is black bearded and black
haired, he belongs to the black-bear tribe. He
may be of the cinnamon bear species. When
you get up to the great grizzly bear, you have
the American railroad and street contractor and
boss The grizzly bear is the king of American
beasts; so is the grizzly contractor the king of
American politics and morals.
These little parochial, weak -kneed, dyspeptic
fellows who are talking about bringing America
to the standard Of Europe, and making it sweet
scented and correct, are more the bears of
the American tribe than those children some
where in the Old Testament, who Knocked the
prophet and he delivered them up to the bears
which chewed them right up The tiger which
prowls through the Asiatic iungles, and the lion
which is in constant state of irritation from the
hot weather of Africa would have rough time
II they tackled the American grizzly bear, weigh
ing from thousand to three or four thousand
pounds. In the first place. they would have 10
seek this bear in his own climate. He never
had the European fever on him and wanted to
see old ruins. he stayed close to home was Of
ten hungry, and generally chewed anything up
that came along BY the time the lion or tiger
would get to the grizzly our cold, high climate
would have reduced them both and the grizzly,
with that spirit common to the American nature
of taking the stranger right in and welcoming
him. would have given them both brief hug,
extending the benefit of his nails to their vitas
and we should have had pair of skins and moth
ing else computable. i@4 'f
Lest may forget my text l will continue
with the relation of the bear to the present win
ter. The bear formerly lived all over our coun-
try. de can be found now within one hundred
and fifty miles of the Atlantic coast. He caught
sheep, dogs, lambs, men and other things during
the spring, summer and autumn, and as winter
approached and he felt the cold in his bones, he
went out TO the beech trees. and other trees
shedding gums, and he took a great deal of gum
into his stomach. This is the origin of the ex-
preston, trying the gum game" The gum
worked down into our bear friend and forerun-
ner, and eorked him up. He then gotinto cave
or hollow tree, or anything which would keep
the snow off, and he went to sleep. He slept all
through the winter entirely serene When the
spring came, and there was q little life in the
buds and blossoms, he felt naturally bilious. So
he went out and took his Congress water which
consisted of the greenest grass and the freshest
green twigs They uuoosened his bowels. and
in the course of two three days he was ready
to kill a sheep or tackle small colt.
Such is the condition of business Being de-
rived from the American bear we feel the winter
coming, and we close up business and hibernate,
and during the cold spell that is coming the best
investment many thousands make is to read,
thank God, and wait for spring. The American
people are good readers. and all they want to
keep them prominent for good business oppor-
tunities and good markets is public men who viii
look out for them. 1t is exceedingly hard in the
United States to produce statesman. Europe
is a small continent, where business is almost
dependent uDon good statesmen. Each country
in Europe has a limited market at home. The
older worlds apart from Europe are not up to
the education and thrift Of Europe. Those old
nations, involved in theologies which do not APP
ply to modern times, separated into castles and
aristocracies, not of the determined sort to
manufacture goods and sell to the outer world
Some few nations OF Asia are manufacturers for
US and for Europe Japan takes the lead among
these China does something. But on the
whole the great manufacturing and trading ma
tons of the earth those of western Europe.
am of the opin on!t hatfree trade experiments
in the United States win result in disaster to
the great body of the people, agricultural as
well as mechanical For one generation at least
we have been brought up to the idea that pro
lection was to be our policy. That system has
been adopted in all the British colonies If there
is any inordinate or unexpected collapse in our
manufacturing system during the winter and
the ensuing year it viii be from an attempt to
change the policy Of the country toward free
trade This is irrespective of the question
whether protective tariff or free trade is the
right thing
/ never knew anything to be right that was of
political origin. Free trade is just as wrong as
protection. The right consists in the stability
of development. For instance, we live under
what is called the Christian era. The
lessons of that era are liberation, aversion to
dogmatism and conceit, communication on
the principles of honor and reciprocity between
different elements of mankind etc. 1t may
be that in the history of men this is all
wrong. The Jews may have been correct in
their desire to keep strangers out Of the fabric
of their government But, as we have proceeded
for nearly two thousand years on the theory of
charity, it may be as considerate for US to keep
that standard up TO violently change it be
cause Tom Smith or Jim Jones discovered the
night before last that something else was the
only true thing.
SO it is with regard to protection to American
manufactures If we were Il nation of apostles
martyrs, etc. we might swing loose and begin
right; but our manufacturing system is good
deal like our. matrimonial system. We did
marry woman, she did have children. They
married and had children. and now we are deal
ing with condition of things involving our civ
ilization.
The free-trade forces of the country with a
few exceptions, belong to the ignorant forces.
themselves, which would rather destroy some
thing already established than pay once cent of
tribute to anything. Consequently find the
old pro-slavery forces and the free trade forces
ready to deal with each other, while the Chris
tan or the charitable forces, without much
gard to North South, are looking toward each
other amicably