Los Angeles herald., 1890-11-30
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 80, 1890.
THE GRASP, OF THE sTRANGLRR.

The people of the United States have
had, until recently, very easy time of
it. Under protection, run mad, the
iron harons of Pennsylvania were cre-
ated. When, away back in the early
thirties, the dulcet notes of Henry Clay
were raised, that astute, sagacious and
most considerate of men placed his
advocacy of protection on the ground
that there were infant industries in the
United States that required to be nour-
ished. While Clay has been called the
Father of Protection in this country, he
was really not entitled to that distinc-
tion. In some measure Washington,
and to a decided extent, Jefferson and
Jackson, in their messages, have made
the best and best defensible arguments
for tariff for revenue, with that Incl
dental protection which should yield
the income needed in just and eco
nomical administration of our national
affairs.
1t is no exaggeration to say that nine
teen out of twenty Americans thought
that the war tariff should be at least
slightly relaxed. Of the quite twelve
million voters of the United States when
the present congress assembled, we do
not think that eight hundred and fifty
people, all told, either desired or ex-
pected to see the war tariff increased.
The tariff plank of the Chicago conven-
tiOn was sort of vague cartel of def
ance to what was supposed to be Mr..
Cleyeland's programme of free trade.
No sane Republican voter thought
that an assembly mad enough to
contemplate - not to say enact
the Mckinley bill could be gath
cred together outside of the luna
tic lasylums of the country. But
the needed number of maniacal slaves
of capital were found and the country
is now, as a consequence, flouudering
around in the slough of despond, with a
paralyzed commerce, dsorganized indus
tries, and a sort of black Friday dis
pensation which lasts not for a day, or
the major portion of week, but which
seems to have settled down as our wade
mecum, or every day companion.
What precise part the Mckinley bill
has played in the decentralization and
disintegration OF our national commerce
and domestic trade we cannot indicate
with anything like exactness. But it
fras been large. 1t has been overshadow-
ing. This hellish measure has arrested
the nation in the high career of pros
perity, dashed American hopes to the
ground, embroiled us with every country
on the face of the globe, and has given
the cue to prudent people either to go
slow or to get out of business altogether.
The trusts and combines of the
United States dictated the Mckinley
bill. These malign combinations are to
the business interests of the United
States what the devil fish was in Victor
Hugo's novel of The Toilers OF the Sea-
Whether the American people will be as
successful in releasing themselves from
these death-embracing folds as was the
hero of that powerful work of fiction re-
mains to be seen.
In the panic precipitated by the Nc
Kinley bill and the failure of Barring
Brothers, Jay Gould has found his op-
portunity. That never matched Machia-
velli of Finance has announced that the
watered stocks of railways must be made
to earn dividends. AS a consequence,
we hear by telegraph that the rate on
oranges is to be pushed UP to $125 a
huHdred.
The HERALD wishes to say right here
that it believes that this telegram, in
the shape in which it has been pre-
sented, is a canard, in the interest of
those who desire to buy orange orchards.
1t is so incredibly extortionate that no
man but a lunatic could dictate such a
programme. The enunciation of such a
policy would be an unspeakable crime.
Yet the fact remains that Mr.. Gould
has announced it to be his purpose to
increase freight rates, not with a view to
development or justice to the producer,
but in order to pay dividends. The
mere statement of such naked fact dis
closes contemplated crime. But there
are circumstances that make such a
thing unspeakably criminal. When re-
gard is had to the extent to which railways
have watered the stocks on which they
require the payment of dividends, the
outrage is magnified indefinitely.
The history of the Messrs. Fisk and
Gould, in their relations with the Erie
Railway, furnishes an interesting exem-
plification of the way stockholders and
bondholders and the public have been
fooled and swindled, and swindled and
fooled. They procured the passage OF
law through the legislature of New
York by which they were enabled,
fiction OF the statute proyid-
ing for improvements and equipment OF
The road, to increase the capital stock of
that corporation from 28,00U,000 to
Il12, 100000. 1t is on this enormously